who told you to put a balm on?

I'm pretty annoyed about the whole NSA surveillance thingy, and am surprised by the number of people who are relaxed and cool with it, like, "I'm pretty boring and have nothing to hide; why should I care?"  I can't figure out if they're being serious--there was a pro/con surveillance opinion piece in the newspaper yesterday in which the pro-surveillance person (a Republican, because you know how they're such fans of limited government) made an argument so inane and childishly worded that I can't be entirely certain it wasn't actually a point/counterpoint lifted straight from The Onion.  Among other things he was saying that people volunteer information about themselves online all the time, so why does this bother them, and I'm just like, "DUDE.  Because they chose to volunteer that information."  Does he really not see the difference between the two scenarios?  Does he really not have a problem with the government spying on us without permission?  And lying about it until faced with evidence that they were?  I thought there was a huge vein of "BUT THE CONSTITUTION!  THE FOUNDING FATHERS!" running through the Republican party--does he not see the hypocrisy in his position?  Maybe he's just really good at compartmentalization.

I have seen Cedar City now, and it is a fine place.  Too hot and windy for me to live there, but they have a superb shaved ice stand that has earned my undying loyalty.  Shaved ice is one area in which I happily welcome and embrace all the artificial colors and flavors they care to throw at me.  Tiger's Blood with shelf-stable ultra-pasteurized cream poured on top?  Bring it on.  Pineapple/Orange/Strawberry with a sweet white substance that has not been identified stirred in?  Likewise.  The guys upgraded us to mediums for free because we told them we were shaved ice connoisseurs who had sought them out after hearing reports of their good ice--all true.  Also while were were in Cedar City we visited Cedar Breaks National Monument, and that is a gorgeous eyeful.  I was a mostly non-embarrassing soccer parent at Grant's games, and I can sometimes detect an offside situation now, so there's that.  No goat babies came while we were gone, for which I am grateful.  Roger, Sally's baby, is thriving and has started jumping around like a little deer.

I have a problem with poltergeists stealing my lip balm.  I have lost three tubes in the past month.  Maybe it's the NSA!  Maybe they're collecting my DNA to make an army of mes!  Joke's on them, I am weak and lazy.

it all just sounds like oooooooooo

We're leaving for Cedar City in a few days, and I've been hoping that Hazel and Sally would be cool to me and kid just a tiny bit early so I won't spend the entire time worrying about all the starving dead goat kids waiting for me at home--not that there would be any.  Goats are very good at taking care of things on their own (unlike some I could mention, SHEEP), but I like to be there all the same, especially since Sally was such a poopypants last year about letting her babies nurse.  Well, here is what I found today:

Yay! Sort of.  Sally had kidded a beautiful baby, but wouldn't you just guess, it's a buck.  Those gorgeous looks, from that fantastic breeding, wasted on something we can't even keep.  It's like the heartbreak of Tex all over again.  Look at his blaze!  And that splash on the side!  This is a disappointment.  I have my fingers crossed for Hazel.  The genes aren't quite as ritzy, but we could definitely work up with a doe from Hazel--just look how beautiful her daughter Sally is.  

I just remembered--I meant to talk about how much I hate nightgowns.  Why would somebody want to wear one?  Do they derive comfort from a doughnut of fabric wadded around their midsection?  Nightgowns are ridiculous and there seems to be no reason to wear one unless you're a person who enjoys pretending to live in a time before women were allowed to wear pants.  Even so--bloomers have existed for a long time, couldn't they have just worn bloomers to bed?  I wash my hands of it.  

I went to an Amish bulk foods store this afternoon, and one of the brands they carry leans pretty heavily on artificial colors and flavors, which I wouldn't think the Amish would have a lot of access to, and it doesn't seem to me that jam and pickles need artificial colors and flavors, but what do I know?  

maybe I'll name a buck snidely whiplash

Couple of thoughts:

Willa might be my first child to like Playmobil toys.  I've tried so hard, but all my kids have denied me the opportunity of buying myself Playmobil under the pretense of buying it for them.  Jerks.  But the other day after we spent over an hour doing birthday recon in the artsy fartsy toy store in Logan I asked Willa what her three favorite things in the store were, and one of the things she showed me was a Playmobil set with a pegasus pulling a carriage.  So now the door is open, and I was looking for a couple of people to augment the pegasus carriage, and one of the sets in the same line as the carriage is of what they call a princess and a fairy, and they are both wearing dresses, but for some reason the fairy character looks like it has stubble of a handlebar mustache.  Curious!  

I think it would be nice if we as a culture developed a custom of giving breakup presents at the end of relationships.  Nothing extravagant; just a little something nice to end things on a good note.  Like a gift certificate for a Frosty or something, you know?

