My son lives in Canada, but has a Bank of America account.  I went to my branch of B of A to deposit the check for him, and the teller told me there would be an $8.95 fee to deposit the check.

Let’s stop here a minute, and regroup, shall we?  She told me it would cost my son almost nine dollars — to move some f***ing electrons around. 

A fee of almost 10% — for the privilege of HIM giving THEM money.  I was so infuriated, I did not deposit the check – I wrote my son an e-mail to tell him what happened.  I’m just holding the check for now. 

Will this be enough to get my money out of that bank?   Why yes, I do believe so.  I have my project for this weekend — setting up all the bill-pay accounts at my local FEDERAL CREDIT UNION.  Then I’ll switch my paychecks out of “Bank of America.”

Assholes.

I am a nurse, but damned if I know what I’m going to do with it.  I’m trying to be trained with the Red Cross to do disaster nursing, but it has been a slow process.

Also, I’ve been catching up on Bryan Cranston, running through Malcolm in the Middle episodes on Netflix (which looks amazingly good on my iPad); once I’m done with that, I’ll catch up on Breaking Bad.

I told you.  I’m a fangirl.  Squee.

The Five Freedoms
(Farm Animal Welfare Council, 2009):

1. Freedom from Hunger and Thirst by ready
access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full
health and vigor

2. Freedom from Discomfort by providing an
appropriate environment including shelter and a
comfortable resting area

3. Freedom from Pain, Injury, or Disease by prevention
or rapid diagnosis and treatment

4. Freedom to Express Normal Behavior by
providing sufficient space, proper facilities, and
company of the animal’s own kind

5. Freedom from Fear and Distress by ensuring
conditions and treatment which avoid mental
suffering.

The lady on the right is a local location manager for the film.  The guy on the left belongs to Public Affairs, in the State Department.

But his co-star, Bryan Cranston, was another matter.  He finished his scenes for the day — in fact, this was the last day of filming for anybody in the movie — and he spent about a half hour shooting the breeze with us, taking pictures with us, etc. I am not a movie-goer and I rarely watch TV. I knew that Bryan had been in Malcolm in the Middle only because my son saw a movie recently, Contagion, and said that the “Malcolm dad” was in it and that he was really good.  I looked up the name on IMDB — it was then I realized that this same guy would be involved in the State Dept shoot.  But I didn’t think much about it.

It’s a good thing, too.  Because if I had known at the time I took this picture below, what I found out later that night — I would have been somewhat more nervous and star-struck.  The man has won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series, for Breaking Bad.  Which apparently is still running on AMC. 

Anyway — whatever.  I’m a fangirl.

(A) I’m a Democrat and I think you’re all full of it,

(B) Quit impugning Claire Jupiter; she went to St. Joseph Academy and that’s good enough for me; keep spreading your lies, I don’t care if she’s SLEEPING with “Dollar Bill” Jefferson (ew!) she’s better than any of you, and

(C) I LIVE 15 MILES SOUTH OF BALTIMORE. THAT’S IN MARYLAND, YOU MORONS. I CAN’T VOTE IN THIS EFFING ELECTION.

Thank you. Go away.

What a strange and cruel god those people worshipped.

Alert and oriented X 3, with some obvious histrionic personality traits. His breathing is unlabored; not even visible from my viewpoint. I’m looking at his face and mouth and disregard them, since there is a lot of makeup involved. I look at his tongue — he is well hydrated, good color, no fissures visible — and his teeth are clean and probably as white as they can be (he was a smoker back then –maybe still is — and I can tell). The sclera (whites of his eyes) are not bloodshot, and not icteric. His facial features are symmetrical.

His pupils are VERY constricted, almost scarily pinpoint, and I wonder what drug Reubens is on– then realize he has TV lights shining right in his face. Duh.

Yes, I immediately went into assess mode. I was assessing Pee-wee Herman. I caught myself, slapped myself, and then had a very long and slightly hysterical laugh about it — and wondered WTF had happened to me. Answer’s obvious. Nursing school happened to me.

The other day, I was looking at one of Conan O’Brian’s sidekicks, who was singing. As he opened his mouth to sing, I noticed he had a groove in his tongue, and tried to remember which vitamin deficiency that was. (Turns out it isn’t necessarily a deficiency — it can be normal).

It is seriously time to graduate from nursing school. Seriously.

A wild animal isn’t going to just stand there while The Quitter takes five shots at him. He’s going to run. He had to be either drugged, or somehow tied so that he couldn’t run. And this is a woman who is against aborting half-formed embryos?

As Jesus said, live by the sword, you’ll die by the sword. The only thing we can hope for is a hunting accident that will take her out — but will save suffering for untold numbers of God’s creatures. Rough? Not any worse than what she did to that caribou. Rest in peace, beautiful soul.

This election was also about an electorate with the attention span of a paramecium. This will bite any incumbents, of any party. The shine has already worn off the freshmen, like new cars driven off a lot. They will be given MAYBE three months after they’re sworn in to produce, and then their numbers will fall, too.

