Campfyre Stories

I think that most of the people who live in the United States have a frighteningly bad understanding of what "Constitutional Rights" actually are.  Every time a person or a group is targeted, the screaming of "Constitutional Rights Violation!!!" starts up.

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I went to this Earth Day celebration on Saturday.  It was hosted by the local food co-op and, I suppose, I expected it to be more than it actually was.  Sure, there were homemade crafts and free workshops and informational tables set up, but there were just so many things that were glaringly wrong to me that it gave me a headache.

The first thing you have to understand is that I know a lot of people who believe very strongly in organic foods, naturopathic medicines, environmental conservation - and who actively DO something about that.  My mother has been an activist for as long as I can remember and tries to ingrain the idea of giving back and taking care of the earth to everyone she teaches.  I like to think she’s effective, at least to some degree.  But I am losing my point.

I went to this Earth Day celebration - at the co-op - and there were TONS of people.  Well, actually, no, there were tons of cars.  Few of which were fuel-efficient, many of which were oversized and only carrying one or two people (including the driver).  Where were the rows of bikes?  Where were the people who walked?  Instead there was a parking lot so overfilled that cars were idling as they waited for a space to open up.  Heh.  Irony.

There was nowhere in the celebration area to get drinks (water!  on a hot day!) or to get food until later, so I went into the co-op to grab some lunch.  It wasn’t until I was finished eating that I discovered that there were no recycling facilities available in the area.  Even mainstream events offer areas for empty bottles and cans, but the only thing available for disposal was a giant dumpster in the middle of the parking lot.  I also was a little disconcerted at how much waste was generated by my fallafel salad platter.  A full pie tin wrapped in Saran Wrap.  Sure, it crushes, but shouldn’t I be able to compost and recycle at an Earth Day celebration?  The facilities to do so were simply not made available to us.

As I baked in the sun, both from above and from the blacktop below, I noticed that few people were paying attention to sun screen.  I took care of myself and my niece, but only once did I hear a mention of a reminder for others.  I also didn’t hear much in the way of reminders for people to keep hydrated.  Ok, sure, we’re out of practice, since we haven’t had this kind of sunshiny weather for 6 months, but doesn’t caring for the environment mean taking care of ourselves as well?

I went to an Earth Day celebration and all I could see was rampant hypocrisy and a lack of planning.  It seems to me, if you’re going to go to the extent of organizing an event to raise awareness of environmental issues and ways to be pro-active, then the simple and accepted methods should be in place.

For my part, I arrived in a car that carried 5 people and I walked home.  Since I couldn’t find recycling on site, I took mine with me.  But after seeing all those idling cars and all the trash that went directly into the dumpster, I find myself wondering just how small of a minority I was a part of…  especially in the midst of people who like to think they’re doing their part by shopping at the co-op.

Maybe I’m a harsh judge, but I can only know what you show me, and at an event such as this, what you showed me was quite sad and pitiful, indeed.

I’m kind of sore today because of the highly ridiculous fall I took yesterday. I didn’t think I did any damage, other than to my pride, which was completely shattered, but…. eh.

Girl asked me “Oh my god, is there anywhere you *haven’t fallen?” And, of course, the answer is yes, but I’m not going to curse myself by listing them.

So instead, I’ll give you an incomplete list of some of the bonehead falls I’ve already taken.

I’ve fallen: up and down stairs, rolling down a concrete stoop to land on my face on the sidewalk, into a hole in my basement, wet floors, dry floor, cracks in the sidewalk, smooth sidewalk, in the street, into a snowbank, into a puddle, down a hill, down a muddy path, out of bed, out of a car… and now on a bus. To this day, I am still the only person I know who has managed to actually fall off a TRAIN.

Putting it in list form really tones it down, because you don’t get the stories, but you get the idea. Here’s the bus story.

I was moving to the front of the bus as it approached my stop when I tripped over the garbage bag of random crap that some idiot had in the aisle in dront of him. Since I was moving forward and the bus was stopping, I *flew* about 10 feet, head first, to the front of the bus and landed on my knees (I know how to land - I better).

