Parasitic Hat Trick

I'm trying not to crush,  I really am.  But after being in two long-term relationships in a row, my relationship parameters are a little screwy when it comes to dating.  I've always been the type to throw myself in with whoever I find attractive ... you like me, I like you, let's date!  But this isn't high school, and I keep telling myself I don't want to get into anything anyway.  Not that I listen to myself, obviously, which is why I'm having issues.  After having been known as half of a pair for nearly eight years, I find it's harder to be alone than I thought.  At the same time, I'm really enjoying getting to live life as I want to, making friends and doing things as just me.  (As much as I can given the living situation, anyway.)  The ambivalence really gets old after a while.  It doesn't help that most people I meet, young or old, are involved in relationships.  It's as if I'm one step behind everyone else, and if only I could have gotten myself on track sooner. ...  But who says I was ever off-track to begin with?  Sigh.  I keep telling myself there's so much I want to do, so many places I want to go, that being single is better for my life, anyway.  I think I already said something to that effect.  Sorry, I know I'm rambling.  The clearer story is that I've met this guy who is great to hang out with, someone I feel comfortable with - I can be myself around him, there's no weirdness or anxiety -  we just seemed to click, instant friendship.  So why am I over-analyzing?  Have I really gotten to the point where I'm so unsure of myself around guys that I can't be content with a normal friendship?  Is it to the point where any commonality I find is automatically turned into something more?  Am I over-analyzing because there's really something that attracts me to this person, or because I think there should be?  How completely pathetic do I sound?  :D  And of course, what's really complicating this whole mess for me is not the how-do-I-relate-to-guys issue, because if it was just that I'd probably blurt it out and get it over with.  No, it's the everyone-I-meet-has-a-partner issue.  So last night I found myself hoping that things wouldn't work out (it is a long-distance relationship, after all) and he & his girlfriend would break up.  And then of course I felt awful for hoping that.  I've never met this girl and from what I've heard I think I'd like her.  Still, I can't get this guy out of my head.  
And that's all I have to say about that.  Oh!  Except that we were talking about the issue of wearing a pentacle under or over one's shirt and I told him I solved that problem (sort of) by getting a tattoo.  He asked where, and I showed him, and he said "Oh! That's almost exactly like the one from Supernatural!"  So really, should I be surprised I'm crushing?  

I spent a bunch of time playing around with the look of my LJ, so I might as well post something, even though I need to get my night-owl ass to bed.  Having a day job sucks.  More on that later.  Three years has passed since I posted my "10 Things to Love About Terd Kitty" list, and a lot has changed.  So, I'm adding to it.

11) She knows her way home.  During the move she ran out the door and I thought I'd lost her ... luckily she ran back up the stairs and back in the apartment and hid behind the couch.

12) She's kind of a fraidy cat.  Pick a room and she'll figure out how to get from one side to the other while staying behind the furniture as much as she can.

13) But she doesn't put up with the shit the maltese gives her.  She'll growl, hiss and swipe at him if he's pushing the limits.  It's not her fault the dog's so dumb he thinks she's playing.

14) She doesn't bring dead baby birds into the house.

15) Every once in a while she decides she'll be nice to Racket and it makes such a cute picture. 

16) She comes out to sit near me when I'm at the table eating breakfast.  If I'm near the window space between kitchen and Florida room, she'll sit on the sill next to me.

17) She loves to curl up in the Shrek fabric cat bed I bought.

18) She also loves to curl up at the foot of my bed.

19) She's gotten more personable and will let my aunt pet her, which my aunt gets a kick out of.

20) She's a big ol' fat cat with a little tiny meow to match her little tiny head.

21) She understands the whole "I don't want kids" thing.  I fostered a 5-week old kitten for about a week recently and she didn't want anything to do with him.

January will make four years that she's been with me, through two moves, the dogs, Jean's death, and the acquiring of the now teenage-like Racket. I keep managing to do these things that disrupt her life (and often mine) and yet day after day she shows me that she's still my baby girl.   

If YOU'RE ON MY FRIENDS LIST, I want to know 36 things about you. I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other. Short and sweet is fine ... You're on my list, so I want to know you better!
BE HONEST! COPY FROM HERE THEN SEND DIRECTLY TO ME IN A COMMENT THEN, REPOST THE EMPTY QUESTIONS

- Note from me: There are only 35 questions on this list, (#34 was missing) and because I couldn't think of a question to put in its spot, I just renumbered for accuracy, cause I'm picky like that.


1) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
A.

2) What was your dream growing up?
A.

3) What talent do you wish you had?
A.

4) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
A.

5) Favorite vegetable?
A.

6) What was the last book you read?
A.

7) What zodiac sign are you?
A.

8) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
A.

9) Worst Habit?
A.

10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
A.

11) What is your favorite sport?
A.

12) Do you have a Negative or Optimistic attitude?
A.

13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
A.

14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
A.

15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
A.

16) Do you have any pets?
A.

17) What if i showed up at your house unexpectedly?
A.

18) What was your first impression of me? (hmmm...careful!)
A.

19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
A.

20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
A.

21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
A.

22) What color eyes do you have?
A.

23) Ever been arrested?
A.

24) Bottle or can soda?
A.

25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
A.

27) What's your favorite place to hang at?
A.

28) Do you believe in ghosts?
A.

29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
A.

30) Do you swear a lot?
A.

31) Biggest pet peeve?
A.

32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
A.

33) Do you believe in/appreciate romance?
A.

34) Do you believe in God?
A.

35) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?
A.

 Today I assisted with a surgery on the floor.  That's right - the dog, me, the doctor, the instruments ... all on the floor.  Dr. K didn't want to screw with putting the dog up on a table because he weighed 117 pounds.  Pfft.  We've dealt with heavier dogs than that.  Anyway, it wasn't a big surgery, just stitching up a laceration, but still.  On the floor. 

 I totally thought of something I was gonna post here while I was at work and now I can't remember what it was.  Hm.  

In other news, I have upgraded my crazy quotient among my coworkers by suggesting that one of them line her doors and windows with salt to ward of demons when she said she felt creepy.  So that's good.  I've gotta do something to make myself stand out - it's not like I can say I'm the crazy nurse, cause we're all the crazy nurse.  (Same goes for the doctors, IMO)  The new girl is giving me tough competition on the crazy meter.  She tried to cheer up the grumpy-old-man owner of the clinic by doing the robot.  Dude.  We're totally like Scrubs, but with animals. 

Our little puppy, Cabo, went home the day before I wrote the last entry.  Yay!!  Unfortunately, a little parvo puppy named Mojo that was in the hospital at the same time didn't make it.  At one point while caring for him, I was certain he was headed for death's door [He spent  the day with both his temperature and his blood glucose yo-yo-ing up and down (at 11 am he had a fever of 105 - 2 hours later he was hypothermic at 95.  His BG got down to around 27, even while he was on fluids with dextrose.)], but he had rallied a bit before I left, starting to act more like a puppy, so I had some hope for him.  It turned out my first impression was right - he died about three hours later.  It saddens me when any pet dies, but especially so when such a young puppy has to suffer through such a nasty disease and never gets to experience the joys of life.  I hold strong to the belief that at least while he was hospitalized, I was able to give Mojo some much-needed comfort and love, that as miserable as I know he was, maybe my presence and care made his last hours not quite so bad.  I hold onto that belief even while knowing there are those who would accuse me of anthropomorphizing Mojo.  I hold onto that belief because without it, without feeling that at least I can comfort the suffering if not save the dying, there would be no hope, no purpose at all.  And that would be intolerable.    

Because I'm up, and I'm here, and because tyriadarklighte insists that I update my LJ.

