Pet Cremation Is Weird

I should probably preface this post by saying that I grieve quickly. I say this up front so that later you will hopefully remember it later and not think I'm a total asshole. So remember that, I grieve quickly. This is true of people and of animals. When my grandma passed away I was crushed up until the day of the actual burial. After that, I had closure and I moved on. I don't visit grave sites often, because the people who are dead don't know I'm there, and they aren't really there anymore either so I don't feel like I need to stop by and say hi or anything. I figure the people I love know how often I think about them once they're gone. So last week, when my cat died, I was crushed for the first few days, but by the time the vet office called me to say her ashes were in, I didn't turn into a giant crying mess. Ashes are closure.

I went to pick her ashes up this afternoon on my lunch break and I immediately realized that pet cremation is a weird thing. I've never had a pet cremated before. Growing up, we had a giant back yard and all of the family pets just got buried somewhere along our tree line. Hell, we even buried the horses when they died because my mom couldn't stand the idea of sending them somewhere to "be disposed of", so we hired a dude with a large piece of construction equipment and buried the damn horses. Unfortunately, Norbert died in the middle of the freaking winter, during a blizzard, when the ground is totally frozen. That makes burial inconvenient. Plus, our Stepford neighbors and the HOA probably wouldn't enjoy us digging up the yard to dispose of our cat. So, we had her cremated. When I went into the office the receptionist asked what I needed and I said I was there to pick up my cat's ashes. I had to stop myself from saying "my dead cat". Because really, that's what I'm getting. She suddenly became very somber, like all of those people you see running funeral homes, and said she was sorry and she would go get the ashes for me. I stood there for a bit while another person was processing a refund for the uneaten prescription food I had that obviously didn't help the cat since well...ashes.

The woman soon returned with a gift bag, I kid you not an actual gift bag containing the wrapped up remains of my cat. She said she was sorry again as I stood there thinking "This is pretty festive for death" and picked up the bag. At this point, I suddenly wished I was someone else. ANYONE else, because I deal with death strangely. I blame my dad for this. Dad diffused sad situations with funny stories about the ill or deceased person, and we all got to laugh instead of cry. So I laugh. Inappropriately. The freaking bag containing the ashes of my dead cat is heavier than the actual cat was. Intellectually I know this is because they put her ashes in a little wood box, but part of me wanted to say "Are you sure they didn't mix things up and give me a dead Rottweiler instead?" Thankfully, the mouth filter kicked in before I spit that one out. Dodged that bullet. But I did still laugh, a little. I am a terrible person. This was confirmed by the look the receptionist woman gave me.

Then I went out to the car. First I looked at the little memorial paw print they cast for us in clay, which is weirdly cute until you realize it was taken when she was dead, and then I pulled out the certificates from the pet crematorium that were in the bag. There was a bookmark with a poem, and then an actual certificate saying "Your special friend (Norbert) has received cremation services through us. We are sorry for your loss" and my first thought was "Well I hope she received cremation services, otherwise what the hell is in this freaking box?!" But I guess it's nice to know that they put a certificate in there in case we were wondering what happened to the cat and we were expecting to get her back taxidermied or freeze dried or something. Nope, just cremated, got a certificate to prove it.

That's when I did it. I pulled the wood box out of the bag and looked at it. My first thought was "What the hell?! This thing is literally sealed shut. How am I supposed to sprinkle her around Stalin if I can't get the box open?!" and then I wondered why they'd seal it so carefully. Maybe they charged me $120 and gave me a BS certificate but did not really provide cremation services. Maybe the world is being ripped off by The Man. So I did it. I shook the box to see if it sounded like there was anything inside. It did. Now, for all I know, it's the scrapings out of someone's fireplace or something, but at least there's a bag of something in there and I'm content to believe it's my cat. Or a Rottweiler. I'm just saying, that box was heavy.

Leave Your Message at the Beep

I haven't disappeared. I just haven't had anything to write about. I've been in a bit of a funk the past week or so, and the words and rants and usual fodder for blog entries just aren't there right now.

