There is no right or wrong

After almost a month straight of hacking and coughing it appears my immune system has finally gained the upper hand on this nasty bug. I got 'better' for a few days about a week or so ago, but then it came back nasty and bad. Ran a fever and everything, and felt like my face was going to explode with all the sinus pressure.

Now I'm feeling slightly better, I have to stay in bed for at least another day to make sure I don't get sick again, then take it easy for the next week.

My daughter is reading on her own now. She gets a book a night from her class, which she usually reads out loud to me.

She's also proving herself very handy at cards, and won $2 playing Go Fish with her grandpa and uncle the other night (it started as a quarter). She's got the magic touch, the Gift, THE POWER. She knows which card has been drawn from the pile by the other player, and if she has a match she asks for it. I watched this happen time and time again.

My brother and I were fooling around with the playing cards later that night, he was trying to beam the card to me mentally. It's been a while and I'm not so good at it anymore, but I did manage once. you have to look at it 'out of the corner of your eye' as it were-as Michael Crichton once said it's like walking up a flight of stairs with a full cup of coffee in your hand- pay to much attention to the stairs and the coffee spills, pay to much attention to the coffee and you trip.

Today I can't put it off anymore and have to at least get some more hay for the rabbits so they have somewhere nice and warm to snuggle into when it freezes tonight. Their area also needs to be cleaned, though I don't know if I'll be able to do that, I may just throw more hay on the floor for now.

The (modified) cornish cross hen I picked up from the road is growing gigantic, as expected. I was just on the the Perdue website where they swear up and down that pale yellow skin is normal and healthy in 'all chickens bred in america' and is the result of a 'healthy and natural diet'. Certainly, when we got Tyson she was completely colorless, no tint in her skin or eyes.

In the past two months, however, in addition to doubling in size, learning to stand with her feet underneath her, and picking up such basic skills as scratching for corn and insects and drinking from a pan the skin on her face has turned a bright beautiful red and her eyes a deep golden color- as these chickens are SUPPOSED to look. Of course, genetic fiddling has left her absolutely gigantic- according to chicken rescue she may reach 3 feet high and weight about 25lb. She came to us with a lot of pinfeathers, now her tail is coming in full and she's looking more like an adult.

My corgi, Bob, got bitten on the ear last week, a really nasty one at a bad point that severed the skin of the top of his ear from where it joins at the side of his head.

It needed stitches, but there's no way I can afford to take him to the vet so we bandaged it up ourselves. At first it was folded back and bandaged against his head, I was to change the bandage in 48 hours but I got sick again and he had it on for 4 days before I could mess with it again. The skin hadn't attached like we'd hoped it would, but the wound was healing with no sign of infection and the structure of the ear was such that it could now be straightened and bandaged out to the side.

Yesterday I changed the bandage again, still no sign of infection and active healing going on. I applied honey to speed the healing process and rebandaged it, this time with the very tip of his ear poking out and some airflow to the inside part of his ear.

On one of my 'think I'm better now' days I walked up to the Bread Basket to get lunch. As I was coming back into the house I saw a young squirrel on our exterior back porch. He ran into a hole between the slab and wall and peeked out at me. I got a handful of rabbit food and offered it to him, dropping some into the hole so he knew what I had. A little pointed nose emerged, then two tiny hands which rested on my two first fingers. Then he crawled up my arm and snuggled into the downturned collar of my sweater.

He didn't appear to be hurt, and looked blankly and water and seed, and after some checking I determined that he is five to six weeks old, he just recently got in his front teeth.He still sleeps most of the time in a small cage by the bed, when he gets bigger there is a bigger cage for him. He's starting to nibble on solid food but is primarily nursing, he eats puppy formula with heavy cream added. He sounds like an insane doggy toy when he gets miffed, the variety of squeaky noises he can make is astonishing, in addition to the normal growls and purrs they make.

His name is Magellan.


