Christmas Cards in July

It's almost Christmas time and what better way to celebrate the commercial Christmas creep than by getting your Christmas cards in order! In Summer. This is something I never do. Not even in November.


Don't get me wrong. I mean to send out Christmas cards. I painstakingly arrange address lists. I check them once. I check them twice. I decide which people I know are naughty or nice. Because, you know, Santa Claus. He's coming to town. I even buy stamps. That's usually as far as I get.


The next step involves buying cards, addressing envelopes, licking them and sending them. Let's ignore the fact that America was made aware of the dangers of licking too many envelopes by the good folks at Seinfeld a few years back. I mean that's bad enough. Instead let's focus on buying cards.


Once upon a time in my Texas high school art class the teacher informed us that we the students, would be designing the school district's Christmas card for the year. It had to be indicative of rural Texas. It had to be religiously and culturally benign (since Christmas is all about religious and cultural benignedness....), and it had to showcase the talent of the students in the district. Fair enough.


I set about drawing up a nice card with candles on it. Nice candles. Pretty candles. The kind of candles Yankee Candle later made into a thriving business. I worked hard.

A week later the entries were all in and the administration had flat out denied all offerings. The teacher was incensed. Christmas potpourri incensed! I distinctly remember her sitting on her desk and going through each card and berating us for not stepping it up. Most of the cards earned a nope. No. Not even! They didn't even look at this one! Nada. My card earned a "they considered this one but discarded it as not enough what they were looking for". They being the grinches on the board.


Eventually my art teacher got one of the senior students to come up with a nice bucolic rural Texas scene of a dilapidated barn. It wasn't even covered in snow. Merry Christmas. Err Happy Holidays. Joyous whatever.


As a result of this "trauma" I have a hard time picking out Christmas cards. Do I get the beautiful ones with the Star of Bethlehem shining down on poor Mary sitting on a camel? How about that nice one with the Chistmas Tree all lit up and covered in bugles? I like the pastoral scenes of sleds dashing through the snow and children walking with their dog though Old Man Witherby's nicely manicured snow lawn in fictional New England/Wisconsin/Minnesota. Those are nice. Grandma Moses meets Thomas Kinkade and they all have hot chocolate and sing carols. Seasonal!


But here I am pawing through the offerings in my local Target getting in the way of young mother's and excited kids and I can't find anything with a rural Texas barn sans snow on it. What I am thinking is, sure! This Christmasy gobbedly gook is all well and fine for a major American retailer but not fine enough for a tiny Texas town in the 80's??? I'll show you! Grinch! Scrooge! Bah! Humbug! grrr ahhh!!! I might have been foaming at the mouth. There might have been some ripping and such. Some say a nice ornament display got knocked over. There are some kids that might have been alarmed and a baby might have cried.


In the end I was on my knees in front of a plastic manger with the remains of Christmas cards and wrapping paper everywhere. Some poor lady was comforting her baby. Her husband was helping me up. He was wearing a hoodie. I thanked him, backed awkwardly into a plastic camel, and gave him the package of mints I had meant to buy. He told me the checkout counter was a mad house. No room at the registers. Then the scene cleared and I woke up.


I didn't buy any cards last year. Post Traumatic Seasonal Adolescence Memory Disorder. Maybe I'll try again next year. Online. You can't shoot your eye out online can you?

My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

Recently the Welsh government was asked some serious questions about UFOs and what they intended to do about them and they answered as brilliantly as anyone could possibly imagine: in Klingon.

http://www.newsweek.com/welsh-government-replies-klingon-serious-ufo-questions-353619


There are several things that spring to mind from this exchange:


1. I wasn't aware that there were serious UFO questions. I mean I hold out the possibility of there being such questions, but until they start getting asked seriously by serious people that practice serious personal hygiene and have serious jobs it's hard to fall in line behind the idea. Seriously.


2. I wasn't aware that there were any members of the Welsh government that knew Klingon. It is an astounding thing. Then you begin looking into the Welsh language and you realize maybe this isn't such a stretch after all. Klingon must be easy to learn in comparison. The Welsh probably wake up every day thinking, "I know Welsh! Nothing worse could possibly happen to me for the rest of the day!" eich bod yn croesawu!  (Welsh for you're welcome!).


