No matter what happens...

When I was eleven, my father recommended James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking series.

Oddly, when I think back on all the books my father and I read together, there tends to be a trend...some of which was definitely Native American.  One of my favorite memories from childhood is him coming into my bedroom to share a biography of Chief Black Hawk; I remember the book, hardback with a grey cover and the title stamped in black along the spine.  He would sit on the edge of the bed, and reading to me using the light that spilled in from the hallway (because there might be monsters, we always had the hall light on) we would discover an entirely new way of life; one that didn't involve sherbet-colored bedspreads or elm bugs as pets.  This was something different, something primal.  I remember wishing I could have lived then; even using brains to tan a hide sounded awesome, the way dad read it. 

Someone else recommended and gave me a copy of Black Elk Speaks; but I think he would have gotten there if I weren't such a Pernicious Toad.  (Pernicious Toad was the award of the week to the child who had been the most obnoxious.  Sadly, I excelled at this, which at one point led to him bouncing a radish, and then an empty milk jug off of my head.)

ANYWAY.

Back to Leatherstocking.  It was after I had read Red Badge of Courage, which I wish I had NEVER read and to this day regret wasting time, effort, and brain cells upon something so horrible.  The fact that I read it three years before it was required reading only gives me a bigger rash, to be honest.  The only thing worse was Stephen Crane's perpetration upon humanity with his short story The Open Boat, which was featured prominently in my senior English class and the teacher of said class not just loved Stephen Crane, but failed to realize my sincerity in suggesting in an assigned essay that Stephen Crane would have benefited tremendously by dying before he could write something so horrible and gave me a grade that would make one assume that I would lose in a vocabulary contest with celery.

So.  Leatherstocking.

I read them all.  I liked them, well enough; struggles with opportunistic monarchs, antagonists with shady intentions,  American history (one of the only times I was exposed to it, sadly; my American history teacher felt that movies spoke a thousand words, and that Lonesome Dove spoke a thousand more than that).

OK, people.  Daniel Day-Lewis movie?  KINDA ROCKS.  Seriously.  I love it.  Yes, it is like almost 15 years since it came out.  No, it doesn't follow the book.  Yes, I have problems with the dialogue.  Yes, Uncas is the hottest adopted brother known to man.  No, you may NOT interrupt me when Daniel Day Lewis says "No matter what happens..."

I remember when it came out.  I saw it three times, IN THE THEATERS.  Johdi May's look when she steps off that rock rather than succumb to Magua?  His blood-flecked hand, gesturing her toward him, after he's done something so horrible but he is NOT A MONSTER, not completely?  Madeleine Stowe was kinda a throwaway for me, as far as I was concerned.  The secondary characters were so incredible.  Duncan saving Cora?  Are you KIDDING me?

 I took dad to see it.

"That is the biggest magnolia tree I've ever seen," he said, exiting the theater.  "Where was this SUPPOSED to have been filmed?"

And you thought reading/watching Lord of the Rings obsessively would be pointless.

So...JedI has survived his recent surgery.

I say this largely because (I think) he was not sure he would.  And he did.  "Hey, what's up?" was the greeting he gave me coming out of anesthesia. And he sat there, perfectly cognizant and waiting for them to check him out, drinking Coke and snacking on animal crackers...because he really might be Wolverine, with his healing powers.

 Because it was just a vasectomy, according to my female sensibilities, and The Potential End of the World, according to the male perspective.

I admit it; as a female I lack the true understanding that comes with something like this. I know it is scary...well, I in theory know it is scary.  As reality, it is kind of hit-and-miss.  I was always assured that when "the time was right" I would find it within my heart to want to procreate.  I spent many years, in fact, dealing with the fact that I did NOT want to procreate.  I adore my nieces and nephews; I would go back in time only to relive spending time with the Nutz Brothas and doing MORE for them.  But that maternal instinct?  Not so much.  I adore playing with babies.  I will even change diapers (and I am pretty sure Whit left a particularly vile diapered child to me ON PURPOSE); but there is something in me that lacks the need to procreate.

That being said, despite his attempt at dignity the JedI has given in to my suggestion, and now can be heard chanting "Grond! Grond! Grond!" with me as we place the large metallic bowl over his nether regions, in order that the cat might not leap upon his loins and undo what has been (horribly expensively) done.

He is still not fully at ease with Feral Fawcett; I am not sure that either of them will ever achieve full symbiosis.  Nevertheless, I have been really, really glad that I insisted on the biggest aluminum bowl we had, rather than a smaller one.  When Feral leaps up and sneers at us, at least she isn't causing JedI pain.

Can ANYONE explain to me why, with insurance, it cost us almost $800 to have his squirmies secede from the Union?  Am I racist for even questioning this?  Because really, after the laws being passed and the requirement that WE ALL SHALL HAVE INSURANCE, isn't NOT having children something that should resonate deeply with insurance companies?  As JedI has suggested, why don't they offer an incentive/bonus amount for people who are trying to do the responsible thing and NOT have children?

This is me, signing off and not thrilled with the fact that if I don't sign up for local health care, our tax refund may be in jeopardy.  Yer kidding me.

"I have no concern about those teams to get in there and pull a stunt overnight"

So, there they were.

"There have certainly been no breakouts of violence," said the sports announcer, who CLEARLY is a moron for the above-referenced statement.  Outbreaks of violence?  Violence?  About a fucking FOOTBALL TEAM?!

I'm sorry.  I thought that the disparity between commercial sports personalities and those of us who merely ate a bagel as breakfast and didn't kick through our rental walls was far, far less.

Great news for the 49ers.  The weather is apparently supporting them.

JedI is a huge sports fan.  So huge that when one of the only sports in which I remotely showed an interest was tennis, he started learning names and stats, to the point that I have NO idea to whom he is referencing when he shrieks from his earbud-laden world about how someone's second set totally decimated the eighth seed.

Feral Fawcett, by the way, has taken the opportunity to be absolutely FILTHY in her litterbox.

Remember when I was the queen of eschewing sports?  What happened?