It's too bad House is a physician, and not real, cause there are days we could really use him in our clinic. Not that he'd do a whole heap of good even if he was a real veterinarian. Granted, our patients don't lie, and one isn't likely to be shot by one (although recent events prove it is possible), but they don't communicate their symptoms very well, and very often they do get out the claws and/or try to take bite or two out of our flesh.  Most recently we had this cute little maltese puppy (note: the site that hosts this picture sells puppies.  I am in no way promoting the site or condoning the sale of puppies or other pets over the internet - I chose this site/picture because it most represents the puppy we've been caring for at work.) named Cabo who had some problems regulating his blood glucose (BG) and was also diagnosed with coccidia and giardia, intestinal parasites that are easily treated.  Litlle Cabo was getting treatment for those and several other symptoms, but he just wasn't getting better.  Day after day, he remained lethargic and relatively unresponsive, a good sign he didn't feel well.  He wasn't deteriorating but he wasn't getting any better either.  We had to pull out one IV catheter and replace it, then we completely stopped fluids when Cabo pulled the second IV cath out.  The next task was getting him to eat.  We have a variety of foods that we use, including baby food and sliced deli turkey, because a good portion of the time getting them to eat something is of more concern than what they eat.  It took several tries and over a day to get a recipe that he liked, which ended up being a combination of turkey, baby food, and canned A/D.  Then he ate like a horse, chowing down and getting food all over his little (previously white) face.  On Monday he started moving around more, coming to the front of the cage, and whining for attention.  Good signs, all of them.  When the patients start acting like they should, be it playful, loving, or pissed off, moods go up and we start bugging the vets to get them out of there.  I haven't been there since Monday, so I don't know if Cabo went home, but I highly suspect he did.  And I don't think we'll ever know just what was wrong with him or exactly what we did to fix it, but hopefully he won't have any more issues.  

House would never be happy with being a vet in any world, real or imagined.  Sure, there are lots of diagnostic challenges, but there's rarely ever a real answer to the puzzle.      

Not really sure what got me on this track, but recently I've been playing "6 degrees of [pick your favorite celebrity]" with myself. I even managed to find two different ways to lead from me to Jensen Ackles (and by default, also to Jared).  

Way #1: Me --> Ex-boyfriend --> Ex-boyfriend's Dad, who shot most of the aerial filming for Top Gun --> Tom Cruise --> Katie Holmes, who we all know starred in Dawson's Creek --> Jensen, who we all know guested on D.C. (saw him in an episode of that the other day, and boy, did he look young!) --> Jared, if one is inclined to add him (and I really can't see why anyone wouldn't)

Way #2: Me --> Former co-worker (Ty - this is PK), who worked at the University of Maryland with --> Anne Simon, who was the science advisor for The X-Files --> Kim Manners, who we all know directed many, many episodes of TXF --> Jensen --> Jared (and that one's less than 6 for both boys!)

And because no "6 degrees" game would ever really be complete with Kevin Bacon, take Way #1 and go from Tom Cruise straight to Kevin, since they both starred in A Few Good Men (movie, of course).  And if anybody wants to fudge it a little, we could go from Tom to Jensen as well since they both played Daniel Kaffee and that makes three ways to get from me to him. 

Now if only I could make those into real-life connections ... 

Of course, if Edward Cullen and his family ever fancied a visit to the Texas/Oklahoma area, now would be the time to do it.

Speaking of vampires, I have managed to acquire a job to suit my preferred vampire hours as a vet assistant at the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Hospital (hereafter referred to at VECCH, cause that's a heck of a lot to type out) not far from my aunt's house.  Although I do see daylight on a regular basis, the earliest I've had to be at work is 5:00 PM.  As a bonus, that's about the time most day practices close so it's much busier than the M-F daytime shift.  I fit in great with the staff, which gives you all a clue about what my co-workers are like, and after only about two weeks of work I've gotten to see some pretty interesting stuff.  Hopefully once my schedule gets a little more straightened out I'll be able to make regular posts about some of our cases.  [Disclaimer: No specific information will be posted about the animal or it owner.  You'll get species and why they're there, maybe breed if you're lucky, and sometimes brief descriptions of owners, such as diabetic cat's mom who brings pieces of plants and pennies when she comes to visit.  Stories may include happy or unhappy endings, lectures about dos/do nots with regard to owning a pet (but no advice on specific health issues beyond "see your vet"), and massive amounts of grossness.  Those who cannot handle reading about said grossness may be mercilessly mocked for their wimpage, which I claim rights to do as a former wimp.  Believe me, reading about it is nothing compared to experiencing it firsthand.] 

There have been more than a few moments when I've wondered if moving to OKC was the right decision, but after being here for a month I can see that it was.  I don't get a lot of socializing done, but having the company of my aunt & uncle around the house helps tremendously.  The four-legged company has also increased, and the entertainment value of said four-leggeds is worth the craziness of five animals in the house.  (Expect stories about them, too.) 

Yeah, so ... not much to say, except packing sucks.  And my hands are all black from the newspaper I've been using.  Ew. 