So Long, Thanks For the Ride

My cat died today. I know this is small and insignificant in the large scheme of universal affairs, but in my small and not so significant world, this matters. It matters for a lot of reasons. Norbert was the first pet Jason and I got when we moved in together. She has been with us through 9 years of our lives together. She was the first kitten we picked from her litter, she was all personality and attitude and she was probably the most fun pet we have ever owned. She was ours unconditionally. She loved no one in the same way as she loved us. And she loved no one in this world as much as she loved Jason. Even today, at the end of everything, she still tried to purr when he held her. She was our cat, and we loved her.

And, at the end of everything, I wasn't there. I didn't get to see her. For the second time in my life I found myself painfully absent as someone I loved passed away. I was somewhere else, and I didn't get to say goodbye. And I know she was a cat, and I know I will get over it eventually, but it's just another reminder of losing someone or something I care about and not having a chance to say goodbye. Once again, I should have been there, and I wasn't. That hurts.

Now, tonight, as I sit here in my house it seems too quiet without her. Nothing has changed really, but somehow it feels like there's a hole in here somewhere. Everything feels too still, like the house is waiting for her. Fluffy is waiting for her. She has been wandering the house, meowing like she's lost something, and I can't help but feel awful because she doesn't understand. And, frankly, neither do I. It wasn't supposed to end the way it did. But at least I can intellectualize it. But it figures that if Norbert was going to go out, it wouldn't be quietly. It's fitting that she'd ride out on a hellish blizzard, wreaking havoc on the innocent. She had no intention of going quietly.

So, farewell my Stalinistic little kitty. Thanks for letting us have 9 years. Sorry I missed the last minutes.

State of the Union Running Commentary

While watching the State of the Union address I decided to write down everything Jason and I said out loud to the TV. For your enjoyment.

-Yay! It's not just superbowl winners, it's science fair winners!

-Yeah, become teachers. But first why don't you make some fucking teaching jobs?!

-Oh Boehner isn't clapping at that. He's just sitting there all orange and cranky.

-Everyone not clapping here must get money from insurance companies for their campaigns.

-Government is going to make sacrifices? I hope it's not a cow. That'll piss PETA off.

-Freeze spending? Shouldn't Boehner be peeing his pants over this?!

-The backs of our most vulnerable citizens? Isn't that like....everyone now?

-That plane analogy was kind of a fail. Without an engine you wouldn't feel impact because you wouldn't get off the ground.

-He wants to cut defense spending? The republicans aren't going to like that!

-Yes, let's make rich people pay more. It's not like they don't have it.

-Nice dig at privatization of social security. We all saw how well our 401Ks did after the market crashed....

-Boehner seemed surprised by that one.

-A competent government? What does that look like?

-Does anyone else think Biden look like he's not entirely sure of what's going on? Did anyone tell him it's the State of the Union tonight?

-Whoa, what was that John Boehner? What was with the shifty-eye shifty-eye?

-It's nice to see John McCain happy. Not really. Someone get Palin in here to be a buzzkill.

-They're talking about Iraq. Quick! Someone cut to a soldier from Afghanistan!

-Wow, lots people not standing on the Muslims being part of our American Family. They are probably sitting there like "Fuck those arabs and their turbans". Racists.

-Carl Levin looks like The Penguin from Batman comics.

-Hillary Clinton looks awful! Oh HD, how unkind you are to so many politicians.

-We've strengthened Asian alliances because we're all scared shitless of China. We saw those opening games at the Olympics.

-Yes, everyone has to stand and clap for the troops or they're unAmerican.

-Very stoic there generals.

-No one wants to be from Scranton.

-There he goes! He's gonna cry!

-Plan B, but don't worry republicans, it's not the birth control pill so get your panties out of a twist.

-Fuck he's a good speaker!

-At least no one booed.

