A Site of Beef by Ann-S-Thesia


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Saturday, September 15, 2001

When I saw the footage of the planes crash into the WTC on television on Tuesday, I was completely stunned and speechless. I was horrified. But when I read what the "reverENDS" Falwell and Robertson said regarding who is at fault for this enormous tragedy, I am... I am... um... I don't know...what can I say?

If liberals, gays, the ACLU, pagans, non-christians, aw hell, I might as well even throw in non-parents too, you know that's what they're probably thinking, are indeed all the horrible things they say they are, then these guys would have been assassinated a long time ago.

Metafilter article here.

Shyeah....God got mad and made this happen. Uh huh.

Simply un-*******-believable.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 5:42 PM ||


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And finally, I really liked this photo. Although I release all my butterflies on our butterfly bush, this one landed on the ground, near some old metal exhaust pipes Stan was gathering up to throw away. I liked the contrast of the brand new vivid butterfly against the old rust and old cement.


posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 12:14 PM ||


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Here's a picture of the one I mentioned below that seemed to hatch without scales. The general pattern is there, but the rich color and thickness of the scales is gone.


posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 12:12 PM ||


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A couple of Monarchs we released. I've lost count how many we've set free. There were 19 in the first cage, 39 in the next, and so far most of the last cage have hatched, which contained 24, and two from jars. Plus we have one that Stan found the other day and just now chrysalized. There were a few unfortunates. One butterfly hatched that seemed to have no scales on its wings. Its wings were rather pallid colored. It flew off, but I have no idea how far it got. Probably will not get to Mexico. A couple others that appeared to come from either a somewhat defective caterpillar or chrysallis didn't have their wings unfurl fully. One died, and the other I do not know what happened to. But out of what...85? That's pretty good.


posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 11:37 AM ||


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I think Katydids are my favorite kind of Orthopera. Crickets are neat too, but I find most ground grasshoppers rather nightmarish. This Katydid is atop some milkweed.


posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 11:08 AM ||


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I was able to catch some butterflies by hand. I caught a Blue, but was unable to photograph it because I did not want to put it between my fingers because those particular butterflies are so small and delicate. This Orange Sulphur was larger and easier to gently hold between my thumb and fingers. I shot this picture with my camera in my left hand.


posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 10:31 AM ||


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A big fat bumblebee on a beautiful thistle flower.


posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 10:22 AM ||


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As the Pearly Crescentspots kept us company at our feet, following us down our trail, An Eastern Tailed Blue seemed to fancy us well, landing on us. I happened to get this picture of one that landed on Stan. Granted, it's rather indiscernable in this photograph, and it doesn't do justice to the beautiful iridescent periwinkle blue of its scales. But it's still rather cute.


posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 10:16 AM ||


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I think the world could use more butterflies right now.


At the end of August, our cat Natasha was extremely ill. It was hard to be around her in the house...she had the scent of death on her. In the mornings on couple of his days off, Stan took me to the field behind his job that he'd walk through on his breaks. It's a prairie, part of the county park's designated prairie restoration project. It was just filled with butterflies and dragonflies and locusts and bees. I shot a few pictures until my flash cards could hold no more. The above picture is of four Pearly Crescentspot butterflies, all after one dandelion.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:56 AM ||


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I'm hearing talk today about profiling passengers on airlines. They're making a pointed effort not to profile anyone based on their race or ethnicity, for example, someone with an Arabic name, but rather targeting people for other reasons, for example, people who don't have frequent flyer miles. OK, there's some hypocrisy here. And believe me, I absolutely ABHOR racism. But it's NOT OKAY to profile someone with an Arabic name but it IS OKAY to profile someone who doesn't travel much? THIS IS CLASSISM. The ******* "well-financed hijacking murderering freak American-trained pilots* (with Arabic names) have obviously travelled a helluva lot more than I have, and I am a peace-loving, butterfly raising non-violent squeaky-clean artist.

This is another reason why I am not flying. I am not giving into an industry and country that promotes classism.

Unfortunately, when racism is a thing of the past, there will still be classism.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:35 AM ||


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When I started my dream journal, I made a decision not to omit any content or details (unless I can't remember them, of course) no matter how bizzarro or stupid or graphic or obscene, phrased PG-13 appropriately in a Seinfeldian master of my domain type manner. Unfortunately, I have to edit this dream because it's just waaay too bizzarro and stupid and graphic and, well, not really obscene, but gross. Suffice it to say, I dreamt about a certain food product and a certain embarrassing part of the anatomy. And that's all I'll say about that.

