Cats Enjoy People Who Hate Them

I've had way too much down time today at work, giving me extra time to catch up on my reading.

Earlier this week I read that California (tentative, really, until November) is now currently legally marrying gays and lesbians. I think that is great. I am particularly sensitive to this subject considering one of my sister in-laws is a lesbian and has a life partner whom I am very fond of. I would love nothing more than to see more progress for them and their ability to be recognized as equal citizens in this country in every way- especially LOVE.

I don't understand why some people believe that they have the right to go around preaching that the "sanctity of marriage" will be destroyed if gay people should be able to marry...considering that straight people in this country have been working diligently to tarnish that definition for years. The divorce rate in this country is a flippin' joke and it amazes me the hypocrisy of so many who commit adultery and who have treated marriage like some sort of disposable luxury to try on and discard as they please.

I guess I just get pissed when I see people like John McCain trying to sit on a high horse of morality when it comes to family values, when his own family values and politics are so ass backwards and hypocritical.

I mean, in my book, a man who cheats on and leaves his wife for a another woman (a wealthy woman 17 years his junior at that) is nothing but a huge scumbag ...and that goes visa versa for women who cheat on their husbands, by the way...and then, even slimier, in true politician form, tries to make it "ok" by admitting to have been entirely at fault for the whole thing, as if that changes anything.

I don't believe that an adulterer can legitimately enforce "traditional marriage" as if he is in any way in a position to be dictating moral authority.

Read all about his "family values" in the links below- then remember them the next time he speaks of the "sanctity of marriage."

Traditional Marriage.

McCain's Marriage History.

Posted by Meika at 9:22 AM    

Everyone keeps asking me, "Are you craving anything special now that you are pregnant?"

Oh yes. Yes I am. I am craving, like a ravenous starving animal, HOME COOKED MEALS. I don't care what it is, so long as it comes off a pan or out of a pot from someone's stove top. Or even a frozen pizza from someone's oven. Leftovers from someone else's previously cooked home cooked meal, a grilled cheese sandwich, even Ramen fucking noodles...I don't care. It doesn't have to be fancy. Even a simple pot of white rice would suffice. I want to walk into a kitchen and smell food cooking. I want to grocery shop for all of the meals I will make for the week. I want to come home from work and make dinner the way that I want it!

It's been 2 and a half months now since breaking ground on our house remodel, and I am about to lose my fucking mind from having no kitchen. No living room, I can handle. But no kitchen? It has been the most inconvenient, pain in the ass, eye-opening experience of my domestic life as a wife...and as a girlfriend, individual and overall human being. I was OK throughout the first month or so...then voila!

I am pregnant and food has become the center of the world in which I exist...being nauseated is worse when your only options for food is take out...which has officially become disgusting and utterly unacceptable to me.

For the ladies out there who choose both not to cook for themselves and for their significant other, I am shaking my head. I am confused, because I have learned that, while having no kitchen access for the first time in my life, the only alternative to not cooking your own food is to GO TAKE OUT. WHY would anyone, on a daily basis, voluntarily pay to ingest rehydrated frozen meat patties and other ingredients all shipped in bulk, doused and dipped in grease and slid down an assembly line?

BARF BARF and MORE BARF. How people are satisfied with surviving off of generic meals made to order on a day to day basis just baffles the hell out of me. Even- especially- sit-down restaurant food. It's all "cooked" and prepared by strangers with their mystery germs and habits and kitchen heat sweat handling what you are going to put in your mouth...(DRY HEAVE).

I can't take it anymore! Even carefully selecting the "healthiest" options on any given menu is still just the lesser of the same evil. I would sooner not eat than have to spend one more penny on take out. I can feel what that food is doing to my body and how it is affecting me. NONE of it sounds even remotely appetizing- it makes me feel sick just thinking about it. I have had "morning sickness" for the past four weeks straight, but I think that it is mostly a product of what I have been forced to consume. My body isn't used to eating CRAP every day- and although I have a very robust appetite, I am a pretty healthy eater for the most part.

Perhaps this is because I grew up in a household where there was always a home cooked meal on the table, even if it was just mac and cheese with fish sticks and a can of peas(on evenings when mom was particularly tired). Mom was a workaholic, highly decorated military administrator who got up for work at 5 a.m. every day, came home around 6 p.m. or later, once a month clocked 14 straight days with no day off (UTA weekends on base) and STILL managed to always cook my brother and I nutritious, well-balanced meals at the end of the day.

