Tiny Tim and Odd Tornado

For anyone who might be wondering how Tiny Tim is doing, well, here he is today:

Photo is of the "back" side relative to Concerned Worm because that's where the most greenery is. I assure you Concerned Worm is still concerned. Anyway, I'm learning a lot taking care of this little tree and encouraging it to grow. I did let it get a little dry and it dropped all the leaves, which made me very sad, but a little TLC and paying more attention to the watering and as you can see the leaves came back. The Tea Tree is happy enough to be flowering and making berries again, so I must be doing something right. 

In the near background there you can see my latest experiments in cuttings from the fruit trees at the farm (just ignore the further background, the living room is a mess.) Took those a couple days ago and stuffed em in some water and rooting hormone, several cuttings from each tree (ok I only took a couple from mystery trees, but I got several mulberry and several from the known pear tree that DOES produce) so hopefully some of them will survive. 

I tried the cut off a chunk and stick it in dirt and hope method a while back, but the only things to survive (out of a bunch of cuttings) were two of the mulberries. Sort of. They're not completely dead yet. But they're not exactly thriving. We'll see how they do from here on out, but that's why we've moved on to a different method this time. I'm pretty sure the wind didn't help on the others, but since these aren't in dirt and are smaller cuttings which would be prone to flying away, they're living on the plant table with Tiny Tim at least till we see what they'll do. 

There are a few reasons I'm wanting so badly to get cuttings from the fruit trees at the farm going. One is that mom and dad would like to plant more of them, and since Mamaw was a plant nut we already had a lot of what we needed, just had to buy soil, which makes it a lot cheaper (even with a lot of failures) to propagate cuttings than to buy trees. Another is, again, the bonsai thing. Come on, tiny fruit trees? That's just neat. And not at all least, since I'm going to wind up away from the homestead, little potted clones of the trees from the farm and ranch will let me take a piece of the homestead with me. 

And, I'll always be able to remember the day I gathered the cuttings, since we stopped by to see the horses while we were in the vicinity to get some cuttings from different mulberries and the pear tree that Farmdad's horse Thunder used to stand on his hind legs to reach the high branches to pull fruit off of. I had my bucket of water for the cuttings in the back of the pickup, and Etta is... well she's a snoop. She's always checking the bed of the truck for goodies, any time we stop by. So of course she checked it out this time and lo and behold a bucket of water! 

Deciding that it must be for her she drank most of it while I was loving on Joan. Then I got a water bottle (she likes the way the plastic bottles crinkle and make noise) to distract her. She didn't want to take it and play with it so I took off the cap and let her sniff it. By the time we were done with that game I nearly had her drinking from the bottle, but I still had to stop by the tank and refill my bucket. Thankfully we visited the horses first or she'd have eaten all my cuttings!

Then on the way back to the homestead, after gathering cuttings in the rain (glorious rain!) we saw something odd in the rear view and thought it was a fire from a lightning strike, so we hustled up to the house to drop off the cuttings since we were nearly there, and were about to head back to help out when we realized it wasn't a fire:

But a tornado. A small one, but very odd. You can't really tell from this picture but it's on the trailing edge of the storm, when tornadoes normally form on the leading edge (in fact one did form on the leading edge of this same storm, south and east of us.) It's also moving south and east instead of north and east, throwing two "this is what tornadoes do" rules out the window. It wasn't big enough to do much damage, though I'm sure any crops it went over didn't appreciate it much.

Farmmom and I stood around and watched it till it dissipated, taking pictures and enjoying the bit of cool down from the rain that came before it. 

Stupid Body, Anyway

I may have whined here before about how much fun it is for me to maintain my weight. If I haven't, the short version is that I have a very high metabolism and sometimes it's actual work to eat enough to keep from losing weight.

