11.02.07
Posted in arrrrgh, law, outrage, patriotism, politics, sexuality, women at 9:55 am by Hanne Blank
From today’s Kaiser Family Foundation’s daily Women’s Health Report:
Exhibit A:
A House-Senate conference committee on Thursday approved a fiscal year 2008 appropriations measure that would include a $27.8 million increase in funding of abstinence education programs, CQ Today reports. The legislation combines a Labor-HHS-Education spending bill (HR 3043) with a spending bill for the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction (HR 2642) (Wayne, CQ Today, 11/1).
Exhibit B:
Sixty-seven percent of U.S. adults favor allowing public schools to provide contraceptives to students, including 37% who favor providing them only to children whose parents have consented and 30% who favor providing them to all students who ask, according to a recently released Associated Press-Ipsos poll, the AP/Columbus Dispatch reports.
The poll, taken from Oct. 23 to Oct. 25, found that minorities, older and lower-income people are most likely to prefer requiring parental consent, while those who support no restrictions primarily are younger and from urban or suburban areas. People who oppose providing birth control at school are more likely to be white and higher-income earners. The majority of respondents said young people should have access to birth control either beginning at age 16 or age 18, compared with one-third who chose age 15 or younger.
The poll also showed that 51% of people believe sex education and birth control are more effective ways to reduce teen pregnancies than emphasizing abstinence and morality, compared with 46% who prefer moral and abstinence messages. About 64% of minorities and 47% of whites consider sex education and birth control the most effective method. Nearly seven in 10 white evangelicals said they prefer abstinence, as well as about 50% of Catholics and Protestants. About 62% of all people surveyed believe providing birth control reduces the number of teen pregnancies.
… The survey involved telephone interviews with 1,004 adults.
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08.25.07
Posted in arrrrgh, geek at 7:53 am by Hanne Blank
There’s this poor girl who keeps sending email to my spam filter who says that her boyfriend’s penis is so small it keeps slipping out when they have intercourse.
Then today she sent me email saying that her boyfriend’s penis was too large for her mouth, so she can no longer give him oral sex.
Some questions have come to mind:
a) Do you suppose this is in reference to the same man?
b) Do you suppose they’re both really from the same woman? They do have the same name. But different e-mail addresses.
c) Or is the girl two-timing the guy with the small penis?
d) If she is, does he know?
e) If he knows, does he care?
f) Do you think he gets angrier about her two-timing him, or about her disclosing personal information about his genitals to random people on the Internet?
g) If these are two separate men, do you think the second guy believes that the girl is only with him because of his gigantic schlong?
h) If these are two separate men, do you think the first guy believes the girl is only sleeping with the second guy because of his gigantic schlong?
i) Which of these two guys is more likely to be willing to get out of bed early to go down to the corner for bagels and coffee and a newspaper in the morning?
j) Which of these two guys actually pays more attention to the woman’s sexual pleasure? (I am not the only woman of my acquaintance to have perceived that guys with Louisville Slugger-sized whangdoodles often fail to perceive the need to have any actual, y’know, technique.)
k) Has her mother met both of these guys?
i) Which of them was nicer to her mom?
j) Would you call the second email a complaint, or a boast?
k) Do you think the guys who buy penis enlargement products are more afraid of ending up in the first scenario or the second?
l) Do you think the guys who buy penis enlargement products would buy them if there were a realistic chance that using said products would mean they’d never get another blowjob?
m) Do you think the second guy used penis enlargment products, or is he just a ringer brought in for the occasion?
n) Hasn’t anyone told this poor girl about Kegel exercises?
o) Hasn’t anyone told this poor girl that God gave men hands and tongues for a reason?
p) Seriously, most of the women I know (and I know some very highly sexed women) don’t get quite so exercised about the sizes of their partners’ penises, so why is this woman so fixated?
q) Do you think this woman suffers from penis envy?
r) Would it help matters, do you suppose, if they had a threesome?
s) Or would that only make things worse?
t) Did this woman meet either of her two partners through online personal ads?
u) If so, were they on some “adult” personals site, or on a regular one?
v) Did the guys send her dick pix to help her make her choice?
w) Why does this woman feel so compelled to share the details of her personal life with strangers, anyway?
x) And where did she get my e-mail address?
y) Is she related to the bored Russian girl who wants me to go look at her pictures?
z) Is it perhaps the same man, and the same woman, and indeed the same penis, only the woman has an extraordinarily capacious coochie and a preternaturally tiny mouth?
