On pets, and death.

We recently lost one of our beloved pets Pudgy the cat to a genetic illness. We were of course saddened by the loss. We will miss hearing her purr above our heads as we began to try to sleep at night. We "owned" her for around thirteen years. Although seriously I would say she owned us. We fed her upon demand, changed her litterbox twice weekly. Kept her water dish full. We would drop what we were doing to stop and pet her and gently rub her under her chin. In return she would purr. Or sometimes clean our hands with her tongue. We mostly miss the purr. It was a soothing bedtime ritual that she did over and over for at least ten years. Were time travel possible, I would go back in time. Sneak into our bedroom at night and record an hour of that purr to play at night as I climb into bed. We have three other cats. All wonderful pets, loving and purring almost on command. If you could command a cat to do anything that is. They are not known for their servitude. Each has a different personality, each special in their own way. None that will do the things Pudgy did for us. When we invest emotions in a creature that will only live at best a quarter of our lifespan, I suppose we should not complain. Of course geneticists are working on this. Experiments with mice have shown that slowing the aging process is a serious possibility. Although maybe it was the short and precious nature of Pudgy that made her so special to us. Isn't life made more precious a gift when it is finite? Would that purr be less special were it to last our entire lifetime? I suppose we will never know. There are those who have told us that we will meet her again in heaven. Which seems a silly thing to say. Would heaven for a human be the same as heaven for a cat? If cats love to catch and eat birds would there be birds in cat heaven? Would that be bird hell then? We cannot but wonder what sin a bird commits to be sent to a hell filled with hungry cats. Pooping on a freshly washed car? The point is of course that we will miss our Pudgy. She is buried out in the yard near her father Columbus who we lost last year. And on the property we have also buried our cat Bearman. And our Iguana Saura. All lived a good life with us. Or least as good of a life as we were capable of giving them. And over the years we will stop and remember them when we pass the spots where they were interred, although nature has probably long ago rendered those others back into it's embrace. And some day nature will do the same to us. We can only hope that we are remembered in as fond a manner. So it goes.

The Meaning of Life...

    Someone asked us recently. What is the meaning of life? The person asking was religious. What denomination is unimportant. They had tied the meaning of their life to their religion.And felt that without religion life had no meaning. And it's true that being religious can impart meaning to someones life. But the point is of course that the person who has the belief is imparting the meaning. And that's true of all of us. The meaning of life is different for each individual. Some of us may never find the meaning to our lives. Some find it quickly and easily. But it's not the same for everybody. We suspect it's not going to be the same for anybody. Although we all have the same needs, wants and desires. (with some variation, but they are almost universal.) How we define those wants and desires make us all different. Just a short note to point out that if you have found the meaning of your life, good for you. But you can't impart that meaning onto someone else. It wouldn't have the same meaning for them as it does for you. Personally this writer believes the meaning of life is to live it. To keep learning. To find as many answers to as many questions as is possible. It keeps us busy anyway. Ciao for now.

Granite monuments and religious fervor.

Doing some research recently on the Ten Commandments. And found a few interesting facts I thought I would share. First of course we have to define what the Ten Commandments are. The most common belief is that they are the commandments brought down from the mountain by Moses in the old testament. Of course there are different versions of what he brought down. The Catholics remove the graven images one. (Clearly as they have all those statues of Mary) The King James version differs from the Torah version. Mostly in small detail. But it's clear they are different. There are 613 laws in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are taken from these. In one version of the story Moses brings down 40 commandments, not just the 10 that most rabbinical or christian religions believe in. But what I wanted to know was where did all those granite monuments standing in front of public buildings in the United States come from? I discovered we have Cecil B. Demille to blame for that. Apparently as a publicity stunt for the release of his movie The Ten Commandments, he had a few built. And had the Fraternal Order of Eagles work to place them near government buildings. Yul Brynner attended one of the ceremonies. The F.O.E. continued to place another 2000 of them after Hollywood lost interest over the years. The Supreme Court was in two cases asked to reach a decision on whether they violated the constitution. In one case they said the monument was a violation of the constitution. (In Kentucky Mcreary vs ACLU of Kentucky) and had to be removed. (Which it was.) In another case they said that the monument could stay. (Van Orden vs Perry in Texas) But voiced some doubt in the statement by Justice Breyer that it served a "mixed but primarily non-reglious purpose." which he described as "borderline." So it behooves us to remember that when we see a Ten Commandment Monument in front of a public building. It was part of an advertising campaign in the late 50's for a hollywood movie.

And this is one of them. What a strange mixed up world we live in. Ciao for now.

The Winter of Eternal Suffering.

