tiggerprr’s scratching post

You know, I’m never going to make a dime off those ads up there on the top of the screen. And I really don’t care, you know why? Because when I can open up the comments to my ranty little 13 things that piss me off list…and the suggestions are “Beatles All you Need is Love” for a Beatles compilation CD, and an ad for Dr. Seuss Party Hats. That makes me laugh. And laughter is priceless. So apparently, I need love and a nice party hat and that will cure all my ills.

LOL (But picture in your mind, the sound that Snoopy makes when he laughs…that’s how I sound right now, on the inside.)

Thirteen Things that Piss tiggerprr Off In order to make sure that none of us go on sugar overload this holiday season, I thought I would stray from the warm fuzzy feelings of the season to bring you a different kind of list. (Strangely the song in my head as I type this is a Christmas Carol: “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”. That’s a little twisted.) 1. Christmas Shopping Black Friday and beyond Yes, it’s my fault I waited until now. I know I hate it, and my life was much better the year I had nearly everything done before Thanksgiving. It didn’t happen this year and I found myself out in the madness albeit at a different time of the day. I feel guilty. Those of you out there working retail, should have been able to stay at home with YOUR families, instead of being at the store at 3 am to prepare to deal with ours. Furthermore, you shouldn’t have to be working until 11 or 12 at night through December because we didn’t get our shopping done early. I hear that some retailers are considering opening up on Thanksgiving evening because “people don’t have anything to do that night”. Ummm…no…those “people” should stay home and enjoy time with their families. It’s bad enough that movie theatres are open that day, and yes…I did go see a movie on Thanksgiving. So I am a holiday hypocrite. 2. We can fund a war, but we gotta kill the music programs in a lot of our schools as well as cut back government spending on other educational programs. This REALLY makes me angry. You read about funding getting cut to educational programs and music/art programs. What part of “That money feeds the talents and minds of the people who will take care of us and our planet when we’re old” is so hard to understand? 3. On any given day, you can read on the news about some terrible thing that a kid or worse, an adult, has done to harmless animals. This makes me so sad, and so angry. I think this upswing in cruelty is a by-product of the thing that peeves me in #2. Music and the arts, nurture the soul and knowledge leads to understanding. If your heart and soul aren’t being taken care of it’s easy to become bitter. 4. On any given day, you can read on the news about some terrible things that one person has done to another person. I don’t know if it’s more that we have news at our fingertips and people have always been this violent and cruel to eachother, we just didn’t get to read about it as it happened, or if it’s just another byproduct of #2 plus some other disturbing chain of societal events. But dang, there’s some awful stuff happening in this world, isn’t there? 5. Intolerance.I am no saint. There are some things I am intolerant of and perhaps I should work on that. But I do not understand the trains of thought where masses of people insist that their “way” is the “only” way and interfere with how the rest of us choose to live, or not live, our lives. At the risk of insulting or hurting anyone, I won’t use a realtime example. I’ll borrow from Dr. Seuss. If I want to remove that “star upon thar” and you choose not to, it should be ok and you shouldn’t have any business telling me I can’t, I won’t tell you , “you have to remove yours too”. Likewise, if I’m a Star-bellied Sneetch, and I choose to love a Non Star-bellied Sneetch or a Star-bellied one, you really should let those Sneetches be! People should be required to read “The Sneetches” on a regular basis and just sit down and think about what Dr. Seuss REALLY meant when he wrote that story. 7. Being ganked by some snotty little kid when I’m playing video games. If you don’t game you probably don’t understand the term, ganked. But bear with me, I think you’ll get it soon. This doesn’t irritate me because your 12 year old did something mean to me in a video game or steals something out from under me, it’s just pixels right? This makes me mad, because their parents are not paying enough attention to Jr. and how she/he’s turning out. I play a MMORPG called World of Warcraft. Every day, at any given time, there’s CHILDREN, yes children, playing this game, cursing up a storm, treating people like dirt, stealing and just generally being obnoxious beyond what I consider to be “normal obnoxious” for a kid. The internet, is not a babysitter. Teach your kids manners, please. Otherwise, I’ll have to start doing PvP and “pwn” them just to save MY sanity. 8. It makes me mad that I can’t figure out how to add things to my sidebar.I’ll figure it out eventually. I have that book, I’ve talked about before. But it’s pissing me off right now. 9. As a nation, we spend so much time policing the rest of the world and helping everyone else out that we have people starving in the streets without homes and there’s working poor that can’t afford to feed their kids.I think it’s grand that we send aid to poorer countries, really I do. But I can’t help but be angry that there’s even one child that goes to sleep hungry, or worse, hungry and in a car, or on a street somewhere here in the U.S. I believe in happy mediums and balance in life and nature. I don’t understand how there’s any balance at all when things like that can occur. I wish I had all the answers, I really do. 10. My 17-year old daughter.I love her more than life itself. Sometimes though ::making Ralph Kramden “to the moon, Alice!” gestures::. I truly do understand why some animals eat their young. I also understand why our younglings are so cute, it’s to keep us from choking them. 11. The winning Powerball numbers keep eluding me.When is it gonna be my turn!? 12. The whole Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas debate. I mean really, aren’t there just bigger fish to fry out there? IMO both sides of the debate have lost their ever-loving minds. I’m not offended if you say either to me, Mr. Retail Person, so you just say whatever you want to, as long as you expeditiously check me out and get me the HECK out of the store. 13. I still haven’t found a job. I work in Human Resources, I am an SPHR (a certification that I took a big long test to get and should make me more desirable). I can’t even get people to give me an interview. I have tons of experience. I can’t even get am interview for a “lesser” position and I know THAT’S because I’m overqualified and they won’t even look at me. It’s making me sad, really, really, sad.

