Also had to think again about my mom being very aware that she mostly rushed into marrying my biodad, when she was still in college, to get away from home. They were some of the people who got married after he got drafted and was about to get shipped to Germany. An even better opportunity: put an ocean between herself and my grandmother! Who wasn’t that sorry to have her gone.
(ETA: She had already almost married some Ecuadorian guy who was expecting to go back after getting his degree. But, his racist mama pretty much broke that one up.)
That didn’t work out so well, though she kept trying for like 12 years in spite of some appalling behavior. And eventually she could take a little better look at why she felt like she needed to do that.
The worst thing that ever happened for her mental health and general stability was moving back to where she was in daily contact with my grandmother again. And I don’t know that she could ever really look at that, either. Another story, though.
But…I don’t know that my mother would have ever let herself see any similarities to my own decision to hare off across the Atlantic and marry somebody I had known in person for less than a year at that point.
The situation was a little different. (For one thing, she actively tried to get me to stay there when I went back to help out in 2006. Wouldn’t come out and say it directly, but the endless stream of crises never would have stopped. Never. I finally got out again after 6 months of going progressively crazier myself 😵)
But, I really needed a change of scene at that point in my life. As kinda implied in tags on that last post, with not necessarily expecting to see 30. And I felt like I needed to take a chance, and at least try living with someone who had honestly already been treating me with a lot more respect.
Good thing that’s been a continuing pattern, but yeah. I don’t know that any of my family would want to understand. She’s been gone for almost 10 years, so that’s really not gonna happen.
With looking back over one post from earlier after it got more notes, I couldn’t help but start thinking some more about how weird time can be.
Not only do I find myself feeling unexpectedly old, with a (totally predictable) shaky grasp on how much time has actually passed? I’m impressed at how much more condensed some events seem now, than they did then.
I mean, it’s coming up on 15 years later this month since we first met in person. (That I registered, at any rate.*) Hard enough to believe that. And I moved in for good like 8 months later. And there he was, basically adopting my crazy-ass family as mentioned earlier, a few months after that.
I mean, we did get to know each other pretty well online, before the idea of my crashing with him for CCDE 2003 even came up. But, in retrospect things did move pretty quickly overall. Good thing that turned out OK, but it feels a tad weird now thinking about it.
Maybe especially with me sitting here going, “damn, is it really better than halfway through 2018 already?!”
* I was surprised when we were putting all the visa paperwork together, that he was sure we had met at an afpmeet** on my first trip to London in late 2002. Granted, I was seriously overloaded and also more than a little drunk to cope by that point–and probably at least 30 people showed up over the course of the meet. Mr. C was definitely one of them. There are photos. I still don’t recall laying eyes on him then, at all. Must have made more of an impression on him–while really really not in top social form 😵
** I had to laugh at his short version for the application: “We met in a pub in London.” 🙄 Technically true, I suppose, but yeah I did request that he add more context before that got turned in to the Home Office.
“Our guardians are responsible for the management of what one might call a cold panic, a panic that is signalled by the fact that openly contradictory messages are accepted: “keep consuming, economic growth depends on it” but “think about your carbon footprint”; “you have to realize that our lifestyles will have to change” but “don’t forget that we are engaged in a competition on which our prosperity depends.” And this panic is also shared by our guardians. Somewhere they hope that a miracle might save us – which also signifies that only a miracle could save us. It might be a miracle that comes from technology, which would spare us the looming trial, or the miracle of a massive conversion, after some enormous catastrophe. Whilst waiting, they give their blessing to exhortations that aim to make people feel guilty and propose that everyone thinks about doing their own bit, on their own scale – on condition, of course, that only a small minority of us give up driving or become vegetarian, because otherwise that would be quite a blow to economic growth.”
so the best thing about this is that bobcats, like just about every feline besides lions and domestic cats, are pretty solitary. they don’t really have friends. they aren’t really equipped to make friends.
domestic cats, on the other hand, do know how to make friends. they are friendly to the point that lots of feral cats live in colonies— the females hang out together, even raise kids together, and the males like to spend nonsexual time with their baby mommas. they groom each other, play around, and have a particular tail position to signal to one another— straight up with the tip curled— that they’re friendly and happy to see each other. cats learned how to be chill with each other in order to take full advantage of human food sources: an ancient granary supplies enough rats for a lot of cats, as does a modern lady with a big bag of frisky bits, so it would be a waste of time and energy for any one cat to try and stake the entire foodsource out for exclusive use. less fighting means more eating and resting which means a longer, nicer life and a lot more kittens.
so this stray cat, she obviously has no colony if she’s wandering around and sneaking into zoo enclosures, so she’s like ‘hey! there’s food here! what up, other cat, let’s be friends, let’s be friends and share that food’. and the bobcat is like ‘??????’ because actually wild cats are pretty cautious about initiating hostilities and anything new and aggressive makes them very worried. and the domestic cat is like ‘haha cool, ok, we’re friends now, big guy. no problems.’ and the bobcat is like ‘????? well…?? ok?’ and then they are friends.
the super interesting thing about most wild cat species is they don’t really have the capacity to make friends on their own, especially outside of sibling bonds, but, if someone comes along and does all the friend-making themselves, they’ll totally roll with it. zoo cats can get really attached to their caregivers— or, in this case, a very confident little calico demonstrating exactly why her species has been so darn successful over the last nine thousand years .
so anyway that is the best thing: bobcats are not equipped to make friends, but luckily for this bobcat this homeless lady did not give any shits and made friends anyway. and now they are both happy.
happy independence day let’s impeach the president
The only 4th of july post i care about
I can top it: yesterday, NPR made a series of tweets that Trump supporters called “propaganda” and “trash words” to insult Trump and push NPR’s agenda.
NPR was tweeting the Declaration of Independence.
And that, folks, describes about 75% of Trump’s voter base.
Some exammples of the Trump followers vs NPR thing
So they are admitting Trump is a dictator?
Some Trump supporters thought NPR tweeted ‘propaganda.’ It was the Declaration of Independence.
i know this was last year, but the fact that Trump is never even mentioned in anyway but they see all the things the declaration points out as bad and Trump is the first person they think of. I’m not saying it. They did.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
You must be logged in to post a comment.