WTF BP?

Shame, shame, shame. On BP for letting this happen without a viable emergency plan in place, on our government for allowing inaccessible drilling in our ocean floor, and us for not getting off this sinking oil ship without first destroying one of the most beautiful places on our planet.

Enough with the oil, the greed, the laziness and this unfounded sense of entitlement we have.

Wisdom Teeth

While we were in L.A., we got to see Bubba get sworn into the army. There was some question about whether his blood pressure would hold out long enough for him to get accepted, but he got it under control and he'll be heading off to learn how to fly helicopters in August.

Bubba, in the army. That's totally not a joke.
During the swearing in, the leader guy said the lines and had the enlisters repeat after him, as is the normal swearing in process. He started with, "I, state your name," blah blah blah, and someone actually said, "I, state your name," instead of stating their name.

God bless the USA.

California is fruity.

California is a fruit show off. Lemon trees in parking lots, orange trees lining the highways, nectarine trees in neighbors' yards... and then the fruit selling guys, who cut up mangoes and pineapples and canteloupes and watermelon and coconut and cram it all into a giant bag for $5.

Those fruit guys should win Top Chef honors for what they do on sunny days.

Mack's dad is a bit of a fruit junkie, so their house is always stocked with fruit. There are, of course, bananas and oranges and apples, but thanks to the Iranian store Elat, there's also cherries and blackberries and sweet lemons. Elat sells fruit for half of what it is at the regular grocery store, so even if you have to park your cart and then scramble around the store collecting your goodies, it's worth it.
Just before we got to LA, they'd stocked up on fruit from Elat, including baskets of strawberries. Or some steroidal version of strawberries.

That is a strawberry next to a Gala apple... a strawberry so large that only it and about six of its giant friends fit in the normal-sized strawberry basket. Now that's almost as impressive as a pluot.

[An apple aside, since we're on the subject, my mom and dad discovered these apples called Honey Crisps that are the best apples on the planet. Sprinkle a touch of cinnamon on them and it's like dessert. Honey Crisps put other apples to shame.]

Nap Time at Man Care

Laila and I were playing around the other day, taking walks, looking at Japanese erasers and trying to figure out what Water Babies are exactly and why they are strangely fun, when we decided we should probably come downstairs and be more social.

And we walked into this.

That's right. Three grown men, all having naps, with That 70s Show on in the background. I've seen Mack in this state, usually with the news on, on several afternoons, but to see him, his brother and his dad all napping together made me wonder if it's genetic and not just gender specific like I thought it was.

Just a little stroll.

Tom took us on a hike today, and by hike I mean a 7-mile power walk that worked butt muscles I didn't know existed.

It was an absolute incline until we reached the overlook, but the incline was speckled with courting hummingbirds and interesting animal poop and deer tracks and lizards so there was enough distraction to get me to the top... which was outfitted with recycling containers because that just how conscious people are here.God this place is freaking wonderful.

3 plus 2

I actually don't mind getting older... probably because my birthdays are always so awesome they're worth living for.

This year things got started on May 9, which was a celebration of Renee's birthday, my birthday and Mother's Day rolled into one. Renee was just about the cutest 3-year-old I've ever seen opening her presents, so even though celebrating with her meant sharing the spotlight, she provided entertainment that was worth it. And it's always fun to share your birthday with Mother's Day, since in a twisty way it's also your mom's birthday... her giving birth day.

Sharing my birthday meant we got to have two cakes... a chocolate one for Renee (that said Happy Birt because Bad Mommy Shannon ran out of icing) and a vegan carrot cake for me. I hate to say it, but I think I may like sharing my birthday.

My birthday week was pretty good. I did a little bit of work, played volleyball, cleaned the house, and then on Friday, I met up with Ruble and Steve for giant-sized birthday Red Stripes.

Saturday was a little lame, since I spent the day in a nursing home giving bed baths and feeding old people, but it was also waaaaayyyy better than the Saturdays I've been having, where I sit in a room with people whose development is questionable and whose accents border on unintelligible. Sunday, my actual birthday, was a little more of the same as Saturday, but it was also THE LAST DAY of nurse aid torture.

I wanted to go to the drive-in for my birthday, but it started raining so we had to do a change of plans. I was stumped. All my favorite restaurants are closed on Sundays, but Mack called and found out that the new Dudley's on Short Street was open. Thank god.

We met Leigh and Nash and ate some of the best pan-fried snapper in the world. It was served over some magical greens and craveable beans and I basically licked that plate clean.

Just as we were sucking down the last of our mojitos, the waitress brought down a carrot cake that Leigh had brought... complete with a small forest fire on top. I saw her coming because the flames caught the corner of my eye and I thought there was some sort of disaster headed our direction. The heat coming off that thing actually made me sweat in the short time it took for my dinner mates to serenade me with Happy Birthday.

But in that small moment, with 32 candles blazing in front of my face and a smile wiped across it that overwrote any essence of cool I was trying to project, I accidentally achieved birthday euphoria.

It seriously felt like those people on Intervention who talk about feeling a rush when they put the needle in their arm.

All the voicemail singing, all the Facebook love (some of it from people I didn't think really even knew me), all the special dates, all the cheers and good food and laughs. If you've gotta be addicted to something, birthdays are it.

Ya'll 'member Jesco???

The Dancing Outlaw? The one who was half spray paint huffer, half mountain genius? The one who threatened to murder his wife Priscilla if she made sloppy, slimy eggs?

Well, he's baaaaaccccccckkkkkkk.
I read today that there's a new documentary about Jesco White and his family coming out called The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia and I am soooo excited about it.