Anyone who wants to scream at me for whining about that (and those of you struggling to lose weight I hear the build up starting from here) can do it on their own dime. I'm not saying that my weight issues are bigger, smaller, harder, easier or anything-ier than anyone else's. That doesn't change the fact that they exist and sometimes they suck, and combined with mental issues created by years of school officials and doctors trying to convince me I actually had an eating disorder and that's why I'm skinny it can make for some rough moments inside my head. (As a brief aside, have you seen the eating disorder scare tactic pictures they use? Spend four or five years with them shoving those anorexic skeletons in your face trying to get you to admit to an eating disorder you don't have, during formative body-image years, and it'll give you baggage to carry for a nice long time too.)

That being said I'm mostly ok with it now. I pretty much only lose my mind about it when I've actually lost weight, and when I remember to manage things correctly that doesn't happen too often.

Part of managing things correctly is listening to my body. If I'm craving something I figure there's a reason, most of the time. Now, I'm not saying that every time I'm craving chocolate is because my body needs it, mind you, but when I've been out in the sun all day and holy crap I want some salty chips it's because I need the salt.

That can happen with other more complicated things too, so I try to listen to my body. Unfortunately sometimes my body is a retard. Or maybe a two year old. It's like every once in a while I have this conversation:

Body: I'm craving something!

Me: Ok, what do you want?

Body: Something!

Me: Specifically, what are you craving?

Body: Something specific!

Me: Seriously just tell me what you want and I'll get it for you.

Body: Stuff!

Me: You've got to be shitting me. Well you're telling me we've got the munchies so we're just going to have some Cheetos and move on. If you figure out what you want let me know.

Body: EW NO NOT CHEETOS DISGUSTING GROSS NO EAT NO NO NO!

Me: Jesus, fine, stop throwing the stomach around we won't have Cheetos. Make a suggestion.

Body: Snacks!

Me: Oh for fuck's sake. Chocolate chip muffin.

Body: NO NOT MUFFIN DISGUSTING GROSS NO EAT NO NO NO!

Me: Ok fuck you we're not eating anything, we had lunch, we'll be fine.

Body: Buuut muuunchhiiieeessss

And so on and so forth, until either I figure out what my body is craving or say to hell with it and gorge on something else until it can't possibly send hunger signals.

Fuck you, whiny body, fuck you very much.

Trees!

We've been thinning out some trees at the farm and pruning and trying to help them be healthier. So I thought, especially when Farmmom told me we'd be pruning the fruit trees, why not try a few cuttings?

Because I'm still liking the bonsai (Tiny Tim is doing well, he got a little dry and lost all his leaves but they came back and he's already blooming again) I decided to see if I could get some bonsai fruit trees going.

Especially the mulberry. Because tiny mulberry tree!

Anyway, mom was for it since we might be able to jump-start some more trees that way and save having to buy them. I've got several cuttings in pots outside now and they're looking pretty sad but they're still alive, so fingers crossed that they root out.

I've been reading a bonsai blog or two though and one is definitely my favorite, not just for the author's way of explaining things that makes odd concepts simple but for the massive amounts of pictures and his willingness to answer questions.

He posted some photos today and had one in there that perfectly sums up what Farmmom and Farmdad feel about my bonsai stuff, and I just had to share:

All credit to Adam, click the link to go to his blog if you're interested. 

Forgiveness

Is a wonderful thing.

Like I said earlier, though I am the most horrible person alive once a day, they forgive me pretty quickly. And Fluffernutter is one of the first, and most generous with his forgiveness, because lap and belly rubs. He's out cold.

You can see some of the bald from the ringworm under his chin... the thin coat on his underside is NOT representative of the rest of him, not any more anyway, it just hasn't caught up to the furball that the rest of him is swiftly becoming. Pot-bellied furball. 

On a Lighter Note

So, kittens are quarantined to the living room away from the dogs, because ringworm. We tried topical cream for a while but it just wasn't kicking it in the butt so we've switched to a medicated wash, which means daily baths, which means I am the most awful person in the world once a day. (On the really bright side today is day two and I'm already seeing a difference, thankfully, because poor Grey is just covered)

But, being kittens, by the time they dry off they've forgiven me. Or maybe it's just because I'm their only interaction outside each other, now. Either way, they want to play.

And they've discovered the joys of the laser pointer.

Now, I haven't been able to get all three of them going on it at once, or even two. They seem to figure that one at a time is enough.

