A must-read for all cat owners: how to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you!

As if we are of one mind, Dave writes some reflections on the end of the year and the end of the decade, just as I was composing in my mind a post on the same subject.

But first, an exaggerated, melodramatic interlude:

Winter. The season that inspires dread in my heart. The Cold. The Rain. The Very Dark Evenings. The Staying Inside the House. The Wearing Many Layers of Clothes. So many things I dislike about winter, but how I love to write about these things! Whoever said it was better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness must have never spent very much time cursing the darkness. It is extremly cathartic, a dark drizzly pleasure completely apropos of the season.

Perhaps you think I shouldn’t be so hard on these, our cold and dark set of months. After all, without winter there can be no summer, right? Winter renews! Winter creates space for the world to be reborn! But I tell you my friend, with winter it’s personal. I have been spurned by winter, rejected, personally wounded by the actions this season has taken against me. Like a rejected lover who feels lost and confused, I wander through this season with an empty heart. Even life’s small daily pleasures lose their jouissance, their inherent joy.

Imagine me if you will, on an early summer morning. My alarm goes off - beep! beep! beep! and I roll slowly out of bed to tap the off switch. The plastic on the top of the clock is warm and hard. I take my first breath of the day and the air I breathe is warm and heavy, a ballet of oxygen that dances into my nose.

I place my feet on the floor and the bed sheets roll off of my body, soft and warm they glide to my side and I am greeted by the gentle and ever-present OMM of the ceiling fan. A beam of early morning summer sun invites me to begin the day. The carpet underfoot is warm and fuzzy as I stand to take my first steps. My limbs feel warm and strong, as if they were preparing all night for this first movement, the first step of the day. I stride towards the bathroom, and when I reach the divide that separates the carpet and the tile, I do not hesitate! I stride onto the tile, my bare feet warming, but only slightly (!), the bare floor.

The aroma of the bathroom greets me, the scent of bath soap and shampoo warming in their bottles, the faint damp of the shower and sink, the passing mint of toothpaste. I turn to the shower and prepare for my favorite ritual of the day - bath time - and I turn the clear, crystal-shaped, plastic knobs to a medium setting, not too cold, not too hot. I step into the shower - the ceramic floor is cool but pleasing, and I engage the shower by pulling a small metal knob upwards. Then the miracle: Water flows over me, at just the perfect temperature. My skin and mind meld into a perfect blissful union. The day ahead seems bright.

Now indulge me if you will in another morning, a winter morning. The stage and scene are the same - my bedroom - but the atmosphere! How it has changed!

My alarm goes off - beep! beep! beep! My eyes snap open. Immediately I sense a chill in the air and instictively I do not move. The deep, reptilian part of my brain which process sensation yells at my frontal lobes, “Do not move! Here you have warmth, out there it is cold, it is dangerous!”

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I struggle to overcome the urge to remain motionless. I pull my arm from under a mountain of heavy blankets and as soon as it is free my skin contracts as the cold winter air bites at my exposed flesh. Instantly, my autonomous nervous system goes into action, diverting my blood away from the shallow capillaries in my epidermis to the deeper channels within my arm in order to keep my lifeblood warm.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I struggle over the sheets to stop the alarm, but I realize that I am nearly trapped in the cocoon of blankets I have made to keep out the cold. After a frustrating few seconds of pulling and twisting I am free to sit up and stop the alarm.

Beep! Beep! and then …. silence.

No pleasant hum greets me, just the howl of winter wind outside my walls. No sunshine is there to light my path - the earth is dark, the heavens are blind.

Shivering, I step into a pair of slippers. Unprepared for the temperature differental, my body rebels, my limbs feel heavy as I stumble towards the bathroom.

As I cross the threshold, I do not feel it - there is no texture to a winter morning, only the feel of the cold slipper underfoot.

Once in the room, shivering, yearning to be back in bed - I must reach into the icy tub to turn the crystal knobs, now resembling ice crystals themselves, to the hottest position. To run cold would be tantamount to suicide.