In my car's CD player right now I have a best-of hits by K's Choice and there's a song on there (taken from the Paradise in Me album) called "Dad" that always makes me think of the relationship between Sam and John Winchester.  If I was not such a moron when it comes to computers, I'd make a video for it.  But for now, everyone will just have to suffer with plain ol' lyrics:

I was a kid you were my dad
I didn't always understand
I wanted freedom you got mad
You were concerned I got upset
I didn't recognize you yet
And did you cry I know I did
When I lied to you
I didn't want to hurt you
I just never knew I did
You never told me that you loved me
I know you did not know how
I guess that shows we're much the same
'Cause I love you too and until now
I've never said those words out loud
I hope you're proud
To be my dad...
What are your secrets, do you pray
Is there a god that shows your way
I wish I knew you ...
Do you have crazy fantasies
What happens in your dreams
I want to know you ...
I guess you'll always be a mystery to me
But you taught me how to value life
And what else do I need
I have a dad who watches over me

Am I the only one who sees the correlation, or do you think I have something here?  Also, if you go to the K's Choice website (linked above) and click on "audio" you can listen to the song.  

Adios for now ... gotta get back to work.  Bleh.

I love the freaking amazing thunderstorms here.  I grew up in SoCal.  There's no such thing as thunderstorms there, not really.  Sure, I remember one when I was a wee lass that freaked the crap out of my best friend and me, but that was a good 20 years ago.  So I figure that's long enough to be practically non-existant.  When I was 15 I went on a Wider Opportunity to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Northern Minnesota and Southern Canada, and during that trip we had two thunderstorms come up on us right as we were about to hit the sleeping bags.  Having never seen a real thunderstorm before, let alone stand in the midst of a bunch of evergreens on a little island in the middle of a huge lake with no real shelter for god knows how many miles, I was flipping out.  If I could have sat down and curled into a fetal position I would have, however, the best I could do was squat because the ground was flowing mud.  Luckily there was another girl in my group who came from a fairly thunderstorm-free area, so I didn't have the embarassment of being the only wuss.  Since then, however, I never feared another thunderstorm.  (Tornadoes, on the other hand ...)  In fact, just a year later I was in Oklahoma City on my college hopping tour admiring the storms with my mom.  (Baby bro was there, too, but I'm not sure he liked them so much.)  And tonight, when the storm is at some of its worst (or best, depending on your perspective), I put down the laptop and sit on my balcony to enjoy the show. 

I figure since I've been hanging around here again, thanks to tyriadarklighte, I might as well at least attempt to update my journal.  Meant to do this last night but I got stuck perusing ljsecret instead.  I've posted a comment or two in various places, so if you happened to see one of those and came to visit, trying to figure out who the hell this person is that's suddenly appeared, hi!  Mostly I just lurk around admiring other people's creative genius because I don't have the patience to create my own.  And that's pretty much all I've got.  Something more interesting may come along later, hopefully before another year and change passes us by.

The signs were out when we got back to the apartment complex tonight. "Freeze Warning! Leave Faucets Dripping." This afternoon there was talk about remembering to check the website or the weather hotline in case the school closed because of inclement weather. It looks like tomorrow morning may be clear of any frozen white stuff falling from the sky, but the afternoon and Thursday may bring some ideal Christmas weather. And I worry. Tonight the "crazy cat lady" is out, keeping her dear Miss Kitty company. One of the dog walkers stopped to let me pet her mini poodle and expressed how worried she was about the cat lady. I just sort of shrugged, because I know we can't change her mind, but still ... I worry too. I worry because she's had a horrible cough for months and it could turn into pneumonia. I worry because she spends her time following her adopted Miss Kitty around the complex through heat and cold and the middle of the night. I worry because our cat lady doesn't fit into society's definition of normal. But then I remember that appearances are deceiving. I'm sure there are people around campus who consider me a crazy cat lady, rummaging around in the bushes every day after work, making sure food and water bowls are filled for animals I rarely see. I spend time caring for and worrying about animals who aren't mine. I haul cat carriers around in the hopes of catching animals that would sooner bite me than curl up on my lap. The president of the Campus Cat Coalition is caretaker to over 10 cats in her home. She's spent at least $1000 on diagnotic tests for a chronically ill cat. Last month she took a week out of her personal vacation time to travel to Louisiana and assist in the continuing effort to rescue cats affected by Hurricane Katrina. I assisted by cat-sitting for her. Tonight she and I are happy because I caught a kitty I christened Kermit who has some kind of infection. Kermit has a warm place to stay and people who will do what they can to make him healthy. Which makes him one less thing to worry about.