3. The Welsh have an excellent sense of humor. Who knew? Not Edward I, but then he was busy conquering them.

4. Klingons do NOT have an excellent sense of humor as all trekkies know.  quay'be' (Klingon for you're welcome!).

Now I personally do not know Klingon. Or Welsh. I have not translated either of these two excellent devices of torture into a helpful phrase such as "My Hovercraft is Full of Eels." (Monty Python started it. Don't blame me!). What I know is I can look it up on the internet, which is arguably more handy. Unless you're in Wales. Or a Star Trek convention. Although come to think of it, having the ability to look things up on the internet at such venues is still arguably more handy than knowing either Welsh or Klingon.

I digress, however. The main thing I wish to point out is that this is the first time an official government correspondence has been made in Wales, in Klingon. Frankly I would think that it is the first time an official government correspondence has been made in Klingon anywhere on the planet. This planet.

It gives me hope. I expect next we will be hearing a government official somewhere respond to a line of questioning in Cardassian. The Kardashians don't count. They're Klingons.

Gardening at Night

I am considering using reverse psychology on my lawn. It works on kids. I bet it works on grass too. The thing is my grass, much like my kids, won't do what it is supposed to do -like grow lush and green in the lawn. Witness the brown spots, the yellow wilted places, the vast swaths given over to dandelions and clover. But boy oh boy howdy! will it sprout enthusiastically anywhere I don't need grass! Like the flowerbed, or the window well, or the driveway covered completely in three inch concrete.

I walk out of my house and am greeted with the prospect of mowing my driveway. I go to weed the flowerbeds and find foot high grass happily choking out the alyssum. I don't know whether to weed whack, trim, or run about dropping fertilizer and exclaiming in a cheery plaid shirted bearded Scottish accent "Fedd yor lawn! FEDD IT!"


So, to that end I am considering torching the lawn and installing concrete. For the driveway I will mow and mulch and lovingly apply lawn feed. I figure within a few months the grass won't know where it is supposed to grow. There will be a time of great instability. For seven watering cycles famine will reign in Egypt and all that groweth green and leafy will weep and wail and perish under the wrath of a displeased God! (Smite yor lawn! SMITE IT! Muahahahahahah) Then lo! There will be a space of stillness in the yard. And it shall come to pass that they who were once green and haughty and did refuse to grow in the lush land which I did give unto them shall bow down and be humbled, and I will have mercy on them and allow them to find rest and pasture in the new land which I have prepared, yea even a land of milk and nitrogen, yea even a land of promise -as in if you do not grow green and leafy here I promise I will destroy you!

If that doesn't work then I got nothing. The wreck of my pathetic yard will be the cautionary tale of the neighborhood. It will become a hiss and a byword. People will shuffle by it silently on their morning jog averting their eyes. They will cross the street when they walk by with their children. Look honey! That's where Mr. Dobson destroyed his lawn! We don't want to be like Mr. Dobson do we? No Mommy we don't!

I might try gardening at night where no one can see me. As long as no one thinks I am burying bodies or something. Awkward. How hard is it to dig through concrete anyway?

Cosplay Just Got Real

Sometimes I need to be reminded of things. Things like I left the water on, or its time to take my meds. The older I get the more I need reminders, so I am happy that there are articles like this one reminding me that vampires are people too:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/07/09/researchers-vampires-are-people-too-and-deserve-acceptance-by-medical-professionals/


Not only are vampires people too but they are in need of as much psychotherapy as the rest of us, which one might not realize about people that actually think they are vampires, but it's true! Because living exclusively at night and flying around as a bat drives one well, batty.


Look I get the tongue in cheek tone of the article. What alarms me, however, is the ever so slight indication permeating the piece that suggests these people CAN change reality and should be recognized as exactly what their imaginations are pretending to be. Otherkins. Furries. Handicapped. Men. Women. Sponge Bob. Captain America. You name it you can put on a costume and not only pretend to be it, but demand that everyone else pretend as well. If you pretend well enough you begin to get things like REAL rights, to the extent that people that don't want to play your pretend game can get in trouble for their rudeness. Regardless of your chromosomes or your lack of gills.