At least I'm not having nightmares about planes crashing into buildings and falling out of the sky...goodness knows I've had enough of those throughout my entire life.

I've never had a fear of flying. My first flight occurred when I was nine, I think. I absolutely loved it and it made me want to be a stewardess when I was that age, especially when the flight attendant gave me those little pins with the airline's logo, and with the reinforcement of some swinging sixties sitcom with English-accented stewardettes. I think that was my mom's first flight on a jet too, although she had gone up in a propeller plane once when she was a child. The last time I flew was when I was nineteen. Financial circumstances have prevented me from flying after that; vacations have been spent in cars on interstates and blue highways, seeing the land close up. Had circumstances been favorable for a faraway vacation accessible only by air, I would have jumped on the chance.

Up until Tuesday.

I really do not ever think I will fly again. Ever. At least not until things change...change for me, change for the world.

-----

My connection is still behaving like it had a lobotomy while on quaaludes. I am not happy. Now instead of connecting at 7200 bps, it connects at a reasonable 44000, but it hangs up on me after only a couple minutes. This is not my modem...I get the same reaction on my brand spanking new G4's internal modem, my iBook's internal modem, and my old G3's external Supra Express. I'm hoping the problem is tied to the road construction that's going on in our neighborhood. I mean, it's not like we get jollies out of destroying our own phone lines, but if the phone company comes over to check out the problem, they charge $75 just for the visit, and will probably claim that it's our fault that our lines are screwed so they can charge us for new lines. So I guess I'll just have to live with it and hope that I can get by until it's just unbearable. If this is a problem that comes and goes, then it would seem to me it is an external problem. If our lines were old and decaying (like the phone company likes to tell us is the problem because they don't like to take the blame for their own equipment being screwed), wouldn't they be consistently bad and not just off and on?

I hate the phone company. If I were more paranoid, I'd think they're sabbotaging our lines so that we upgrade our account. Forced upgrade. Kind of like a website that puts all sorts of pop-up ads on your page so that you upgrade your account.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:07 AM ||



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Friday, September 14, 2001

Uh oh. I'm starting to get addicted to Peter Jennings. Can't stand the other anchors.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 6:19 PM ||


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And to top off my wonderful life, the reason why this is such a long post is because I've not been able to connect at speeds more than 12000 bps...sometimes speeds of 7200. Something's ****** with our phone company. So, essentially, I haven't been able to post.

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What the hell. Why can't the forces that be just let us have a normal ****** life? Last year we were planning on taking a vacation in September of 2000. We get this psycho houseguest in the early part of that month, the sheer presence of whom creates fear in our dog who falls down the stairs on houseguest's second day here. Houseguest's trying to get over a relationship gone bad, something that he struggles with on a a semi-annually basis it seems. While we're trying to deal with the possible end of our dog's life, psychohouseguest's moping away about a failed relationship, one of many. Our's dog temporary crippling and huge emergency vet expense causes us to cancel our vacation. We do not get to see our parents that year, or our friends in Colorado. So fortunately dog heals, we distance ourselves from psycho who moves to the other side of the country, and we plan for the following year, this year, 2001. Stan has about three weeks off in September and October. We will take a nice long trip to Colorado. In June, Stan locates his biological father, who wants to meet Stan, but due to health reasons can't. We decide to take a side trip on our way out to Colorado to see him in September. Then a little over a week ago, Stan's job says he has to work the last weekend in September because they have too many people out injured. This totally effs up our plans. So what we plan to do is drive out to see Stan's dad for a day or two and then drive back so that Stan can work the last weekend in September, then drive out to Colorado in October. This sucks because now we have to drive the same direction twice. BUT to top it all off...just today Stan got a jury sommons for the final week of our vacation! Aaaaagh! Fortunately he was able to contact them and he has to write a letter enclosed with the return form detailing that he will be gone that week, and then after our vacation, he will have to go to jury duty.

Oh isn't life ******* grand.

It's not like we have any choice of times to take off...Stan is sort of forced to take this time of year off because he has low seniority and all these old farts at his job *hog* all the weekends throughout the spring and summer so that the newer employees can't get a large block of time off. Let's hope all their donuts and booze consumption (these are health care food service workers...you'd think they'd know better about nutrition, but NOOooo) causes forced early retirement.

