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diarrhea and dinner guests
Sunday, January 22 2012
At Deborah's dinner party last night, I'd checked the internet briefly and learned that Newt Gingrich had won the South Carolina primary with 40% of the vote, with Mitt Romney taking only 28%. That was huge news, throwing a monkeywrench into the machinations of the Republican elite as they tried to quicky produce their 2012 presidential candidate. Today all I wanted to do was read about the story, though of course there wasn't really much to say. Newt won, Mitt lost, and it's on to Florida.
This evening Celia and Alex, our friends from Tivoli, came over for a dinner that Gretchen had slaved nearly all day in the kitchen to prepare. I'd had to run into town late this morning for tamale husks and other incidentals.
As always, the meal began with finger foods eaten in front of the fire. Gretchen had made some sort of soft vegan cheese and it went perfectly with crackers. Unfortunately, though, Marie (aka "the Baby") decided to go diarrhea on the floor while we were there. This is something she does all the time, preferring to shit on the floor to using a litter box. Normally we just let Eleanor clean it up, but that's kind of gross and not the kind of thing we share with any but our closest friends. So we had to make a show of cleaning up the diarrhea ourselves before the dogs could get to it.
The meal started with a tamale course, followed by salad, and then chili.
[REDACTED]
Among other things, we talked about Gretchen's ghostwriting travails, how my family is handling my father's death, and why someone might or might not want to be more self-reliant (in terms of, say, energy or food). Alex brought up a good point: if one is conserving energy only so that some dick can continue burning incandescent bulbs, what is the point? "On some level," I said, "you have to be selfish." I conserve power partly (or perhaps even mostly) because it saves me money. That's the right-wing survivalist rationale for self-sufficiency, but it's really all a liberal tree hugger is left with in a world filled with Limbaughian douchebags who revel in their wasteful lifestyles. "Ultimately, I don't think people will meaningfully conserve resources until they are forced to by scarcity," I admitted, adding, "but that day is coming, probably when oil begins to be exhausted. That's not an easy thing to replace."
Alex and Celia stayed with us long enough for the Baby to shit on the floor a second time.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?120122 feedback
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