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07.11.07
Posted in arrrrgh, cats, cooking, domesticity, food, housekeeping, humor, original recipes at 9:43 am by Hanne Blank
First, buy a hunk of beef. A piece of round roast, eye in this case rather than bottom, because it was super-duper cheap because its sell-by date was today and I bought it yesterday when they were doing their darndest to clear it out and I knew I’d be cooking it today.
Next, put the hunk of beef in the freezer. It’s a lot easier to cut meat into small uniform pieces if it’s partially frozen, so leave it in there for an hour and a half or so. Not long enough to freeze all the way hard, but definitely long enough to firm it up thoroughly.
Remove the beef from the freezer. Unwrap, and place on cutting board. Get out your favorite butcher’s knife or cleaver and slice meat across the grain into finger-thick slices. Then take each slice and cut into four or five crosswise strips, and then cut the strips into 1/2-inch dice.
Pile the chopped meat at one end of the cutting board while you get out a large heavy cast-iron pan and put a small but workable quantity of oil in the bottom, and put it on a highish heat.
Turn around to find that your kitten has soundlessly levitated up onto the cutting board and is standing with one paw half on the blade of the knife, half off — the sharp side, too — and the other paw smack in the middle of your pile of meat while he does his level best to eat as much as he possibly can. Realize that shouting may result in a cat with a sliced paw due to cat’s foot placement.
Carefully, use right hand to grasp knife handle and press sharp edge of blade firmly against cutting board while grasping scruff of cat’s neck with left hand. Lift cat from cutting board, ignoring the chunk of meat dangling from his claw and the one hanging out of his mouth. Deposit cat on kitchen floor, where he will look offended and continue to eat the beef he managed to take with him.
Ponder what to do now that a cat has been dancing in your raw meat. Cat will now look up at you with wide pitiable eyes and meow at you in as plaintive a starving-orphan-kittycat fashion as he can manage. Vent frustration with cat by stomping, hissing, yelling, waving arms, and flapping your skirts at him until he runs and hides in the basement.
Return to kitchen, asking self the question “WWJD?” In this case that means “What Would Julia Do?” (Despite the fact that Julia Child never actually <i>did</i> drop a roast on the air (see Snopes for details), nor yet had a cat marching about in her ingredients, I feel sanguine that she would’ve figured out a good solution if she had.)
Resolve that
a) this meat will be first seared at a high heat, then boiled in and subsequently simmered all day in an acidic (tomato) liquid, so
b) it is unlikely to successfully breed any nasty bacteria despite having been partially trodden by my horrible kitten.
Wash the meat in plenty of cold running water anyhow, for the purpose of rinsing off any yuk or cat hairs introduced in the feline snacking process. Be sure to turn down the heat under your pan, or the oil will start to smoke. Note that at this point, your ankles are being made ardent love to, and that an insistent chorus of chirps and trills is emanating from under your skirt. (Yes, I have a singing pussy. He’s quiet when he wants to be, though, quod erat very much previously demonstrandum.)
Ignore Feline Aria of Loving Adoration And Hopeful Petition For More Beefy Goodness. Similarly ignore equally loving and similarly hopeful looks from the dog, who has come to see what’s going on because if the kitten is getting some of that meat, he wants a cut of the action.
Sear beef cubes heavily on all sides, then remove them to the stockpot.
Roughly dice four onions and saute until transparent in the oil and rendered fat from the beef, in the same pan.
While onions are cooking, open one large can crushed tomatoes and one large can diced tomatoes. Go to dump can of diced tomatoes into stockpot. Stumble badly due to treading on the tail of the aforementioned kitten, who until that instant had been operating on the assumption that if singing to me didn’t get me to give him anything, the least he could do was sprawl across the middle of the kitchen floor to keep an eye on things in case some meat magically flew out of the pot and landed on the floorboards. In attempt to not fall, lose grip on open can of tomatoes.
Chase tomato-splashed kitten in an attempt to grab him before he can get tomato on the couch (cream-coloured), upstairs carpet (light tan), or bedspread (light blue). Get an escort from the dog, who wants to know what’s going on, but really doesn’t care because he thinks this thing where we both chase the kitten up the stairs is a fantastic game.
Catch tomato-splashed kitten despite canine assistance. Without heed to how much tomato gets all over one’s own person, deposit kitten in bathtub and rinse clean, ignoring heart-rending yowls and pleas for someone, anyone, for the love of God, to contact Kitty Amnesty International.
Towel-dry and release kitten, who jets off into the bedroom to lick himself the rest of the way dry. Wonder why you didn’t think of just dousing him with water earlier, as the task of licking himself dry seems likely to keep him occupied for some time.
