Bite Me :-)

Just some assorted rants from the week (taken seriously, or not, as you choose)

1) Bite me: to plus size clothing designers. I have curves. I have thighs and hips and arms that shouldn't be as flabby as they are, but that's life and I'm dealing with it. What I can't deal with is plus size clothing. Note to designers: it is NOT enough to redesign clothing for skinny folks and make it larger. What looks good on a size 4 does not, often, look good on a size 18. (Trust me on this one.) I want actual sleeves, not cap sleeves, not flared sleeves, not sleeves that are ruched in weird places (hello, the only place ruching belongs is on a leine.) I want pants that fit with the inseam clearly marked on the tag. I don't need "skinny jeans." I want jeans that fit. (Such an astonishing idea, but really, is it too much to ask?)

2) Bite me: to bra manufacturers. Standardize your sizes, will ya? And boning on the side of the bra---who thought that up? It's painful and it doesn't really hold its form long. Remove it, please.

3) Bite me: to the grey hairs that show up more and more each month. I'm not even 40 yet. Couldn't you have waited a few years?

4) Bite me: to my daughter's early morning whine. Keep it up and I'll give you cheese with that :-D

And finally...

5) Bite me to the people in this country, on both sides of the political divide, who are more interested in tearing down than building up. Who knows why you do it---maybe because it's easier than the hard work of creation? I'm tired of the labels, the name-calling, the insinuation that because our president is not a "whiter shade of pale" he must be some sort of "sekrit muslim" or somehow isn't one of us. Where was your all-fired concern for the state of this country while Dubya was using the Constitution for toilet paper, eh? I don't always agree with Obama but in this country, I don't have to. And you don't either...but, um, can you take it down a notch or two or three? (Or 12?) Then we can have a civilized discussion instead of foaming at the mouth like a bunch of rabid raccoons.

/end rant. :-D

Today I Choose Not to Remember

Every year, I've remembered (or been forced to remember) where I was, who I was, and what I was doing on September 11th. I'll never forget (I don't think that's possible, any more than it's possible for the folks who were alive to remember Kennedy's assassination) but today, I'm choosing not to remember.

I'm going to out and celebrate life instead. My family and I are going to San Diego Pagan Pride---a local festival celebrating both the coming of Mabon (the fall harvest) and religious tolerance. We're going to go out, amid the trees and flowers of Balboa Park and remember that doing simple, ordinary things is the best antidote to the horrors of the world. I'm going to celebrate the fall harvest, the time when the earth gives of Her bounty, and I'm going to remember that this country is one of the few places I could practice my religion (or no religion at all) without fear of the religious police arresting me in the middle of the night.

I am going to remember that my almost-four year old daughter doesn't know about 9/11. And I'm going to treasure and preserve her innocence as long as I can.

Today I choose not to remember. Today I choose to live.

Blessed be.

And the Aunt Resurfaces...

I have an aunt. Actually, I have several, but only three of them are on Facebook and only one of them actually talks to me. I used to have two aunts on Facebook, but almost a year ago, one of my aunts decided to "unfriend" both myself and one of my liberal cousins before closing her FB account. Yes, the aunt of this posting. (That her reasons for doing so were political rather than religious is because, well, my cousin isn't Wiccan--so far as I know--but I am, yet she defriended both of us, the "liberal wing" of the family. *eyeroll*)

Leaving aside how juvenile that all is and was (what? People can't disagree without knickers being twisted?) my aunt has now resurfaced. I'm not going to try and "friend" her on Facebook--I didn't know her all that well (except as a perpetual thorn in my mom's side while they were growing up) and her more recent behavior doesn't make me say, "Ooh, auntie, I want to know you better." It's just so...weird. I don't know if she decided Facebook was Teh Ebil (an opinion with which I sometimes concur, especially when they monkey around with our privacy settings again...grrrr) and that was why she closed her account that first time, or what.

But I find myself hoping I don't get a friend request from her. Unless they install a button that says "Fool me once, shame on you..." :-D