I think Stan is the thinnest person at his job except for his supervisor who has health problems.

Heh.

----

Disturbing dream: I was standing without clothes in my own bedroom, but the window shade was open and my neighbor could see me. I realized this was happening and I quickly ducked down below the bed and tried to move to pull the shade shut, but it was too late. He was now in my room with a bunch of big football player type guys and they were attacking me. I was trying to kick one jerk in the balls, but my leg couldn't kick...it was like it was in slow motion. I woke up.

Yesterday I dreamt I had a bunch of weird white bandages/tape on the bottom of my feet.

---

We had a weird thing happen yesterday morning. We found a pool of blood in front of our garage with smeared fingerprints on the garage door. We called the cops...they sent out the crime scene unit. They hypothesized that it was someone at the apartments (the lone problem spot in our neighborhood...that is if you don't find overly anal yuppies a problem spot) when the night before, someone called 911 about her husband who had injured his leg, but they're thinking it wasn't an injury but a gunshot. Another weird thing to happen in September.

----

I do not understand the abuse some people put themselves through via the people they associate with. Yes, people can be annoying at times, even our best friends and closest relatives can try our nerves. But I'm not talking about irksomeness. I'm talking about serious personality flaws of violent, hot tempers, lashing out, controlling behavior, physical and emotional abusiveness. Why do people keep these sorts of people in their lives? When someone has beat you up, why do you go back to them? When someone has killed your pet bird, why do you keep inviting them in your house? When someone has burned a cherished item of yours, why do you still call them your friend? When a coworker complains about their boss's violent and abusive behavior, why do you laugh and say, "oh, that's just the way Tom is" and continue to be his golfing and drinking buddy while instead demonizing the coworker as a troublemaker? When kids witness someone beat up someone else on the playground, why do they befriend the bully and not his victim?

Does it make you feel superior? Does it make you feel good about yourself that you have a powerful friend or lover? Is it because they have a loud mouth and tell you the things you want to hear? Do you think maybe some day they'll stand up for you? Do you not even think that maybe they'll do the same to you?

What the hell is wrong with people?
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 2:38 PM ||



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Thursday, September 13, 2001

This idea comes from Stan. I do not understand the legal/pollitical system in this country, or if this would be possible. It is just a thought, so don't flame me or Stan for discussing legal/political matters when we do not have law degrees. We are just hypothesizing (Have to say these things, you know...as some people like to flame at the slightest thing that that rubs them wrong):
What if instead of launching missiles and bombs and air attacks and putting young men's lives at risk, we use the legal system. We bring both criminal and civil suits against the terrorists and the countries that aid and knowingly harbor terrorists? Imagine...the thousands of families, the hundreds of businesses, SUING THE ASSES OFF BIN LADEN 'n PALS, seeking financial damages, and bringing Afghanistan (and any other country who has funnelled money into this terrorist organization) to ruin without the shedding of one drop of blood.

Just a thought.

What if?
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 6:59 PM ||


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Jann tells me they used ceramic knives. Who would've thought.... Simple benign objects (cooking knives, passenger jets) being used as weapons of destruction.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:31 AM ||



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Wednesday, September 12, 2001

I'm confused. A couple years ago, Stan gave me a little compact mirror as a gift. It's chrome with inlaid rhinestones in a sort of grid-like texturized matrix on the front. It's a very classy, nifty little object. It has a normal mirror inside, as well as one of those enlarging mirrors that exaggerates the things on your face you don't want exaggerated. I carry it with me in my purse all the time. I carried it with me when we picked up Stan's mother at the Dane County Airport in August of 2000. Security told me to open up my purse because they picked up the object in their scanner and that it looked like I had a grenade in my purse! I gladly obliged and showed them my mirror, after all, I'd rather they check out my supposed grenade than have a terrorist get through...it wasn't at all like when we crossed over from Mexico and they stopped me and held me for absolutely nothing other than the border guard's stupidity (now that was a horrible experience). But if their metal detectors can pick up a compact mirror, why didn't they pick up the knives these terrorists were supposedly harboring? Also, while a couple conscientious security people were hovering over my purse, Stan passed through the metal detector carrying a large manilla envelope under his arm. No one cared he didn't put it on the conveyor belt. No one noticed. Granted, the manilla envelope contained nothing except a letter from his birth sister and some newspaper clippings, but still.