I ate so much sushi tonight that I came dangerously close to vomiting.

We watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie the other day, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I think that the first time I watched it it was too hard to understand.  How sad that a Disney pirate movie was over my head.  I guess I'm getting dementia.

I can't speak for the boss, but my heart is stuffed to the rafters

Upon closer inspection and observation, I believe that Groceries and Rex were involved in the deaths of the chicks, whether maliciously or opportunistically.  But there is a heat lamp in there and wire covering all points of ingress/egress now, so hopefully Penguin and Brad will be here for the long haul.

After a number of years since first reading about them, my craving for radish sandwiches became undeniable today, so I went to Logan to buy the best bread I have access to, the best butter in the store, and some radishes.  It was worth it--they are delicious.

Also, if your complexion has been mysteriously clear lately, it is because there was evidently some event or ceremony in which I inadvertently agreed to take on the blemishes of the entire world.  It's been a real party, let me tell you.

I have three walnut-sized tomatoes on my Dr. Neal tomato plant.  I am going to MOP THE FLOOR with my mom and brother-in-law this year.  It's my year!

r.i.p. yam hill

Oopsie all of the baby chickens but two are dead.  The fun part is not knowing whether it was cold, skunk, or other chickens that did them in.

oops I accidentally fell into eternal jail

Am writing a real post but for now you must watch all of these it is important to me and you:

http://thehairpin.com/2013/05/lil-women-the-vlogs

she needs to lose that hat

Guess what, a cupcake place is going in across the street from the gas station down the road from my sister's house. Why don't people listen?  Why don't they read?  CUPCAKES ARE OVER.  It's only a matter of time.  Sure, because it's Utah they might have a few more years before the bubble bursts, and supposedly this place is going to make pies as well, so maybe they'll be okay because they are diversified, BUT STILL.

Sometimes I'm downloading my emails, and my phone bings, and I'm all excited, and then it's something about elections from the American Dairy Goat Association.  It makes me feel nerdly.  

If you could be any animal besides a human, what would you be?  I was thinking orca, but the whole thing about living in the water but not being able to breathe water gives me pause.  But it would be pretty great not to have to worry about sharks anymore, unless the megaladon has in fact survived in the deep places in the ocean and is just waiting for an event such as an underwater volcano to create the warm currents necessary for crossing the cold deep ocean and emerging into the upper brine to recommence its reign of terror.  

Do you think all documentaries get their music from the same warehouse?  I'm watching The Business of Being Born, which I can already tell  is going to make me mad, because I have met too many people who I know would watch it and rather than analyzing the movie would simplistically condense its message to "HOSPITAL BAD" and grab just any so-and-so who said she was a midwife and end up dying in the bathtub because they refused to accept that medical intervention is ever a good thing.  Can we not agree that there can exist a happy middle ground between making a woman feel weak, negligent and cowlike for taking advantage of some of the wonders of modern medicine on one hand, and burning midwives as witches on the other?  Either way the mother is made to feel inadequate, what a surprise.  Sometimes doctors and hospitals kill babies.  Sometimes midwives do too.  You know how I hate the "but it's been done this way for thousands of years" argument.  Antiquity does not bestow virtue.  People used to be idiots.  People still are idiots!  Babies and moms used to die all the time.  We learn from experience.  The way to fix the shocking infant trauma and mortality rate, and the bizarre clinicalization of childbirth in the U.S. is not to blindly accept all "natural" home birthing methods as acceptable, nor to accept all modern birthing methods as such.  (I think we might want to try EATING BETTER and getting MORE SLEEP AND EXERCISE for a start, but I'm a Pollyanna.)  Maybe it's just my particular experience, and maybe I'm over-generalizing, but the ladies around here are not always the most discerning about what is really in their best interests.  Mormons are often what one might call "trusting," which in practical application equals "super gullible."  Yikes, do your research.  You are not doing the practice of midwifery--which we very much need to stay vibrant, and become more accepted, because I so wish I had been more prepared, and had realized what other options I had when I was having my children--any favors when you treat them all as equally proficient.  Doctors aren't equal, why would midwives be?  

Pardon my froth, but it extends to the entire health industry--it makes me frustrated that people either believe that only troglodytes would refuse to take statin drugs or have an unmedicated labor, or that conventional medicine is the devil and it's all moon phases and radio waves from here on out.  Why are there so few doctors who practice the best parts of both disciplines?  

EDIT:  Okay, I'm a few more minutes into it, and I'm liking it and agreeing with it.  I could eat a placenta right now!