I don't think there has ever been a shortage of people that disliked reality. It can be harsh. It can be deadly. It can be just plain awful. It used to be miserable folks simply shuffled into a church, took drugs, or got sloshed to escape their situation for awhile. If they could they attempted to make their reality better. In actuality. Using the skills and abilities they had at hand. We have come a long way from that, however. Now you can simply cosplay away from your actual reality until your pretend reality becomes your new reality. No religion, mind altering substances or assembly required. Society has decided to stop relegating you to the psych ward and accommodate you. Which is good because I was getting really upset with my situation. I have some changes to my reality that need to go into effect.

First off I am no longer diabetic. I expect my doctor's bills and insurance rates to reflect this change. Second I am no longer agoraphobic. I can walk around willy nilly now without becoming overwhelmed. So let it be written. So let it be done.

Other than that

I hereby choose to identify as a disabled mixed ethnicity Native American/African American Islamic female veteran that was raised by aliens and given special powers of righteous grooviness. My disco moves solve world hunger. I have an intelligent lemur as a sidekick.
I will be applying to Ivy League Schools and expect to get full ride scholarships to all of them. When I graduate I expect to get any job I apply for in the private or public sector. If I do not I will be suing for discrimination and harrasement.

I also expect adequate media coverage to talk about me me me, and I expect many awards and accolades for my courageous and brave distortions of reality. My own Marvel movie trilogy would be a nice touch but is not absolutely necessary.
I will be writing a book to explain how you may best serve me without being offensive to me or my lemur and I will need to run for and win a public office which I will not have to work at in order to meet my financial and medical needs.
Also all you Europeans get off my Native Lands! In addition you all owe me reparations. Congress should begin work crafting legislation on a national lemur rights bill as well. Let's bring disco back too.
Don't make me identify as 7 feet tall and an NBA All Star with X ray vision! Don't think I won't!

I realize that there are many haters that might find this burdensome, costly and ridiculous but this is reality now. Deal with it. Check your privilege! Thank you.

Please remember I am just a person too you know! I need just as much psychotherapy as everyone else! If people could be less ignorant of my particular needs and reality that's all I ask! Why won't people love me??!!

Robotic Patch Adams

My blood glucose monitor and I are now on speaking terms -and by speaking I mean it actually speaks to me. In a pleasant female voice reminiscent of Siri. I mean how cool is that? Merica!

There is a problem though, or rather a quirk. A quirk which I find quite amusing and which helps distract me from the fact that my monitor is indeed a blood sucking Klingon killer (It was in a previous post. http://theagoraphobicdiabetic.blogspot.com/2015/06/blood-sucking-vampire-tech-with-fangs.html I stand by my analysis.).

Anyway my blood glucose monitor has a lisp. That's right. A lisp.


I turn the thing on, it goes through its little power up cycle and then it says, "Pwease insert the test stwip." I kid you not. That is what I hear. Suddenly I am transported back to countless viewings of The Princess Bride and I am chuckling as I stick myself and coaxe blood from my finger. "Have you the Bwud? Your bwud gwucose is one hundwed and seventy one miwwigwams per decawiter! Goodbye!" I put a Band-Aid on and clean up the sharps smiling.


Now THAT is good healthcare. I imagine a day when all of our healthcare is provided by friendly robots along the lines of Baymax from Big Hero 6 and good or bad we will be able to program them to speak in any voice we choose.

Imagine getting your healthcare by a robot that sounds like a pirate: "Yar! Ye be givin me yer finger and lettin me poke it or it be the plank for ye matey! Yar! Ye be havin a blood glucose level of 156 landlubber! No rum for ye!"

Or John Wayne: "Cowboy up Pilgrim! Why I've lost more blood spittin on a fire than what's comin from yer finger! Now says here you got a blood glucose level of 175. I reckon you get yerself straight, saddle up and ride sugar free from here on out. Pilgrim!"


Or how about the Enterprise crew:
"This...blood...it's ready to be...tested. Bones! Let's test this man's...blood."
"145 Jim. Why he's a regular Vulcan! Fit as a fiddle and didn't budge an inch as I poked him!"
"Although I cannot argue with your analysis I find your comparison to Vulcan physiology disturbing Doctor. You are dismissed Yeoman Dobson."


Yessir the future is bright. Wiv Wong and Pwosper!