Return to kitchen. Open reserve can of diced tomatoes, add to stockpot, along with can of crushed tomatoes. Fill both cans with water and add that to the stockpot, too. Turn heat on under stock pot to a medium flame.
Clean tomato and/or tomato juice off of more kitchen surfaces than you thought possible. Scoop up as much from the floor as you can, and discard. Sop up the liquid with sponge and paper towel. Then mop the floor, which has now been mopped twice in two days, thank you very much.
Add chili powder, oregano, a handful of peeled garlic cloves (whole), and some epazote to the stockpot and stir. Notice as you are doing this that you missed several little spots of tomato juice on the cupboard-fronts.
Sponge clean the affected cupboard-fronts.
Look despondently at the other ingredients you’ve set out in order to do the other cooking you planned to do this morning, and instead of embarking immediately upon making tabbouleh or cha siu, go sit down with the computer for a bit instead while the meat and onions have a chance to simmer. You’ll put beans in later, as per usual. Do not under any circumstances think about the fact that eating raw meat tends to give the kitten an upset stomach.
No, really. Do not think about it. It’s not going to help, anyway. That train has left the station. There is nothing in the world you can do.
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01.28.07
Posted in arrrrgh, cats at 8:12 am by Hanne Blank
Qiao, the new kitten, is a little too smart for my own good. And possibly his.
The lesson he has evidently drawn from our usual schedule since he has become part of this household is that all monkeys need to be awake and out of the bed by the time it starts to get light out. If dawn has been permitted to advance too much and the monkey or monkeys are still sleeping, it is the duty of the kitten to make sure the monkeys don’t oversleep.
This is clearly best accomplished through a programme of stomping on their heads and chests, attempts to lick and chew on their fingers and forearms, and, should these prove ineffectual because the sleepy monkeys shove their appendages deep under the counterpane, climbing aboard and licking their lips with great vigor. Licking a monkey on the lips with your nasty scratchy little kitten tongue is pretty much un-ignorable and the monkey will wake up right smart. Especially since the monkeys know that for this particular kitten, thorough lickies are a prelude to chewing.
This is why I am now posting a blog entry whilst waiting for the kettle to boil so that I may caffeinate myself and continue the (highly entertaining from the half-grown boycat perspective) job of moving furnishings around the ground floor of the house preparatory to sweeping and mopping all the floors.
Did you know that our sofa is an incubator of cat toys? Apparently they go under there to breed. I am fairly certain I did not purchase this many. As I picked them up I stuffed them in the front pocket of my hoodie, and by the time I had gotten the last of them I had acquired an even more pronouncedly kangaroolike aspect than I normally have (kangaroovian? or, if one is to be Latinate, macropodal? that really doesn’t work, does it? sure they have big feet, but that’s not really the feature we mean to emphasize here, is it?).
I have relocated the jingley balls and fur mouses and such (all humanely) to the catnip bin so they can marinate prior to (re)consumption.
One begins to strongly consider the installation of VelcroTM wallpaper so that troublesome kittens may simply be applied to a convenient surface and kept out of mischief for long enough that one may gratify one’s need for a tiny bit of lie-in on a Sunday…
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12.07.06
Posted in arrrrgh, domesticity, housekeeping at 10:01 am by Hanne Blank
The trouble with the universe is basically that entropy wins. Any one of us may triumph briefly, but ultimately, entropy can count on victory. Even after all that’s left are cockroaches and gonorrhea and huge plastic highway fast-food signs looming high over the decimated landscape on their gigantic aluminum poles like meaningless flags left on the battlefield after a massacre, entropy will still be on the job, nibbling away at the aluminum and injection-molded plastics and seeing to it that eventually the cockroaches die of gonorrhea and the gonorrhea dies of not having any more cockroaches to live in.
But somehow with houses, entropy seems to happen in bursts.
I have empathy for houses falling apart. I really do. For one thing, I have lived in old houses nearly all my life, so I’m well familiar with cracks in plaster and pipes that make weird noises and floorboards that squeal. But also, I realize that houses are nothing but big boxes that stand outside in the rain and the heat and the sunlight and the snow, and on the inside, people do horrible things like let water fall out of holes in the wall, and cook things, and knock holes in the walls to let the light in from outside (when there is plenty of perfectly good light outside, too, if they’d only go there instead), and breathe, producing endless quantities of water vapor that have to go somewhere.
I mean, if you were a big box and people did all those things to you while making you stand outside with no protection from the elements, you’d get a little out of sorts, too. Maybe sometimes you would have a little tantrum.