A Moment of Silence for the Death of the Book

I think the question I want to start off with here is this: DOESN'T ANYONE READ ANYMORE? I mean really, doesn't anyone ever just go out to pick up a book for the pure joy and anticipation of a good story? I ask this knowing that yes, people do read, and people out there still love a good story, but as I stand on the precipice of the traditional bookstore taking a nose dive, I find myself wondering if it's because of technology or if it's because people don't read. This question has been nagging at me for weeks, but last night it kind of boiled over in my rage pot (which is located behind my mouth, apparently) when I attended a school board meeting for our local school district. Jason did a big post about their attempt to integrate technology into the classroom, so you should hop over there and read what he had to say, but what struck me was the teacher statement in the presentation about how you can't expect a student to learn without technology. The comment was somewhere along the lines of "The kids are so tied to technology that you can't expect them to learn without it. You can't just hand them a book and expect them to get research out of it." My question here is: WHY THE HELL NOT?! Why can't we use books in addition to technology?

I've had this complaint for years, actually. I can't stand the fact that when I ask a student to research a subject for a report or a paper, I get a collection of Wikipedia pages in the works cited section. Really? That's the best you can do is Wikipedia? But the fact is, that's all they know. And isn't that a failure on us as teachers? I've heard from many teachers that if they tell the students that their research can't include any citations from Wikipedia, the classroom nearly breaks out into a riot. Heaven forbid they require one book source for research. I had that problem in my student teaching. We required the students to research their five paragraph essays and one of their three sources had to be a book. The most frightening thing for me was that they had no idea how to find a book with research information in it. Thank goodness for a really astute librarian. But honestly, even if books go digital, it seems as if people don't understand how to use them anymore. Everything is on the internet, but there is a real lack of understanding that the internet does not have an editor.

Perhaps what is the most difficult for me to understand is why people see technology as a replacement to legitimate written research. I mean, a book is a book, regardless of whether you are opening it from a libary or reading it on your iPad or Kindle. It's still an edited source of literature and information. So why do we think we can just replace that with a Podcast or something? Why do teachers think that the solution to their kids not paying attention in the classroom is to hand them an iPad. Sure, they'll be paying attention but it won't be to you. They'll be playing Angry Birds with the sound turned off. It is not a fix-all to the education system. I am not opposed to technology in the classroom. In fact, I love it. I think that when used properly it can enhance lessons and make them both interactive and interesting. If nothing else, PowerPoint presentations allow for constant visual aids which helps the visual learner. Videos, podcasts, and interactive learning quest programs are all amazing, and they can really enhance a traditional lesson. That's the key word, enhance. They don't replace good lesson writing and they don't automatically make your lesson great. You still have to have the proper source material to provide the information, regardless of how it is delivered. You don't get to just say "Oh, I put this on an iPad, now it's perfect". It still takes working at what you're doing.

And it still requires you to know what the hell you're talking about. I took a class in college where my History professor stood up in front of us on our first day of class and said "How many of you hated history in High School?". Most of the hands in the room went up. He then asked "How many of you had History taught by your football coach?" and nearly as many hands went up. He went on to tell us that history is uninteresting and boring when it comes from people who are just reading off names and dates, but that the subject was usually given to the Football coach because it was easy to read off names and dates. He said history is a living and breathing experience and unless you give it context, none of the names and dates matter. He couldn't have been more right. And I feel that way about this whole book issue. The internet, or any piece of technology, is just a series of binary code with information that may or may not be accurate. Until you breathe some life into the source material and give it some context, it means nothing. Books weave a story. The internet bullet points facts. And now, that's all our students are able to do.

For most of the high school students I know, reading is a huge chore when they have to "like...go through all of those words and figure out which parts are importantan and stuff". Websites are easy. They break everything down in a series of bullets. No thinking required. But I don't think the kids started out that way. I defy anyone to find me a person who can't name at least one story they loved from their childhood. In a failing book industry, Children's Books and Young Adult Books are the only areas consistently growing and outselling themselves year after year. So I don't believe that kids don't want to read. I think that somewhere along the way it just stops being an expectation because "they're so plugged into technology anyway..." and suddenly it becomes less interesting. Maybe the test scores went down not because we took laptops off of everyone's desks, but because we took books out of their hands.