As somebody said on TV the other day — no group is disliked more than Congress, and now the Republicans are in the majority in the House — this couldn’t be better for President Obama. This is why every President whose party lost control during the mid-terms has won re-election, at least since mid-last century. It will now be obvious where the obstruction is coming from….Assuming the President gets his message out, which is a huge assumption given his record so far.

The Japanese are really good about bowing and smiling and “diplomacy.”  Saying “yes” when they mean “no.”  In the end, nothing gets done.  Don’t play their game.  No smiling.  No bowing.  Hit them in the pocketbook.  Boycott all Japanese products until they stop this.  Recall our ambassador — their government would understand that.

Use every forum to emphasize the fact that, by allowing this to continue in the name of “tradition”, the ENTIRE NATION is barbaric.  If they weren’t barbaric, the Japanese themselves would be all over this killing place — not leaving it to a teenage girl and other foreigners.  Use every opportunity to tell them how cruel a nation they are.

Some Japanese have complained that we eat more meat and kill more animals than they do.  That may be true – and as a vegan I agree that eating any animal is cruel and unnecessary.  But even carnivorous Americans – even the ones who pay to watch the whales and dolphins “perform” – know that whales and dolphins are not supposed to be killed and eaten – they are, in their way, as intelligent as we are.  (Those “customers” should be performing in the tank, not the dolphins and killer whales.  I’D pay to watch that.) Yes, every country does boneheaded things. People are generally pinheads. But very few countries are killing dolphins and whales and whining about it being “tradition”.

Tradition? What are you — Neanderthals that can’t adapt to new times? Animals certainly have to adapt to what we’re doing to their homes and to the entire planet. So. . . you’re too dense to figure out another way to live that doesn’t involve hacking dolphins to death?

These are intelligent beings, murdered for “tradition.”  I will never recover from watching what happened to those dolphins.  I am sick to death, and totally ashamed for all humanity, not just the asshole Japanese fishermen. 

Go ahead.  If you want to cry, watch the video.  There are other videos.

God bless you, Elora for being there as our witness.  God have mercy on us all.

Boy, were we fooled. . . Hillary — pick up the nearest courtesy phone. Quickly, Hon.

. . . And the sign flashed out its warning/ in the words that it was forming
and the sign said “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls”
whispered in the sounds of silence. . .

And I put those words, together with the facts in this article, and came out with this prediction:  we’re headed for chaos.  The disenfranchised, the downtrodden, the Latinos, the Muslims, the poor, the gays — they won’t stay on the outside forever.  We are headed for. . . interesting times. 

I can’t freakin’ wait.

Somewhere in the middle of July or so, I lost my mind.  Somehow I got suckered into Facebook.  Not just Facebook — but Facebook rescuing dogs. 

Now, I’ve been transporting dogs for awhile.  But I’ve never actually fostered them.  Somehow, I saw a picture of two unfortunate dogs at the Miami/Dade HellHole, and got somebody in Miami to pull them and board them at a vet in Fort Lauderdale.  The dogs were Jude, a pit/lab mix, and Betsey, a boxer/bulldog.  The vet was Coral Ridge Animal Hospital, run by Dr. Gordon, his tech Stephanie, and a cast of various other saints.  The idea was for Jude and Betsey to board there for about 10 days until I could travel down to get them.  I was supposed to pick them up around July 29th.

Then all hell broke loose.  Jude — a neglected, probably abused, probable bait dog — came down with distemper.   The bottom line is that eventually Betsey was able to come home; I drove down to transport two other dogs, and drove Betsey back to Maryland with me.  But Jude never made it out of Florida.  He went up and down, up and down, and crashed.  I flew down there last Monday, fully expecting to have him put to sleep, but since it looked like he had pneumonia (which is survivable), I authorized a feeding tube and IV to get some nourishment in him.  We were going to fight this.

But Saturday, Stephanie called me.  The distemper seizures had started.  There was no hope.  I was crying, but managed to tell Dr. Gordon to “go ahead” and let him pass peacefully.  This conversation took place on board a Southwest flight to New Orleans, while we were stopped in Birmingham.  The flight crew probably wondered why I was crying all the way to New Orleans. 

Betsey meanwhile is in boarding, in a marvelous facility called Noah’s Ark.  She is having skin issues; I asked them to take her to the facility’s vet, who told me today that Betsey clearly has allergies, but we can’t tell yet whether it’s a seasonal thing, a food thing, or what.  I have an appointment with my regular vet on Monday.  We’re going to get to the bottom of this. 

Betsey had met Jude at Coral Ridge, and the two of them got along famously.  She is lonely at our house; there will be another dog joining us, one that I’m transporting on Saturday.  But that will be another post. 

I am REALLY looking forward to no more transports.  I am REALLY tired of crying.  I am looking forward to starting up nursing school again.  AND I HAVE DEACTIVATED FACEBOOK.

Girls of parents with higher levels of education were more likely to have received the HPV vaccine, known as Gardisil, but rates of vaccination declined as family income levels rose. That may be due to the rising number of wealthier parents who choose not to vaccinate their children for anything, Pruitt said.