In a pickle with Viagra

There are some things you just can't make up.

A couple of days ago, I ran into some website-related trouble at work. I was trying to add an event sponsor to the website, and it wouldn't let me add them without adding their URL. Unfortunately, their domain name had expired and the site was being squatted by an ad for Viagra or something like it.

So I sent an email to two guys at our national organization with the subject line, "a bit of a pickle."

Yes, really. I realized what I had done and laughed out loud. No one wrote me back with smiley faces...I think I probably made them uncomfortable.

Anyhow, I found a fix, so no one thinks a transportation company is hawking sex pharma.

Somewhat more disturbing, I visited my family and when I went in to check Yahoo email, the autofill prefilled the link to "YouPorn." Um. I have a brother who just turned 18. He pled not guilty.

"I don't use that computer," he said. Right. He has a phone and an ipad.

So it's either 1. another member of my family (too sickening to contemplate! Family members don't have sex. We were all brought by the stork) or 2. someone who was cat sitting did some internet cat sitting as well.

Or, as someone pointed out to me today, "He may have looked at it after all. Everything is bigger on a computer screen."

And we all know that size matters. My little brother is also legally blind.

So what is YouPorn anyway? Is it a perverse version of YouTube? Are there any - ahem - guidelines?
(You must know about razors? You must not play Sir Mix-A-Lot? You must not compare yourself to Ron Jeremy?)

I'm not brave enough to go visit the site, but inquiring minds want to know.

What I have learned from Dickens

I've been on a Charles Dickens kick lately - reading and watching my BBC porn (sorry, is that redundant?)

Some things I have learned from Dickens...

1. If you are rich, you will be miserable.
2. If you try to become rich, you will most likely become miserable and die trying.
3. If you are poor, you will also be miserable, and might also die.
4. If you love someone, changes are that they love someone richer than you, who is also miserable.
5. If you become rich, in order to persuade someone to marry you, they still won't love you and you'll still be miserable.
6. Did I mention that his characters are miserable?

I'm interested in reading a biography of him now. In addition to his creative genius, he was apparently a man of large appetites, and carried on an affair with his wife's sister while they were all living in the same house, AND had a mistress that was much younger.

Clearly they had a lot more free time in those days. I have a hard time keeping up with one man, one job, and two cats.

And because I promised, here are some snow pictures from Minnesota. (Where, by the way, they know how to PLOW - amazing, no? I wish people in the Northwest would have, say, one or two plows on hand because it does snow here more than once every few years.)

On my parents' street...

My little bro was a super good sport and humored me on walks. My dad was so amused that we were going to walk to Starbucks that he took a picture of the occasion.

I am the one bundled up like a black marshmallow.

By the way, all of these pictures I have in a desktop folder labeled "cold as fuck." My dad's folder, which he created before he knew I created mine, is called "Arctic fuckery."

Words of wisdom from my siblings

Still in the frozen tundra, and my family thinks I'm nuts for wanting to go for walks and stomp around in the snow. Come to think of it, they probably realized I was a bit nuts long before the snow stomping...

It has been nice to see my family and get a break from work and the chaos that had been going on.

I have also had some words of wisdom from my younger siblings on this trip. I took my little brother B to see American Hustle. I thought Amy Adams looked incredible in that film. I wish I'd had a camera so you could all have seen the expression on B's face when Jennifer Lawrence plants a big one on Amy Adams.

B: "She looked good. But she looked old."
Me: "She's two years older than me! And I thought she looked great."
B: "You don't look old. But you are old."

Wisdom from an 18-year-old.

And today, looking through the yucks on Debra's blog, we had to explain to my little sister, who is in junior high, what condoms were.

My dad started out by saying, "It's a small -"
Me: "Depends on who you're with!"

He finished explaining and she said, "That's DISGUSTING!"
I thought, but did not say, "Yes, it's like fucking a sandwich bag."

Anyhow, you will have to wait for snow pictures until I am back. The software to shrink them isn't something I have on this computer.

