Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

This season’s first holiday miracle just happened–my catalog from Heifer International (online at www.heifer.org.)

The miracle is that I am thrilled to see it.

I remember how pleased my mom was when she discovered this way to give her present-showered grandkids the gift of helping poor families. She didn’t have to hit malls, wrap packages, or spend a lot to give an unforgettably special present. My kids were old enough to be thrilled by the idea.

OK, I admit it, I’m also smiling at this photo of a little boy holding a baby duck in his hands (it’s bigger in my catalog).

Go check them out–and you’ll be smiling too.

“Passing on the Gift” is a key component of Heifer International’s program. Participants give offspring of their livestock to others, in an ever-widening circle of hope. Here, a woman in India passes on a goat in a ceremonial setting. Photo credit: Darcy Kiefel Copyright: Heifer International Just $10 lets you give a share of a goat. …$20 buys a flock of baby chicks. …or, for that special someone, $25 buys a share in a water buffalo. Each price represents “the complete livestock gift of a quality animal, technical assistance, and training,” says my catalog.

Halley’s getting ready to  blog about her New York adventures, so
taking a leaf from the playbook of Prince Charles, let me just move to
deny everything in advance.

In the two years plus since my mom died of cancer, I’ve been haunted by
dreams where I struggled in vain to save her. Sometimes she was sick,
and I had to wade through rivers, searching for medicine I couldn’t
find. Sometimes she was lost, and calling me on the phone, again and
again, asking me why I didn’t come rescue her. Sometimes–but, never
mind, I’m sure you get it.

Then one night, in one dream, I knew–she had died. Half knowing that I was dreaming, I looked for her
anyway–and my dream let me find her, looking as if she were sleeping.
I woke up still feeling so happy, and so sad.

I want to be free of remembering my mother as if her whole being was
wrapped in the sickness that killed her. I want to remember the many
trips she and I and my daughters took together.  I want to remember her rooting up weeds in the garden and
lobbing sticks for her dogs–Hilde, Annie, then Puppy. I want to remember her pleasure when I was
a kid over every poem or picture  I made for her. I want to
remember her sure knowledge, long ago, of everything that I wanted to know for myself–for example, how to hold a puppy so
that it feels safe in your arms.

So it seems that my mother is no longer dying–not even in my dreams. I
look forward to spending some dream-time, maybe even having some
dream-time fights, with the hundreds of other mothers I remember.

Remember a billion years ago–maybe last month–when critics of Bush kept protesting, over and over, we didn’t hate US soldiers or love Saddam? It’s funny how dodging those negative cliches gives more power–not less–to people who want to hurt people just like us.

Am I getting in touch with my own inner “Dainty Lady“? Ewww, I hope not. I don’t want to be suddenly scared of mice. I’m a billion times more scared of being perceived like that than I would be if 25 mice climbed up over my sneakers.

But you know what? I don’t have a magical business card that proclaims “Don’t judge Betsy Devine by whatever ugly cliches you believe about women in general.” I suppose I could print up some business cards like that, but…

(And you too–yes, you men as well as you women–if I had a magical business card franchise going, what would you buy? “I’m NOT too old!” No? Then maybe “I’m NOT too young”–“too big”– “too male”–“too lonely.” Guys, if I had those magical business cards, I’d give you all plenty, for free.)

The “Dainty Lady” made me laugh with her pretense of superiority. But there isn’t a woman on the planet who couldn’t be caricatured as a “Dainty Lady” by some man or woman she dared to criticize. (A man criticizing the same person would be some other cliche, but not a Dainty Lady.)

So my point–and I do have one–is this: When people like you are accused of being just too darn “bleeargingledly”, figure out which side you’re really on.

Your instinctive response might be, “But I’m not bleeargingledly at all–they might be bleeargingledly, but not me!”

A far better response is “What are you trying to prove by calling a lot of my friends bleeargingledly?”

This morning I heard myself humming “It’s a Lovely Eleven Morning.”

Good grief–why *that* song?

The Sesame-Street cartoon featured a shepherdess a la Marie Antoinette–long-gowned, wasp-waisted, and swoony–you laugh when she ends up by tumbling into a pigpen.

She moved and talked and sang like the kind of woman no tomboy wants to grow up to be. I used to make my friends laugh and roll on the grass with my scabby-kneed imitation of a fictional woman I called “The Dainty Lady.”

“A mouse, eeee! Oh, teddible, teddible. Oh Jeeves, help me climb up on this antique table. Oh Jeeves, bring me my smelling salts–no, not those, the ones in the silver bottle…..”

When my daughter Mickey first heard the Eleven song, she turned from the TV and said, “Look, Mummy, she acts like the Dainty Lady.”

So, for the record, I’m not a Dainty Lady. I might be singing her song, but she’s not me. I’ve rarely been stopped by scary or dirty or hard from going the hundreds of places I wanted to go.

Today, I feel like singing her silly song.

And if I fall into a pigpen, feel free to laugh, because I will.

The SCO Group intensified its war against Linux today, issuing this public  statement:

The “law of gravity”, for which Isaac Newton claimed credit, is in serious violation of our rights. Secret details hidden deep in our  software will, if we ever choose to reveal them, prove that we own prior rights to this so-called “law.”

Therefore, all parties making use of said “law of gravity” without  paying compensation to SCO, are violating the US Constitution, as well as copyright, antitrust and export control laws.

Lawsuits against Isaac Newton and his heirs are in progress.

City officials in Newton, Massachusetts, and attorneys for Nabisco’s  Fig Newton division, acknowledged receipt for demands from SCO for  unspecified damages.

Slashdot readers chose to look on the bright side. Said EnlightenmentFan, “If the law of gravity is uneforceable, I won’t have to shell out money for airplane tickets.”

I never saw a purple frog,
I never thought I’d see one.
But over in my daughter’s blog
Good grief! A BBC one!

The BBC says Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis looks “more like a squat, grumpy blob than a living creature.”

What, you thought Brits were polite?

When I learn a new UI, which you can assume I DO NOT WANT TO LEARN BECAUSE MY LIFE IS COMPLICATED ENOUGH, why do I have to spend any time learning it, why isn’t it learning ME … in other words, as I start using TypePad and I keep hitting certain buttons on a regular basis, or stroking certain keys, why doesn’t it make those keys grow larger? Just like WORD remembers the last documents I was working on and has them in the bottom of the file menu — can’t a good UI learn me and remember what I do? Come on UI guys and gals, take a cue from the natural world. God’s a fine designer. He came up with a great piece of hardware that gets bigger when you stroke it.

food festival and liver sashimi.

My mom’s New England version of cheese souffle

And in conclusion, may I just say food is not trivial–any more than love is, or sex is trivial. Any more than you, dear reader, are trivial.

I, of course, do reserve the right to be trivial when I want to.

This morning, I’ve got bad Amazon remorse.

That’s sort of like buyer’s remorse, but a whole lot worse.

It’s the feeling you get after the doorbell rings, when you see the delightful cardboard box from Amazon–and all of a sudden you think of another book, something you didn’t order, that you really, really wish was inside that box.

Sigh.

Then again, the book I want may not be out yet. It’s: