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Goddam Hippies!

Did the Russ/Janel babies shower yesterday. Turned out very well. Met some great folks with the exception of one rather unstable chick who I’ll refer to as The Martyr. The Martyr appears to be a broke ass  hippy who volunteers all over the place but apparently doesn’t have the time to earn money. You know you’re in trouble when they start off  “I do lots of service volunteering like NPR, DragonCon and…”  DragonCon? DragonCon is NOT a service!! It’s a stupid convention!! And it just gets worse from there.

I, of course, can’t resist harassing a hippy, so I point out that DragonCon is NOT a service and furthermore the volunteers are rude and ineffectual. I thought she was gonna throw a temper tantrum! She hops up and says “Well, those are my friends you are talking about!!” and stomps into the house. I look over to Caroline and we both mouth “martyr” to each other.  She came back out with Janel and tried to sound logical but she had already shown her hand (and ass, I might add) so I didn’t listen to anything else she said.

Here’s the ranty part:
Gods, I hate hippies who feel so self righteous about the fact that they spend all their time volunteering for us unenlightened employed folk. Who do they think supports NPR, anyway? Broke ass hippies? I think not. Try white collar folks with jobs and discretionary income who DONATE MONEY to keep NPR running so the hippies can have a volunteer position to make themselves feel important. I think it’s a psychological problem when people need so much to feel important that they’ll do volunteer work as a full time job just to feel gratified and or validated. This psychological need to feel important is illustrated perfectly by the legion of Con Slaves who work 20+ hours for a $80 badge just to get to carry a Con radio and shout at attendees. Ooo, the power!! These people need to find their own passion, get a job and find satisfaction in themselves and their little corner of the universe. No amount of outside validation will ever ever feel as good as knowing you are doing what you should be doing, paying your bills and are contributing to society. Couch surfing and being un/underemployed is not really contributing, it’s depending on the success of others to pay your way. Paying your own way is extremely rewarding aside from just money in your pocket. It’s also rewarding  that you can support the arts, your favourite charities, etc. and make a discernible difference.  I know because that’s precisely what I do.  END RANT

Yes, volunteer, but more importantly donate $$ to your favourite causes. That is what will help the most. Ask anyone at NPR. As for DragonCon, your badge payment is a donation – but only to their bank account. DragonCon is a FOR profit event, not NON profit. Apparently some people don’t understand the difference.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked everyone at the party other than The Martyr. Janel is surrounded by hippies fer sure, but they are mostly the funny laid back hippies not the I’m gonna beat you with my holier than thou hippiedom hippies.  I know I’ll never fit in with the hippy set completely and that’s fine with me. I think the hippy to non-hippy ratio is about equal and I’m certain we can take them in a fair fight. Heh! :-D

Once the party cleared out and it was just the core group we had a ton of fun and conversation about real stuff.  It was awesome to have Caroline out with the adults. Welcome back! :-)

Today is about cleaning up around here and getting some of the clutter organised. This place gets cluttery faster than a speeding bullet. ::sigh::

On another note, we have decided to build a studio. My brother is actually stepping up and helping with this project, too. Miracle! The current plan is a 12×14 studio with attic storage. It will have climate control, phone, ethernet for internet access and many outlets. We’re so excited – we just can’t hide it. We’re about to lose control and we think we like it… 

Uh. Well, on that tangent, I’ll sign off before another bad 80s song pops into this post!

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Pets – too many or too few

I’m doing my morning reading of the blogs, checking email, etc. a friend posted about her cat. Which brings to mind my Bernadette. ::sigh::

Bernie disppeared, which tells me that she was eaten or run over and what was left was disposed of by a stupid ghetto neighbor or DeKalb Animal Control. I can’t be certain, of course, but this is what I suspect. At least I didn’t have to see it – although not knowing is its own kind of suckage.

The friend’s cat was eaten by their asshole neighbor’s dog. The dog got loose and killed the cat while they were at DragonCon. The asshole neighbor took it to the vet and paid for the cremation, but that doesn’t really HELP bring back a dead pet. I don’t know, call me evil (many do), but I’d say that dog would suddenly get very ill. Maybe even die if I knew it had eaten my cat. 

Yes, it’s not the dog’s fault, blah blah, but that’s not the point. The point would be to cause the asshole neighbor as much pain as he’d caused me. And by taking out the pet (which is vicious and should be put down anyway, IMO), you would give the neighbor an object lesson in why keeping vicious dogs is BAD.

If I knew for sure that the vicious pit bull down the street had eaten Bernie, I’d shoot it. No hesitation. They can take me to jail, whatever, but I’d shoot that dog and not think a thing of it. I don’t like dogs much in the first place and I certainly have zero tolerance for vicious ones. And let me tell you, ghetto dwellers here in Atlanta believe the more vicious the better. Assholes.