There's a group I'm involved in at the school called the "Campus Cat Coalition." Basically what we do is give food, water, and shelter to the feral cats on campus as well as trying to control the population by what's called the Trap-Neuter-Release method. It's fairly self-explanatory: we set out humane traps for the kitties, take any we've caught to the vet where they're spayed or neutered and given vaccinations, then released back into the population. We get some pretty decent support from the campus - one lady who works down the hall from me adopted a kitten when we were doing our adoption program during the summer. Then there are those who think we should call animal control and have them all carted off to be euthanized. *Roll eyes* It was the second group I thought of while I was out refilling my feeding stations. That made me think of something one of my coworkers told me the other day. I don't remember exactly who he'd heard it from, but he told me about a family who adopted a dog from the animal shelter, then later returned it. Why? Because the mother gave her children a choice: They could keep the dog, or after a year of owning it they could take it back and get a swimming pool. One guess what they chose.
This is why I volunteer. Countless times people tell me they couldn't handle doing what I do. They say they'd want to take all the animals home. I can understand to an extent. It breaks my heart to have to put animals back in the van to go back to the shelter, but I know they're going back to get more chances to be adopted. It's also bittersweet to see them get adopted, because although I know they've gone to good families, I won't be seeing them again. The sweet animals I fall in love with at first sight are gone from my life forever. But I don't think about my loss - I think about their gain. That's the whole idea of volunteering to help animals - or anyone else for that matter. For my part, I do what I can to make the five hours I'm there the best I can, both for me and for the animals. I think it's selfish not to do something because you're afraid of the experiences associated with it, but I suppose I can't really say much about it. Choosing to volunteer is actually a pretty selfish thing for me - I can't have a dog here, so I volunteer, cause they'll let me play with their dogs for free.

I really meant to explain my last post when I wrote it, but seeing as I had a migraine at the time, my head took a bit more precedence. I've discovered in recent months the community of animal bloggers, which of course I fell in love with.  This post over at The Rabbit Lived inspired my list of reasons to love Terd Kitty.  Basic story as written by Christine, TRL's author (who is also a veterinarian):
I also managed to start a nice fight on a message board. A woman wrote in about how much she hated her cat - really, could I be expected to keep quiet on that one? She was looking for validation about the way she treated the cat, because after all he scratched her new furniture and wanted to go out and come in and go out and come in and go out and come in. You know, because he's a cat. I responded, and I was pretty angry and ended up suggesting that she find another home for the cat (while mentioning that cats don't really get that new furniture thing) and that she watch herself around her kid. Because if her kid learns that that's how one should treat an animal, in about 20 years that kid is going to be some poor vet's nightmare, and I was looking out for my brethren.

So, to help in her quest to find pet owners who really are good pet owners, I posted my list.  It would probably be of more use to her if I actually added my list to her comments, but I feel a tad weird doing that with someone I don't even know.  Hah.  The internet, great communicator for introverts, can't beat my uneasiness at starting a conversation with strangers.  Even hiding behind a computer screen, I'd rather "people-watch" than actually participate, for the most part.  Maybe participate is the wrong word, but I can't think of the right one.  Bah.  That's what I get for watching an action movie while I post.  (Gone in Sixty Seconds - they've got some damn fine cars in that movie, especially the Shelby GT.  Speaking of fine cars, one of these days I'll post pics from our weekend to Houston - we went to a sort of impromptu car show and drooled over some very nice specimens.) 
Terd Kitty cracks me up - she's sitting in front of the fireplace staring at the log that's completely gone out, except for a few embers.  Kids and animals are fascinated by the simplest things.  Anyway, check out the link above.  And read the rest of The Rabbit Lived - Chris is a fabulous writer with some absolutely hilarious posts.  Maybe one day you'll even see me "de-lurking" to comment on one of them.  ;)

Ten reasons why my Terd Kitty is the best Terd Kitty in the world:

1) It took her 30 seconds to convince Dave that she was "The one."

2) She has a big belly, just like the rest of the family.

