My cat eats MANGO!

He sits there with his "Puss in Boots" look and convinces me to hand feed him little bits of mango... The first time he did it I was completely flabbergasted. I mean, any type of fish product I can understand, but fruit?

Plus, two of my cats (both the aforementioned mango-lover and another of my three) will clean a bowl like it's been washed if there is either pasta sauce or the gooey remains of a Mrs. Pauls chicken pot pie.

Cats are amazingly curious creatures, the trip keeps getting weirder. Loving it totally.




AND IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH...

I had a FANTASTIC interview today! It was for my first REAL job since starting school again. More real than any of my previous positions held over my lifetime. It was perfect! The kewlest thing about the whole situation is that if I get it - I still have to be approved and interviewed and rubber stamped by the Board of Directors - I'll have J.O.B. locked in and ready a whole YEAR before I graduate with my Masters in Resource Economics! No spoilers on where/when/what until after I hear, because if I don't land this job I'll want someone else to get it. The only semi-questionable issue that was brought up: because it is such a small "rural" area, for public relations reasons only, I would probably want to join one of the churches in town in order to bond with the surrounding community.

::does a happy dance thinking positive, visualizing, MAKING it happen with the power of my mind::

My sweety says: "Don't count your chickens before the eggs hatch." He is wise. I am idealistically optimistic. ::visualize, visualize::

Anybody have any peanut gallery comments or suggestions to make? x-posting second part (with additional commentary) to the atheism community.

Angry, but no guarantee of coherency.

I was in NYC this weekend. While I was there (on Sunday) I attended a (set of four) photography exhibits. One was called Looking at LIFE, an exhibition featuring over 200 prints arranged in thematic sections that reflect some of LIFE's (the magazine) particular preoccupations. It is located at The International Center of Photography located at 1114 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street. You leave all your bags, etc. at the door and pay $7.00 (non-members) to get in. It is running until November 28th. www.icp.org They have a website with information on the exhibitions. (the only one I didn't see was the one called "Ant Farm.")

In addition to their own prints whose focus appeared to be in the categories of photojournalistic portrayals of: (FYI: there was another exhibition on JFK all on the upper/main floor.) {downstairs:} Urban Poverty, Objectification and "domestication" practices of women, All wars the US has been WWI on, (including unpublished photos that were more heart-wrenching than the glamorized photo-ops we usually got and images from the Holocaust... the furnaces, the emaciated forms of survivors etc.) the horrible treatment of blacks during the civil-rights movement (including national guard with rifles on the buses) the Domination of Space and the Human fertility processes (they had a picture of a fetus developing inside of an experimental artificial womb environment) along with Animal experimentation for medical/science/space purposes, the Idolization of the Stage/Screen/Music Industries, and then... after all of this has been layered into your mind as preparation, there is the "hanging" room - which I call that because there was a hanging partition that only allowed you into the area in one way so you could not anticipate what lay within.

It was a line of photos, one to the next, around the room, with a poster of commentary, of all the prints sent over the internet, taken by non-professionals, with digital cameras, of Abu Gharib. I was flabbergasted, no, that's not the right word... I was overwhelmed, literally. I left the room and was confronted with the last thematic section... I had attempted to block it all in, but the absurdity of what we do to idolize and objectify "famous" people acted like releasing a locke in a canal's floodgate. I found one of my friends that I had come with and I sobbed in her arms, tears streaming down my face. I could barely speak coherently, I stopped trying. Then I stopped, wiped my face with a tissue, and thanked her for "being there for me."

I let her continue looking around (she was looking at the photos in a different order than I had.) Then I turned around. There behind me were the photos of JFK's death, his funeral specifically. (almost seeming to be, but not, a continuation of the exhibition on the floor above.) The last two photos, the second to last the one of JFK's son in his little jacket and hat saluting us the viewer, the last, Jackie descending the church steps with her black veil covering her face... There was a bench (one of the many scattered around the room) right there, I sat and stared at the two photos... trying to come to terms with all of the images I had seen...

(Background: I was in the military, and my experiences with them included the "normal" indoctrination procedures that they use... I was trained as a Military Police Officer. Part of that training included duties and procedures for guarding and running a POW camp. My unit (the first time in Iraq) had been activated and did this. We were trained for the humane treatment of prisoners according to Geneva Convention regulations. )

I was OUTRAGED. I started (when I cornered my sweety and aforementioned friend) spewing out how I took the whole thing personally, on both a moral/ethical/human level and on a PROFESSIONAL level. I knew better. I demanded to know whether or not these people were MP's, whether or not they had any actual TRAINING before they were entrusted with this responsibility or if they were just thrown into it, told to do unspeakable things, and (because once you taste of evil it becomes easier to do it again and you will actually gain a taste for it, conditioned to accept and even relish it - this is how you create monsters) told that they were doing their country a service... How could they swallow it? The lies, the conceit, the barbarity. DISGUST, NAUSEA, RAGE, SADNESS I felt empathy for, and outrage on the behalf of the prisoners. I understood the hate and fear of our enemies, or rather those that will or have become our enemies because of this... the families, the countrymen, the religious community of the victims.

I asked How?! Why?! WTF?!

The themes, they were all connected... We are the barbarians. We are the underprivileged, we are the animals, we are the oppressed, we are the suppressed, we are the idolized and the objectified, we are the killers, we are the dead, we are the subjects of experimentation...

WE. ARE. THE. VICTIMS.

After two days of contemplation, both conscious and unconscious, I have come to a place of semi-tranquil zen state. But, there is hope... All is not lost. If we recognize what we are capable of and consciously become more than our base instincts insist we are. But... we must remember and not fall back and degenerate into the animals we are. I know that my knowledge of the situation does not gaurantee the success of our evolution, however, the fact that it is possible gives me hope. Until there are no more tomorrows, or we are extinct, there will always be hope. Pandora, thank you.

x-posting to feminism community.