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W00t!

Happy New Year's Adam!

Never Mind The Ho, Ho, Ho.

What I really need is the shovel, shovel, shovel!

It's snowing again.

*sigh*

Ah, well...Merry Christmas, all!

Christmas Wrap? What Christmas Wrap?

This year, as part of an always-growing plot to make my personal individuality an absolutely can't-miss-it point, I decided not to use paper wrapping anymore.

There are other ways to disguise a present until it can be opened by its recipient -- cloth and boxes of plastic, tin or wood.

Cloth can be handkerchiefs, towels, place mats, tea cozies, napkins, pillow cases, table runners, doilies, oven mitts....the list of possibilities is limited only by imagination.

Craft supply houses, dollar stores, and thrift stores are a great source of boxes of various sizes and materials that are intended for reuse. Candy and cookie tins are plentiful. Choose those with clean, unblemished interiors.

I stopped using ribbons, bows, and paper name tags, and scotch tape, as well. Since I'm fairly creative, I use things like shoelaces and bungee cords to fasten packages that need it. Mostly, though, I use my button-sewing skills (one that my mother insisted we all learn how to do, since she refused to do it for us) to put a few stitches of contrasting color into key points of the cloth wrapping. And since letter beads are easily available, everyone's name gets strung on a key-chain ring with colored string. Anyone who is handy with macrame knots can make this part of it as fancy as they want. Bows have morphed into candy canes and other tree decorations.

The outcome is that every gift becomes a multiple gift: The watch is wrapped in a finger towel, which is encased in a small tin pail with a tight lid, and a letter-bead name tag is fastened to the handle of the pail by its keychain ring. Nothing wasted. Nothing thrown away.

Another gift is wrapped in a hanky, then wrapped in a table runner, tacked together with a few stitches, and decorated with tiny candy canes that have strings attached for hanging on the tree (and in this case are sewn on to the wrapping). The only waste is the necessary wrap on the candy. Even the thread for stitching doesn't need to be wasted if you unpick it carefully and hang it on outside branches for the birds to use in their nests. But even cut shreds of thread will go nicely into the compost.

And as creative as I can be, I'm always on the lookout for other ideas. If you've got a suggestion for a special way of presenting a gift, drop it in the comments. Or blog about it at your place and do a linkback.

Kiss The First Amendment Goodbye

Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, has snuck one in the back door, and most of Congress was so asleep at the switch, they didn't notice that they were undermining their constitutional freedom from the imposition of religion.

Personally, I think this Steve King has been superceded by his name-twin in the writing of horror stories.



(H/T The Rev at Galloping Beaver)

UPDATE: Karen, in comments, says:

"A proposal may be introduced in Congress as a bill, a joint resolution, a concurrent resolution, or a simple resolution. Most legislative proposals are introduced as bills, but some are introduced as joint resolutions. There is little practical difference between the two, except that joint resolutions may include preambles but bills may not. Joint resolutions are the normal method used to propose a constitutional amendment or to declare war. On the other hand, concurrent resolutions (passed by both houses) and simple resolutions (passed by only one house) do not have the force of law. Instead, they serve to express the opinion of Congress, or to regulate procedure."

Reference here.

Now, the upshot of this is that it looks like Congress didn't shoot down the First Amendment completely. Yet. What it looks like now, though, is that someone is taking the idea for a walk and looking to see if enough people will join them so they can have a parade. And while this is a little less panic-inducing for those of us who firmly believe that religion and government would combine in marriage to make hideous children, the thought that some people are even entertaining the idea of a flirtation between them is alarming. After all, if this is the opinion of such a large majority of members of Congress, would it take all that much for them to take the next step and pass it as a joint resolution?

Fear Of Turning Off The Fear

I found this article over at Cute Overload.

It's posted over there because it's cute to see a cat and a mouse playing and cuddling together.

The difference here is that this cat and mouse have not been conditioned into accepting one another's presence through repeated applications of benign and chaperoned companionship until a level of mutual trust has built up within them. This cat and mouse are victims of a genetic modification to the mouse that removed all his fear of cats.

Am I alone in thinking that the military applications of such genetic interference are a horror story waiting to be written, and currently -- maybe -- lacking only a publisher?

UPDATE: Miko posted a link to the video.

Cassie And Maggie Got Married -- Or Did They?

Oh, my, my, what have we got here?

Cassie and Maggie want a divorce. But they can't have one because they live in Rhode Island. Rhode Island does not allow gays to marry. Therefore, obviously, Rhode Island does not allow gays to divorce, because you can't undo what was never done.

Except it was. Done, I mean. In Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal, Cassie and Maggie got married. And now they want to get unmarried. But they can't. Because they live in Rhode Island. And Rhode Island does not allow...oh...we been there, already.

It's not that Rhode Island disallows gay marriage. There is no law in Rhode Island that says gay marriage is illegal. Problem is, there's no law that says it's legal, either. It's in a kind of legal limbo, and that's just where Rhode Islanders seem to like it.

And Massachusetts? They won't be able to get a divorce in Massachusetts because they live in Rhode Island. Massachusetts will not grant divorces for non-residents of Massachusetts. Marriage, yes, divorce, no.

And just at the point where I thought my headspin couldn't get any more intense, a very interesting scenario waved at me from the corner of my mind...

Cassie and Maggie could just split up and go their separate ways. No big deal. Let's assume that there are no big fights over property and children and stuff. Just a nice, easy split.

And then, let's say that one or both of them wants to get married again. To another woman again. So, off we go back to Massachusetts, where, in answer to the question, "Are there any legal impediments to this marriage?" they can truthfully answer, "No," because according to the law in the state in which they live, they're not already married. They'd be bigamists in Massachusetts, but they're not going to live in Massachusetts.

Or, we could go totally Hollywood Writer on this (no, I'm not scabbing -- just throwing ideas around) and "do a treatment" I think it's called, about two bi women who marry, then try unsuccessfully to divorce, and then marry men, and then get caught up in the interstate marry-go-round, and then...well, we'll just have to wait for the next installment. I'm thinking that this would fit the half-hour sitcom/reality crap format.

Honestly, I've seen far worse plots for television shows. That's the reason I quit watching. But this...this could be cutting edge stuff.

Wanna bet someone who's on strike right now is making furtive little notes to himself about plot ideas and dialogue?

Weather? What Weather?

Two days ago, there were eight inches of snow on the ground in the yard where I live. God-children were creating snowmen.

Yesterday, there was a small lake out there from all the rain, and the snowmen were wearing flotation vests (no, I'm not kidding! Some kid's father put his boat vests on the snowmen, presumably so they could outlast the rain).

Today, the groundskeepers are mowing the lawn. Sadly, the snowmen couldn't swim, even with the help of the vests. They drowned. The former lake is now a meadow, and the grass is growing like triffids.

Nope. No weird climate shit happening here, folks. As you were.