In not so nice news, my moms old mare Windy, the one I learned to ride on many many years ago, is probably going to be put down. She's 29.

She's been doing badly for months, she was in bad shape when she came back here and has been up and down since, mostly down, though her attitude was pretty good. She's been off her feed recently, though, and a thin trickle of blood has been leaking out of her nose for the past few days. At first we attributed it to the cold she's had on and off since the weather started to change, but she's been getting more and more spaced out. This morning she was standing in the sun and didn't respond when I called her, and jumped when I touched her neck as if she didn't realize I was there, which is incredibly unusual as she is normally very reactive. We think she may have had a stroke.

I know, leave you on a sad note. How bout you distract yourself with The Day The Internet Threw A Righteous Hissyfit About Copyright And Pie

After almost three months, my computer has been fixed and is set up again. I say 'fixed' in a fairly loose sense of the word, as fully TWO of its EIGHT USB ports actually work. Luckily, the electronics graveyard in our storage room yielded a serial port keyboard and so, with no internet service and the local server still packed up, Canti is functioning more or less as normal and, when the external hard drive has been unhooked, will even have a port free for the webcam. I also finally got around to ordering new nibs for my stylus which should arrive in a couple of days, hopefully I have the right ones as the pen and tablet are rather old.

When sorting through my files backed up on the onetouch I found my reference file, and the large collection of photos and my sabbatical from 2d art, much longer than my computer has been nonfunctional, has geared me up for some time spent on my favorite subject: FLCL fanart.

In other news, my doe rabbit just dropped her last litter from my buck who passed away a little less than a month ago-eight kittens which I met just minutes after their birth. I'm so excited, I love the little babies, and can hardly wait until they're ready to be handled in a few days-mommy knows the drill and doesn't care when I pull her babies out but it's to cool for them to be exposed to the air without protection. Yesterday, a couple hours after their birth, I pulled them out again (the first time was a quick head-count and some supplemental KMR to the smallest one) to put a blanket down on the bed floor to keep them from getting cold when they burrow through the hay and fur of their nest and to make visual checks easier as I can pull the whole thing out and not have to get them cold to have a peek, though for now the baby checks consist of my thrusting my fingers down into the insulating layers of their nest and feeling for the warm motion of the bodies.

Though there are multiple kindling boxes with easy-access panels on the side, Widget (mommy) chose a spot in a large hay-filled space under the feeding-station and forcing me to hunker down on my hands and knees with my ass up in the air like an underage hentai girl and reach underneath to touch them-not an easy task considering my less than ideal physical condition (ancient back and leg injuries that result in chronic pain and stiffness that medication only partially relieves, and often reliance on a cane or crutch). I pulled out the kitten blanket, a large comforter that came with our house, and put it over the feeding station and around the sides to provide protection from cool and drafts.

These babies are made more special by the fact that they will, in all likelyhood, be the last baby rabbits I have for a long time. I have a buck who I am keeping, a tiny wildcard from the last litter- a dark brown ticked bunny of a very small size-obviously having inherited this from his dwarf mother (his sisters, more typically colored white with dark english-spot markings, take after their gigantic lab-rabbit father- if Blueberry grows into her ears will be the size of our corgi) and a snuggly and outgoing personality. I haven't decided whether I will let him have a litter before getting him neutered, I would love to let him have babies with the most friendly of my young does, but I haven't decided how I feel about winter and early spring babies.

The hutch/bunny area is a long porch against our house, which must be passed through to get inside. A five-foot high fenced gate swings open to allow access to the rabbits, and let people and animals pass into the kitchen without potentially disturbing or releasing them. Inside their area, the floor is covered with a layer of slightly musty hay from the barn down the road, though the bunnies spend little time on the floor unless they are coming to greet people and animals coming in or using one of the three litter pans. They have a large second level that stretches halfway across the area, a woodpile to climb, a ramp/slide which they scamper up like a child on the playground then slide back down, a log bridge, and a three-level open-sided 'house', the top level of which provides a view out of the large screen windows that look out into what will be, come spring, their outside exercise and grazing area. The manger is stocked daily with fresh greens from outdoors, and the feeding station has two large food bowls-one with standard rabbit ration and one with a high-fat-and-protein mix- and two water bowls. The bunnies have chosen a cardboard box with two round doors as their bed-box.