So, the friend has fewer pets than she did a few months back (she lost 2 ferrets, a hamster and now a cat) and so do I. I miss Bernie every day. She still has a herd o’ varmints, but it doesn’t matter how many you have, you still feel the loss of one. I’m down to two kitties and I’m good with that. I’ve decided to not get any more (if I can help it) because we are going to be traveling more and I don’t want to deal with petsitters, etc. You can’t travel much with several pets in the house.

My other friend has too many varmints. She began feeding a stray cat a few months back which promptly brought two kittens to the door. She’s got two cats indoors already. So, she’s been feeding the mama and two kittens. This week, the mama brought four more kittens to her door. For a grand total of SEVEN cats in her backyard. She’s currently trying to find somewhere that will fix them, vaccinate them and check them for diseases.

I guess there’s always a balance to be struck with pets. We all would like to empty out the animal shelters and love those poor babies who need love – but we can’t. I know people who take on too many pets and can’t care for them properly – that must be avoided. If you can’t afford health care for the pet (getting them fixed, vaccines, etc) then you can’t afford the pet, period.

There’s a sweet spot for every family with pets. Mine is actually three cats, but I’m letting the herd thin out. I’m planning ahead for circumstances that will compromise their quality of life (our traveling a lot). I do NOT believe that cats are fine all alone in an empty house. No way.

Whether you’ve too many or too few, take care of your pets. Feed them good food, get their vaccines and have the compassion to put them down when they are very sick.

We are their stewards and it’s our responsibility.

Pets bring so much happiness. And so much pain when they leave us. But we do it again and again. Someone needs to create a kitty that lives as long as we do. Now THAT would be some research I could get behind. :-)

Also: today is the 9/11 anniversary. I remember that day quite clearly. Everyone say a prayer that this sort of stupidity does not happen again anywhere.

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Etsy!

I’m probably the only person who did not know about Etsy, but now I do and I want to make sure MY peeps know about it. Supporting handmade products is important!

Etsy is THE place for any and all handmade wares: jewelry, knitting, crafts, art – you name it. I heard about it from Jennie Breeden’s LJ. She’s going to sell some of her original art and several people suggested Etsy. There is art from $5 to $1000s on Etsy. It’s amazing and I just now found out about it! GAH!

This is where I will sell my handmade jewelry when/if I ever have the time to get back in the studio and MAKE said jewelry.

So go to Etsy now! Christmas is right around the corner!

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Freecycle can suck it

I’ve had my fill of the stupid hippies on Freecycle. The mods beat me down every time I forget to dot an i, yet 90% of the stupid assholes who use the list don’t show up, complain and act like the person making the offer should bring it to their doors and thank them for taking it, too. For all the godsdamned rules they have, there sure is a lot of bullshit going on. “You must GIVE before you take! Don’t TAKE too much or we’ll ban you!” etc etc. ::Cartman voice:: Goddam hippies!!

I listed a stupid old ice cream maker and got, like, 40 emails about it. SEVEN respondents later, someone finally picked the fucking thing up. You have to deal with these assholes one at a time to be fair and it’s a total pain in the ass. One bitch had the gall to lecture ME about putting my location in the listing (which is NOT allowed you dumb whore) because I’m “so far from Decatur Square” – AFTER she did not show to pick up. Uh, well, I never said I live on the fucking Square in Decatur you stupid bitch – last time I checked I was not homeless. Had the dumbass bothered to look at the follow up email, she’d have seen the fucking map. Yah, I live a whopping 4.5 miles away. Practically ACROSS town!!

So, that bitch was the last straw. Freecycle can kiss my ass. I’ll take my shit to Salvation Army.  I hate fucking self righteous hippies. I’ve got better things to do than coddle middle class pseudo-hippies who drive their brand new monster SUVs to pick up their free shit. (really happened) Gods!

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Friday Night stuff to do

We are going to the Aimee Mann show at Variety Playhouse tomorrow night, but there’s also some other great stuff going on around town tomorrow and in the coming weeks:

  1. Dosa Kim is an awesome artist we met at DragonCon. He’s having an opening reception at Aurora Coffee in L5P tomorrow night 7-10pm. The art will hang until Oct 1st.
  2. reMIXT Closing and an Art Sale
    A whole weekend of art
    September 12 – 9 p.m. to 12 a.m.
    September 13 – 4 p.m. to 10 p.m
    at MINT Gallery
  3. A munny show hosted by MINT Sept 20

I’m sure there’s more, but since I’ll be out of town from the 15th-24th, that’s all I have heard about. Get out there and enjoy this lovely early fall weather! Participate in the arts!!