Tag Archives: Ohio

Fracking Friday! — 01/04/13

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Fracking Friday finds Andi-Roo pissed and disillusioned.

no fracking

NO FRACKING 3 Lapel Sticker 48 pk

It’s been a while since I’ve hosted a Fracking Friday here so I thought I’d check in on Josh Fox and the world of GasLand to see what’s cooking. I almost wish I hadn’t, as there has been more twat-waffling than I can bear.

 

Selfish people — go play in traffic, would you? Because you’re mean and you don’t play well with others and you don’t care if we get sick &/or die. That’s pretty goddamn ass-tastic. Now I remember why it took me so long to write a Fracking Friday post — because they get me all riled up and make me want to spit on people’s faces.

 

Take Some Fracking Action on Fracking Friday!

we don't need politicians that support fracking

We don’t need fracking politicians Sticker Bumper

New York is currently under siege as Fracking fuckers have taken over their Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

“The New York State DEC has issued proposed regulations (“Regs”) for fracking even though the environmental review (the SGEIS) and their own limited public health review has [sic] not been completed.”

By clicking on this link and adding your name, you can take action to Ban Fracking In New York. Since I have friends in New York and I happen to also like that state, I’d be ever so grateful if you took ten seconds here.

 

Closer to home for me,

“the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) is in the process of transferring a 17-acre area in Central Ohio that contains 7.5 acres of natural forested wetlands to a private developer.”

By clicking on this link and adding your name, you can take action to Help Save the Sawmill Wetlands Education Area. Since I live in Ohio, I’d be ever so grateful if you went the extra mile for me.

 

Fracking Friday notes on things that are all Fracked up:

university of texas logo

University of Texas UT Longhorns House Flag

Some douche bag in charge of a pro-Fracking study at Texas University kind-of, sort-of forgot to divulge that he had received money and stocks from the board on which he served that was kind-of, sort-of running the damn study. I mean, I know it’s Texas, so this kind of thing should be expected, but even I’m a bit shocked over this.

 

Plus? The douche bag’s name is Chip Groat. Doesn’t he just SOUND like an ass-hat? He must be. Shortly after the shit hit the proverbial fan, he “retired”. Sounds like a seriously harsh punishment he got there. My favorite part of this article, however, is the final sentence:

“The university says it accepts the review’s recommendations, including strengthening its conflict of interest policies.”

 

Um, ya think?

Amazon.com Widgets

I’ll Leave Chess to the Barbarians

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My husband keeps trying to teach me how to play chess.Barbarian Chess

I can’t convince him that I really, truly do not want to learn. I just don’t possess the sort of thinking required for what, in my opinion, is not a game so much as an exercise in strategy. I can’t think ahead that far; I can’t hold images in my head and imagine what might come next. I’m sure this says wonderfully horrible things about my ability to plan for the future, but we’re not going to discuss that right now.

 

I tell my husband that I make a fabulous assistant,

and am not cut out for leadership, which is great because this balances us out. Every great leaderneeds a strong V.P. to execute directives, and I am that person. Give me some direction, and I can totally make it happen, delegating as needed and engaging help along the way. I carry a clipboard and Make. Shit. Happen. As long as somebody else thinks it up first.

Besides,

I tell him, I like games that offer a 40-60% chance that I might actually win some of the time. Why go into a fray knowing ahead of time that I will 100% lose? Monopoly is more my speed. Or any game of chance that I have equal odds of winning or losing. It’s not that I want to take down my opponents ceaselessly. I just like a fair game. What’s so wrong with that? As my seven-year-old is learning, life is totally unfair. Why should I want my entertainment to emulate what I already live daily?

My husband says he could teach me and I’d get better. 

I respond, “Is there ever, in this lifetime, any chance that I will beat you?” “Well no.” He says that definitively. Without pause for thought. I tell him he’s right, and that this is why I don’t have plans to pursue it. Although he would deny being a master of chess, he is definitely really good, and beats most of the people he plays on a regular basis.

 

I say all this, playing to his man-pride. 

