Love Goes On

Needy celebrates Christmas 1999.

On December 31, 1999, this joyful little kitten entered my life.  I have shared my life and my home with Needles since that time (adding Pins in October 2000).  Needy survived a major health scare in September 2008, and he outlived every known member of his family.  Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye this week.

His health had been in rapid decline throughout the year, especially over this past summer.  Although he had once grown into an over-sized cat, he had lost all his weight this year.  He was down to skin and bones, but he showed few other signs of illness.  His final turn in health happened relatively fast: only a couple days. In short, he was too weak to maintain normalcy and too old to fight through another treatment.

Needles always had the wonder in his face.

As early as June 2013, I strongly doubted that he would make his 14th birthday in November.  After numerous restless nights of concern over his well-being, I was at a loss on what to do for him.  Then, in late September, my church scheduled its first ever Blessing of the Animals for October 5, 2013.  I took him to the service, even though he was the only cat in attendance (effectively, I out-crazied every "Crazy Cat Lady"), and after that event, he started acting normal again.  He certainly wasn't healthy but he started acting happy & carefree again, and I began to as well.  I went from openly telling people that "he's not long for this world" to silently wondering if he could live another 5 years.  My mind and heart were at peace.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I lay in front of my television for over five straight hours.  I stayed in that position longer than I should have because my little boy had planted himself on my lap and fallen asleep there.  It was a lasting moment of peace that only animals can bring us.

You don't just step inside to 14 years.

Every time I left my house for the past 14 years, I have shouted out to my cats as I closed the front door, "never forget that you are loved."  Those were words I whispered in his ear as he took his last breaths.  In some ways, I wish Needles could have lived with Pins and me another five years, but as they say, life goes on.  And even if his won't, his love certainly will.

What's Amazon?

Last night I went to the grocery store to cash in my overgrown collection of coins.  I kept the quarters, but 26 dimes, 29 nickels, and 176 pennies went into the Coinstar machine at my nearby Albertson's and I put it on an Amazon gift card to avoid the 9% service charge.

Afterwards, I sauntered around the store because it was almost after 11 p.m. and I had nowhere to go.  I found an attractive deal on oven pizzas, so I bought a couple.  The cashier was someone who I had seen at that store for seemingly as long as I have lived in Scottsdale, so I asked when she started working there.  She said 13 years, so I explained mentioned how long I had been coming to the store, and then she saw my Coinstar slip and asked if I needed to cash it.  I said it was going to Amazon, and she noted that she never knew there was that option on the machine, but her next statements were what caught me off-guard due to the genuine sincerity: "What is Amazon?  I have heard of it, but I've never known exactly."

It was March 8, 2013, and I was interacting with a woman who had dutifully done the same job for the past 13 years at the same branch, and she was unsure what Amazon.com was.

It was a (timely) reminder of how vastly different people can live within the same realm of existence.  The Internet connects us but it has not changed human nature: we will do as we've always done.  We will make our choices and our mistakes and end up living the same basic lives as our ancestors.  Same amount of smiles, same amount of laughs, same amount of tears, same amount of troubles, same amount of joy, same amount of fear; just different causes for each.

To take the long way into make my point, I did not watch the entire Super Bowl this year, although I saw parts of it.  One commercial that seemed to capture most people's praise (at least in my circles, including my preferred media outlets) was the Budweiser ad called "Brotherhood" with a Clydesdale and its owner.  It has had outstanding praises, including 2.5 million views on YouTube where I read through the past week of comments.  Not one person acknowledged that the commercial was a remake of "Christian The Lion," a real moment with its own online following about two Englishmen and their pet lion who greeted them with a loving embrace after a year of living in a refuge in Africa.

In reality, the Internet is so vast that it leaves a huge disconnect among people.  Even the closest friends can hardly share everything they enjoy online.  Albeit, it binds us so that most everyone would know what Amazon.com is nowadays.

Life is what you make of it.  Not in the remedial "actions have consequences" way, although that is where most people seem to stop, but it applies equally strong within a broader spectrum.  Every time I hear someone say, "I believe everything happens for a reason," my first thought is always, "Neat, I believe in cause & effect as well!"  Often those reasons the people are so blindly at a loss to find are directly linked to the actions of their past.  Not to discredit God's influence, in which I wholly believe, but it seems as though a lot of what others attribute to God's greater plans are consequences from their own mistakes and carelessness that they are unable to accept.  In those occasions, I sense God sees the struggle and shrugs and thinks "hopefully, he/she will use this opportunity to walk closer with me now," when it feels to them as though God is sleeping.