Eating fast food or going out to a restaurant was a rarity in my household- a TREAT reserved for special occasions only a couple of times a year.

Yes, I am bragging on my mamasan- but she more than deserves it. I have more appreciation for her and her dedication to putting food made with love on the table than I ever have before. I am even more convinced that I have the greatest mother on the planet. Her face should be painted onto cathedrals, she should be hoisted onto a golden throne and fanned by the wings of angels for what she does. GOD I would kill to be in her kitchen right now, watching her slice and dice and chop and mix and work her magic on the stove...

I know that if Taylor and I lived in Norman, or if she lived in City, while all of this is going on, she would have us over every single evening to eat home cooked dinners. We have been going down to Norman once a week and those evenings have seriously become the saving grace and highlight of my life. Knowing that I get to eat mom's food is what keeps me going all week.

Call me a brat, but I am disappointed that in the almost 3 months since of being kitchenless, Taylor and I have not been invited over for more home cooked meals by the people in our life (although I do appreciate the very few who have and have been consistent about it!). I would do it for them in a heart beat...but then again, I actually enjoy cooking and feeding people. I am learning that not everyone shares that interest. I guess this is because the majority of people that we know don't cook like I do and that makes me sad. What a waste of perfectly good kitchens all over the land.

I went to a set of in-law's house the other night, armed with a box of macaroni and cheese. They aggressively tried to sway me into joining them in going to a Mexican restaurant (which I do appreciate the invite always!), but I just couldn't do it. I was about to cry I wanted that box of mac and cheese so badly I was shaking,

"Just please, for the love of GOD let me make and eat this 69 cent box of macaroni! It's the only thing on this Earth that I will eat right now!"

They never use their kitchen, so it helps that they live up the street for me to come and crash it every now and then- put it to use until I get my own back.

This will all be worth it in the long run, I know. Supposedly we only have another 2 weeks or so until the kitchen will be up and running...and when that happens, we have made a pact to not eat out again for the rest of the year...maybe EVER.

I know that once the baby comes my life will be more hectic, but if my mom could pull off the amazing feat as a wife and mother that is cooking for her family on a daily basis, I know that I will be able to too!

Posted by Meika at 1:48 PM    

Each semester, including summer session, I have to study and break down the demographics for the university that I work at for press releases announcing enrollment trends.

It sounds boring, but it really isn't. I think it's kind of interesting- especially when you start noticing trends within gender, race and age.

For example, I believe that by now the entire country is aware of the fact that women outnumber men in their numbers of full-time enrolled college/university students, and college/university graduates. Yes, folks. This means that more women than men are going to college. This means that the majority of the female American population is in fact smarter and more educated than American men.

It has been a consistent trend over the past 10 years, not just in Oklahoma, but nationally. Almost twice as many females as males attend university and graduate with a 4-year degree. My institution alone is 63%/36% women/men, and it hasn't really budged an inch in difference since 2004. That's just in 4 years. Think about how huge that difference has become since, oh, the early 1900s...before women could even vote for her president.

What's even more interesting, and disheartening, is that even with this overwhelmingly large gap of women choosing to pursue higher education over men, females are still only making about 77 CENTS TO THE DOLLAR of what a man makes in the work force.

There are statistically more college educated women going out into professional careers, yet we still have a pathetically large gap in our wages. How sad is that? I've heard some douche bag guys comment on how that gap has come such a long ways and how women should be happy with our "progress"...

Really? So we should be satisfied to be called equal citizens but get paid significantly less than a man doing the same work? In what delusional world does that work?

By the way, for anyone who isn't aware, Obama seems to be the only presidential candidate (now that Hilary is out of course) who seems concerned at all about women's issues, such as equal pay for women, the freedom to rule over own bodies and other RELEVANT ISSUES THAT AFFECT WOMEN EVERY DAY.

He is also the one who has actually made improving women's issues an issue of his campaign. If you have a vagina and/or care about the future of your future/existing daughters, read HERE.

His opponent, John McCain (Old Man Withers as I like to call him) is,

..."offering independent and Democratic women the unconventional pitch that his policy prescriptions for economic, health-care and environmental issues trump such traditional issues as equal pay, abortion rights and contraception coverage."