…It works. He boasts, “Well you know, I am descended from a long line of Germans whose name translates to ‘Defender of the Home Land’. So it only makes sense that I love chess. You know, we fought the Romans back in the early A.D.”

 

I ask, “Weren’t there like barbarians up that ways?”

 

“That was us!” He grins. “But that was a long time ago. We’re not barbarians anymore.”

 

“Says you, hairy ass.”

 

He laughs, 

and points out that we live in a very big German area — our tiny six-street village shares a school district with the neighboring Germantown. No, for realz. So it’s not like he doesn’t fit right in with the surrounding crowd.

Another game they play

here in the cornfields of America is Euchre. Maybe you’ve heard of it, but I hadn’t until I moved to Ohio. It’s a German thing. There are a lot of other local oddities you won’t see much elsewhere:

sweepers (how Ohio-ans refer to vacuum cleaners)

Beggar’s Night (Ohio’s trick-or-treat night, which may or may not fall on Halloween)

Drive-Throughs (not the fast-food joints; these are liquor stops you can literally… drive through to get your drink on. No, for realz. I love Ohio.)

Corn Hole (Ohio version of beanbag toss)

Buggies (Ohio shopping carts)

 

But it’s not just the vocabulary; 

the speech patterns here are different, too. They’ve adopted their own pronunciations and sentence structures that truly boggle the mind:

 

Asterix (asterisk)

“I seen you at the gas station yesterday!” (I saw you at the gas station yesterday.)

The town of Bellefontaine (pronounced BELL-Fountain, instead of how you might imagine it with a French twist, Bell-Fonn-TANE)

 

And the list goes on. 

It’s a strange country in which I live… and I don’t just mean the larger land of America. I refer to the tiny plot of land on which my house resides. Ohio is a very pleasant, but different, part of the world. At the very least, they did a good number on the English language, slaughtering innocent words willy-nilly, leaving phrases headless and without their mothers to protect them, raping and pillaging… Barbarians, indeed.

 

So no, I do not play chess, and do not have plans to do so.

I have a grasp on which way the pieces move, and I know just enough about the rule-breaking plots that I can say definitively right now, this game is not for me. What kind of nonsense rule would state that the pawn moves forward at all times… oh, except when it’s able to attack someone and then suddenly it can go diagonally and place itself in an entirely different column!? That, fwends, is rubbish. We’ve got enough of that exception-to-the-rule junk in real life; I don’t need that in the spare moments when I’m seeking entertainment. What’s fun about games that won’t sit still and behave?

 

My husband thinks I just hate losing in general, and to him in particular. To him I say, “Yield, Ohio savage!”

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***DISCLAIMER: This post is “from the vault”. My Bloggy-Blog recently crashed. This was an item we were able to save thanks to the Black Box we recovered from the wreckage. There will be more items along this line as we salvage more survivors. *** 
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Why does God want me to get eaten by zombies?

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This is the first of my new series WHAT’S UP, WENZDAY?Graduation

This will happen every Wednesday as part of my ROW80 weekly check-in.

My son is about to graduate from high school.

He spent the last five years dedicated to the sport of wrestling, and it finally paid off this year — he qualified for State, which resulted in a pretty decent title: in all of Ohio, only fifteen guys in his weight class are rated higher than he is.

wrestlingNot bad…

…considering that along the way he fought against several interpretations of “God’s” will. I put “God” in quotations here not because I question the existence of a superior being, but because I question any human daring to proclaim an understanding of a superior being’s intentions. Last I checked, it isn’t ours to know. But boy, people certainly do try.

An Athlete’s Motto: Push Through the Pain!

This talented young man broke bones, pulled lots of muscles beyond repair, sprained digits and appendages, and walked on crutches almost as often as his own two legs. He almost lost use of one of his thumbs, and one elbow is forever misshapen. Girlfriends who didn’t appreciate his dedication to the sport year-round were kicked to the curb, so in addition to abusing his body, he also lost out on relationships. Every time he got hurt, someone was there to gently say, “Maybe God’s trying to tell you wrestling isn’t your sport.”

Maybe People Shouldn’t Try to Guess What God is GodSaying.

