Substandard

Okay, sorry, this one's not that great. I haven't been taking many photos lately, not really sure why not. Just haven't. I'll try to do better from now on.

Feline Feature

As it's raining and miserable outside and I'm therefore bored (I canceled my cable service as my roommate J is moving out this weekend and I will no longer be able to afford such luxuries), I've been killing time by going through old pictures on my little Canon point-and-shoot digital camera. I freely admit it, there is an overwhelming majority of cat pictures. Apparently my cats are all I ever take pictures of (I can't help it, they're just so cute!). Anyways, as there are so many that more than a few aren't half bad, I've decided to institute a new feature of this blog: The Feline Feature! Every week I will choose one of the better shots of one of the cats to feature. Since today is Thursday, I am arbitrarily choosing Thursdays to implement this new wonderful profile. Now, you attentive readers might remember that only two of the three cats currently residing in my apartment are mine, so that would imply that one will soon be leaving with J. Well, for the next nine months I have temporary ownership of the third, and craziest, cat. My roommate is taking a (miraculously) paid internship at some sort of bird research foundation, studying and tracking wild cranes. They are providing housing at the research place and no pets are allowed (probably afraid they will eat the cranes), so Malaika is staying with me, Mouse, and George for the foreseeable future. Lucky me. I swear, that cat is systematically destroying this apartment.


And now, for the first time ever on this blog, the Feline Feature Photo!

(I realize that for continuity's sake I should probably spell "Photo" with an "F" but I hate it when people do that, it really irritates me and I refuse to ever be that cutesy)

The subject here is my Georgie. This picture is one of my particular favorites, hence the choice of putting it up first. I like to think of this as a portrait, because it really shows George's personality (and don't even try to argue that cats can't have personalities, because I will never believe you). I used the black-and-white option, which is one of the things I like so much about the little mainstream point-and-shoot digital cameras, they make features like that easy! But one of the reasons I like this shot so much is that even though it's in black and white, you can still almooooost see the color of George's eyes and face.

The Mad Ones

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."

-Jack Kerouac

Chronicles of Copenhagen, Part 2

I was reading through my old Xanga website and I found this little blurb I posted about a really funny story from my Nordic Mythology class I took in Denmark. The funny thing is, I was just thinking about this particular anecdote not too long ago. I'll copy and paste the entry in its entirety for your edification.

February 9, 2006

Okay so I'm studying for my Nordic Mythology class and I found this story that strikes me as really funny. I don't know, maybe it's just my slightly screwy sense of humor, but I found this really funny. It's a Norse myth called "The Binding of the Wolf". (By the way, anything in parantheses is my explanation of characters and places and anything else the average person wouldn't know)

The Binding of the Wolf

The most terrible creature in Asgard (heaven, home of the gods) was the wolf Fenrir, who was brought up in Asgard, but grew so huge and fierce that in the end only Tyr dared to feed him. He was so menacing that they knew he must be bound, but every fetter which they laid on him was easily snapped. Finally, guided by the wisdom of Odin (the head god), the dwarfs forged a chain for him, made from the secret and impalpable things of the world--the roots of a mountain, the noise of a moving cat, and the breath of a fish. It seemed no more than a silken cord, yet no force could break it. The wolf thought it harmless, but he would not allow it to be laid upon him unless one of the gods placed a hand between his jaws as a hostage. Tyr alone was prepared to do this, and so the wolf was bound, the chain held, and the gods laughed -- all but Tyr, who lost his hand.

Isn't that funny? Okay, I know, I know, I'm weird. My sense of humor is slightly off to find that funny, but I do.

Well, I still think it's funny. :) I do have a slightly eccentric sense of humor, hence my appreciation for offbeat things like this and the character Aaron in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and movies like Snatch.

Spring Has Sprung!

Finally! It is a balmy 57 degrees outside right now, which feels amazing after the freezing weekend we just had. Of course, it never lasts--as proven by the forecast for this weekend, which calls for snow and ice. Yay.

The Old Lie

Lately I've been reading too much about war. So here for everyone else is a taste of what I've been learning too much about.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen, 1917

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

(Translation from the Latin: "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country" -- from Horace's Odes)

This poem was written by a soldier in World War I about one particular incident so common that it became the defining weapon of that conflict: gas attacks. Mustard gas, more specifically. When I read this poem a few months ago, it brought to mind what I've read about fears (later proven baseless) of chemical attacks on troops during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and all the precautions taken because of that fear (if you don't know what I'm talking about, read and/or watch 'Generation Kill'). That correlation between wars separated by 90 years, numerous technological innovations, and the development of peace activism, really brought the point home that no matter how much technology is developed, the basic essence of war changes very little. It's still horrible, no matter how many 'smart bombs' and non-lethal ammunition developments there are. By the way, the poet, Wilfred Owen? He died a year after he wrote this poem, just one week before the war ended.

World War I, early twentieth century.

And Operation Iraqi Freedom, early twenty-first century.

