Masa loves reading odd stories about Japanese happenings: there are lots of things that are never translated and certainly never make news outlets outside of Japan.
Several times during the day, he'll pop into where I'm working, and without any preface:
"Forty years old man. Three years ago...he tries to steal a dog. Corgi dog..."
So the guy is arrested and sent to jail for 18 months (?!! seems kind of harsh, but I've long ago given up trying to line up Japan with logical conclusions); finally, after doing his time in the choky, he is released and almost immediately returns to the same apartment and attempts to steal the same dog!
The dog is now "missing." When asked, the guy reported that he was lonely and thought the dog was really really cute. I imagine him pining away for all those 18 months, planning his attack. Obviously, he didn't think it through very carefully...
So now he's back in prison.
A sad, desperate, and wicked world we live in.
God, the news is so depressing lately. I am tempted to just tune out and cocoon myself in books and DVDs, banish news sites from my "Favorites" menu:...rising gas prices, falling home prices, vanishing sea turtles, banks doing belly flops, terrorism, disease, war...where does it all end?
And it's easy to say that "greed" is the cause of all this (and that's the consensus among most journalists, it seems) but it's so much more complicated than that: was it wrong of people with bad credit to want to own their own homes? Was it wrong to think that they could pay those enormous mortgages some day in a vague future? Maybe they made poor financial choices, but these were working people buying their first home. That doesn't seem like greed to me. I don't know: it's an urge I only half sympathize with (buying a home), but it's not like these were 2nd or 3rd homes in Cabo or Hawaii.
I guess big US companies got greedy, but that's kind of how our system works, isn't it. I mean, when you have shareholders demanding not just that you make a profit, but that your profit increase each year, there are bound to be decisions made which are short-sighted and self-serving.
Journalists use phrases like "Changing times" and "Hard times" and I suppose that things are changing and have changed. Gas will never be cheap again. That in and of itself might change North America, but in Europe, gas has been expensive for a long time, very expensive. They managed to survive. And even thrive. True, we have more land and population density is less, but that is easily altered over a couple of generations if living and driving in rural America and Canada just gets too expensive. Anyway, why can't "rural" just mean something different than living 100 miles from your nearest neighbor? Anyway, there are people who live in rural Europe, too, who drive cars. They just drive less.
It will change "car culture" hopefully, something I've never really "gotten." Remember when people would drive beater cars, old crappy rust buckets, because they couldn't afford anything else? Even people who could afford something else often did that. Now we have this idea that your car is some of extension of yourself, that it reflects who you are, which is just stupid. If you have a shitty old car that costs $2,500 this means somehow that you "failed" in your life. That is such an idiotic way of looking at it, but surprisingly common.
This "wealthy European" on some dumb TV show I was breezing past the other night was talking about his $500,000 car and I was reminded of that adage: "That's $500,000 that guy doesn't have."
The same goes for the phone. Or the apartment. Or the brand of shoes you wear.
I think that celebrity culture is so apparent and hard to escape from that we all secretly try to live like we're celebrities. We all want to live like the wealthy, whether or not we have money, because everything around us tells us that wealthy people are somehow better people: they have better hair, they have more fun when they go out, they have better friends, they travel to better places, they drive better cars, etc. So we buy things we can't afford, we go into debt for the things that our peasly little salaries won't allow.
But the fact of the matter is that only a tiny fraction of our population can live like wealthy celebrities. The rest of us have to slog through with our beater cars, crappy old mobile phones, $3,500 second-hand sedans, long hours at work...the more things change...
I guess we have to try and rebel against the system en masse: companies are always going to want us to spend more money than we can afford: they make billions off of our very debt. All we can do is tune out the entreaties, re-establish that line between need and want which has become blurred.
Hopefully, this mess won't all just clear up in the next 18 months and everyone will go back to where they were...
It's amazing how people, all people, bend our will to authority.
This video explains the 29% who still support President Bush.
For all his protesting, for all his complaints and objections, for all his bad feelings, he still keeps pushing the button.
Not much to say these days. Really busy with work: slightly stressed, in fact. But still managed to squeeze in a few Fantasia films, a full night of babysitting, a birthday party, and a few other social events.
So different this year when compared to last summer: we had so many visitors last year! We haven't had a repeat of that this year: R is out of vacation time because of our long trip in BA; C wasn't invited back to perform at the Jazz Festival (they rarely ask people to come two years in a row); M quit his job and is looking for a new one but not very urgently. A couple of people we know said they are coming to town, but no one we know well.
And still can't leave Canada because of Masa's immigration process, so no major trips until the end of this year at the earliest. God, I hope it won't be much longer than that: we really want to go someplace warm during winter (January to late March): Vietnam, Greece, maybe Latin America again. Mmm. Anyway, the point is, we can't plan anything because we have no idea when all the paperwork will be completed. I'm really getting antsy and ready for a big trip, though it's only been 8 months since we got back from Argentina. Stupid to be so impatient.