There was a collective gasp of horror from, well, the entire bus and three guys came running to help me get up/gather my strewn things. I am, at this point, cracking up, since it was pretty ridiculous and my pride was quite wounded, as I had an audience of 20-30 people.

No one laughed, which is a new one on me, but kind of a nice change of pace, but I am more and more convinced that I’m not a real person, I’m a cartoon character.

*shakes head*

Ok, I need your help.

A friend of mine has asked me for a favor.  He has been sending jokes to his sister via text message every day and he’s exhausted his store.  Now, I have a good number of lightbulb jokes and a few musician jokes, but most of the jokes I know (and love) are too long for a text message.

That’s where you come in

Tell me your best jokes that are up to (but no longer than) 160 characters.  If u need 2 abbrev., that’s fine as long as the whole joke is small enough to fit in a text message.  You can either post them in the comments or email them to me using the Contact Me page.

Any and all assistance is not only greatly appreciated, but it serves to spread joy in the world.  But, you know, if you’re selfish, then just ask and I’ll give you a joke that’s too long to fit in a text message.  I can’t promise that people will laugh, but probably most of them will groan.

I am Ed. The often spoken of but rarely heard from Knight in Shining Armor! I am guest writing for the lovely and talented Fyregoddess because…well……..I am awesome, and she said I could. So, here goes, hope you enjoy!

I had an interesting conversation with my brother this weekend, a conversation that strangely reminded me of my trip to Spain years ago. It came up as my bro and I were about to head out for a little dinner. He grabbed off his desk a wad of $2 bills laying next to a roll of $1 coins, scraped a few out of the bankroll and jammed them into his wallet with the rest of his green. What’s the deal? I say.

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This is one meme that I wasn’t able to steal without participating on the blog where I would have otherwise stolen it.  My interviewer today is the fabulous Miss Britt (and if you haven’t read her blog, go do it now.  I’ll wait.):

1. What is the sexiest thing about yourself?

Since my real answer isn’t one I’m able to put into words, I’ll say my affected Kathleen Turner phone voice.

2. If you had to wear a sign that described yourself in one word -  what would it be?

It would say "FyreGoddess". 

3.  If you came with a warning label, what would it say?

"If you play with Fyre, you might get burned."

4. What makes you sad?

People who take my warning label seriously, the current US political climate, feeling helpless to change things that effect the people I care about, snow, broken netflix discs.  *sniffle*  *cry*  I can’t go on…

5. When was the last time you laughed so hard you peed yourself… or came damn close?

When I found out that my dad sued Hooters for gender discrimination - and won.  I’m still laughing.

And to finish the whole thing off, if you want to be interviewed:

1. *Jump up and down, waving your hand madly while you shout, "Me! Me! Me!  Pick me!  Fyre!  Pick me!"  Or, I suppose, if you’re no fun at all, you can just ask nicely. *
2. *I will respond by asking you five questions (in email). I get to pick the questions (be afraid). *
3. *Update your weblog with the answers to the questions.  And, you know, probably the questions themselves…  for context. *
4. *Include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post, unless you’re a total stick-in-the-mud, in which case I will cry and you will be added to my list of things that make me sad. *
5. *When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions or smack them with a fish (halibut for preference).*

This is my big weather post for the winter.  I haven’t spent too much time on the weather, so I’m just going to go for it.

The weather people have been using the term "Wintry Mix" in all it’s vague glory, but I really don’t think it’s accurate enough for what happened yesterday and people who haven’t gone through a winter hearing "Wintry Mix" don’t really know what it means.  I’m opting to call it a precipitation square dance, since really it was snow, sleet, rain and hail taking turns, switching partners and do-si-doing throughout the day.

People tell me that this is "normal" for April, but I don’t think so.  I don’t think there’s very much normal about going from 65 degrees to 2′ of snow in March and I certainly don’t think there’s much normal about building up to spring-like temperatures (in the actual season of spring) only to have it plummet that very night.

