hibernation

I don't feel like I did much this weekend, because I ended up sleeping way more than I usually do. I never want to be that person who works all day and then comes home and doesn't do anything but sleep or watch TV, but I can see how easily that would happen.

Still, problems with the wheels on the Sexy Saturn notwithstanding, I did get some good stuff knocked out this weekend. While getting my tire patched at the Parmatown Wal-Mart, my sister and I knocked out some Christmas shopping which was no stress because evidently no one shops there anymore.

We threw a Christmas party for the Burundi kids, and they got to play games, eat pizza, and get some gifts. Brittany and I drank ridiculously sugary Tampico punch and enjoyed the chaos.





We drove out to Coventry and giggled at self-help books at Mac's Backs and I picked up this:


How awesome is that?

Otherwise, it was pretty chill, did some art, made some music, read some books. Kristy's coming home after spending five months in the West African bush so we'll be at the airport welcoming her home. It'll be great having her around again and hearing what she's been up to.

"They need to leave the planet. They need to go to Texas"

So says the guy on the Rapid this morning as we're heading into downtown talking about Cleveland's favorite football team. Usually I don't take the Rapid into work but today I felt like it and it was nice to have some freedom from the mundane in the early morning. It wasn't technically eavesdropping because the guy in question is one of those people who likes to have an audience for his theories on life, including how the world's going to end when we have an Irish pope.

Some people I know think they're too good to do that whole public transportation thing. I'm still convinced they're missing out.

totally irrelevant yet interesting

Since I do not have the resources to set out on great adventures to exotic parts of the world, I do what I've done since I was a kid and I just end up reading a lot. I walked down to the Cleveland Public Library on my lunchbreak and picked up a few volumes worth of travel writing about Southeast Asia, Morocco, and Cape Town.

So I was reading about this one girl backpacking through Vietnam and she mentioned this temple for this religion called Cao Dai, which evidently is a combination of pretty much every major world religion imaginable but mostly Catholicism and Taoism.





and I guess the Illuminati is somehow involved in this. I'm waiting for the Art Bell types to jump on this one



From wikipedia:

According to Cao Dai, before God existed, there was the Tao, that nameless, formless, unchanging, eternal source referenced in the Tao Te Ching. Then, a Big Bang occurred, out of which God was born (emanationism). The universe could not yet be formed and to do so, God created yin and yang. He took control of yang and shed a part of himself, creating the Goddess to preside over yin. In the presence of yin and yang, the universe was materialized. The Goddess is, literally, the mother of the myriad of things in the Universe. Thus, Caodaiists worship not only God, the father, but also the Goddess, literally refer to as the Mother Buddha. Note that God's importance and role is higher than that of the Mother Buddha. Also, the Mother Buddha is male, as are all buddhas. The Mother Buddha only oversees yin and is not a part of yin, which is female.


Anyways, that has no real bearing on my life or that of anyone else I know, but it is interesting, I guess...

wu-tang is for the children.

self defense 101

This is going to be me someday
Shopkeeper fights off knife-wielding raiders with cup of tea



Varsha Patel, 45, was about to take her first sip of the drink when two men wearing balaclavas burst in to her village store armed with 10-inch blades and made a grab for the till.

Reacting swiftly, she hurled the steaming tea into the face of one assailant and then threw the empty mug at his companion's head.

As she stepped back to grab a bottle of whisky to hurl at them, the two shocked thieves fled the shop with just a scratch card dispenser.

Other gems from the Telegraph, which for you Cleveland people is like the 19 Action Newspaper of the UK...

Primary school teacher tells class that Father Christmas isn't real

A grandmother was sent a machine gun intended for a police station through the post after an address mix-up.

worst feeling ever...

When something totally, utterly falls through the cracks. This happens more than it should.

incoherent holidayness

So, I just realized Christmas is two weeks away.

I've been enjoying the Christmas lights, successfully avoiding much of the sappy holidays. Of all places, the first bad Christmas music I heard was on the radio at the African/Caribbean grocery store around the corner from where I volunteer. I got to hear the joyous strains of "We Need a Little Christmas" and that damn "Christmas Shoes" song with the children's choir while looking for plantains, jerk seasoning, and strong coffee.

Working two weeks of retail at a now-deceased Parmatown department store when I was 19 made me want to kill myself and denounce the capitalist system in its entirety after seeing people with three maxed-out credit cards trying to buy hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise, and getting cussed out and yelled at by bitter managers and angry shoppers who wonder why the temporary help can't find that certain sweater in that certain size.

I was able to go all local last year and I think I'll be able to pull it off this year too. Between Gypsy and Phoenix for the coffee drinkers in my life, and Local Girl and City Buddha, I think I'll be fine and not stressed out. I'm also trying to find a midnight Christmas Eve service to appease the inner Catholic still in me somewhere that wants candlelight and reverence and refuge from all the craziness.

My roommate and I were talking the other night and we decided that if we were to have kids, we're not going to buy them all sorts of crap for Christmas and instead have them learn how to give things away.

and on a less serious note, it's not truly the holiday season until you revisit this:



I still do not understand my enjoyment of stoner humor.