When I step onto the ice-cold ceramic floor of the tub, I have exactly five minutes before the water runs cold. The best part of my day will last five minutes for the next 3 months. This is the misfortune, the small but albeit important misfortune, that we are forced to endure during these hard months.

So I ask you, can you deny the harsh face of winter after this testimony? Will you continue to avert your eyes from those suffering from the cold after what you have heard?

Nay I say! Let everyone who is asleep in Winter awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty Winter is undoubtedly hanging over the great part of our congregation: let everyone fly out of this cold state! Make haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, run to summer, lest you be consumed!*

* And here I am shamelessly paraphrasing another rather more famous Jonathan, Jon Edwards, who ended his famous speech “Sinner’s in the hands of an angry god” in essentially this same way. That little literary nugget caused the so called Great Awakening, and while I doubt I’ll accomplish as much here, well, one can try right? It’s also worth mentioning that Edwards was himself paraphrasing a passage from the Christian book of Genesis, which deals with the creation of the world, and ironically, the creation of the seasons. Go figure.

Everyone has their own unique compulsions - let’s pretentiously call them ‘quotidian fetishes’ that can be both a source of insight and aggravation to those (un)lucky enough to experience them. For example, we’ve all been at the dinner table enjoying a pleasant conversation, when suddenly, the strict grammar-phile (and there seems to be one in every family or circle of friends) interrupts the dialogue to correct a misspoken phrase or to point out some obscure malapropism.

This moment of seemingly manic adherence to the the Law of correct grammar seems to provoke in me (and perhaps you) two unrelated responses: complete annoyance with this obnoxious demonstration of book-learning or relief that the mistake was not my own and a quick memorization of the rules being explicated so as to not repeat the same (obviously embarrassing) mistake in the future.

So, I’m hoping that I’ll provoke the latter and not the former response by directing the curious to the Wikipedia listing of logical fallacies.

Special attention should be paid to the so-called ‘red herring’ fallacies under the title heading of ‘informal fallacies’. As you glance over these glaring, frustrating points of illogic and untruth, try to imagine how many times a day you encounter some version or another of these mental stumbling blocks during the course of a day or even, during a single conversation (and if you dare to think about how often you hear them on television your head may explode).

If you’re like me and you took a few logic courses while at university (in a failed but courageous attempt to avoid calculus), nothing will cause you more cognitive dissonance than to hear people routinely frame arguments (or worse, opinions) in ways that are fundamentally illogical.

To be honest, I really do enjoy the rare but always satisfying formal fallacy that surfaces from time to time in casual conversation. As wikipedia notes, a formal fallacy is a type of non sequitur and is often funny. I hear the naturalistic, nirvana, and false dichotomy fallacies more than the others, and they are the bright red flags in conversation that warn the listener, “Don’t believe the conclusion about to be stated.” But formal fallacies are easy to recognize, almost common-sensical. It’s the informal fallacies people!

As mentioned above, the red herring or irrelevant conclusion fallacies are the ones I find particular prevalent and unchecked, but the worst, by far is the dreaded Thought-terminating cliché .

Just have a look at those phrases (and I’m so tempted to list them here) and try to extrapolate how many times a day you hear them (you’ll want to sit down to perform this thought experiment, and be careful. As Wiki notes, just thinking that something is a thought-terminating cliché can termiate thought. Oh cruel paradox!). Amazing isn’t it*!

So remember, the next time that you hear, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.” or “Such is life.” mentally note that your conversational opponent is trying to mask their fallacious logic! Don’t give in to the temptation to let them slide - call them out on their lack of logistical rigor!

Truly, there is enough mystery and illogical in the world to last a lifetime - let us not continue to endure it during our idle moments of conversation.

*The one exception to the rule here is the phrase “That’s what s/he said.” which is often trotted out as some hackneyed appeal to authority. That this phrase is now a common comic innuendo both because of its illicit connotations and because of its introduction of illogic into the course of a conversation means that one can probably exclude it from the list of clichés to get all hot and bothered over.