The rabbits are my physical and mental therapy. After years of working with horses as a profession, my physical condition has deteriorated to the point where I can no longer consistently associate with those wonderful animals-though I just turned thirty I have the careful slow movements of an 'old lady', always reaching for support when I take even a short step up or down and more often than not moving with a slow and limping or shuffling gate that is at odds with the fast fluidity of my more healthy days-though once in a while I will have a good day or week. The occasion is rare when I can handle a horse, and only once every few months can I actually hope to ride for a short time. I still visit the barn every day, though my duties are reduced to feeding and caring for the fifteen rescue chickens and giving feed to the ancient mare Windy. But every three days, at the most, the hay in the rabbit area has to be changed out, and of course there is the daily cleaning of water containers and giving food, gathering greens, and handling the rabbits. The setup allows me to bend down little, and lift nothing but the litterboxes and hay can be swept directly from the door into the yard where the hay, bunny poos, and grain from feed goes directly into either the yard or flower bed.

The gentle physical activity is good for me, providing a couple hours of light exercise I wouldn't otherwise get, but it is mentally even more beneficial. Nothing gives me the feeling of peace and accomplishment like I get when I look at the fresh hay, feed and greens, see the rabbits explore any new features I add on my best days, and see the animals grow and flourish. There are many times when they have saved my life and sanity, when only the thought that they must be cared for keeps me from ending my own life or checking out completely and being returned to the 'mental health clinic'. No matter how bad I feel, when I am perfectly happy to transfer responsibility for the child and dogs to other family members (my daughter spends most days after school with her grandmother at the farm, and the dogs can be released from the back door to run to the nearby studio where all of the dogs are fed together-the cost of dogfood, coffee, and other essentials are shared by the artists who work there, as the animals are welcome and it's the first place we come every day, anyway). The rabbits have become the one thing that I feel I alone can care for the way they need to be, in an emergency I'm sure my husband would give them food and, in the case of an extended absence, they could probably occupy a stall in the barn before being re-homed.

Occasionally, I think about what I'll do when, or hopefully IF, I can no longer perform the activities necessary for their care. I imagine I'll turn my attentions to even smaller mammals, perhaps once again begin to keep my beloved rats.

And thats the news from Lake Woebegone, where all the women are strong, the men are goodlooking, and the children are above-average. ;)

The night before last, we got called in on a rescue mission. At least a dozen chickens and a few guinea fowl had been abandoned at a farm. We went in after dark to catch the chickens while they were roosting.

As we approached the house, we saw that every light in the place was on, though it was clear nobody was living there. We pulled around to the barn, shone our headlights in, and surveyed the situation.

The first bird into a crate was the single guinea fowl, there were two reported but the other was nowhere to be found. You know the sound the chickens make when you pick them up in Ocarina of Time? That's a guinea fowl.

We found two roosters and some hens and little friars roosting up in the rafters. We climbed up support beams and grabbed the tamer of the birds, the more wild ones required the use of a net and our resident 15 year old boy who can snag a chicken out of mid-air like it's standing still.

Then we went over to the house to catch the chickens that were roosting on the porch railing. When I stepped up onto the porch, there was an explosion of cats. Big cats, little cats, running in every direction, at least a dozen on a glance before they hid from us in shadow and bushes, only exploding back out when we walked past.

Every light in the house was turned on, the fans were all running, and the central air dropped the temperature inside at least thirty degrees. Looking inside, I saw more cats and opened the door. The smell was appalling, the entire inside of the house was covered with cat feces. More cats ran for cover.

