The plague is sweeping through our house

In what will surely be perceived as good news by the French-hating wingers of the world, the maurinsky family will be bringing the plague to Paris tomorrow. It's a fairly tame version of the plague - no one has parts falling off or anything, just your standard sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever plague.

In the meantime, I'm trying to pack, and I've decided that the light packing I planned isn't light enough, so I have to cut back...or wear a lot more clothes to the airport tomorrow. If I'm lucky, I'll still have a fever and I will like having 4 layers of clothing on my body.

I'm now trying to decide if I should just cut my losses for tonight and get some sleep, or try and get a few more things done. I think I will throw a load of Loki's clothes in the wash, and call it a night. There are still dishes in the sink, and the trunk of the car needs to be emptied so we can fill it with luggage and dog food (the dog is going to stay with grandpa, the dog whisperer).

BTW, I just might be able to blog while we're on our trip - the apartment I rented in Paris has internet access.

blizzard

Three years ago, when we planned a trip to London for our February vacation, our trip was postponed for a day because of a blizzard. This year, the blizzard has been kind enough to come three days before our trip. It's supposed to keep snowing until 7pm tonight - we're supposed to get 12 to 18 inches of snow.

That's my girl

Sio made the cut-off for the Connecticut All-State Chorus! I'm very proud of her. It's a lot harder to make All-State now than it was when I sang in the All-State Chorus lo those many years ago - we had to learn our piece, go in a room and sing in a random quartet. Sio had to learn her piece, sing it solo (even though it was the alto line of a 4 part harmony piece), had to do a scale that the adjudicator picked for her, and had to sight read a piece - a piece that a friend of mine, who adjudicated at this year's audition, said was incredibly difficult and contained randomly inserted dynamic markings and rhythm changes.

control freaks

I got to work this morning and my friend Karen, who is African-American, told me that she stayed up until 2am watching the Coretta Scott King funeral. She had tears in her eyes as she told me about the speakers, and how moved she felt by the whole event.

And then I turn the computer on, and check a few blogs, and I see that the right-wing is once again manufacturing outrage.

That's the right-wing for you: they want to enforce how people live their lives (no gays! no premarital sex! no birth control! no abortion!), and they want to control how people die (Shiavo!), and now they want to control how the loved ones of a deceased person can celebrate that person's life, too.

Dude, where's my party?

Yeah, I think Ward Sutton just about sums it up.

Weekend update in haiku

Friday night visit
sister-in-law loves Buffy
Calls me her dealer

Motor vehicle
Line stretches on for hours
I went home instead

Breakfast at diner
eggs over easy, bacon
I had French toast, too

Strange February
stand outside, talk to sister
don't need to wear coat

Put on my make-up
Go to the Browncoats shindig
I am a huge dork

Tired on Sunday
Make lots of singing mistakes
Snooze during sermon

Not ready for trip
Big holes in Monkey's sneakers
we shop til we drop

Hook up DVR
Argh! Automated phones suck!
Only takes two hours

Some kind of game's on
Watch the Puppy Bowl instead
Stones are way too old

Political Correctness, Schmolitical Schmorectness

This kind of shit is exhibit A in why I hate religion. Cripes. It's an international incident because someone made fun of another someone's sky fairy. I haven't seen the cartoons, and I don't know how offensive they are, but Muslim, Christian, Mormon, Jew - all the religious peoples of this world are way too easily offended.

I mean, people die because of this kind of stuff. Isn't that completely insane? It's not just me, right, it's really and truly insane, isn't it?

The rich get richer, the poor get....screwed again

Yesterday, in a surprise shift towards some sort of fiscal restraint, the House passed $40 billion dollars in cuts to the budget. That could almost qualify as good news, except:

package...would save nearly $40 billion over five years by imposing substantial changes on programs from Medicaid and welfare to child support and student lending.

Hmmm. Medicaid, welfare, child support, student lending....I wonder if these cuts are going to negatively impact the poor more than the wealthy?

So different from me

This is where Sio is hoping to spend her summer.

Her AP Chemistry teacher wrote her the loveliest recommendation - I got teary eyed.

I spent the summer between my junior and senior years at Wesleyan University's Center for Creative Youth, where I wrote crap poems and learned to appreciate Bob Dylan and basically wasted my time in the best possible ways - with good friends, having almost entirely legal fun. So my summer was all about dancing in the rain to the Talking Heads "Take Me To The River" while Sio wants to spend hers doing neurobiology.

At least I was able to help her apply some creative writing techniques to her application letter. I think it helped.