Isle of Remote

I’ve noticed something and I wonder if anyone agrees. You know how every once in a while the television news trots out the local racist group and gives them a couple of seconds of air time so all the normal folk can have a good laugh and be warned not to marry a first cousin? Have you ever noticed that the aforementioned racists are, um, butt ugly? I mean, like FUGLY. I mean, like U-G-L-Y - you ain’t got no alibi - you ugly, ugly!

I was watching this show and they had this woman who was the leader of this women’s KKK thing and they showed them at a rally. And I’m not trying to be funny or nothin, but seriously - fifteen or twenty of the little aryans on screen and the first thing that comes to mind is “How much is that doggy in the window?” I didn’t know that many mullets still existed in the free world, and on females no less! The only good quality is that maybe, just maybe, with the lot of ‘em, they just may have had pert near a full set of teeth! (Okay, I said that just to be mean, but dental hygeine certainly wasn’t in their top ten list of concerns…)

I fundamentally believe that everyone is attractive. Some of us need more care and maintenance than others, but I think the natural potential exists in most humans. The single largest contributor to what is seen as unattractiveness is probably apathy. If you don’t care what you look like, you are likely not taking good care of yourself and that can translate into being unattractive.

Of course, add other factors like culture into the mix and its a whole different kettle of attractive fish. Small feet translates to beauty in one culture, overweight in another.

Which leads me to my question. Can an ugly set of views lead to an ugly visage? If you spend a lifetime steeped in hate, will that show on your face? Or is it my perception that these women were ugly because of their ugly views?

Cleaning, clearing and grumbling. This whole garage sale thing better be worth all the pain and suffering. Sunday’s supposed to be a day of rest. Why aren’t I resting?

Spent yesterday being the decoy for my friend. Said I wanted to spend the day with her since it’s the Saturday before her birthday and her family would probably have something planned for her the following weekend. Took her home at the end of the day to her surprise party. And she was surprised too! Stunned actually. It was pretty good.

There was this one woman there who was a little inappropriate. She kept trying to touch my friend’s husband all night or making totally inappropriate comments to my friend’s daughter about “doing it” and stuff. In fact, just about every comment she made all night long was about sex and it really didn’t matter who she was talking to. She’s a parent too! No wonder her son ignored her most of the night! Think I should warn my friend that this woman’s a little, um….inappropriate?

Well, it seems as though another weekend has flown by and left me wondering what happened with all that time. And why I didn’t get to updating this sight AT ALL. Oh well. Best intentions, you know.

I spent the weekend with friends. And really that’s much better than sitting at the computer any old day. Got a manicure and had lunch on Thursday. Friday we went shopping in Orange County - my friend needed a special outfit for her interview today. We had a good time.

Saturday I spent with another friend shopping for a birthday gift. Had fun at Old Navy. I never shop there, but they had some really cute clothes. Of course the dressing room was good for a laugh - the waistbands were about four inches too big! Even if it was supposed be hip-riding, they were still huge. Talk about party in your pants! I did buy a skirt because it was about 9 bucks and all I have to do is add some darts.

The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday I packed stuff up for the garage sale. It’s getting down to the wire and I haven’t got things as well organized as it was when I started. I hope that I have a good turnout.

I’m on my lunch now and I have to write a report linking two totally dissimilar research areas. I’ve been racking my brain all morning to find a connection. I have to have it completed this afternoon. Maybe magic writing fairies will appear from the sky and write it for me. What do you think the chances are?

Appears as though spring has landed on southern California - FINALLY! That has me thinking about spring cleaning…well, this site, anyway. Is it time for a new look? I’m kinda digging these colors, but maybe I’ll dig new ones even more. Well, I’ll change out the right column this weekend, anyway.

How often do you other folks change out your blog threads?

Hey! I’ve had like 600 hits in the last two days! Who’s out there? Leave a howdy and a link to your own blog! I’d love to know who’s out there - is it the truth?