Something is screwed.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:43 AM ||


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Dream: I was in downtown Fort Collins walking down the center median of College Ave. There were these guys that had trained pigeons. They would release the pigeons and then call them back and hold up their hands and the pigeons would come back to them. For some reason, Stan and I went to the home of one of these guys. I was looking around and noticed he also had newts in an aquarium just like we do, except his newts' arms bent backwards. Then it was like the guy's house turned back into our own house, but the house looked nothing like ours...it was a more modern bilevel. The only reason I knew it was our house was because there was a pile of clothes in the living room and they were all my and Stan's clothes. They were older clothes though, more like things we wore in the 80s.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:21 AM ||



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Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Uh...looking at a map of NYC looks like the Bowery would be up and the Battery would be down. What do I know....I was asleep. Too bad the terrorists didn't have as bad a map as I did....
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 1:10 PM ||


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So much for getting any work done this month. If it's not my cat dying, it's Stan getting his vacation plans screwed up by his employer, and if it's not that, it's major terrorism on our country...ah screw it. Why even try.

I feel so horrible about these sad events today. I am so sad for all the lives lost and the relatives of the victims. This is just so horrible. I am shaking.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:55 AM ||


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Holy Crap. I don't know what this means, but as I was watching the horrible news today, it suddenly hit me...I remember another part of my dream last night. I was singing "New York, New York, it's a Helluva Town" or whatever the name of that song is. I sang the first line and then the second which I think goes "The Battery's Up and the Bowery's Down". And then I announced, "that's all I know." I have absolutely no clue why I was singing this in my dream, but it's kinda ominous considering the events, no? Sometimes I think I pick up on bizarre things subconsciously and premonitiously. I mean, why that song?

I don't think I've ever witnessed such horror as I'm presently seeing on tv. I am incredulous, and I feel nauseous.

This September is so damn weird, it's almost like an April.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:19 AM ||


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Collage-like dreams that I'm having trouble extracting any cohesive content from. I remember I was in a limousine (a cab limousine like the ones they had at the Milwaukee airport that took my mom and I to the Greyhound Bus Depot when we visited my grandmother, that were always filled with fat, thick-fingered smelly businessmen with cigars...not the "classy" limousines that spoiling permissive parents rent for their high school kids on prom night) with a young woman and we were trying to figure out some of the streets in downtown Madison near the University and Capitol area. We were looking at a road map that was digital and were sitting in the backmost seat in the limo, but it was like we were driving it. I realize we were driving it and I suggested to the woman/girl that I get in the driver's seat so it looks like someone is driving it. She said it wasn't necessary. Then I remember I was with Stan and we were watching a mother cat with nursing kittens. There was one kitten that was trying to nurse and the mother cat kept trying to swat it away. She was a huge cat, maybe 15-20 pounds, and she started to get really violent with the kitten. I was afraid she was going to kill it.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 8:17 AM ||



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Monday, September 10, 2001

Weird dreams. I forgot which of these came first. Somehow we encountered a friend of ours from undergrad school who now most likely IRL lives on the east coast that we sort of lost contact with. In the dream, he had been living in Madison for the past several years. We were asking him why he never got in touch with us when he moved to Madison, but he was ignoring us. Then I dreamt that I was Gary Condit's personal assistant or something. He wrote down a numerical figure that was supposedly his monthly income. It was like six thousand dollars or something. I was supposed to keep it confidential, but I was wondering why he was sharing it with me. Then his wife was screaming that their infant son had been found dead. Weird weird weird.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 10:33 AM ||