This appeasing bullshit to me says that the man isn't concerned enough about women's issues to squeeze any aspect of it into his campaign...leaving him "free" not to touch the issues in a way that overtly say what he really means, "Your concerns as a woman are not important and I don't care to take the time or effort to go there."

...."Except I WILL work to overturn Roe vs. Wade and keep your wage gap wide open." <- (OK, so he didn't actually say that, but that's what he intends to do, minus the blatant wage gap part...but avoiding the issue completely is saying precisely that!).

He's that old white man politician from a cob webbed, dusty old generation where women's issues, civil rights and equal rights were at one time scoffed at and resisted by a large chunk of his demographic. Looks to me like his old ass is still living in an era where the "little woman" should be at home making babies, cleaning house and keeping her mouth shut.

Read more about what Old Man Withers has to say about such topics in the following article:

Obama/McCain Women's Issues.

Perhaps the startling realities of gender, college education and wage earnings are what is causing the decline in the number of men choosing to go to college...

Maybe more and more of them are discovering that if they have half a brain and some ambition/motivation, they don't even need to go to college to go out into the real world and get a good paying job. Maybe they are figuring out that they will STILL get paid more money than a woman applying for the same position, so why bother enduring the time, effort and hassle of pursuing higher education?

Maybe if the tables were turned, and suddenly THEY were the ones getting paid less for the same work, they might feel more inclined to excel at university so that they feel more confident in their chances of getting a good paying job should they be put in the position to contend with the opposite gender who holds an advantage because of the junk they were born with.

Perhaps enough of them (particularly white men) are confident in the fact that since the birth of this nation, their commander in chief has always been "one of them" and is on their team, so they don't feel as if they have to compete with women for jobs or be concerned about making anything less than SIGNIFICANTLY MORE than what the other gender or races gets paid...

...then again, most college guys don't enroll in courses that would school them on this kind of information, and the majority of them as far as I know don't care to actively pursue this kind of information...and the information isn't exactly out there for everyone to be forced to acknowledge like it should be...so when they hear it from someone like me, they feel threatened and go on the defense and see me as some kind of "Feminazi" radical who likes to bash men, when in all reality, what does it hurt them to know the truth? They have mothers and sisters and daughters and girlfriends and females friends that they care about, so you'd think they'd take it seriously.

...but then again, if less and less guys are going to college, the chances of them learning this information gets even slimmer, so most guys are most likely just ignorant to women's issues anyways- and choose to put their ear muffs on when people like me talk about it so that they may remain happily out of the loop.

I don't know. This is all just speculation. It isn't man hating or men bashing or "feminazi" ranting...it is just a woman with a college degree, out in the workforce, wondering the ways of the world that she lives in and speculating on the facts and issues that affect her life and that of her unborn daughters...mentally chewing on facts and issues which can not be denied and should not be swept under a rug....

Posted by Meika at 1:18 PM    

How cute is THIS:



A little deer with a single horn in the middle of its head has been discovered in Italy...and it has been nick named "Unicorn." Um, is it just me or could they have been a little more creative? I mean, obviously it embodies the mythological unicorn creature's defining characteristic...and that's the point. It's like naming a cat "Kitty." A little redundant if you ask me.

And this is UNICORN territory we're talking about here, people. That's serious business.

If I had a little deer with a unicorn horn I would name it something like Moonstone or Powder, via My Little Pony (surely some of you also had the My Little Pony unicorns?!).

I guess this little guy is a deer, and not a horse- but still. Little discoveries like this unicorn deer keep me young in believing that there are magical things out there to spark imaginations.

Posted by Meika at 2:15 PM    

...a plate of macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes with gravy. No meat. No veggies. Just carbolicious goodness. I am thinking that I could eat this meal every day for the next 7 or so months. My baby is going to be born craving macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes from the womb.

By the way, for those who do not know yet, I am pregnant. It feels good to finally let that cat out of the bag without fear of having to grab it by its tail and yank it back into said bag.

We went and got our first ultrasound for this pregnancy last week, and much to our relief, the little Taylor Tot has a nice strong heartbeat...my world has become a happier, brighter, amazing place to be.