Thank goodness he didn’t listen to the friendly advice of naysayers! (I was one of them.) Otherwise, he would have missed out on the opportunity to roll with the best. He would not be able to add this achievement to his college applications. He would not have gained the respect of his coaches, his teammates, his school, and ultimately, his entire community.

I Should Totally Get a Divorce and Run 500 Miles Per Day.

Just Kidding — I love my hubz way more than running! Duh. Seriously, this isn’t a lesson about going nuts with exercise. I’m fifty pounds overweight, so I’m the last person to get all healthy on your ass. This *is* a lesson, however, in doing what’s right for you, not making excuses or taking advice from well-meaning but stupid doodie-heads (myself included), and standing on your own two feet, taking responsibility for your choices.

TreadmillExample:

Yesterday I fought against the treadmill beast, and won a grand battle. I was able to gain more ground during my thirty-minute, walk-jog-walk routine than on previous attempts, and MAN — I was feeling pretty damn good about it. I felt so good, in fact, I decided to give it an extra try today — *Le Gasp* — a self-proclaimed DAY OFF from exercise! Excellent!

Except — There Were Signs.

God obviously did not want me to exercise today.

Sign Number ONE:

I couldn’t get my iPoodle to log in to Netflix. Bummer. I just discovered this awesome-fun, non-Twilight, but yes-there-are-vampires-n-werewolves show called BEING HUMAN (American version — I haven’t tried the U.K. one) which is available via Netflix Instant Streaming. Plug in my ear-buds and I’m ready to run across the planet… or at least keep sluggishly moving along until the episode has ended. But no show for me today. Fuck.

Sign Number TWO:

Merely two minutes into my warm-up, the treadmill rolled over and played dead. Now this machine is very old, and this has happened before. All you have to do is unplug it, give it a moment to rest, and then re-engage the battle where you left off. Except that it didn’t pick up where I left off. Bummer. I had to start my warm-up all over. Which means I would be going over my allotted half-hour. Which peeves me because I was already resentful about giving up thirty minutes to stupid aerobic fitness as it was. Plus with no show. Fuck.

Sign Number THREE:Netflix

Netflix not working, and iPoodle now frozen so I couldn’t even listen to music from my “Go Mode” play list, I started the warm-up over, distraction-free (which equals bored and not really inclined to stay the course). And half-way through my walk-jog-walk, right when I was hitting my stride and feeling really swanky about completing a routine against all odds (and on an “off” day at that), the fucking treadmill stopped again. No kidding. I actually jumped up and down on it like a child in a fit of frustration. Seriously — FUCK!

Now some people might interpret this as a sign from God.

They might say, “Andi-Roo, God likes you to be the chubby girl that you are. He, in all his glory and wisdom, is pleased with your shitty pulse-recovery-rate, and does not want to see you able to dodge zombies during the impending apocalypse.”

See now, I almost fell for it:

Sure, God likes me the way I am. Oh yeah, baby, God says it’s fine to be a lazy slob! Couch potatoes unite! *woot*

zombiesBut that bit about God wanting me to get eaten by zombies?

That can’t possibly be true. I am an awesome individual (even if 89% of the human population disagrees). So obviously I am misreading the signs. After thinking things through, over a large cup of ice water (not wine, which is what I always crave when I’m sweaty, and NO, I don’t know why), I realized what the sign REALLY was.

Don’t Overextend Your Power Sources.

God does not want me to be an a-hole and run the treadmill, washer, and dryer out of the same plug at the same time. Turn the corner and… YEP! sure enough — I blew a fucking fuse! The microwave, stove, and Keurig clocks were all blinkie-blinkie. Sure signs that the power had just flickered.

And as for the Netflix? Well I don’t know. Maybe God just thinks that show is dumb. We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, Big Guy.

So What About the Rest of My ROW80 Goals?ROW80

For now, I’m off to shower, and then I’m taking my Little to the Cafe for a late lunch. Because God wants us to eat, that’s why. And also, because God doesn’t want me to save money.