House hunting is stalled. Bank told me that because I'm self-employed, they have a different set of "rules" for me blah blah blah. Point is, we need a bit more of a downpayment if we want a manageable mortgage payment, but that's highly doable if we wait one more year. If we haven't changed our minds, that is. Every day I have a different opinion about it: our place now is small but fine for us and rent control means that it's cheap and will remain cheap. So saving isn't hard, especially with all the projects I've got going on that will take me well into the fall. Anyway, waiting another year or so to buy might be a good thing because housing is predicted to dip down for the next 18 months in the Canada market. And if we decide to keep renting, c'est la vie.
Reading a collection of Borges short stories: good "straightforward" stories (as he calls them), and still working through The Savage Detectives (it's nearly 700 pages long!), which is excellent. The structure of it is really unusual but it's not all "post-modern-y" and hard to follow.
And that's it. Quiet days.
About four months ago, only a week or two after I wrote about Yukimo becoming sick, I was completely caught off guard by a crazy discovery.
Yukimo *gulp* is a boy. Yuki is not a girl like I had thought for over a year and a half. No, Yukimo decided to play the trick of all tricks on me by changing sexes (er, genders?). Oh Yukimo, what will you do next?
Here's what happened. While I continued to worry about the "womanly bleeding" (chuckle, chuckle) that Yuki was going through, I noticed that her slower movements were changing into what she used to be like when I first bought her; she started running around her cage and in her wheel with the energy of a young, baby hammy. I'll admit that I was really happy that Yukimo was finally coming around and turning into her old self. I had my doubts for a while though-- usually little happy moments like this don't last for long. I figured that she was just getting a second wind or something. I was wrong though.
One day, while holding Yuki and checking to see if she was still bleeding down there, I noticed something extremely odd about her lower "womanly parts." Something else was there instead-- something manly. At first, I became worried and thought her intestines might be falling out (seriously, hammies are too unpredictable for that not to happen), but on a closer look I realized that Yukimo was, indeed, a boy.
When thinking back, I'm positive that Yukimo was once a girl. Not only was she in the girl hammy cage at the pet store (where workers at pet stores often make mistakes with this kind of thing), but I made sure to check a lot over the months she was with me. I had mistaken other boy hammies for girls when I was younger, but the reality of the situation always became evident after just a few weeks of them living with me. Yukimo was with me for too long for me to not notice. I just know she used to be a girl; it's a feeling.
Here are my thoughts on this unexpected discovery: the old Yukimo must have passed on (er, died) and this version of Yukimo was reborn. Back when she was sick, Beth kept telling me that I should probably start to think about letting go of Yuki. She exhibited too many signs of old age and sickness to think otherwise. We've experienced the loss of small pets before and it's better to come to terms with death instead of ignore it. I started to think about it more but I had to stop when I realized that Yuki was suddenly full of life again.
Yukimo must have gone through some sort of reincarnation in her sickness. Either that happened, or she's a hermaphrodite hamster (meaning she has both male and female parts). I wouldn't put this odd happening past Yukimo. She's a crazy trickster who loves to mess with peoples' minds!
Since Yukimo's rebirth, she's been just as lively as when she was a baby-- even at the old age of over a year and a half. Also, the bleeding has completely stopped. (Yay!) I really do think there's a connection between the discovery and the bleeding, but I can't quite pinpoint what happened. I'd like to talk with a hammy specialist sometime.
I'm still in shock over this whole thing. Every time I see Yukimo running her little heart out in her wheel, or jumping up on the bars because she wants attention, I can't help but be grateful for this huge extra amount of time that I'm being given to spend with her. I had hammies when I was little and none of them ever lived such a long, happy life. Not like Yukimo.
I've decided that even though Yukimo has revealed this secret, I'm still going to refer to her as a girl. I tried replacing all my uses of "hims" and "hers" and "he's" and "she's" but it was too difficult to break the habit of referring to Yuki as a girl. I figure that I'm at least acknowledging this discovery by telling people about it (and how amused I am by the whole thing), but for now, Yukimo will remain a "she" when I'm talking about her. ^__^
She's the best hamster I could have ever hoped for-- and definitely the trickiest!
More wise-ass wisdom from John Cole:
This is not just a recession. This is the BUSH recession. This is the REPUBLICAN RECESSION OF 2008. This is the BUSH/MCCAIN RECESSION. Say it loud. Say it often. Learn it. Live it. Love it.
John McCain’s policies will continue the BUSH/MCCAIN RECESSION. John McCain’s financial adviser thinks you are a whiner for experiencing tough times in the BUSH/MCCAIN RECESSION. Your retirement fund is going in the shitter because of the BUSH/MCCAIN recession. You will not be able to pay for college for your kid because of the BUSH/MCCAIN recession.
Thanks, John. Good idea.
Canadian singer Feist is set to appear on the 39th season premiere of Sesame Street on August 11th. She'll sing this song which most people know as the iPod Nano commercial.
I really dig this chick's voice.