But hey, what do I know. I just teach English. I just sell books. For now.

Zombie Free Zone

When I say I felt like a zombie last week, I'm really not kidding. Only instead of walking around craving brains, I was walking around wishing I could breathe through my nose. I haven't been sick in two years, and apparently all of those cold viruses decided to pay me back for my years of neglect. I even called in sick to work. I never call in sick to work. It was bad. But, at this point I appear to be at the tail end of these germs taking over my immune system. White blood cells are prevailing! I picture it a lot like the battle in Star Wars where the rebels blow up the death star, only inside my body, and hopefully with fewer lasers being shot around because I'd imagine that might hurt me a bit. But still, I'm pretty sure it's exactly like that fight. In my mind.

The good news is, no one has missed much in my blogging absence because nothing has happened. Awesome. Well, nothing happened until this weekend, when Norbert the evil cat got sick and had to be taken to the vet. Stupid cats and their stupid genetic predisposition to bladder stones. Stupid stupidness. Now she's on a canned food only diet, which I'm pretty sure she believes is due to her hitting some sort of lotto jackpot. She's going to be pissed when she gets better and goes back to only getting canned food as a treat. But for now she's on canned food only and she is happy. And hopefully she gets better soon without the need of surgery or anything. I do not love the idea of surgery. That is WAY more expensive than we can afford for the time being. So I hope that the whole Star Wars thing is going on inside the cat too, where her prescription food is like the rebels blowing up the stupid stones in her stupid bladder. I'm going to start calling her food "Luke" from now on.

What Kind of People am I Attracting?!

The other day I was reading Jason's blog, because I'm a good wife and I read all of the things that my husband puts on his blog to show an interest in his life and keep the magic alive. Or I just like to read crap he posts. Either way. ANYWAY, I was reading Jason's blog and he had this post (like that shameless plug to get you to go read his blog?) about information that blogger tracks about your blog. We have this nifty little "Stats" tab where we can see different stats on blog traffic etc. After reading his post, I realized I've never really looked at my own stats tab, so I hopped over to my own page and decided to investigate. First of all, let me say that I'm a bit blown away that my page has had over 1,500 views from the US alone. there are another 300 or so scattered across various countries outside of the US with the UK being my #2 supporter. So hey, thanks Britain. I like you too. But my point here is, who the hell knew I was so freaking popular? I mean, I'm not getting comments and junk, I don't have a bunch of followers, but people have at least been clicking over to my site. Awesome.

And that brings me to ways people have managed to find my site. Not surprisingly, most of the people coming over here are referred by Facebook because I'm a shameless attention whore and post a link on Facebook every time I update my blog. So Facebook people, thanks for doing the clickety click. Most of the other people coming to the site were referred from Google.

This is where my story gets weird. I can see what keywords people have searched that have led them to my page. Most of the keywords were for photos of laundry, which makes sense since I used a bunch of them in this post. Apparently laundry photos are popular. So that's innocent enough. It wasn't until I got to the last set of keywords that I went "WHAT THE WHAT?!" and wondered what kind of people are coming to my blog. That last set of keywords...hit vagina. Seriously?! How the heck did the words "hit vagina" pop up my blog for someone in a google search? I have never done a post about vaginas, let alone hit vaginas, so I'm so confused. I went through the photos I've used in posts, and none of them look like a hit vagina. I don't think I've ever used that phrase in a post, so who is looking for hit vaginas and finding me? So weird.

Of course now, after I post this, I'm going to end up getting hits from TONS of searches for that keyword grouping because I've used it a million times, but at least now I feel like it's justified. And to all of you who made it over here by searching for "hit vagina", welcome. I hope you're not pervs.