Wanted: Laws Against People Posing as Parents

Middle of the night in Alaska, and I get up to grab a snack then try to surf myself back to sleep… only to find that I don’t want to sleep now. What I want to do is stomp my feet, scream out loud and smack some people upside their heads.

I came across a news story on CNN (Conservative Nuts & Neanderthals). I don’t know why I look at CNN when I should be sleeping. Actually, I don’t know why I look at CNN at all. It’s better than Fox, but that’s like saying that swimming in bat shit is better than drowning in bat shit. Either way, you get covered in bat shit.

People are up in arms because BBC hired a young lady named Cerrie Burnell to host two kid’s shows on BBC’s CBeebies television network. Ms. Burnell was born with only one hand. I didn’t notice this when I saw her promo photo. What I did notice that she is an attractive, blonde twenty-something who does not look like Barbie. For this alone, I praise BBC. I’m sick of looking at kids TV and seeing some Barbie Wannabee trying to brainwash my daughter.

(The dotter and I have been doing kitchen science projects as of late. I’m tempted to teach her Brain Surgery. We could get a Barbie, cut open its head, and say “Look… it’s empty!!!”)

BBC has received over 25 official complaints because Ms. Burnell is disabled. Some folks are complaining because she ‘scares’ their children. (She looks like the girl next door.) Others are whining because they have been ‘forced’ to talk about disabilities with their kids.

Who the fuck let these people raise children??????? Didn’t they have to fill out the oodles and scads of paperwork detailing everything they’ve ever felt, thought, eaten or drove by? Didn’t they have to pour out their entire lives to total strangers and a judge? Didn’t they endure the months of introspection? The tedious wait on getting their paperwork processed? The home visits by social workers that have nothing to do with the home and everything to do with the homeowner?

Oh… wait… I just remembered. These people didn’t have to do these things. I did. I adopted my daughter. I had to think long and hard about being a parent before I could be a parent.

These people didn’t have to do anything.

As I said on the rant that I posted to CNN… these people aren’t parents. They’re just folks who happened to have a sperm or an egg then they happened to have a baby.

Billboards on the Information Superhighway

I have to admit that I'm not much of a websurfer. On an average day, I manage to hang three if I concentrate. But every now and then, I get lucky and end up with ten toes hanging out over the info ocean....

Earlier, while Omegamom was reading the dotter to sleep, I bopped onto CNN in hopes of finding something to blog about. (If CNN can't make you bitch and moan, then what can?) I spotted a link to the Ireport on Snowbama and gave it the right click of approval. The Giand Obama Logo writ with snowshoes was rather grand, so I googled Billboards In The Snow and by chance ended up at Billboardom.

K-E-double W-L kewl.... a site done by some advertising geeks dedicated totally to billboardish affairs. (I particularly like the working crossword puzzle on the side of Ukraine officebuilding... though I'd prefer a video of it actually crosswording at night as opposed to a static jpeg.)

Nice site, though, and I encourage everyone wander over and take a look. Oh... and make sure that you follow a few of the links... such as Bigpictures Posterous.

By the way, I'd like to dedicate this blog to my Mum-in-Law, just 'cause I know she'll enjoy wandering through the billboards.

A Valentines Mini-Meme for Omegamom

As Cupid puts away his darts for the day, I thought I’d respond to Omegamom’s generic request for Meme a day or two ago. The day is drawing to a close, so I probably won’t make it to 25, but I’ll get in as many as I can. (And to be honest, I rather go to bed with my wife than sit here writing about her.)

So here are just a few of the things I love about Omegamom:

