This is too cute. Photos of cats in sinks.

Found via Stupid Evil Bastard.

On BlogSisters, Media Girl has a well-reasoned essay on reproductive rights as a liberty and 14th amendment issue, rather than a privacy issue. Go read.

About 30 miles from here, the last remnants of Aryan Nations’ leader Richard Butler are fading into infamy. While the rest of the country saw the abstract evil of the nation’s most identifiable racist, this backwater of the Pacific Northwest didn’t have the luxury of that distance. We’ve been on the front lines in the war on hate. In 1996, Spokane was the site of 2 bank robberies and 3 bombings by the Phineas Priesthood, another white supremacist group, and until 2000, when Butler’s compound was seized to pay a legal judgment to a mother and son who were assaulted by his skinhead body guards, we were subjected to the annual Aryan Nations Congress and parades through the streets of Coeur d’Alene.

At a bankruptcy auction in 2001, Butler’s former Aryan Nations compound near Hayden Lake, Idaho was purchased by millionaire Greg Carr, founder and former chairman of the Internet service Prodigy, for $250,000 with the intent of turning it into a museum and human rights education center.

The displaced Butler was resettled in the town of Hayden, ID by millionaire Vincent Bertollini. After Butler’s death in September, 2004, no one picked up payments on the remaining $91,486 mortgage, including Bertollini, who is believed to have left the country. The house will go on the auction block and perhaps this ugly bit of history will finally be over.

Amen.

The cardiologist called yesterday to give me the results of my stress echo cardiogram. It was mostly good news; my cardiovascular fitness was well above average, my endurance very good, my heart recovery time excellent with no “episodes” recorded during the test. I’m quite physically fit after the diet and exercise this spring and summer.

So tell me how my cholesterol could spike up 30 points in the same period during which I lost 35 pounds? The doctor’s answer? Bad genes. **sigh**

I go back to have it checked again in 6 weeks.

Tall triple latte, skim milk, no syrup. Before I was forced to decaffeinate, that was my standing order at Sips Espresso. A recent study by researchers at the University of Scranton says that might just have been good for my health.

They discovered that coffee is the leading source of antioxidants–thought to fight cancer and provide other health benefits–for Americans, topping black tea, bananas, dry beans and corn.

Spokesman Joe A. Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton, said he was researching tea, cocoa and other foods and decided to study coffee, too.

From AP via the Spokesman-Review:

His team analyzed the antioxidant content of more than 100 different food items, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, oils and common beverages. Then it used U.S. Agriculture Department data on typical food-consumption patterns to calculate how much antioxidant each food contributes to a person’s diet.

The researchers concluded that the average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult American drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily.

That doesn’t mean that coffee is a substitute for fruits and vegetables, however. Vinson pointed out that they are better nutritionally than coffee.

No word on whether those antioxidants are present in decaf.

Writing has been hard this month, this past week in particular. So the blog has suffered. I just haven’t been able to summon up the emotional energy. August has been a month of letting go and many “lasts” which I’m not handling too well. I’ve moved Julie to Arizona, and now this coming week, I move Meredith to Tacoma. All I can do is I savor every moment I have left, clinging to them like a life raft in a storm, counting the days.

I guess you could say I’m grieving.

And like I always do when I grieve, I cut my hair.

I can identify with the Biblical gnashing of teeth and wearing sack cloth and ashes, the need to make pain visible. My hair–my biggest vanity–seems to symbolize everything I take joy in, somehow. Whacking it off fits with the loss I’m feeling. I let Mere decide the style, and took her with me to the salon. It looks pretty good, but that’s not the point. The cutting was, seeing the pieces fall away to the floor to be swept up and discarded.

It’s only 4 inches and some layers, but when you take into account the weight not on the curls anymore, it’s just below my shoulders now. Not a lot of hair gone, but enough to ease the ache a little. The hair will grow back, and eventually my heart will, too.

Letting go is the right thing to do. That doesn’t make it easy.

Yesterday’s mail brought Bits And Pieces, the newsletter from Central Valley High School, where my son is a sophomore. Along with schedules, bus information and hot lunch prices, it contained a list of rules for school dances. For security reasons, non-CV students are only allowed at half the sponsored events, and then the guest’s name must be turned into the office a week before, to allow for a security screening. That makes me a little uneasy. But this, from the dress code for semi-formal events (page 9), like Homecoming, Winter Formal, Valentines Day Dance and Senior Prom seems way out of line:

The minimum dress requirements at semi-formal dances are for girls a dress or skirt with blouse or sweater and for boys a button shirt and slacks or dress pants (no jeans).

Why this need to codify gender costume? How would it endanger security if a girl wore a pair of pants or even a tuxedo to prom, or a boy a kilt? Or for that matter, poor kids wearing what they have? I suspect it’s an attempt to avoid the discomfort of middle class adults should teenagers do a little gender bending. Next thing you know, those kids might start thinking that they have a right to decide their own sexual identity!

Micro-managing teenagers is a very bad idea. My philosophy of child rearing is very simple. Don’t sweat the small stuff. There are enough battles that have to be fought over safety issues without nitpicking about their hair and clothes and music. If it’s not hurting anyone, let it go. My son went through a couple of years of rainbow-hued hair. When he asked for my assistance, I helped him dye it. It was only hair, and his decision. Eventually he decided to stick with his natural shade, worn long and in his eyes, and that’s cool too. He’s a good kid, bright, hard working and considerate. If he were to decide to wear a dress to Homecoming, I’d stand behind his right to do so.

We don’t have a constitutional right to not be offended. Should your religion dictate that women not wear pants, you do not have the right to force me to show my legs because doing otherwise would offend your sensibilities. Forcing stereotypes on teenagers is just begging for a fight, and unnecessary one at that.

Racing through the yard playing fetch with his teddy bear.

Yesterday morning I had my echocardiogram and stress test. It was fairly straight forward, actually; they hooked me up to half a dozen wires, then did an ultrasound of my heart. Then came the stress part, walking on the treadmill to get my heart rate up as high as possible, then repeating the ultrasound. The whole thing took about 90 minutes.

I did fairly well on the treadmill, I think. My joints gave out before my heart did but I didn’t get winded and my heart stayed steady. I’m not in too bad shape for my age. The uphill 20% grade was hell on my knees, though, but I made it.

They didn’t give me any results. The cardiologist is supposed to call with those next week sometime. More waiting. **sigh** Then maybe a verdict.

(humming “I Feel Like A Woman”)

There’s just something about shoes …. Last night I found my dream shoes. 3.5 inch heel, peek-a-boo toes, leather with suede trim, fire engine red. They’re a little too big–smallest size was a 7–but I can fill in the gap with heel grippers. Best of all, they were half price–only $15–because I also bought a pair of sneakers.

It doesn’t matter than I don’t have anywhere to wear them, and that I lack the perfect black dress to go with them - I’m happy. I’m going to wear them to my daughter’s wedding.