21st Century America and re-defining the new Nuclear Family

As promised on my first post (although falsely advertised as being the next topic I would address), it's time for a brief discourse on the ever-changing face of the American "family".

I'm looking at a card posted to a bulletin board to the left of the PC. It sums things up pretty well in a few short (*everyone breathes a sigh of relief*) words. It simply reads "FAMILY - People who are joined by shared memories and hopes. People who are joined together by love."

I couldn't agree more and thankfully for all of you, it'll keep me from babbling on and on. I'm sure some folks have noticed by now that it would have taken me sixty-seven words (or more) to get the same though across.

The four people pictured to the left, well....absolutely none of them shares a surname. They do, however, share hopes....and so much more.

"Life is funny, skies are sunny, bees make honey, tell me where is sanity.........?"

Funny question, that. It can be fleeting, enduring, enhanced, destroyed, etc. It can also be found in the least-expected places and faces, in situations that would seem to be contradictory at best when compared to the very notion. Candle an egg an you'll likely see a developing life.....candle your "soul", and you may be surprised to find the very same thing.

So - here ya have it, kids. Meet the family. That's my cowgirl...Mz. Daize. We've been friends (and more) for something pushing two decades, now. There have been times we haven't seen each other for extended periods for a variety of reasons that would take twenty-seven (of my) paragraphs and a couple bottles to even begin to explain. Which brings us back to the whole "life is funny" part.

Timing can be everything..........or nothing. Opportunities missed by days can lead to years of consequences. Do these events conspire to keep some people apart, or is the confluence of the resultant actions and situations that lead to things finally being "right"?

Meet the boys. In traditional blog style, we'll go with slightly altered names to protect the relative anonymity of everyone involved.. Zane's the oldest at 13 and younger brother Benji followed seven years later. They are, without a doubt, two of the finest young lads I've ever known.....even if they make me feel old sometimes. Zane was born at a time when I though I might still be a rock and roll star or some other ridiculous notion like that. They hard part to swallow these days is realizing Mz. Daize and I were already into the back half of our twenties at the time. Knowing (and really trying to digest the fact that) he's now a teen......wow.

And thus ends the initial and (hopefully) somewhat informative installment of what will surely be an ongoing topic of discussion. Blood may be thicker than water, but we've come to realize that love is stronger than either..............

"Yelling as hard as they can, the doubters all were stunned..........heard louder than a gun, the sound they made was love.........." - Wayne

Later, everyone...............there's probably something else I should be doing right now.

Life IS good,

J.

Uma dia para gracas...e amo muito tudo isso!

Having skipped an entire month between major (observed) American holidays, I'll be making an attempt to catch up on some far-past-due blogging, some photo updates of life as it's been lately, and just generally enjoy the day. Oh, yeah. I suppose I'll likely eat waaay too much and drink a couple litres of southeast Australia's finest............but, hey....I'm really certain that's just what the Pilgrims had in mind. That and a Dallas Cowboys game. Oh - Detroit plays today, too, don't they? Huh. Maybe they'll make it to 1-11! At least stats like that can *almost* make you forget the Thanksgiving Day Massacree (not Arlo's....we'll get to that later) of (I think, and don't feel like looking it up right now) '99 when Dan Marino's long-shining star fell so brutally from the sky. I'll attempt, once again, to drop in and out throughout the day. Confidence for multiple postings is running high. I repeat, confidence is high.

Today, I'm thankful to be home, safe, secure and loved in a world gone mad. There are at least a hundred less folks in Mumbai today (or, closer to yesterday I suppose) who have been senselessly and tragically deprived of any such opportunity. There are tens of thousands of Americans who also cannot be thankful for these things, either. Please don't get me wrong, anyone, I'm a sympathetic and compassionate person, but I'm also a realist. Yes, a lot of them got themselves into that situation and have every ability to remedy it themselves and choose of their own accord to not do so. Unfortunately, the past couple years have seen the number of *working* struggling folk increase to levels even I once though unattainable. I woke this morning to a headline I have yet to investigate further. Apparently the Iraqi Parliament (no, folks, not the George Clinton cover band from Anbar) has approved some security pact or another that should have us out of there by 2012. So - I'm thankful or Heroes will be coming home, we'll be out of a still-destabilizing region, and we can sink some much-needed funding back into our own interests.

Tschau for now..................more later, kiddies. I promise.

The torchum neva stops........

The official mascots of the 2008 Halloween onandonandonathon, Babysnakes and Cocoa:



So, after hours and hours of baking yesterday, I finally got some things done and managed to produce some spooky edibles................

The best part of being the baker................

.....and so it has been decreed that, in light of daylight having dawned a bit too early for every one's liking, Halloween in Dunedin shall be continued through the rise of the sun on the second day of November. The ghouls, are indeed, smarter....and so the zombie hoarde has come to realize that they will have an additional hour involved somewhere along the line.