Having a big, lazy, take-it-easy kind of day. Two events last week - trial by fire. Both went well and my new boss gave me flowers! How nice is that?

We had a meeting the following morning and a lot of the people who attended were also at the event. The words “lovely” and “successful” were bandied about.

The craft show was a success. Even though I only made about $100 bucks, considering my output - 3 hours on Thursday night with scraps of paper - and the 1.5 hours of manning the booth….I think I did swell. Also, got to work on a scarf that someone ordered so I think it was good compensation for my time.

One of my friends e-mailed me this morning and is thinking about starting a writing group. I’m all for that. Need someone to keep me accountable. I was just talking to another friend and saying how much I liked taking writing class because it forced me to have something to turn in each week. Writing groups I’ve tried in the past haven’t gone anywhere - people are more inclined to talk about what they want to write rather than actually write.

It rained again Thursday night (was supposed to rain all day, but God and I had a talk about that and it didn’t start until my event was over!) and today the sky is extraordinarily blue. I will miss my view of the mountains when I finally do move. I see no other homes, lights or freeways from my windows. That’s extremely rare here in the big city.

I don’t have cable television. In fact, I don’t have television as I get NO reception where I live. I typically turn it off in May and back on in September. This year, however, it’s been off all year. And I don’t really miss it. I mean my favorite shows are not the stuff of Mensa, if you know what I mean. Although I’ve interacted with the Mensa Society here in San Diego and most could benefit with a What Not to Wear marathon…. but that’s neither here nor there.

I hate paying for cable. Not because I think TV should free (but, yeah, it kinda should. We’re already baraged with advertisements - shouldn’t we get a break for getting MORE channels?)

My cable company (Cox) offers me a variety of channels for my viewing pleasure. The problem lies in I am being asked to pay for things I will never use. When I want to buy something I will never use I prefer to go for ridiculously high heels or gym memberships.

I only speak English. This is not a great point of pride with me - I would dearly love to learn another language, but as of this moment, I’m just speaking the one. Why am I paying for four Spanish stations, one….I think it’s Chinese, um, one Filipino and one of something I can’t yet identify? And six sports channels?! That’s about six too many for me. Three shopping channels - I don’t teleshop so those are useless to me. And what’s with all the NBC? NBC, MSNBC, CNBC and NBC Shop?

Country Music Television and Fox News Channel are perfect when I want to explain to someone what an oxymoron is, but most people I know are hip to that trip so the lesson is wasted. I’m never feeling so bad that I want to watch Lifetime - all the movies are the same: woman becomes victim, victim emerges triumphant against all odds, blah, blah, blah - rather have a martini. Spike TV? Can grunt and scratch on my own, thank you very much. Last time I looked at A&E they were showing five minute excerpts of 1970s ballet films. Pass.

Cox Cable offers me 72 channels. Being generous, I watch maybe 26 of them at some point or another. In actuality, it’s more like 17 or so that are in rotation. So less than 25% of the channels I’m paying for are going to be watched by me. Does that make any kind of sense?

What I’ve been bugging the cable companies about is a buffet plan of cable channels. You get your basic for what ever fee and then you can add according to what you will watch. For instance, you could get the DIY package with FoodTV, HGTV, Style, DIY and Travel. Or the family package with PAX, ABC Family, Disney, Animal Planet, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Channel. Yeah, it’s a little like what the satellite companies offer, but hometown cable has the advantage of having access to the local stations without an additional charge.

What would be optimal is having the ability to custom choose all the channels you get. At approximately $.56 per channel, it doesn’t seem like a lot until you realize that if I were paying .56 x 26, my cable bill would be about $15 rather than $40. What would you be paying?

Even if they upped the cost to $1/channel it would be a nice saving for those of us who don’t watch all 72 channels and still make a profit.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the lot of us would rather click through rerun after rerun after Uzbekistan swim meet and think $40+ is a bargain.