Nothing ever changes.

DISCLAIMER: Neither of these pictures are mine, I found them both online.

No Peddlers or Agents

The building I live in is really old, I have no idea how old it actually is, but my guess would be that it dates from the 1930s or '40s. It has this great sign on the window next to the front entrance, which makes me smile every time I walk in. It's such a relic of bygone days, when door-to-door salesmen showing up on your front steps was a common occurrence. The whole concept is just so wonderfully dated and completely fantastic, I love it! The sign is even hand-painted, I can tell by the lettering. It's like something out of an old Humphrey Bogart movie. I can't believe it's survived this long with almost no damage.

Chronicles of Copenhagen

I just replied to an email from my sister asking for advice about places to visit in Copenhagen, and suggestions for any "typical souvenirs" people buy in Denmark. A coworker of hers is going to Copenhagen for two days next week for work, and so my sister emailed me on her behalf asking for advice. Well, I don't think they quite had in mind the book I emailed back. I realize that she's only going to be in the city for two days, and since she's going for work she'll be busy most of the time, but I couldn't help myself! I LOVE THAT CITY!!!

But do you want to know the bad part? When I opened that email and read the message, I had to sit back and actively try to think of places to send this nameless, faceless co-worker of my sister's. I sat there for a minute thinking, and at first nothing came to mind! I spent four months in that city, I lived, breathed, loved Copenhagen and three years later I can't think of any of the main tourist attractions!

Luckily, however, after a minute a few of my favorite places came to mind, and once I started to list them they just kept coming, hence the really long email I ended up sending.

The whole process just made me really homesick for my city, so I pulled out my disks of pictures from that semester in CPH and started looking through them. I just can't say this enough, so here I go again: I LOVE COPENHAGEN!!!!!!!

The picture above is from that city and that semester, I don't know where I was in the city when I took it. I was on my way to the Black Diamond (the nickname for the National Library) at the very end of the term for the program's closing convocation when I took this, so it's somewhere in that general vicinity.

Curves

Another old shot from this summer. I'm fortunate enough to live right next to the railroad tracks, which makes my ears unhappy but works well for photography!

On How I Was Almost Just Killed By a Lamp

A few minutes ago I was just sitting on the couch minding my own business watching Leverage like I do every Tuesday evening, petting my cat Mouse who was sleeping on my chest, while my roommate J was rearranging furniture, like she does on occasion. I have this big old floor lamp that's been broken for a while, it still works but doesn't stand straight up. Something broke on the base so it has to lean up against something or else falls over. It's right next to the couch, in front of a bookcase that I've had it leaning up against for months. Well, J was doing some rearranging to make a clothes rack fit on the other side of the bookcase, and she just had to try to fix the broken lamp, because she's kind of OCD like that. So she fiddles with it for a while, and we discuss the poor broken lamp's tenuous future (chucked out when I move, most likely) until she exclaims "Oh! Look! It's fixed!" I look up to see her triumphantly moving away from the lamp, which is now standing straight up, all by itself. I congratulate her, then go back to watching my show. She moves away and goes into her room to get something, a minute later moving back to the door to her room, which is directly across from the couch I'm sitting on, and I hear some sort of incomprehensible exclamation, neither of us can remember just what it was that she said even though it only happened about 5 minutes ago, but somehow I got the message that the lamp was falling towards me and about to clock me on the head. I must have looked over and seen it coming for me, so I screamed and put my hands up over my head, completely panicking, and..........................................................................



the lamp just misses me, the top big bowl landing on the cushion right next to me. Then the adrenaline kicks in and J and I both start laughing hysterically. Of course, we occasionally do that anyways, so there might not have actually been any adrenaline involved, but I think there was because if anything is going to trigger an adrenaline rush, it's a near-death experience. And maybe the lamp wouldn't have actually, literally, killed me (although I still maintain that it had it in for me) but at the time I certainly thought so, so I think that qualifies as a near-death experience.

Catpaw

My cat George was giving himself a bath, with this paw stuck up in the air like this. I just couldn't resist!

If you are wondering why I would name my cat "George," well, the answer is that I didn't. Please. Like I would really name my pet something so lame. Give me some credit for being more creative than that! My mom did it. George was our family's cat first, and when my parents got him as a kitten he was really sickly and little and kind of funny looking. My mom got the crazy idea that he looked like Boy George, so that's what she named him. I thought it was ridiculous, so I usually called him "Georgie," which is much cuter and fits his personality much better. Now I call him a lot of things, because I'm really bad about nicknames. I always give my animals a lot of nicknames. Some of my current favorites for George are: Peorgie, Mellow Yellow, Submarine Kitty, Cuddlebug, and Dork. Now, if some of these don't seem exactly complimentary, they aren't. But the thing about me is, the more I insult someone, the more I like them. Yes I'm strange. I think it's got something to do with my family and the way they raised me, because they all insult each other on a regular basis. So coming from me, insults are a good thing! Isn't that nice to know?