More to come as the evening unfolds...............................

Happy Halloween

The modern zombie, while differing from and tame by comparison to shambling mummies from eldritch times long (and better) forgotten, when The Old Ones ruled and Nyarlathotep and Shub-Niggurath were names dared not spoken aloud, is still something to be feared if one is not properly prepared for such a confrontation.

Thankfully, the world can now rest realtively safely knowing they are as fully prepared to handle a zombie hoarde now as we were to side-step that infectious virus, Communisococcidimosis marxii, that swept the globe rampantly during the halcyon Cold War days of my youth...............ah, the days of P-3s and Russian Submarines! All this has been made possible by one man - Max Brooks! That's right, ladies and germs, the son of THAT Brooks.

Here's his new contribution to the somehow vast compilation of literature based on the surprisingly little actually known about the modern zombie. Please note that it is my personal belief that this zombie varietal is likely as disassociated with the lesser-known (but equally interesting in their own right) Haitio-Caribbean family of animate dead as the aforementioned "zombies of lore".

"Organize before they rise." - Max Brooks

Here's all you *really* need to know about the "Modern" variety, as taken directly from what has now become known as "The Book"...........

*******************

The guide attributes the zombie outbreaks to a virus known as "Solanum". The disease was first recorded by Jan Vanderhaven while traveling through South America. He describes those infected with the disease as bearing festering sores, mottled skin, and decomposing flesh. He said victims show no rational thought or recognition of anything previously familiar to the victim. They neither sleep nor drink water, and reject all food apart from living prey. The infected will attempt to eat all living prey that it observes. Vanderhaven describes seeing a hospital orderly throw a living rat at an infected individual, who then consumed the rat whole.
Solanum is described as working by traveling through the bloodstream from the point of entry to the brain, where the virus replicates in all cells in the frontal lobe, eventually destroying them. All bodily functions cease during this period, including respiration and heartbeat. The infected individual falls into a coma during this period and eventually awakens as a zombie. The zombie does not need air, food, water, or even a heart to live. Their one and only goal will be to find and infect other individuals. The only way to stop this is to destroy the brain or remove the head. Note that if the zombie is decapitated, the head still remains a threat.
The symptoms occur in the following order. The timeline may be several hours off, depending on the size, number and location of the bites, and the constitution of the victim.
Hour 1- Pain and discoloration of the infected area. Immediate clotting of the wound.
Hour 5- Fever between 99 F. and 103 F. Chills, slight dementia, vomiting, and acute pain in the joints.
Hour 8- Numbing of extremities and infected area, increased fever from 103 F to 106 F. increased dementia, loss of muscular coordination
Hour 11- Paralysis in the lower body, overall numbness, slowed heart rate
Hour 16- Coma
Hour 20- Cardiac arrest, cessation of brain activity
Hour 23- Reanimation
Solanum is extremely contagious and 100% fatal. Physical contact with infected blood or saliva always result in infection. Ingestion of infected flesh results in permanent death unless the victim has open mouth sores. Solanum is fatal to all living organisms, though humans are the only organisms that will reanimate. Parasitic insects such as mosquitoes reject infected hosts 100% of the time. All animals will instinctively run, swim or fly away from zombies.

************

After thorough examination and subsequent repeated re-examinations of each and every title in the George A. Romero "Dead" canon, I do believe Mr. Brooks' observations to be most definitely indicative of the same creature. Whilst Danny Boyle has complicated things a bit in recent cinematic history with his lightning-fast, rage-induced flesheaters, it would seem as though the majority of the quasi-scientific, literary and cinematic communities are in relative agreement.

Now I'll rest a lot better. But, that's just, like, my opinion, man.

Just watch me now..............

Ladies and Gentlemen, Senors y Senoras, Senhoras e Homems, Colleghe e Colleghi, meine Damen und Herren........distinguished members of the Press Corps, honored guests and visiting dignitaries.............Messers Einstein, Arafat and Gore.........



Today I will attempt to simultaenously bake, prep for a party, accomplish no less than the complete processing of three (that's right - THREE!) loads of laundry, avoid political and socieoeconomic discussions of any sort, run a few now-mandatory errands, balance my check book, shower - all while narrating via blog.



Soooo..........this will likely be the last post of the day ;-P



In the meanwhile, think about this:

Ground Control to Major Tom........

"Here am I, sitting in a tin can....far above the world........the Blogosphere is huge....and there's something I should do."

There is, indeed, something I should do. For the moment, that "this" would appear to be this very "this". Follow? With the exception of one prior foray into all things blog, a minor rant posted for a short time on MySpace, this is all new to me. The posting, that is.