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Sunday, September 09, 2001

Us and Them

It is utterly amazing how someone with a college education and experience working for an international agency of goodwill can be so incredibly rude/naive/stupid/crass when confronting the "thems" of their own society. Perhaps I am the naive one for being amazed by this behavior. I naturally thought someone who is world travelled and has encountered incredibly impoverished conditions in foreign countries would be a little more understanding of the vast economic conditions in their own country. I guess the "thems" in foreign countries are easily discounted by these do-gooder-yuppies as "third world" and can be compartmentalized and categorized as the "have-nots." The aforementioned yuppie capitalist-in-Marxist-clothes would not expect anything from the third world have-nots. And they naturally assume everyone in their own country, Amerca, a non-third-world country (but give Bush a few more years) is a "have" and therefore an "us." So when confronted by what they perceive is an "us" that does not "have" it baffles their small mind. I thought their mind would be bigger, given their experience. But no. They cannot understand why someone in their own neighborhood has a rundown house with old siding. They cannot understand why someone in their own neighborhood has several old cars that they constantly have to fix up instead of one nice car. They cannot understand why people in their own neighborhood don't want the city coming to fix the lead pipes and charging them for it. They cannot understand why some people have weeds growing behind their garage in the alley. Gee, their life must be incredibly easy...they must have always gotten what they wanted, parents to help them out of a mess, job offers that always came through. They're not old and crippled with social security as their only means of survival. They don't have student loans as big as a mortgage. They don't have humungous medical bills to pay off or alimony or child support. Nope, their life is simple as pie. Why, everyone should volunteer to work for a world relief agency just like they did...it sure grows a person...makes them experienced...worldly...knowledgeable...sensitive.

Aaaargh. Whenever Stan recounts of what this person told him, it makes me livid. So I will drop this subject now to save my blood pressure from rising to the occasion.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 7:26 PM ||


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Stupid dream. I was at someone's parent's house. I was with Stan, but it didn't look like either his parent's former ranch house or his mom's new ranch duplex because it was an old two-story farmhouse. So I'm assuming it was Tim's parent's house, even though I never saw more of that house than the kitchen and bathroom...heh. We walked up to a second floor and Stan asked me if I wanted to go up to the attic. (We were bored, being that we were at some parent's house) I didn't exactly want to go up to a dusty attic, but Stan pulled down this trap door with stairs to access the attic. He climbed up there, and I saw this old man up there walking around aimlessly. We had no clue what the guy was doing there or who he was. Then somehow it was found out that he was the husband of some old lady that was visiting the owners of the house, who I think were Tim's parent's. She was telling us how her husband is senile and has been stealing things. Tim's mom didn't seem too concerned that anything precious had gotten stolen. I would've been livid if it were me. Then the dream mutated so that it was nearing Halloween and I was getting my costume together. My costume didn't make sense...I was going to be a pilgrim burglar...like someone from the American Colonial times that was a burglar. Yeah, that's a real creative costume. What a stupid dream.

Speaking of...I still have no clue what I'm going to be for H-ween. I was thinking of going as Chandra Levy, and then Tim told these friends of his that *they* should go as Chandra and Condit (they're two women and one has longer dark hair and the other has short spikyish hair...they're a lesbian couple...I guess it would be rather funny). So I'm kinda taken aback that someone would give away my idea even though I didn't *commit* to the Chandra costume, and my blonde hair might be a little hard to brunette-ify. But still I'm just a little mad that Tim would give my idea away like that. I guess some people don't understand the importance of not sharing original ideas. So there's this part of me that still wants to go as Chandra Levy but I don't know if it's the me that's clinging on to my original idea or the me that wants to go just to irk Tim because he gave my idea away. Another thought was to go as Chandra's mother and admittedly it would be an easier costume even though I know it's flame bait just for mentioning it here. But I wouldn't have to worry about looking good...just get a dark wig...tease it and chop it a bit...wear an oversized T-shirt with baby pictures on it and carry around a big yellow stuffed animal.

Then there's a part of me that doesn't want to dress up at all and I don't know if that's the me that's just plain sick of Halloween and spending lots of money for one night of sometimes not even *that* much fun, or if it's the me that wants to go just to irk Tim because he gave my idea away. Stan's pretty enthusiastic about going as Barbara Bush and Tim's pretty enthusiastic about going as Jackie Kennedy (again). Well, maybe if it's a first lady thing I should go as Laura Bush and not say anything the whole night. Heh. Or maybe I should go as a man...sort of a reverse sex thing since they guys are going as women. But I don't know who...I don't look like many men, at least not lately since I've plumped out.

I still want to go as Queen Elizabeth some day...(the first one)...I don't know if I could afford the clothes, though. But I'd love to do my hair and forehead like that.

I'd still love to go as Ellie May, but Stan would have to go as Granny and Tim would have to go as Jed for it to work. I'd make a good Ellie May, but I don't know how I'd sinch in my waist like that.

Stan's vacation plans got put on hold so we won't be able to vacation until October anyway, and I probably won't even be able to think about Halloween while we're on vacation. Halloween used to be my favorite "holiday." Now I can't even get enthusiastic about that anymore.
posted by Ann-S-Thesia at 9:31 AM ||



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