But, they will lay in ambush for the one playing with the pointer.

Just a minute ago I was playing with Fluffernutter and Grey was paying no attention whatsoever, and I ran him by her, because kittens and laser pointers.

She startled, then sat up with both front feet of the ground and whacked him once, then put a foot on his head like she was holding him down.

First thought that came into my head?

"Calm down, Beavis, you're never going to catch it anyway."

Mail Order Jesus

Ok, let me preface this by saying that my belief system is my business, and yours is your own, and I really don't care what you believe as long as you don't try to force me to believe it as well or otherwise intrude your beliefs on my life.

The folks I'm about to talk about have (just barely, to be fair) crossed over that line.

In the mail came an envelope pretty well covered in print, clearly from a religious organization, clearly soliciting new believers. I'm not going to name the church involved, if you recognize it from mailings you've gotten I'd appreciate your keeping it to yourself because what I'm talking about here is mistreatment of a position of respect (church, Church, clergy, etc) and exploitation of beliefs in general. I'm reasonably certain that somewhere in this organization are people who honestly believe in the things that they're doing, who are good people and truly want to help others. Since I expect people to respect the fact that I have my own belief system, I cannot, under my own morals, impugn theirs. Specific acts? Sure. Disagree with their system? Absolutely. But out of respect for those who aren't using the system for their own ends, I'm not going to paint a big sign saying "THIS CHURCH IS ENTIRELY FRAUDULENT."

Got it? Good.

Moving on. In this mailing, it's pretty well a packet, there were several things. One of them is a printed "prayer rug." On the back it tells you how if you kneel on this rug (or have it touching both of your knees) and pray upon your needs, while looking into the closed eyes of the image of Jesus printed upon the paper, you will know that Jesus has heard your prayers, because his eyes will open.

Time out, take a step back, examine this paper "prayer rug" (I'm sorry if it is made out of paper it is not a rug, that's why the quotes) and see what they're talking about.

Well, it's pretty vague around the eyes. they certainly look sort of closed but not definitively closed, and there's quite a bit of shading on the eyelids in the image... and if you unfocus your eyes just a bit, sort of like when you're looking for the 3-d squirrel riding a lawnmower to jump off the page... yep, there it is. Subtle, but there, just an impression of iris on the eyelids that, given time, would make the brain see open eyes. Optical illusion.

From this point on, I gotta tell you, I was looking for the "Send money!" To be fair, there isn't any request for donation or anything like that in this letter. They just want you to pray on the rug, tuck it into a Bible at a specific passage, or if you don't have a Bible, under your side of the bed, if you can, if you can't it's ok, overnight then send the rug and the sheet on which you mark your prayer needs back.

There's some indication that once they receive your prayer sheet and rug (which they'll send out to another family because they need it! This bugs me because it strikes me as an attempt to convince people that you're giving them access to a genuine holy article rather than a mass produced image on paper. If you've prayed over it and your beliefs make it holy, fine, but I'm far from convinced that getting more is any more than a matter of placing an order at the printer and possibly having a priest or a group of laymen say a prayer over a pallet) they'll send you a blessed-by-prayer cross which will bring you good fortune.

So far, slightly distasteful to me but nothing really crossing the line. To me what crosses the line between probably honest religion slinging and scamming on the part of those in charge is the "Prophesy" that is also in the envelope. That you're only supposed to unseal (it's got a sticky-dot on it holding it closed) after you send the prayer rug and the needs-sheet back in.

In other words after you've concentrated on your own personal problems so that they're at the forefront of your mind.

This "Prophesy" goes on for a full page in appropriately vague terms about how God will guide you to proper decisions for the benefit of your future through prayer. "Even now, you are facing a decision that must be made." Well that certainly covers everyone in the world.

At the front is a little blurb about how the prophesy is given through inspiration from the Holy Spirit, but the whole is written in the first person. Not "God says" but "I say." A bit about how the power to speak blessings into your own life is in you, and how you must learn to use this power.

Well, that could go a couple of ways. Either the wish-fulfillment version of prayer, or it could be interpreted as a push to stop looking outside yourself for solutions and do everything you can for your own self to improve your life.

