Category: Grimace & Giggle

From “matt” over on the NYTimes. May 1, 2009: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/gov-palin-on-energy-money-no-thanks/?scp=2&sq=Palin&st=cse#comment-57839

Palin is the poster child for failed ignorant political thought. not to mention she just seems plain old dumb. Thank god she is not in the white house. — matt

IRRITATION NUMBER ONE: Website “entrepreneurs” who INSIST that you haven’t heard them the first time.  One Kim McDougall, klchatel@verizon.net, owner of BlazingTrailers.com is one such individual.  Every time I turn around, there’s yet another email in my box delivering a post she’s made to a group board I’m subscribed to.  She keeps urging us, exorting us, even, to visit her site, to submit a trailer (the form’s still in beta-testing according to Kim, mind you) *roll eyes*.

Ah…I heard you the first time, Kim.  And I accept trailers, too, but it isn’t the “competition” that’s bothering me.  It’s your persistence of cheap solicitations. 

I post one, maybe two, solicitations, well-spaced apart, then leave it alone.  Seems to me that, if an author or a publisher isn’t interested, they simply aren’t interested.  They aren’t interested in getting the word out, at least not using the offered venue.  That should be fine, shouldn’t it?  I mean it isn’t as though there aren’t plenty of book trailers and new novels coming out to fill our websites.

Bottom line: Offer it, then leave it at that.  Now that might not be the “American entrepreneur’s way,” — you know, SAVE BIG CARPET SALE, COME NOW, BIG CARPET SALE, DON’T MISS OUT, FACTORY REMAINDERS CHEAP, GET YOURS HERE…. …Sorry, boyz and gurlz, that kind of advertising method just doesn’t play well with me.  Class acts don’t hawk their wares like cheap sleezeballs selling second class goods, especially since books are supposed to be first class all the way.

IRRITATION NUMBER TWO: People who want to discuss politics, but get mad and indignant when someone posts something contrary to their perspective.  Then, instead of debating it, they go complain to management.  If that fails to reap their desired result, the squelching of the opposing viewpoint, they pick of their whining selves and, with backward glances of woe-is-me, depart the venue, only to sniffle and whine and lurk in “seeing distance.” 

Gawd.  Fine.  If you don’t want to debate it, why play in the politics pit?

I follow several sentators…from states other than Idaho, including Bernie Sanders of Vermont.  (Why I choose to follow and support U. S. Senators other than those of Idaho is because all Idaho US Senators in firmly entrenched on the opposite sides of issues I find salient. In fact, there isn’t a whole lot of people in office in Idaho whom I do support, especially not Butch “the Butcher” Otter, but let’s not go there.  None of us need a rant from me this morning.)

Here’s the latest from Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and, if you want more interesting listening and reading, then go to his website at:  http://www.sanders.senate.gov/

VIDEO: The Buzz on Capitol Hill with Senator Bernie Sanders

Here’s the direct link to the video: http://sanders.senate.gov/video/20090312003/index.html

I got a call last Thursday:  “My sow’s going to farrow, but I already had plans to go to Kalispell for three days.  Can you come sit with her?”

I blinked about five times, just speechless.  “Huh? Who is this?” I asked.

He told me.  It was the guy whose wife had called my Mom not four months ago because a baby pig needed help.  My mom had, of course, called me, and, reluctantly, I’d driven us all the way up this long, winding road to go rescue the creature who was crushed, starving, and suffering hypothermia.  That’s how Mom got “Lucky,” no pun intended, but a good pun all the same.

I’d told the husband then what I told him now once my brain connected to my mouth.  “If you’re going to raise pigs, you sit there with that sow while she farrows, and you sit there three days more.  Then you keep a wary ear out for another three weeks in case you hear a piglet scream its fool head off because Mom laid on him and isn’t getting up.”  

And, if you want to raise pigs, that’s what you do, whether you farrow them in crates or you, preferably, pen farrow. 

“Well, I thought that you said that, if I had trouble to call you,” he came back.

I’m thinking to myself, This isn’t ‘trouble’.  This isn’t a stuck pig, a prolapsed uterus, or anything dire.  This is you wanting to go gad-about, and your sow is farrowing at an inconvenient moment.  You didn’t think ahead, and now you want somebody to pig-sit while you go to some play-date. What I said was, “I’m sorry.  I’m totally buried in work.  I can’t help you.  But, you know, if you have pigs, you are obligated to be there when they farrow.  It’s part of the contract.”

Later, I found out that good old “boyo” went off on his weekend, anyway, the selfish asshole.  What was the big ‘date’? He had a pool tournament over in Montana.  Had to go suck down brewsky and rack ’em up, you know, or the world just wouldn’t be right.  

Bullshit.

If this person ever has the audacity to call me again, I think I’ll tear him a new one, and, believe me, I’m capable. People like this should NOT have animals.  None.  Not ever.

I hope one day, if he has a daughter or granddaughter, when she goes into labor and everybody is expecting the obstetrician to attend, that, when the call comes, old doc says, “Oh, sorry.  Timing’s off.  I’ve got a pool tournament over at Jug’s Bar.  She’ll have to fend for herself.”