Small Things #12:

1) Being able to rant on your blog. And then sleep. Better out than in, dads always say. Although not about ranting, really. My apologies for the swearing. But if I kept it in my head, I would have been up all night arguing with people who weren't there.

2) The burrito lady, who has disappeared because the construction people are here, and/or somehow Chartwell's has chased her off. But she introduced me to the best bfb's anywhere. I talked about them for TEN years before I came back to Socorro. And now I know how to make them. Thank you burrito lady! I hope you come back soon.

3) The Navajo store. Which is out of dried berries. Because they won't have any more until more berries have grown and matured and been picked and dried. There's something bizarrely satisfying about being disappointed in my dried berry supply.

4) Friends who take my remarks and turn them into poetry.

5) Bridge. I won an actual hand. ON PURPOSE. I made the contract, on purpose, and understood all the bidding, and argued with my partner to be the one to play it, and then I played it, and made the contract +3 tricks! Wow. I'm so impressed with myself.

Oh. THIS is what hatred feels like.

Bastards. F*@#*$ing Republican bastard sh@#@#theads full of sh#$#$t.

Check this article from the Guardian.

Lemme just pull a few tidbits for you (emphasis added):

"The warnings were the first time Congress had been directly confronted with the growing evidence that the impact of climate change will be far more severe than revealed even in the UN's most recent report, in 2007.

The hearing was also the first time senators had been permitted to hear testimony about the dangers to human health from climate change. In 2007, the Bush administration censored testimony from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the rise in asthma and other respiratory illnesses, as well as the increasing occurrence of "tropical" parasites."

Ok. So our government has been kept in ignorant darkness by Bush. We knew that already. (Never mind that I feel physically ill (!) at the thought of anyone censoring the CDC, ever, for any reason. Perhaps I'm irrational in my profound respect for the mission of this agency.) But the light of knowledge should be a beacon, right? But then my head exploded:

"Republicans argued that Barack Obama's proposed carbon cap legislation would be costly. "I will certainly oppose raising energy costs on suffering families and workers during an economic crisis when the science says our actions [to combat climate change] will be futile," said Kit Bond, a Republican senator from Missouri." (emphasis added)

f#$*@#%$*ing sh#$#$thead Republicans. Denial to despair in a single month. Exactly how much do they think widespread drought, death and destruction will cost? Hundreds of millions, even billions of people displaced? How can you put a price tag on 'uninhabitable cities'? Do they not know about the dust bowl? Are they really that ignorant? I hate them so much, the quitters. Losers. Whiners. Quitters, quitters, quitters. Who do they think they are? Do they even have a single ethical bone amongst them? Do they have any sense of how to TRY? At all? They should all be locked in a closet so I won't keep having these fearfully satisfying visions about driving an icepick into Boehner's eye. They should all be locked in a closet so they can't hurt us anymore. I howl inarticulately at them. Bastards. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them. Do they have no sense of responsibility at all? How can I ever forgive them for this? How will all the little kids I know ever forgive US for this? WE CAN NOT AFFORD DESPAIR. Republicans, we have no time for you to come to grips with the facts. Catch up on your own. We're not going back for you. We have no time for your despair or your willful ignorance. Get over it or get the hell out.

This may be the first time in history that the dominant party is still in opposition. I hate Republicans more than ever before. I'm even angrier than before. I want to fight them even harder than before. Even though they are rapidly becoming so pathetic that you almost feel sorry for them. (Palin? Jindal? Is that the best they've got? Really?)

Get 'em out. Get 'em all out. They lie. They steal. They cheat. They have no credibility. They have no morals. They have no ideas. They are standing in the way, and they can ALL go. We have work to do.

I've had it. I'm going out to hug a tree.

Small Things #11:

1) John Cusack. Igor was funny. But I especially love High Fidelity. Which brings me to

2) Nick Hornby.

3) This word: soupçon, which I recently heard used in actual conversation for the very first time.

4) The vast internet, which gave me a way to type the cedilla (and reminded me what it was called).

5) My kindergarten teacher, who taught me to draw a five by putting on the coat, and then the boots and then the hat. I think of it now, because the cedilla looks like shooz for the 'c'.

Small things #10:

1-5) Watching students go on to graduate school, and totally kick butt. Ok. That's not so small. But it deserves Ben and Jerry's, I think. I raise a spoon in honor of Ang. Nice work.

Small things #9:

1) Closed office doors. On a day when it's 70+ and sunny. Fun is happening.

2) Stretching.

3) My cast iron pan. Which makes the best french fries on the planet.

4) Listening to Obama, eating popcorn, and texting exclamation points back and forth to J.

5) Socorro Transportation, which is going to take me to the train on Monday, so that I can spend the day in Albuquerque. And they'll only charge me $1 each way! Of course, I have to leave at 5:30 am, but that's ok. ;)

Small things #8:

1) Seeds are arriving at my house. They'll be there when I get back.

2) I had a whole discussion last night about whether or not it was possible to combine a cat and an oven, and make a tumble-dryer for clothes. Net result? Yes, if you didn't care that your clothes were in tiny shreds afterwards. Oh and covered in cat hair. The jury is still out on whether a dryer sheet would fix this problem.

3) Bagels.

4) Asparagus. Now in season around here. And on a related note: The Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board. Oh, and the award-winning Asparagus, The Movie. Who knew?! I need that word again. Wow! People! Wow! I'm crying from laughing over here.

5) The Office.

Ok. Nobody move. I mean it.

This has been a winter of one thing after another, after another, after another. Death and disease in my little circle of friends, and wider collapses of various kinds. Drought and fire and floods and more death and disease. Economic disaster and war and starvation and governments falling in Europe. It's a little overwhelming.

And I find myself with this odd, visceral reaction of wanting everyone to just sit very still. I seem to have an almost superstitious, almost un-articulated, almost belief that if everyone just sits very quietly with their head down, then nothing else bad can happen.

Come to think of it, that makes perfect sense, if it was wolves who were going to eat us. Too bad. I know what to do about wolves. Whack them on their noses with a stick, and then climb a tree. Maybe I'll just go climb a tree. Maybe that will help.