Like mine did yesterday morning, when I noticed a small but definite quantity of water dripping from out of the light fixture in the middle of my kitchen. This is not a place from which one likes water to drip, water and electricity being a potentially nasty mixture, but it is a place from which water, if trapped in a space between a ceiling and a floor, does indeed like to drip, since the thing about light fixtures in ceilings is that they represent the presence of at least one and possibly multiple holes already made in said ceiling. Easier to flow through a hole that already exists than it is to erode one, and all that. Very Taoist.
So I turned off the light, shoved a large bowl with a dishtowel in it under the (minor) leak, began the massive freakout process, and called the plumber. The massive freakout process is a thing that goes along with water-related house entropy events, because unlike some other classes of house entropy event — a nonfunctional doorknob, for instance, or peeling paint — I know very little about how to diagnose or fix them and because they are beyond my ken they are additionally beyond my personal immediate control, and thus I become easily convinced that anything that happens may very well truly be the tip of some multi-thousand-dollar iceberg of horrible that has already affected multiple areas of my home and will render me penniless and all but homeless during the extended duration of the period required to make the situation even nominally better.
Note that this is true even when the quantity of water is very small, as in this case, where there was a steady drip for about 3 minutes and a few intermittent kerplops for about five minutes after that and then nothing further.
At my plumber’s advice I tested to see whether it was really a pipe issue (filling the tub partway and letting it drain out, flushing the toilet a few times, running water in the sink). It was not. It was, as my plumber, Karnak the Great, successfully diagnosed over the telephone, a problem of caulk and grout.
So, armed with a charming houseguest who read to me from zir new book whilst I labored, I pulled out some really revolting old caulk, which proved to me that indeed it probably was a caulk issue, since a good foot and a half long section of caulk was not exactly adhered to anything, and was just kind of lying there in the gap between the top rim of the tub and the bottom edge of the tiles on the wall growing interesting slimy molds on it.
In my inspections, however, I also realized that there was an area of tile on the lower wall at the far end of the tub where the grout was cracked.
Well. Grout and tile I know from. I did not catastrophize one bit when it came to the grout and the tile. I went and got my utility knife to scrape out the cracked grout with, so that I could get rid of the bad grout and regrout it. Heck, I even have two different colors of polymerized sanded grout in my basement and a big old jug of acrylic admix. At last, something I could handle on my own! With some luck I could get the rest of the caulk out, recaulk, and fix the grouting all before lunchtime.
I was going to be the Home Repair Messiah. I was going to Save the Day. I was going to be the illicit love child of MacGyver and Bob Vila and get up in there and Fix Stuff. Best of all I was going to do it in front of a hot butch who digs capable femmes with tools.
So I went up to scrape out cracked grout. The grout came out easily, as cracked grout tends to do.
Then a 3×3 inch tile fell out of the wall entirely, into my hand. A cascade of crumbled drywall — not greenboard, not tile backer board, and certainly not concrete sheeting like Durock, which is what you ideally want to have behind wall tiles in any wetroom application — fell out after it. I tugged gently on the tile next to the open hole. It came out too. And the one next to that, and the one next to that, with more crumbled drywall falling out into the tub as I went.
I sighed and prodded the gap in the wall. There was some ugly old mildewy plywood. There was some foil insulation backing visible. There was some non-crumbled drywall if I reached up far enough behind the next course of tiles up. It was, in short, precisely the kind of completely shoddy, corners-cut, miserably patched-together home “improvement” job I have come to expect and despise from the people who previously owned this house.
Clearly the day still needed to be saved, but it was not going to be saved by me. Not when the question had now gone from “can I remove and replace the caulk throughout the tub/shower aread, and the grout around a handful of tiles,” to “I wonder how much of this wall needs to be torn out and rebuilt and retiled?” I lack the experience to know how to assess the level of damage to drywall (see above about having lived mostly in old houses), as well as not knowing how to adequately patch a hole of this kind where it had in the past been filled with a mixture of materials.
So I called one of our neighbors, who conveniently happens to be a shaman in the discipline of combatting house-related entropy, or, as they are also known, an experienced interior contractor. His name amongst his people, I believe, is Dances With Drywall. He is a terrifically sweet and kind guy. He has come to look at it. He was suitably chagrinned at the level of crap construction I unearthed, and happy to do the work for us, whatever it ends up taking to fix it. He will come back and work on fixing it later today.
So. No MacGyver points for me. Minus several million Bob Vila points for the jackasses who did the home “improvement” the last time. But three cheers, and more, for Mr. Nels “Dances With Drywall” Shumacher. And, it must be said, for my psychic plumber.
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