We didn't have crates or gear to catch so many wild cats, so we left a window without a screen and the back door of the house open to let out the cats that were trapped inside.

It was late by the time we got back to the farm, and I didn't see the chickens again until morning when I went down to help Barbara let them go.

We did a head count, and discovered 8 hens, 4 little friars, and 2 roosters.

The two roosters obviously get along fine, but the problem we were anticipating involves the until-now lone rooster, a beautiful long-necked English game cock with only one eye. We released them all out in the barnyard and kept an eye on them. The roosters had two minor squabbles, then all settled down.

All went well for the rest of the day, but when night came several of the chickens refused to allow themselves to be closed in the feed room with the others. There is an absolutely enormous gray fox who we occasionally see gliding like a shadow across the pasture, always a surreal experience as his feet make no noise. Gray foxes are known for their ability to climb, and any chicken outside of the feed room or high on the narrow rafters is bound to wind up in his belly.

Late at night, I walked down the dirt road and into the barn. I found a rooster and a hen on one of the hay room dividers and 4 others sitting on a stall divider. I grabbed all of them, one by one of course, and put them away. Hopefully they'll soon fly up into the rafters with the rest of the chickens tonight.

1. The Artist is the Creator of Beautiful Things.
2. To reveal Art and conceal The Artist is Art's aim.
3. The Critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
4. The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
5. Those who find Ugly Meanings in Beautiful Things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
6. Those who find Beautiful Meanings in Beautiful Things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
7. They are the elect to whom Beautiful Things man only Beauty.
8. There is no such thing as a Moral or Immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
9. The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
10. The nineteenth century dislike of Rpmanticism is the rage of Caliban not seing his own face in a glass.
11. The Moral Life of a Man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the Morality of Art consists in the Perfect Use of an Imperfect Medium. No Artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
12. No Artist has Ethical Sympathies. An Ethical Sympathy in an Artist is an Unpardonable Mannerism of Style.
13. No Artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
14. Thought and Language are to the artist Instruments of an Art.
15. Vice and Virtue are to the Artist materials for an Art.
16. From the point of view of Form, the type of all the Arts is the Art of the Musician. From the point of view of feeling, the Actors craft is the type.
17. All Art is at once Surface and Symbol.
18. Those Who Go Beneath the Surface do so at their peril.
19. Those Who Read the Symbol do so at their peril.
20. It is the Spectator, and not Life, that Art really mirrors.
21. Diversity of Opinion about a work of art shows that the work is New, Complex and Vital.
22. When critics disagree the Artist is In Accord with Himself.
23. We can forgive a man for making a Useful Thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a Useless Thing is that one admires it intensely.
24. All Art is Quite Useless.

--Oscar Wilde
Introduction: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Two Wiccans and a Discordian were doing a ritual.
The first wiccan invoked THE GODDESS and began to shake, his eyes rolled back then he spoke in a strange voice "I am the hunter and the hunted, I am light and darkness, I am birth and death". The nhe collapsed to the floor. A few seconds later, he regained consciousness. The first and second Wiccan were greatly impressed that they had recieved ANCIENT WISDOM.

The second Wiccan did an invocation and began to shake, her eyes rolled back and she spoke in a strange voice "I am the hunter and the hunted, I am light and darkness, I am birth and death." Then SHE collapsed to the floor, regaining conciousness a few seconds later. Once again, the first and sccond wiccan were greatly impressed that they had recieved ANCIENT WISDOM.

Then they turned to the Discordian.

The Discordian said that she might try to invoke her deity, if her deity felt like it. She did not tremble. She did no tspeak in a strange voice. She did no tcollapse. Instead, she started to laugh at the Wiccans. She laughed and laughed in her own voice.

The wiccans were greatly offended. "You lack the solemnity needed to do a proper invocation," one of them said.

But Eris, who had filled the Discordian, laughed and laughed, then danced around the room and proclaimed

You can't tell a Goddess how to behave!

And neither of the two Wiccans were enlightened.