When we get back to the house, I will be finishing up chapter two of my *Work In Progress* so I can be better emotionally prepared for the fun-making I’ll receive at the writing group tonight. Because God wants me to feel stupid, that’s why.

How do YOU read the signs that crop up in your life from day to day?

And how is your ROWing going?

Diversity Among Mice

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Penelope Trunk wrote about Diversity. 

She wasn’t referring to skin color, however, which is what usually comes to mind when that word pops up in conversation.Diversity among mice Instead she used the term in its denotative, rather than connotative, sense. For the challenged, this means that she used the word in correct context per dictionary definition, as opposed to the spirit of the word or the feelings it evokes.

The immediate, gut reaction is… 

that we are about to talk about race, and that it could possibly get ugly. But at its base, diversity merely refers to variety or differences or even contradictions (meanings courtesy of Dictionary.com). And this doesn’t have to deal with the way people look. Mixed nuts is a good example of diversity, or maybe a kitchen sink salad.

 

Mixed NutsGood on Penelope for bringing the word Diversity back into context! The differences to which she referred mainly dealt with two separate ways of life: Country Mice vs. City Mice.

 

Sure, a few commentators noted that there is a middle ground, somewhere in the lands of suburbia, but on the whole, Suburbia is really neither / nor, fence-sitters who want their cake and plan to eat it too.

 

On the one hand, Suburbanites are kind of wanna-be Country Mice — they moved far enoughDairy Cow away from the city so that they can have grass without the bother of chickens or goats or pigs.

And on the other hand, Suburbanites are also kind of wanna-be City Mice — they stayed close enough to the city so they can still hit the malls and pick up fast-food for dinner on the way home from their work commute. Milk without the trouble of going through a cow.

 

We can argue all day as to whether or not Suburbia represents yet a third way of life, but eventually it will be a moot point because of a little thing we like to call Urban Sprawl. Oh, and also over-population, but that’s a topic for another post.

 

Futuristic CityThis is how I imagine a panicked conversation might go: 

“Oh dear, there goes the neighborhood! Don’t let the slums get you — run, for goodness sakes, run while you still can — out to the country!” So truly Suburbanites are at their root merely lazy Country Mice who just haven’t realized yet that they are doomed. That’s okay — we of the farmlands are doomed too, just at a slower pace. Have you not seen all the dystopic literature floating around out there? The whole world will be one giant ghetto at some point in the future. So simmer down, Suburbanites, I wasn’t trying to get your goat. So to speak.

 

Back to the original premise: 

Country Mice vs. City Mice, and the diversity of lifestyles therein. Penelope and many of her city-minded followers contend that their crowd are more intelligent and fast paced, while country folk are more inclined to creativity and the relaxed pace of a snail. To some degree, I would judge this to be correct.

 

[What makes me a capable judge? (a) I've lived all over the world in all kinds of settings. (b) It's my planet. No for realz.]

 

Consider how many artists come from middle-America,Kurt Vonnegut 

which for the geographically clueless (including me up until about the age of 30, at which point I realized how small this world is, and exactly how stupid are most of her occupants) is where the Country is located. We’ve got funny man David Letterman, the much-missed Kurt Vonnegut, and the late great Michael Jackson from Indiana. Ohio offers up Erma Bombeck, Toni Morrison, Paul Newman, and Steven Spielberg.

 

[Interesting fact about Ohio: seven of our U.S. presidents claimed the Buckeye State as home. Does this indicate politicians grow up on corn and have a proclivity for being creative? Based on the way many of them answer questions, methinks yes.]

 

Hillbilly GolfSo what can we draw from this? 

The farmland celebrities listed herein all inhabit creative fields (no pun intended), which indicates they fit the bill for having time on their hands to stew the juices of imagination. Yet I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that any of them are yokels, hicks, or outright dumb-dumbs. That image just doesn’t work here. In spite of backwoods school systems, hayrides, and hillybilly golf, somehow we’ve managed to cook up entire bushels of intellectuals.

 

Maybe Country Mice beat out City Mice altogether? Thought to ponder, from my lily pad on the small pond of Farmersville, Ohio.