I’ve decided to not complain in earnest until it’s May and this is still happening, but I’ve been under the assumption that it’s going to snow every month, mid-month for the rest of my life (at least my life in Upstate NY).

What I find most interesting is the way people handle it around me.  I may complain, but I still get out of bed and wait for the bus and go into work.  I wear what I wear and I don’t let the weather have too much of an effect on my plans or whatever.  I DO complain, but I complain about everything.  I’m not happy without something to complain about.  Anyway.

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As disappointed as I was in my plans falling through, I needed a quiet weekend.  Going to bed early, maybe sleeping in…  sounds nice, especially since I’ve had the plague for two weeks now.  I’m ready to not be sick anymore.

The problem is that I’m incapable of doing *nothing*, so I did have to make some plans.  I got my hair cut so I wouldn’t set myself on fire and then had a really fun conversation with a little girl on the bus ride home.  She was really interested in Daisy and she wanted someone to talk to, so I showed her all my stickers and all the nifty things my phone can do.  I didn’t get home until late (for getting home), but I went to bed early (for going to bed).  In fact, I was already settled in to go to sleep when I got the first call to come out and play.

"Fyre?  Hey.  This is Michelle"

And I’m thinking, do I even know a Michelle?

"What are you up to tonight, do you want to go out?"

I finally figure out that this is my brother (Chaos)’s friend who I have met a totally of MAYBE 2 times.  Talking to Chaos later over the weekend, he thinks she invited me out to get the scoop on what’s going on between my brother and his not-(yet)-girlfriend.  Still, I was put in the rather embarrassing situation of having to say "No, I’m going to bed at 9 tonight."

Later on, I got another invitation, but by that time I was already pretty much sleeping.

Saturday, Princess and I went out to run some errands and go see Grind House.  (It was really good, btw, but I’m not a fan of Zombie movies, so I vastly preferred Death Proof to Planet Terror).  At some point during the errands, I was accosted by a random woman while I was waiting for a cappuccino.  She started off rambling about my hair and how wonderful curly (eh) hair is to have and how she wished that she had curly hair, but that everybody wishes they had different hair then they actually do and her niece who calls her Ma has the same kind of hair as me and she loves to brush the hair and then some story that I’m not even paying attention to because, one, why do I care and two, why are you telling me?  I really don’t care and three what does this have to do with anything?

She finally left and I felt like I had hallucinated the whole thing.  No one else was around for that, so there’s a chance that I may actually have.

Sunday, though, brought the most amusement for me.  I had to go to Mom’s house to find some of my Dad’s paperwork somewhere in the mess of my dad kept EV-RY-THING.  While going through these papers, I kept finding legal documents.  Apparently my dad sued pretty much everyone he could, and he did it on his own, usually without a lawyer.  Mom says that Dad always wanted to be a lawyer, so he’d sit in the library researching his cases and he won a good amount of time. 

It wasn’t until I found the 1099 form from Hooters Gender Discrimination that I realized the extent of my dad’s "hobby".  That was probably the funniest thing I had ever seen and NO ONE knew that he had done this.  I’m assuming it was part of a class action suit, since I didn’t see any specific paperwork, but did my dad really apply to work at Hooters?  And get turned down (based on his gender?)  Apparently he must have.  It’s so strange the questions that you wind up with after whoever is unavailable to answer.

For having no plans, for a "quiet weekend", it was still pretty eventful…  and all that stuff above isn’t even half of what actually went on, it’s just the stuff worth telling. 

But I think that maybe…  just maybe…  I’m not so sick anymore…  and I might even be officially Not Sick sometime this week.

*crossed fingers*

My little man is growing up. Spawn shaved for the first time - with a straight razor.

What’s amusing to me is that having gotten rid of the fine, light(ish) hair on his upper lip, he actually *looks* younger now. Before he shaved, you could actually see that there was some semblance of moustache there.  However, he is doing it in order for the moustache to grow in thicker and faster.

Why does every boy want to grow a moustache, anyway?  Is it just to prove that they CAN? No matter, the point remains, he’s growing up. This is just another milestone.