In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan it has snowed almost every day since April 1st. Nature has given us a clear April fools joke. We had a few weeks of good weather in March, the snow had almost all melted lulling us into believing spring had arrived. And then BAM! We are currently past record snowfall for April and it's only the 8th of the month. And we are expecting another 9 inches of snow by Monday. This writer loves the winter, and I find shoveling snow a peaceful and rewarding enterprise. But I have to say, enough with the snow already! I am looking out the front window and watching what would be light fluffy flakes floating down, turned into eye stinging chill producing arrows of crystal ice by the north wind. We live high up on a hill here in Ishpeming. And I swear nature says, "well they are closer to clouds, let's give them an extra deep dose of snow."   Still, it can be pretty. As this picture of our backyard shows.

During the month of March we watched the snow melt and thought, "hey lets use the nice weather to put that ramp on our front porch." Only to have a wet weekend of snow and rain mix. Looking at the snow now, I suspect we won't be doing that until May. Complaining about it is a pretty common thing to hear. Neighbors and strangers alike all talk about how they wish it would just end. All of my family and friends who are in the business of snow removal are simply overwhelmed. You can see them trudging to their trucks with scowls on their faces. Mumbling about "when is it ever going to" and "hell has got to be white." Don't get me wrong, I still like shoveling snow. I love the fact that you can see the results of your work instantly. And up here on the hill we get little traffic, so it's almost always a quiet job, filled with the "shush" sound of shovel and snow. But there are times.... after shoveling snow for 23 days straight for example. When the thought of a snowblower comes to mind. But then I just have to remind myself of how much time I spend sweating and swearing over a lawn mower that won't start and I think. "Hmmmnn... you know, shoveling isn't so bad." Anyway, my first full post to the blog since time, tide, and laziness has kept me from posting. Ciao for now.

We have been having a lot of discussion of religion on facebook recently. And thought that perhaps the blog would be a better place to discuss these ideas. As much as we love the public discourse it appears some of the things we say are found to be offensive. So perhaps here would be a better place to write such things. So I have reopened the crazy. And will begin posting at least weekly. If people are bored enough perhaps they will read it. Otherwise I'll just continue to post simply because of the cathartic effect. So coming soon. No... really this time. Ciao.

     We haven't posted here for a long long time, but thought with the recent news stories about Christian bakeries we should let our opinion be known. And of course since no one has probably read this in over a year we think we can print our opinion and nobody will comment. Cool huh! Ok, we've read the part in the Bible where it says that "Lying with mankind as with womankind is an abomination." and "of those that chew the cud or part the hoof you shall not eat of these." But we can't find the part where it says "Thou shalt not bake a cake for those that lie with mankind as womankind." We've done a pretty thorough search, can't find it anywhere. We also seem to remember something about not judging others. "There is only one law giver and judge." and "Who are you to judge your neighbor?" So it seems pretty clear to us. If you are religious, God want's you to leave the judging to him. If you believe that he is all knowing and all seeing then he pretty much should know what's in your heart. So go ahead and bake the cake. If there is any sin being done we doubt it falls on you for putting a couple of plastic guys (or women) holding hands on a cake. Just saying.

On freedom of speech and political correctness.

Recently we have all been victims of a social blitzkrieg. Every news channel is showing the
tale of Phil Robertson and the A&E Duck Dynasty media attack. We are being asked to choose
sides from a possibly homophobic religious rich man, to a freedom of speech hating   
corporation without a heart. In paraphrasing the bible Mr Robertson made it appear as if he
is comparing being gay with partaking of beastiality or perhaps being incredibly
promiscuous.  We suppose being brought up believing that homosexuality is a sin, could lead
one to assume that possibilty. On the other hand A&E is taking a clearly political stand and
putting Mr Robinson on "haitus." We have been perusing the message boards and chat rooms to
get a feel for what people are saying. First of all there seem to be a lot of angry people
out there. Discarding the nutcases.. (Of which there are plenty) we find that the majority
of rants were of a freedom of speech nature, (with a little dash of freedom of religion
thrown in for flavor). On the other side of the coin were people who were offended that
they could be lumped in with the rampant bestiality crowd. (Have you ever seen them, they
hang out at Walmart.) We could also understand why they could be a bit disconcerted. (Read
pissed off.) by this comparison. How do we feel about it. Mr Robertson may say whatever he
wishes and in a free country he has a right to his opinion. A&E, (a private company) has a
right to air whatever views they deem acceptable. It is not a free speech issue as the
religious right would have us belief. While Mr Robertson is entitled to his views, they are
based upon his own religious idea of right and wrong. And therefor not the law of the land.
Our personal feelings about homosexuality notwithstanding, we have no right to dictate to
other people what sort of relationships they have. It's none of our business. And our
opinion on the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality are meaningless.  However, recently
many states attempted to pass laws making it illegal for any one other than one man and one
woman to marry. These laws are based on their belief that it is a sin to commit such an act.
Based upon their religious ideals. These laws are wrong, we are not a theocracy, congress
can pass no laws establishing a religion. Therefore these laws are unconstitutional. Period.
Argument over. Oh we apologize for the quality of the paragraph and sentence structure of the blog, we copied it from notepad and things went haywire. And as we are running against the clock we had no time to correct it. Ciao for now.