** I’m doing my best to do a bit of elevated academic prose here - maybe not so much obnoxious as pretentious?

In an attempt to do my part to help save the planet**, I’ve started using canvas bags to carry my groceries, rather than the plastic bags provided by the supermarket. I still pick up the plastic bags now and then to use as trash liners and lunch bags, but by and large my two canvas bags now serve all my grocery carrying needs.

I’ve noticed a few advantages to the canvas bags (other than their re-usability) since I’ve started using them that I did not anticipate, so I thought I’d share:

1.  The bags I use have long fabric handles on them.  When heavy items are placed near the bottom of the bag, the bag’s center of gravity is lower relative to my hand (and consequently my waist), than it would be using a conventional plastic bag.  This makes a heavy bag of groceries easier to carry with the canvas relative to the plastics -  like the difference between walking a small dog and carrying an oddly shaped dumbbell, in my opinion.
2. Fabric handles on the canvas bag are just that - handles.  They are not large  holes printed into an otherwise handle-less bag, as is the case with plastics.
3. Having a few bags in the car at all times is pretty useful in and of itself - I’ve used the bags for more than just groceries.

The main disadvantage to using canvas as opposed to plastic, as far as I can tell, depends on the number of items that are bought at the store. Since the closest grocery to my house is on my way home from work, I stop there before going home at least 3 days a week. Consequently, the number of items I need to purchase at any given time is pretty small - almost never over ten. Of course, I’m only feeding myself as well.

If I shopped for a large family and made only one trip a week to, let’s say, a remote Wal-Mart location, I’d have to bring a lot of canvas bags along for the trip - maybe too many to be practical.

I also think the self-checkout lends itself to canvas bagging, as you don’t have to convince the store help to “not use” the plastic bags that they would normally use to help you bag your items.

**The phrase “save the planet” is problematic both conceptually (how? why?) and as a directive (now?). I use it here for the sake of convenience, while cringing inwardly at all the loaded connotations it implies.

perusing through hundreds of old photos from the 90’s in Midland for a project this past weekend, i came across a few forgotten images.

There he is, the sports-king himself! Mastering every sport in the western hemisphere isn’t easy. You’re always on the move. No time for rules or penalties, it’s go, go, go!

A bookish woodsman, on his travels about the country. I hadn’t quite realized the wonderful places my parents had taken me, until i thumbed through yosemite, redwood forest, pike’s peak, royal gorge, and san francisco photographs, which had taken place over a relatively short time period.

ah, a snowy winter. how many years did we have snow in midland, and take it for granted? how many years until the next smattering of ice crystals in louisiana, which won’t last more than a few hours? yeah. snow is fun. i want snow again.

Here are two lovable pets, being silly.

Doesn’t this look like a photo from 1972? i took this in the mid 90’s.

another fake mid 20th century photo.

exercising my powers of fine motor skills

a fantastic action shot, thanks dad

here’s a cool photo of my cousin jillian filleting a fish. Jillian cheered with desiree in high school, and i think it’s cool to see her in the country fishing as a kid.

This weekend I:

1.  Enjoyed a crawfish boil
2. Lounged around in the sun with friends
3. Lost at cards
4. Jammed with music buddies
5. Watched a great Sunday night opening-day baseball game

Spring time is seriously here, and the aforementioned activities prove it.  After the depressingly long haul of winter, I’m glad to see the sun. 

Clothing:

T-shirt (mandatory)
Cargo shorts/pants (although shorts are preferable in the summer). Regular shorts will sufice if no cargos are available, but multiple pockets are a must.
Tennis shoes or the equivalent

Pocket Items (to be carried on your person):

Box cutter or small knife
Wallet
Change (for coke machine during break)
Pen or marker (for marking errant boxes, drawing pictures of co-workers, etc.)

Other tools/items that should be close at hand:

Tape gun
electrical screwdriver (preferably cordless)

And for bonus points:

a good book to read while on break drinking previously aquired soft drink, water, etc.