I am vowing not to bitch and complain about any remote aspect of my pregnancy. I might make observations and note sentiments as they come, but I keep reminding myself of how fortunate I am to be carrying this baby.

I'm also not going to let myself turn this blog into the "baby blog," although I'm sure there will be plenty to note and discuss as I venture further down this pregnant road.

One thing, for example, is how much more Taylor and I are starting to notice and take notes on the misbehavior of small children in restaurants. I am amazed at how many parents refuse to control their children in public places.

My friend Brian at work believes this to be because too many parents these days go out of their way to make their kids feel as if they are the world's most "special snowflakes" who are incapable of doing anything wrong- therefore, too many screaming, undisciplined brats are running ramped in a restaurant near you.

I pointed this out to a coworker today at an office lunch at Old Chicago pizza. She laughed and said that when her daughter was young, she and a bunch of other mothers would take their tribe of small children out to eat and let them roam free to have "fun" and move around...and that it was funny how it seemed like so many of them wound up going out of business soon after.

???? Funny? I think not. She was THAT lady.

I see a lot of parents who talk the talk, but don't walk the walk...and even when they talk the talk they don't really MEAN it. It's more of a, "Billy, NO. Don't do that. Anyways, so like I was saying...blah blah blah" while Billy and his sister are running laps around the table, crawling under chairs and bringing surrounding patrons that much closer to slapping a stranger's child.

We heard a kid in the restaurant scream, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" to his mother, followed by the kind of wailing and howling that could quite possibly drive one to insanity if exposed for too long.

My mom used to let me get away that kind of temper tantrum throwing when I was little. My aunts still tease me about it. I don't remember that though...all I remember is the gut feeling of terror of pissing my dad off in the same scenario and being the most behaved small person to ever grace a booster seat.

That's what kids need. Note to self: Dad's strategy worked the best.

Posted by Meika at 12:11 PM    

Today is a good day...Go Obama!

Posted by Meika at 1:24 PM    

I watched the MTV Movie Awards for the first time in many many years last night. My interest was sparked because Mike Meyers was hosting, and I just love me some Mike Meyers.

It wasn't so bad- a lot more of the heavy hitting A-list stars made appearances than I believe they have over the past X number of years. This is because the awards show is really nothing but an excuse for these stars to shamelessly promote their new movies, but whatever. The presence makes it more worth watching, no doubt.

Johnny Depp even made an appearance- much to my delight/surprise.

Sweet mother of GOD he looked good.

It's unfortunate though, that he had to rock the douche factor that is being too good to sit in the audience with the rest of the celebrities. I don't think he came swaggering out smackin' gum from backstage because it was a surprise appearance...I believe him to be so utterly aware and proud of his own existence that he felt he was too good to sit amongst the rest. When he came out of nowhere to accept the first award (Best Comedic Performance), I didn't think anything of it.

The second time he came out from backstage to accept the Best Villain award, I found myself crinkling my nose. "Oh Johnny..." He was probably watching the show in his own posh little private room where he was "safe" from sitting next to the likes of Paris Hilton, P-Diddy, Lindsey Lohan and the cast of High School Musical.

I have to agree with him though, in all of his egotistical glory: Johnny Depp really is too good to share space with those (particular) wastes of space.

Johnny Depp suddenly strutting out onto the stage like an aloof, indifferent black cat in a dark alleyway...MEOW. He was the cherry on the movie awards because you never really see his France-living ass anymore in the States.

He's an untouchable. He didn't say much when he accepted his awards and seemed pretty removed from the entire event, but we have to acknowledge the fact that the whole elusive, untouchable thing is one of the biggest appealing things about him.

He's that guy you can not have but are left secretly pining over for all of your days remaining on Earth. He's the long lost junior high school crush whom if you should randomly see him at a restaurant a decade later you still get tongue tied and red in the face, and your heart falls into your feet and your core is rocked for days...all you can do is think, "You asshole."

He's that guy that the 14 year-old in you falls back against her locker with her books clutched against her chest, catching her breath when he walks by.

Even if only on t.v., an actual Johnny Depp sighting outside of one of his films is one of those things that can stop your mental traffic and cause wrecks in your train of thinking for at least a day or two.

I thank him tremendously for this distraction right now.

~le SIGH~

Posted by Meika at 12:08 PM