=====ERISIAN PRAYER==========

LADY, protect mine enemies, who have lockethed themselves insideith their closed minds, with the shades drawn tight lest fresh thought enter and makest them go *poof*.

LADY, protect mine enemies and their sensitive knee-jerk reactions, which allowith me to entertainith myself when I am boredith

LADY, protectith mine enemies who block my path at every turn, as it makes me crawlith through the woods and findith all sorts of neat sh*t. Ith.

And LADY, grant me the strenght that when I find mineth enemies(ith) have fallen on their path and are coverdidst with mud

to point

and laugh


my f*ckin ass off


SO IT IS SPOKEN
SO IT IS DONE
Eat me a hot-dog
ain't got no bun

Eris, Eris, Queen of Space
Founder of the Human Race
Now Shut the Hell Up
'Fore I smack your face

Yay verrily

What follows is a superb example of British humour in A LETTER THAT WAS
TRULY WRITTEN AND SENT.

The piece suggests two things:

1) Americans and Canadians are not the only ones who get poor service
from their ISP, cable and/or alarm companies. (NTL is a cable operation
Britain).

2) The Brits probably write the world's best letters of complaint.


Dear Cretins:

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for
your four-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, telephone, and alarm
monitoring. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service
which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and
stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to
provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your
professional prerogative and seek to rectify these difficulties or more likely (I
suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you
while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog
in your office.

My initial installation was canceled without warning, resulting in my
spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your
technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57
minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying
Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website. HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes
an activity at which you are no doubt both familiar and highly adept. The
rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later,although
the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools -- such as a
drill-bit, and his cerebrum.

Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15
telephone calls over four weeks my modem arrived, six weeks after I had requested
it and begun to pay for it. I estimate your internet server's downtime is
roughly 35% -- the hours between about 6 pm and midnight, Monday through
Friday, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone
connection.

I have made nine calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been
unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals who
are, it seems, also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed
that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will
be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is
available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone
(and then been redirected to an answering machine informing me that your
office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been
redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman. And several other
variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a
thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of
those crucially important testicle moments to attend to. Frankly I don't
care. It's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in
print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me,
therefore, if I continue.

I thought British Telecom was nuts; that they had attained the holy
piss-pot of god-awful customer relations; and that no one, anywhere, ever, could
be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering
service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there
isn't anyone else is there?

How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable
dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you
truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents
of the highest order. BT -- wankers though they are -- shine like brilliant
beacons of success in the filthy mire of your seemingly limitless
inadequacy.

Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest
to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any
potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you
have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will
be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief and will quickly be
replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's
litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you
and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become
desiccated during transit -- they were satisfyingly moist at the time of
posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not
experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the
very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless
employees.

Have a nice day. May it be the last in your miserable short lives, you
irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twits.

May you rot in Hell,
Robert Stokes

About five minutes ago I was, ahem, indesposed in the master bath when I noticed an odd sound, one of those vague "woom woom woom" noises that sound effects guys like to use for anything that hovers. Just as I was starting to wonder whether Mo had gone downstairs and turned on the bathroom fan the noise stopped, and the little girl in question came into the room.

"Mommy, I saw something in the sky." She said.

"Oh really." I said in that kind of distracted way.

"It was a light."

"Uh huh." I said. "What did it look like?"

"It looked like a light airplane." She replied.

"What color was it?"

"I couldn't see." She rolled her eyes in four year old exasperation "Cause it isn't day."

"I mean the light." I said.

"Oh." She nodded matter of factly. "Green."

Green? I think.

"Is it still there?" I asked.

"No." She shook her head as she wandered back out of my room. "It flew away."


*makes rock hands* Score one for the good guys.

"I'll also say that the perception that Discordians are a big joke is not correct at all.
It's complex...and I will tell you that most of them would be insulted by the insinuation that the religion is one huge joke."



Eris: 1 NOOB: 0

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