I've worked *with* computers for years. A lot of years it seems lately. Why the asterisks around with? Ahh...to differentiate it from the concept of *on*. You see - working *with*, rather than *on* computers carries an entirely different connotation. The end result is still - "most of this shit's all new to me."

That being said, I'll beg the several of you who will ever read this to bear with me through my first few posts whilst I conquer the learning curve. Hahahaha.

I'm laughing with me, not at me. React however you like.

This is certainly something I've been trying to get to for some time now, but like just about every other activity in daily life, societal constraints and expectations require that you schedule the time with yourself (I'll have my people get with my people and get back to me on that) to sit down and put thought to action, fingers to keyboard and, ultimately, achieve some cohesion between aforesaid thought and action that will result in an easily comprehensible manifestation of what's happening between my ears.

Yeah, exactly............

Well then, without further ado, here we go........It's Wednesday (I think), I'm home wearing scrubs and sitting at the computer (can't overstate the obvious quite enough) with a glass of Barefoot Merlot (yes, day aside, I *do* know what time it is) and enjoying an exceptionally loud listen to Zappa's "Joe's Garage". It's hardly my favorite title in his vast catalog, but it's doing the trick at the moment. I have all day, anyway.

What? But, Dude, it's..........it's, like, a work day. You've been trying to get a few consecutive days off all year to no avail........and yet....suddenly....here you are! WTF, mate?

Welllllll.........please allow me to explain that as best I can. You see, I've been pounding away at work all year - and with much fervor and gusto, all things in my life (another post, puhleeeze) considered, re-considered and aside. I work in the title insurance business, and have for some time now. Better than five years at the same employer really, which is pretty remarkable feat for me, as I've found most jobs in my past have had fairly short shelf lives by comparison.....which is not to say I'm a lazy man. I'm not.....but something has always kept me moving from one to the next. Alas, I digress. Oh, and I need a refill. Be right back.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.......yes I know that was uncalled for, but it lends to the conceptual continuity of the whole affair.

So what AM I doing here at 11 AM on a Wednesday?

After months and months of trying to take a true vacation or two.......suddenly everything has changed. I handle change well - it's a basic tenet of survival. Adapt or die. It's a sink or swim world, people. It's also a pay-as-you-go world, now isn't it. The parent corporation that employs me is 27,000 employees strong. They're a good employer (the NY Attorney General may have some questions about their practices, however) and have always been very fair. I am, in fact, lucky to have a very reasonable paid time off (PTO) policy that never puts me in a true "use it or lose it" situation. I have no separate "sick", "vacation" or "personal" designations assigned to the time that I (very generously) accrue and I have a high ceiling in that vault, people. To make a long story short, I am one of apparently far-too-many FA employees who are sitting on too much of that time.

........and so Pharaoh spake last week, and mandated that those of us holding time for whatever various reasons (mine being a combination of an inability to break away from work and, frankly, hoarding that shit in case I need it on a moment's notice) are to use up a good chunk thereof prior to the close of the first fiscal quarter of 2009. We were provided with a very handy memo, complete with a nifty little matrix letting us know how we were to conduct ourselves, a thorough explanation of the company's "fiscal responsibility" policy, some encouragement to spend some time with our families through the slow part of the year, a compass on the stock and this thing which tells time.

Darren McGavin was a great actor and will be sorely missed. Kolchak, baby. Ayuh!

So, anyway.......we're told we'll have some meetings in the near future regarding the scheduling of all this excess time that they'll have to pay us if they lay us off......oh, did I say that? Huh. C'mon - what other conclusion do they think we'll come to with all the pomp, circumstance, ponies and clowns?

A little green rosetta will make a muffin really better...........

Sorry, I'm getting to the end of the album. I like this part. Good God - give the drummers some.

In the end there were no meetings. I was on a work detail the first day and came back to find one of my teammates already out for a vacation. I had a horrible weekend - something crawled inside my stomach and died. Seriously. Two days of gastrointestinal torture. Monday came around and I almost considered calling in to take a day for recovery (yeah, folks, it was BRUTAL), which is something I rarely do. That, of course, is why I have 160 hours of PTO in the bank. Okay, back on track.......sooooooo I come in Monday and half way through the day, my supervisor tells me to take the rest of the week off. I shouldn't be out at the same time as the individual who preceded me on some force-placed R&R. All a bit suspicious.

Last night I received a text message from a co-worker informing that yet another rank-and-file member of the exam brigade was furloughed for the rest of the week.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.........................................I'll be the last man standing. El ultimo hombre. Of that, I have little doubt. I've served Big Brother well. I just don't know for how much longer.

And I'm okay with that.

Album's over, kids..............I'll see ya in a bit.


"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid" - FZ


Next topic: "21st Century America and re-defining the new Nuclear Family".