It reminds me of the (not-nearly-repeated-enough) final words on the misled Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien: "I hate cynicism – it's my least favorite quality, and it doesn't lead anywhere.  Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get, but if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen!"

The Jeopardy of Contentment

Three years ago, this felt like the words I wanted to say.  Now, it feels like the words I'm supposed to hear.

Basically, this is an apology.  I still know what's best for both of us, kid.

We've been through enough, there's nothing left to prove.  The feeling's mutual, but not exclusive.

Alibis are only excuses; allowances for us to abuse the truth.  The truth is I'm done with them.  You may not ever hear them again, and still they only fulfill so much until we have to fess up and face the facts the best we can or live with the consequence: the resulting accident.

Our patience is fading.  Consider this courtesy, if not somewhat evasive underneath, but even if it just thrills my soul or it burns another hole, I've got to let it go before we can't.  So long!  You've got to believe there's something better out there, someone better out there for you than me.

So, there you left me standing to fend for myself however, but I'm holding up, I'm pulling through.  I'm not sure what else you expect me to do, but I won't deny that I'm taking it hard... I'm taking whatever's available to me... you see, that's just the way I deal with grief.

Since I left you here in our destroyed machine, I fear you've grown immune to the difference between whether you're holding on or you're just holding out.  Do me a favor, love.  Let me go!  Let me loose before it's too late to choose.

While your pride is numb, while your face is still young, while your hands are still clean, just wash yourself of me.





Read more at http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858661013/#dPQK7eGOhHyvbdqJ.99 

Sensitivity #FAIL!

Do I look racist to you?

There's little question whether racism exists today.  Most people would have to admit that it does.  But the real argument is how much has it improved in the past few decades.  If anyone said that racism is worse now than it has ever been, I think it would immediately invalidate their opinion for pure ignorance on the issue at hand.

Unfortunately, racism is not an issue that can be resolved overnight; nor is it found every time the proverbial boy cries wolf.  Personally, I think the bigger issue today is racial sensitivity (at least in terms of "more widespread," not bigger as in more destructive).  In my opinion one of the problems is that not many people think about racial sensitivity as a concept.  Often people are so defensive against racism that they cannot see the insensitivity.

I identified this issue a few years ago when I argued with an online blogger about his proclamation about something "nobody outside of India" wanted to see.  I argued that I did want to see the situation develop "so spare me your racial comments," and he went off.  His argument was that it wasn't racist because if you replace "Germany" with "India," then it isn't offensive to Germans.  Except that comparison was invalid because the population of India is predominantly a difference race.  He also said that he was "being sarcastic," which was endlessly amusing to me because the offending statement did not embody sarcasm in any fashion.  I stopped writing on his blog for a while and when I resumed, I renamed myself Mr. Sarcasm (but never used any sarcasm) as an oblique jab at him.  Unfortunately, I was unable to articulate myself well enough to leverage the term "racial sensitivity" as a concept, but I doubt he would've agreed anyway.

Say what it is. What can go wrong?

Last year, I encountered a racial sensitivity fail so outrageous that I actually paid money to avoid it becoming a customer service issue at work (now I turn around and display it online).  There was a plush doll of a monkey being sold with outrageously large kissy lips for Valentine's Day.  While I initially wanted to dismiss it as an unfortunate coincidence, the price tag describing the product changed my mind.  It was a brown monkey with a pink belly and hands.  For reasons that can only be questioned, the tag named the product "Black."  When we rang it up, it was in our system under VAL PLSH BIG LIPS MONKY.

Brown + pink = black?

For the sake of universal harmony, you can argue that it was not designed with any intended racial implications.  That's the problem!  There are certain considerations that cannot be ignored to maintain racial sensitivity.  It may not have been a racist joke among workers when this product was created, priced, and shipped, but the fact that the overtones were not identified in itself was the issue.

The argument could be made that it was just merchandise sold exclusively for Valentine's Day.  To which I would ask, "Oh, you mean only during Black History Month?"