Well on that happy note, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice, Happy ::insert your holiday of choice here::! ::Hums “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!”

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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If you’re a repeat visitor, you may know that I participated in Skeezix’s Tales of Devotion Kontest with a story about my furbaby, OC. Thanks to all of you who voted for our story! It warms my heart to let you know that we were a Runner Up and through the generosity of the 1st Place winner the runner ups also got to sponsor a cat at the Best Friends Animal Society. This made OC and I particularly happy because that’s the biggest reason we told our story. We sponsored Rascal, because he has also had to deal with the devastating disease of stomatitis.

I love Skeezix the Cat and admire what he, along with his Food Lady and Mr. Tastyface, is doing for the animal community. I am grateful for the daily smiles and laughter that reading about his adventures brings me.

I realize that the power of this post alone will probably cause me to get mercilessly ripped apart by those at italk2much.com should I ever become masochistic enough to submit my site for review. They seem to take issue with catbloggers. Effem, I say! I just love that blog!

Taken from Logtar’s Blog

Welcome to the 2006 Holiday Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends! I’m tagging you…if you’d like to participate. You know the drill, copy/paste, THEN change my answers to your answers.

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Everyone has time for a few moments of fun! Don’t be a scrooge!!!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Definately Hot Chocolate. I’m not much into nog…and something about drinking raw eggs…bleh.

2 . Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Neither! The elves wrap them, it’s part of their Elvish Union Contract!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Nope.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Whenever I feel like it. I used to be obssessed with having them up Thanksgiving weekend, but not anymore.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Mashed Potatoes. Yeah, they’re an every day dish…but I always make ‘em on holidays!

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
I’ve told this little tale before…but it’s appropriate here too. When I was in the first grade, it was Christmas Eve and I woke at 4am. I snuck out to see if Santa had made the stop at our house yet and lo, and behold…as I peeked around the doorway into the dark living room. I saw a huge shadow, I had caught the old man in the act! I was certain if he should find me out of bed, he’d take all my loot away! I ran as fast as I could back to bed, covered my head and remained there nearly holding my breath so as not to move, until 830am. Only to discover that huge shadow, was a giant stuffed dog named Henry. I still have him.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Well prior to the incident in #7, I had begun to have doubts. After that incident, I adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude about Santa.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
It was previously a tradition to open ONE gift on Christmas Eve, but not so much now.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
It’s got pre-lighting (white) and I tie maroon bows on the branches and hang maroon, silver, pearlescent and gold ornaments as well. There are a few sentimental ornaments that Ashlyn has made along the way that also get hung amongst everything.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Having just moved from the midwest to the beach, I’m happy to say I won’t be experiencing snow. I love to look at it, as long as I don’t have to go out in it.

12. Can you ice skate?
Yes, but only going forward and no tricks.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I remember the favorite gifts I’ve given and those would be the ones that made my daughter beam when she was little.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Spending time with people I love.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Pecan Pie

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I don’t really have any anymore.

17. What tops your tree?
A Star.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Giving. However, I do enjoy a well thought out gift no matter what it is. It’s always nice to know that someone you care about, thought about you rather than just running out and buying any old thing.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
“O, Holy Night”, we sang it in choir back in HS. It always gives me chills.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Yum.

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As I was preparing dinner last night, yes, preparing rather than cooking, (we had the dreaded post-Thanksgiving Open Faced Turkey sandwiches) I was thinking about blogging. I use time, like most of us do (I think), when I am doing things with my hands or driving, to think about totally unrelated things I am otherwise too “busy” to think about. I wonder, if any of your other bloggers out there consider whether or not what you feel compelled to write about might offend the general stranger, or regular reader for that matter. I’ve found that there’s been a few times I wanted to write about certain things either about how I feel on a subject or on something that happened that I chose not to, merely because I might upset someone whom I’ve never met, or because I might offend one of the acquaintances I’ve made in my short blogging journey.

This led to a whole other train of thought, am I subverting a piece of me and concealing the “real” me, through omission of topics that might be less than neutral? And after all, shouldn’t blogging be a “release” of some sort for the blogger? Of course, I have visited other blogs where the author CLEARLY could care less what the reader thinks of them or their beliefs. I find that to be a bit harsh. I’ve found that people that seem to visit my blog on a regular basis come from all sorts of backgrounds, Christian, Wiccan, cat lovers, cats themselves, Moms, normal people, etc. I find it interesting that I would feel sad if I ever sad anything to make people angry. That being said, I also think that my blog is a bit more bland and mundane than it would be if I just wrote about stuff I felt or was thinking, from an un-censored heart.

So I pose the question to you…do you write unapologetically whatever you feel like writing? Or do you ever find yourself reining yourself in?