3) Her head is too small for her body.

4) When she was smaller she played fetch.

5) She's more curious than afraid of the vacuum and the shredder.

6) She managed to kill Dave's computer twice and live to tell the tale.

7) You've never seen a better climber.

8) But she can't jump worth a shit.

9) She has no qualms about jumping into the shower with us and either licking up or playing with the water coming from the shower head.

10) She is impervious to kitty-proofing, including spray bottles and double-stick tape.

I saw the list below at autumnsoltice 's journal the other day.  It can be found at the Online Computer Library Center as part of their list of the 1000 top banned books of all time:

This is a list of the titles that both made it to the OCLC Top 1000 list and have been banned according to the 4 volumes in the Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature series.

The idea is to bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you've partially read, and underline the ones you specifically want to read.  See my answers below: 

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Qur'an
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (have on my shelf - just not opened yet)
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh (Mayan creation myths)
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

I think the most interesting thing about the books I've read is that a great majority of them were assignments at school - all private, Christian schools.  It's good to know that even though some of the theology might have been iffy, their standards for literature weren't.

Argh, it's hot. The air conditioner decided that it was tired of blowing cool air at some point today so I came home 90 degree heat inside. Not happy, especially since it's been so hot and all I wanted to do was relax in the cool air. Supposedly the temperature is going to drop to around 75 tonight, so we opened the windows, but I don't know that it helped much. A few of my readers will understand when I say it reminds me of Purdue. The poor cat apparently can't get a break. She was puking earlier this week, either because she decided chewing on the carpet was a fun pastime or because what was left in her food container had been there since February. We knew she wasn't sick because she was still her very active, occasionally annoying self. So I sprinkled onion flakes in her favorite carpet-chewing spots (onion being the only thing she dislikes), bought a new bag of food and fed her in a clean dish. So no puking today, but now she's got to suffer with the heat, and she's panting like crazy. Today I can tell she's not feeling so great cause she's not running around and playing, but I can't say I blame her. Maybe I'll toss her in the shower or something. I know, given the general nature of cats that's probably not a wise thing to do, but seeing as how she voluntarily jumps into the bathtub while we are showering, I can't say I'm afraid of consequences. She'd probably be grateful. The funniest part is when she tries to bat at the water and then gets annoyed cause her paw is wet. Quite the entertainer, she is. Ugh, time for a tall glass of water and a fan.

My new favorite bumper sticker says: "I don't have to like Bush to love my country." I want one.

I'd be all patriotic for the holiday and put up the little flag insert that was in the student newspaper but I have to pack up my desk and the front desk by next Friday for office renovations. So being patriotic will have to wait a bit. I must remember to write a letter to the paper in appreciation of mentioning some flag etiquitte, such as folding the flag and proper displays. Too many Americans are not educated about correct flag treatment, in my opinion.

There's an ad that's been in the Fort Worth Weekly that's caught my eye the last few editions - it has a picture of three or four goldfish crammed into a too-small bowl and a headline reading "Togetherness is overrated." It's for the real-estate & apartment ads that the Weekly runs in the classified section, obviously encouraging people to go out and get their own residences. Well big raspberries to them, I say. American society is way too focused on individualism. We talk about learning from other cultures and being a "melting pot," but we're not really willing to change our way of life. You can see on my info that one of my interests is hispanic culture, & I think the best thing we Americans can learn from that culture is its value of family. That cultural value is why you drive down the street and see five cars in front of a house and 10 (or more!) people living inside. To us it seems trashy, ghetto, but that's because we don't look deep enough at what's really happening there. Kids are growing up with family around them, with people who watch over and care for them. Adults share in the work and the paying of bills. During the time I was living with my family in what I felt was a crowded household, I wanted nothing more than to get away. But now that I'm gone I miss that togetherness, that sharing of lives, even when it did get a little crazy. I was hardly ever alone there - now I come home from work and sit by myself til Dave gets home. There was always some kind of noise going on - now I tire of the silence. I say individualism it what's overrated.

One of the users posted a link to this site at crossandflame.com and I thought I'd share it here. I don't like war and I'd never join the military, but I think it is incredibly important to know, share, & remember the experiences of those who are in the forces and who have been in war. Please take the time to read some of these letters and share them with friends and family.
http://www.warletters.com/