More things that piss me off

Off I am into more winter. No doubt I will be feeling like this at this time next week (or tomorrow):

Thank you, Lynn, for sending that!

I hate winter. I hate flying. And now there are both! Yay, me.

Which brings me to another point of rant. Why is it that some people in A) tiny piece of shit cars and B) huge four-wheel drive vehicles both assume they're invincible in snow and ice conditions? Over the past few days we've seen tailgating, passing at unsafe speeds, and other examples of general jackassery that would be annoying on a normal weather day, but can become lethal in weather like what we just had. (Oh by the way, it's 50 now.)

What else is pissing me off? The fact that it would cost more to change my ticket than buy a new one and visit at a more reasonable time - say, Easter. I'll admit, when I booked this trip, I thought, Yay, some snow! (I can hear you snickering.)

However, I need some time away from this fuckery, even if there's fuckery in the Midwest. That, at least, will be different fuckery.

Speaking of which, this reminds me of another thing that pissed me off. Some asshat blogger went off  on a tangent because of a comment I had posted on A Beer For The Shower's blog (btw, shameless plus, they just wrote another book!) I quoted a lyric from an Amy Winehouse song, in which she had asked, "What kind of fuckery is this?" Apparently quoting the clever lyric of someone who struggled with addiction isn't allowed, but ridiculing them for their addiction-related death is. (That is what Mr. Asshat did.)

You know what else pisses me off? Stigma. The kiddo ended up in the hospital after severe depression, as some of you know. He tried to call me before he hurt himself and the home he was living in (which thankfully, he doesn't have to return to) wouldn't let him talk unsupervised. Then he ended up in the hospital.

He told me that he had confided in his (now ex) girlfriend that he had been feeling very low, and she told him to buck up and snap out of it. He thought some how he should have been able to do that. He was embarrassed, he said, that he was feeling suicidal.

Um. What the fuck! This is why I work in mental health advocacy. It's why I've asked some of you to make a charitable donation if you have a dollar to spare. 

I told him, "Would you be embarrassed if you had cancer? Would you feel like you should be able to fix things on your own if you broke your leg?"

And the answer, of course: no fucking way.

Discrimination in all forms pisses me off. I will keep tackling it and trying to make change until I croak. I hope you all will as well.

Arctic fuckery

First - thank you to all of you who have posted and emailed me well wishes. The kiddo is stable, in the hospital, and things are kind of up in the air because of...

SNOWPOCALYPSE!

What is snowpocalypse? It's when several inches of snow hit, in three rounds of storms, and you live in a part of the country where this rarely happens.

We were supposed to have a meeting Friday about where he does next, but guess what? When a government office shuts down here - even in cases of emergencies with children - they don't work from home. Seriously. So we are in a holding pattern and that means...

Two words: stir crazy. It's supposed to swiftly turn to freezing rain. Yuck. There have been 900 accidents reported in the past couple of days (typically 3-5 a day happen in the county where we live.) Even most of the major roads haven't been sanded, because so many of them need it and we only have so much equipment, not having to deal with this very often.

Luckily, Mr. RK learned to drive in the Midwest in exactly this weather, so when we have had to slip out to stock up on cat food, I have been in good hands.

We stopped by the lake - well, now it's an ice rink...

Even my cats are anxious. They know something's up, as it's extremely bright outside (hence, Vasil ran around like a nut this morning at 5 a.m., thinking it was obviously time for breakfast) and we're home waaaaaaaaaay more than normal.

So desperate times call for desperate measures:

And just so you can all snicker, I am supposed to go visit my family in - guess where? - FUCKING MINNESOTA Thursday. No offense to you Minnesotans, but I'm kind of tired of the snow right now.

Ever feel that the universe is laughing at you?

Life interrupts art

I have to take a short hiatus. Lots of stuff going on, and the kid is in crisis. I'll be back visiting your blogs as soon as I can!