Passport to Adventure!!

Wasn't that the tag line for some TV show back when I was beaucoup younger?

They're having a passport getting to-do thing at the postal orifice on Saturday. I am seriously thinking about doing this. While I am currently not in any position to do any massive travelling, it might be nice to have the document in case I get some uncontrollable urge to go drive to Canada for a beer or fly to Paris for dinner (yeah, right) or something.

I did notice one thing, however. It said on the little card thingy I got from the postal orifice that minors under the age of 14 (16 after some date...) need the approval of BOTH parents to get a passport.

Now, I can understand this, particularly in cases like where the Saudi guys marry a US woman, have a kid and then spirit the kid off to Saudi and leave Mom here holding nothing but a sole-custody order.

But what about families where mom or dad dies before the kid needs a passport? How do they handle situations where getting Dad's signature would mean exhumation? Or what about in the case of .... oh... for the sake of arguement - Charles Manson's kid. Or a child born because of a rape-concieved pregnancy? Or a kid who is the result of a one-night-stand and the gal doesn't know who he was because it was one hellova party? Or Dad is a convicted pederast? Or parents are divorced and Dad and is being a dickweed to Mom about anything and everything just because he CAN?

I don't mean this to condemn anyone for their actions, or to set up some "well, if she didn't want to get pregnant" bullshit flamefest - but what if for some reason it really is NOT possible to get both parents to sign, and it isn't because it's likely one parent would kidnap the kid? Does Johnny have to miss out on his 8th grade trip to Niagara Falls?

What about kids who's parent is MIA because GWB tried to get him/her killed in Iraq?

Seems there has been inadequate thought put into this, if there is no provision to handle alternative familial situations such as the above.

222 days

Drugged and Lovin' It

If only drugs were side-effect and addiction free. But DRUGS ARE BAD, MKAYYY?

*sigh*

Many years ago, when Dinosaurs roamed the earth, there were no Ipods and nobody had yet heard of Michael Jordan, I had to have my gallbladder removed. This was my first operation (I've had a few since) and this was back in the day where... well... let us just say that the scar runs diagonally across from just under my right tit to almost my waist on the side. With a row of dots on either side of it from the "staples" to keep it shut.

The coolest part of this (other than having a silly roommate with an appendectomy who delighted in playing the "make your roommate laugh and make their stitches hurt" game) was the morphine. Morphine is nice. You get a slap in the ass - it hurts for like 20 seconds... and then... NOTHING hurts. Nothing at all. You aren't high, you aren't loopy or dizzy - but NOTHING HURTS - not even that little crick in the neck that EVERYBODY has that hurts all the time just a bit - nothing at all hurts. It is like... heaven.

But it is addictive and can kill you in quantity and DRUGS ARE BAD, MKAYYYY??

Anyhow - if there were no negative effects to drugs - morphine .. mmmmmm. I also now have a 2ndary drug that I like very much. Prednisone. My back went out and the Dr. diagnosed a slightly herniated disc and prescribed a week's worth of prednisone. Not as dramatic as morphine, to be certain, but...

This morning I was galumphing up the stairs to grab my cell before racing out the door to work and I realized... my knees didn't hurt. They didn't click, they didn't wobble - they just did what knees are supposed to do - haul my fat white ass up the stairs!

SO! Morphine and prednisone - nice drugs. DANGEROUSLY nice drugs. ONLY USE WITH PHYSICIAN APPROVAL, PRESCRIPTION AND only for limited times. DRUGS ARE BAD, MKAYYYYYY????




223 days

Open Letter to Mickey D

Dear McDonalds:

In what I can only assume is a knee-jerk response trying to pre-empt some kind of market takeover by a possible Chik-Fil-A incursion into the Yankee portion of these United States, I have noted your new "southern" menu items. While the breakfast chicken item is not bad, and the lunch/dinner item does not appear to be either, I am horrified by the introduction to your menu of "Sweetened Iced Tea".

Gentlemen and Ladies - I have spent considerable time driving between the north and south, many times crossing the dread Mason-Dixon line and having to remember to ask for UNSWEETENED iced tea once south of said line. It pains me to no end to admit that the last time I drove to Florida, I was forced to discard my beverage purchased at a Kentucky McDonalds, as I had forgotten the cardinal rule and only ordered "Iced Tea" - without the qualifier.

I am quite certain, having actually SEEN the phenomenon before, that our fine Southern neighbors are fully capable of adding sweetening to their tea and stirring same. It galls me that here, in my own neighborhood - the land where I grew up - the state of my birth and the home of this "damn yankee" for over 50 years - one of my usual stops has now become "Southernized" and requires me to stipulate at a MCDONALDS - a corporation based in Oak Brook, Illinois - that my tea should be pure and unadulterated by ghastly sweeteners.

Please remove this travesty from our menus, and return to the correct manner of serving tea beverages. Let us not undo all the good of the defeat of Robt. E. Lee by allowing the South to rise again and inflict this horror upon the good People of the North.**

224 days


**My darlings south of the M/D line... please don't take offense, I love you all dearly. I just hate your tea!!!