Jesco tap danced his way into my heart during an Advanced Writing for the Mass Media class I took in college. He was shocking... for his idiocy and his brilliance... and it's good to see he's not only still alive but still living in his crazy way.

For reasons that aren't entirely noble, I love mountain people. I love hollers and twang and twisted logic and the incomprehensible, self-induced tragedy that these people rise above time after time.

A few years ago Mack and I got hooked on the PBS series Country Boys, where one of the main subjects was a death-metal sex-having teenager aspiring to be a youth pastor and the other was a great-in-his-own-mind dreamer who decided it was more important for him to work at Taco Bell than get a free ride to college.

Those country boys were good, but they were no Jesco. They were nothing like the Whites.

Where have I been? Climbing up on my soapbox.

I was just studying for my anatomy final, which covers the reproductive system, when I read this: diabetes causes erectile dysfunction.

I'm about to get all judge-y so feel free to bail now.

In addition to being in anatomy, I'm also spending my weekends doing my nurse aid training. You have no idea how awful that class is. Think traffic school, but 8 hours long, every weekend for 5 weeks, full of morbidly obese smokers.

In both classes, the words "smoking is a factor" and "smoking increases risk" and "obesity contributes" keep coming up. Over and over and over.

Heart problems = fat + smoking. Lung problems = fat + smoking. Sex problems = fat + smoking.

If there are two things you can do to add quality years to your life, it's not smoking and not getting super fat.

All you have to do is look at me to know I am not a fat hater. Or a smoker hater, for that reason. I like beer and French fries and pizza and potato chips, potato chips, potato chips as much as the next person, and I'm hauling around an extra 10-15 pounds as proof. And there was a decade there where I was without question a certified "bum smoker."

But honestly, I didn't know better. Or I was young enough to not care. Now, though, I won't tolerate being stupid. I will not love my vices more than I love being able to walk around without feeling like I'm going to die. I just will not, no matter how old I get or how hard it gets to lose weight.

I have lost weight, gained weight, lost weight, gained weight my entire life. And knowing me and my love of beer and French fries and pizza and potato chips, potato chips, potato chips, I will live in that cycle for the rest of it. But I have set firm limits for myself that I will not trick myself out of.

The other day, one girl in my class made a comment about how much sugar was in juice and how she didn't realize it until that morning in the gas station when she was looking for a healthy alternative to soda. She's also trying to lose weight, and I said, "If you cut out soda, you will lose 10 pounds without even trying."

And then, one of the 15 Mountain Dew junkies in my class said, "I love my pop, there's no way I could give it up. Besides, you gonna die of somethin'."

Isn't she going to feel stupid for saying that when she's 49, half blind and an amputee? What about her kids or her husband? Are they going to feel alright about her deterioration in the name of fucking soda?

Of course, it's not just about soda, though. It's about being lazy and how un-fun it is to force ourselves into healthy living. Sinister things are way more fun... and faster and more delicious. I get it. But we don't walk around masturbating whenever we feel like it and we shouldn't be letting ourselves enjoy a triple decker fudge brownie every commercial break either.

One girl in my class brought macaroni noodles cloaked in mayonnaise and Bacon Bits for lunch today. Then she went and helped herself to about 30 Tootsie Rolls from the candy jar. Another girl opted for a family size bag of Doritos and a Mountain Dew. A couple others were McDonald's subscribers or Sonic fans. And I sat back there eating my salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette and a tomato sandwich (with mayo and salt) thinking my god these people are poisoning themselves in the name of convenience.

After lunch, diabetes came up again, this time with pictures. Diabetic socks and injections and pills and obesity and gangrene and amputation, and I just wanted to pull a Dead Poets Society and stand on my chair and hold up a big mirror with flashing red warning lights so that these people could realize their fates if they keep this up.

I just don't understand how people just can't care. My friend Seth was a preemie, was diagnosed with diabetes as a kid, and has to give himself insulin injections before every single meal for the rest of his life. He did nothing to earn this lot in life but be born too soon. He is active and eats right and takes care of himself, even though he understands that someday his disease is going to make him blind and steal his limbs and, as I just learned, prevent him from getting a boner. It's unfair that Seth works so hard to have what Mountain Dew fuckers take for granted, what they're willingly giving up.

One of the super fats in my class is wanting to have a baby but can't get pregnant. Wonder why. Another one has high blood pressure, as she just learned (and was shocked about) when we were taught how to do vital signs. Is she really surprised, considering she just had a second lunch consisting of Tootsie Rolls?

I don't get it. I guess there's comfort in ignorance, because ignorance absolves you of responsibility for your actions, but I call bull shit.

Most of these mega-chunks are in the South, most of them live in small towns, most of them have little else to do but eat and go to church. And now I'm gonna slam on church, so feel free to bail now if you haven't already.

Isn't gluttony a sin? And for some reason I seem to remember lust and sloth and greed are also sins. And not just sins but deadly sins. I've never been to cadechism, but I think deadly sins are worse than regular sins, like, you know, the type of sins that being gay or masturbating or lying are supposed to be. So in that regard, aren't these Bible thumping super fats who are not only killing themselves but also their babies worse than the abortion-getters and gay families they rise up against? By being such an incredible strain on our health care system for no other reason than they couldn't care less about the effect of their actions, aren't they committing a more egregious social offense than any flaming homo might?

(*I'd just like to say that I find flaming homos delightful.)

Seriously, ya'll, the rest of the world is not like this. In other places, people are normal sized. In other countries, we look like gluttons and sloths and totally ungrateful, engorged, greedy piggies. But forget about how we look to other people... how do we look to ourselves?