My problem here is that this all seems to be aimed towards planting a seed in the mind, that can be fertilized later (when they send out the cross?) to cause a person to interpret any good thing that happens to them in the interim as stemming from the prayer rug, or the actions surrounding it. Like I said, no request for money in this batch, but my cynical mind sees it on the horizon.

To me, this is all very reminiscent of fortune tellers that perform in front of a group. They grope blindly with vague allusions until someone, wanting to believe, sees something of themselves in what is being said. Then they proceed to work on that person, to the ultimate goal of making them believe that the fortune teller is really what they say they are, and then getting money.

Like I said, for all I know there are people in this process that truly believe they are helping others by sending out these letters. But I would bet my own money that somewhere in the process, someone is living quite nicely off of this process who doesn't believe a word of it.

That's what I mean about misuse. Someone in charge there is using their position to make themselves richer, or more powerful. They're deliberately preying on people who, in these days, may not see a recourse other than prayer to help them out of a bad situation. I'm reasonably certain that if I were to send the prayer rug and the needs page back, and go through the process, I would get to the "give us money" portion of the process, but I'm not going to do that.

Because by my lights, exploiting the process for my own entertainment, if there's even a chance that there are people who honestly believe, is wrong.

If someone believes in Bubbah, god of beer and plenty, the fact that I don't doesn't make me any more right than they are. It doesn't mean that I get to tell them what they should believe. And if someone doesn't have any religious beliefs, but does have a belief in say, string theory, the same goes. The belief itself is not any less valid because another person shares it, or doesn't. Neither can be proven at this point, so to me, they stand on equal footing.

I just detest people who manipulate for their own gain, along with people who intrude upon my life without my consent (I've had a few very nice religious discussions that I was quite willing to participate in) to attempt to change my beliefs.

Those people, I really want to beat.

You Cannot Legislate Morality

Saw on Twitter this morning, thanks to Larry, that there's some hullabaloo about someone's Kickstarter campaign. CNN article here.

Ok, caught up? Good.

Stop trying to wish offensive shit out of existence. 

It doesn't work and it just makes everyone more miserable.

Yes, it certainly sounds like this guy is a douchenozzle. Yes, I would pretty much like to kick him in the jimmy. But my desire does not mean that the book should be banned. Sure, there's possibly some bad advice in there. I'm not taking the quotes as all the information though, because out of context is a major factor.

But, ya know? He's got the right to give bad advice. And people have the right to take bad advice. Maybe he's advocating being more aggressive than is polite, which some men might take to an extreme.

However, in my opinion, a far more effective way to discourage such behavior is for women to stop acting like startled sheep when something they don't like happens and take steps to learn to defend themselves.

Society cannot protect you from being offended. The most effective defense against assault of any kind is self defense. Because, face it folks, you don't have a cop in your pocket. Your ability to defend yourself is always with you.

I don't give a rat's ass if you carry a gun, learn jujitsu, get a protection dog that is with you every second of every day, or invent a damn force field. Just take a pro active interest in your own bodily safety.

The fact that you're offended by something some jackass says in a book does not give you the right to silence them. The fact that he's advocating aggressive tactics with women would not be an issue if every single woman stepped down off the pedestal long enough to figure out that they have the power to defend themselves.

Because you know what? The guys who might take that advice a little too far because someone told them women like that kind of thing will stop if it is made absolutely clear to them that it is not acceptable right then when it happens.

The guys who wouldn't stop are called rapists and aren't raping because of a book, they're doing it because they're rapists. And it's even more important with them that as a woman you know how to defend yourself.

The facts of life are that you may not stop him. You might still get raped or otherwise assaulted. But you're going to make it very expensive for him. It might make him change his mind, if you can manage to rip off his ear or gouge out his eye, but at absolute rock bottom worst you're marking him to make him easy to identify after the fact.

That is the answer to guys like this dick. The world cannot be made perfectly safe, that's not how life works. Anyone who tells you differently is probably looking for votes. So quit crying, and do something about it with the only thing in this world that you can actually control: yourself.