-She knows all the words to the world’s shortest song.
-Having a chicken in the bathtub doesn’t strike her as being all that strange.
-The memory of her explaining the concept of being ‘happy-sad’ to Omegadaughter.
-Songs that play in my head when I think of Omegamom:
-Perfect Love by Mark Cohn
-Home Again by Carole King
-Love at the Five and Dime by Nancy Griffith
-Story of a Life by Harry Chapin
-There is Love by Peter Paul and Mary (Though my preferred version is by the Omega Cousins)
-Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkle
-L-O-V-E by both Nat and Natalie Cole
-Our Love is Here to Stay by Billy Holiday
-Happy Together by The Turtles
-True Companion by Marc Cohn
-She loves to take pictures of leaves, little still lifes of the natural world. I run across them every now and then when I’m digging through old photos or diving through the hard drive. They always make me smile just because I know how much she likes to take them.
-First she followed me to Lubbock, now she’s followed me to Alaska. I don’t need any worn out clichés about the ‘ends of the earth’. Now how many guys can honestly say that?
-Every night when I come to bed, she pulls close to me, and say’s “I love spooning with you’.
-When I tell the kid to do something, Omegamom often repeats the command and corrects my grammar.
-She was recognized by a blog reader in the airport one day. It was so cool because I felt like I was married to a rock star.
-Looking at her is like looking at a postcard that I’ve kept through the years. It takes me back to all the great places we’ve been.
-She can read me like tea leaves.
-She is, has been, and always will be:
-That first shaft of light that breaks over the mountains in the morning
-The smell of rain splashing through an window screen on a warm summers afternoon
-Both my anchor when life storms around and my sail when the doldrums prevail.

Well, the clock is ticking, and I think it’s time to tuck in…

Ramblings and Bramblings

The Great Procrastinator returns with apologies to my few readers... I really have been meaning to write. I've even conjured up topics... well... half topics floating around in my brain like dust motes in the attic. Thus, in leiu of writing nothing, I clean out the attic of all things semi-topical.

• On returning home from work this afternoon, Omegamom informed me that she had a snow day today. I find this amusing because we live in Alaska, and we just don't do snow days here. However, Omegamom telecommutes to Arizona, where they do do snow days. Three feet of snow has dumped on Flagstaff, while Prescott has been pushing a foot. We rarely have snows like that here in Urban Blight, Alaska. Our snow tends to fall in small batches that linger for a while... Okay, they linger for 7 or 8 months here in the low country, year-round up in the mountains.
• My marvelous Mum-in-Law posted an Arizona snow blog today... I find her pics of cars fighting their way up hills to be rather funny. Should Urban Blight get a foot or so of snow overnight, you wouldn't find us Urban Blighters trying in vain to drive through the stuff. We would face the storm like the stalwart Alaskans that we are. We'd stay home.
• Speaking of the homefront, I've been giving some thought lately to the oddnesses of shopping locally, Alaska-style. We pay about a buck a gallon more for local milk, and we do this largely on principal. Our milk comes from a herd of holsteins living about four miles down the road. The cheaper, non-local milk comes from California. I think there's something obscene about buying milk from California. It's shipped here on ocean freighters, for gawdsake. Still, the locals flock to buy it instead of supporting our neighbors who grow the good stuff. You gotta remember-- these are the same people that elected Sarah Palin to the governorship. They ain't all that bright.
• I wonder what they have to do to milk to ship it by boat from California to Alaska? The thought of it sends shivers up my spine.
• I've been wanting to increase my stock of kitchenwares lately, and accomplishing it within my 'shop-local' mantra has proven interesting. I've got two items on my list - big deep mixing bowls with handles and a spare set of stainless measuring spoons. Bread baking drives my need for mixing bowls... I run out of bowls before I can get to kneading up a second batch. The spare spoons are a pure convenience item... my primary set seems to always be in the dishwasher, and my secondary set has been relegated to the Pet Medicine Cabinet downstairs. I've checked everywhere from the gourmet shop to the hardware store for the mixing bowls... all for naught. (I finally broke down and asked the folks at the cooking store if they could order me some.) Until today, the spoons were also a bust. I had spotted exactly what I want online... Culinary Institute of America 18/10 Stainless Steel 6-piece Measuring Spoon Set, $19.99 plus shipping on Amazon. But Amazon ain't local, folks. So when I asked the proprieter of the local gadgetry if she could get me the spoons, she looked at me oddly, then walked about ten feet away and pulled them from a display rack. Price--twenty bucks, no shipping. So even in Alaska, shopping locally is the only way to go. (Granted, the local shop get's them from somewhere else, but at least we're able to trade a few dollars amongst friends.)
• For those of you who smirked while reading the last bullet, yes, we have a Pet Medicine Cabinet. 1 dog + 2 cats + 3 turtles + 6 chickens = 1 Pet Medicine Cabinet. Now wipe that look off your faces. You're just jealous because you didn't think of it yourself.