"Normally, Rape Is Not Very Funny."

My father actually said that once. "Normally, rape is not very funny."

It was Christmas Eve, some time in the mid- to late-'90s, and my brother and I were both home for the holiday. So what did we do after arriving home post-midnight from a lovely Christmas Eve candelight church service? Why, naturally, when we discovered that Jack Frost was on Cinemax, we had to sit down and watch it, right then and there. (This was before TiVo, clearly.) And though my dad kept muttering, "This is the dumbest movie I've ever seen," he ended up keeping us company as well.

Now, I'm hoping it's obvious, but this was not the feel-good, treacle-fest Jack Frost starring Michael Keaton as a dad who learns to love again, or some crap like that, but the B- (or possibly C- or D-) movie horror flick in which a serial killer turns into a mutant snowman, starring... um, no one you've ever heard of.

Except Shannon Elizabeth. Yes, the chick who went on to bare her boobs in American Pie earlier bared her boobs in Jack Frost. And, because she was baring her boobs, and this was a horror movie, and it had been well-established that she was a teenage girl who liked sex - obviously, she had to die. It's a standard horror-movie rule.

But, of course, before killing her, Jack Frost the serial killer snowman wanted to have his way with her. WITH HIS CARROT-STICK NOSE. I cannot put into words what made it so hysterical, but we just could not stop laughing. And through sputters of laughter, my father busted out with, "Normally, rape is not very funny... but if Michaela is laughing, I know it's ok to laugh, too!" Apparently, my feminist cred gives me the right to declare which sexual assault is and is not open for mockery. And this sexual assault clearly was.

So this has become a standard go-to joke for me and the husband, despite the fact that we barely knew each other at the time the incident actually occurred. Even though we quote it all the time, though, we had somehow never informed my father of this fact.

Until last weekend when, contemplating the Color Purple musical, which is arriving in Chicago in the spring, he began dancing around the kitchen, waving his hands and singing a peppy little song with the lyrics, "Heyyyyy!!! Rape me in the fields!!!"

Pumpkin Muffins Lead to a Cat-Centric Post

The cat has been a part of our household for almost three years, and during that time, he has been on a dry-food-only diet. Further, it has been well over a year since anyone in this house has eaten tuna out of a can, or, for that matter, any other canned food that one would assume might appeal to a cat. So why does he still freak the hell out when he hears a can opener?

This is the question I pondered last night as I opened a can of pumpkin (in preparation to make pumpkin muffins, if you must know) - he bolted over and meowed at my feet in anguish, making it quite clear that if I didn't let him have a taste of what was in the can, he might just die. IMMEDIATELY. So, of course, my response was to stick my pinky finger into the can, dig out a little pumpkin, and offer it to the cat, just to prove to him how wrong he was. And damn if he didn't lap it right up and start begging for more.

I don't know why I was surprised; we've played this game several times before, and he usually just chows down on whatever's in front of him (I'd say this might be a trait he got from me, but apparently he's been this way since before he came into our care). And thus I present:

Things My Cat Has Eaten, from the Eminently Logical to the Highly Improbable
Cat food
Milk
Yogurt
Cheese
Tuna au poivre
Broccoli
Lilies*
Bugs
Lettuce
The afore-mentioned Pumpkin
Cauliflower
Straight sugar**
Lint
Radishes
Wasabi peas***

*It turns out eating lilies makes a cat so violently ill, he has to go to the emergency vet to get his kidneys pumped for two days straight, which still makes me wonder: with instincts like that, how did this cat survive for years on the streets?
**Apparently, cats don't have the receptors necessary to taste sweet things, so his need to lap sugar out of my palm is totally illogical.
***OK, this one is kind of a cheat, as he didn't finish eating the wasabi pea - he licked it five or six times, and seemed to be enjoying it, until he suddenly got wide-eyed, backed off, and sort of sneezed while shaking his head. He doesn't really trust any peas anymore, which is a shame... I guess he'll have to get his Vitamin K elsewhere.

Compare that list to:

Things My Cat Has Turned Up His Nose At
Toothpaste
Beer
Wine
Coffee
Pecans

WARNING: YOU MAY WELL CONSIDER THIS POST OFFENSIVE

So I'm all worked up about this Supreme Court partial-birth abortion thing, which I suspect is no surprise to anybody. Seriously, though, the thing that I really can't understand is, why are we still using the phrase "partial-birth abortion"? It's not a medically accepted term, it was simply made up by the anti-choice faction to describe various extremely rare dilation and extraction procedures (and, for the record, D&X itself isn't even considered "abortion" by the medical community, it is a completely separate procedure).

And that's part of what really confuses me: if these nutjobs were going to try to come up with a distasteful phrase that would win uneducated masses over to their way of thinking, why "partial-birth abortion"? Why not, I don't know, "baby skull crushing"?

Baby Skull Crushing is even more distasteful, and provides the anti-choicers the opportunity to jump right into their irritating habit of attempting to horrify the American public into condemning a medical procedure they know nothing about, even though it comprises less than 1% of all "abortions," and is nearly always performed due to health issues with the mother, the fetus, or both. Seriously, maybe they should hire me on as a consultant, I've got LOTS more ideas of how they could use the vividness bias to their advantage....

Grr. Argh.

"Meow" Can Mean Hungry, Playful, Needing a Cuddle - It Depends on the Tone

There's a little boutique down the street from us that opened within the last year. They're still finding their footing, occasionally changing up their product mix, their layout, their signage, etc. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a trendy little boutique in a trendy little neighborhood: some clothes, some candles, some fancy olive oils - but then, weirdly, a psychic who's set up shop in the basement.

As I understand it, this psychic does offer human readings, but what always makes me giggle, when I'm in the little boutique, is the sign promoting her psychic abilities as they relate to your pets. So recently, walking past the little boutique, when I noticed a sign in the window that said, "Pet Psychic Readings Available TODAY!" I had to point it out to the husband.

His response was to immediately begin waging a campaign to bring the cat over to her as soon as possible, despite the fact that the cat makes it very clear what he wants, when he wants it and, therefore, renders the need for a pet psychic unnecessary. I fear the husband isn't going to let go of this idea any time soon, though... if we end up going through with it, I promise to report back.