I wasn’t going to blog today because I’m having one of those “not so fresh” days, and it was kind of foggy and chilly this morning. I thought maybe I might binge watch season five of Cobra Kai on Netflix, and finally make use of my subscription. But three or four episodes in, I got really drowsy and thought I might fall asleep. So I tried to take a nap, but then I had to keep getting up to go to the bathroom, and the sun came out and made it a beautiful day.
I didn’t have a good topic in mind for today, either. I have been reading a book and I suspect it will lead to an interesting review when I’m finished, but I’m not quite halfway through it at this point. I could write about US politics, but I am not in the mood for that, and everyone’s writing about politics, anyway. So I went to YouTube for inspiration, and found that Brady Brandwood had uploaded another video about his pet lobster, Leon.
Leon’s journey has been fascinating!
Brady says Leon has now lived with him in South Carolina for a year. But he and his girlfriend split their time between South Carolina and Georgia, and actually spend more time in Georgia. So Brady bought Leon a new, much larger aquarium, and assembled it in the Georgia house. He decided to move Leon from South Carolina to Georgia, where he can enjoy the much larger digs and get to know Brady’s eight cats.
For those who don’t know, Brady famously rescued Leon from a grocery store and made videos about his progress in captivity. I’ve been watching Leon’s saga the whole time, finding it to be strangely fascinating… and now, I feel guilty about loving to eat lobster as much as I do. I’m also very impressed with Brady’s knowledge about how to take care of creatures of the sea. As I found out in watching this video, there’s a lot that goes into moving a lobster from an aquarium in South Carolina to a new one in Georgia. Brady also seems like a really nice guy. I enjoy his slightly southern accent, too. It reminds me of home.
Speaking of home… Bill and I used to live in Georgia ourselves, courtesy of his Army career, so the footage of driving on the Interstate– looks like it might be I-85– made me a little homesick. I’ve passed the water tower for Gaffney, South Carolina many times. It’s easy to spot, because it’s a giant peach, that always reminds me of a well spanked ass. Sorry, I’m a little kinky sometimes. 😉 I also used to live in South Carolina. I was there for the three years I was in graduate school at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. But I don’t think I ever drove past Gaffney when I lived in South Carolina. I do remember driving through there on my way from Georgia to Virginia and back.
Brady also includes some shots of the Atlantic beaches in South Carolina, which also remind me of home. I grew up about an hour’s drive from Virginia Beach. And some shots from North Georgia and his wooded home in South Carolina also make me homesick, a little. My dad’s side of the family is from Natural Bridge, Virginia, which looks a lot like North Georgia, and our homes in Georgia and in North Carolina were on wooded lots where there was a lot of wildlife. I love Germany, but I miss living in a secluded house with lots of trees around.
Our Georgia house was especially nice, with lots of deer in the woods, including a mama deer who was almost tame. However, I wouldn’t want to be living there now, as energy prices are soaring. It was a huge house and badly needed renovation. But it had an enormous kitchen and deck, which overlooked lots of trees and a creek in the back. Our house in North Carolina was smaller, and didn’t have the great kitchen, but it did have a view of a disused irrigation pond, where wildlife such as turtles and wild ducks lived. I loved watching them. It also had some fish in it. Sometimes, the neighbor would go out there and try to catch one. Those were the idyllic days of the Obama era, when political leaders seemed to have more sense.
Even though I’m totally freaked out by how polarized and violent the United States looks from over here, I do miss home sometimes. I would like to see some of my family members. And I miss American supermarkets, too. But I’m not quite ready to get on a plane for eight hours, even though it’s been eight years since I last set foot in my homeland. Also, I know that once I got back to the States, it would be no time before I’d be ready to leave again. I’m still glad people like Brady are posting content on video that teach new things and make me realize that not everyone in the United States is freaked out about the elections.
Anyway… I hope some of you might watch Leon’s videos. I think they’re fascinating, and I’ve learned a lot about lobsters, and how to keep them, from Brady. I won’t be adopting one anytime soon, but I sure have enjoyed watching Brady take care of Leon. It reminds me of my friend who used to have me “turtle sit” for her, when she took trips. I never realized how much fun turtles can be. The one she had– a red slider whose name was “Little Chicken” (named by her then young daughter, who won him at a fair)– acted kind of like a dog when it was mealtime. He’d see me coming and crawl alongside of the aquarium. He couldn’t wait to eat his turtle food. She told me they eventually set him free in the Potomac River, which makes me think he probably didn’t live much longer… Apparently, he got too big to keep.
I don’t know what else I’m going to do today. We really should go out and do something, but unfortunately, I need easy access to the bathroom today. Maybe I’ll watch some more bodycam footage… or work on my latest jigsaw puzzle, which is 2000 pieces. Or maybe I’ll read more of my book, so I can move on to the next one. I might even be tempted to dream about our next trip, after we go to France for our anniversary. That trip will be to a place we’ve been several times, but not since January 2020. We’re going there because we know the apartment we’re renting; it’s pet friendly; and it will still be a change of scenery. We love going to Alsace, because it’s a beautiful part of France, but since Arran is having chemo, we don’t want to board him. Besides, it’s time Noyzi got to go on a trip with us.
Once again, I’m struggling to decide what to write about today. I have a few topics in mind, but I wonder if want to go there so close to Christmas. Maybe I’ll wait until the first week of 2022. I’ll probably be extra cranky, since that’s when I plan to get my Moderna booster. I suppose it could end up being a Pfizer booster, too.
Anyway, I was happy to see that Brady Brandwood, who rescued Leon the Lobster from the grocery store, has posted a brand new video. I just discovered Leon on Sunday, so it was nice to get this update while he was still fresh in my mind (see yesterday’s post).
As you can see, Leon is doing very well!
Brady still doesn’t know if Leon is a girl lobster or a boy lobster. Brady is planning to get a new aquarium soon, so when it comes time for Leon to move to a new tank, Brady will find out what team Leon plays for. He does say that he will keep the name Leon, regardless. But if it turns out Leon is female, he says maybe he’ll call Leon “Celene Leon”, instead. I watch this, and now I want to rescue a lobster, too, but I don’t have easy access to lobsters, nor do I have the equipment or know how. So I guess I will just be content with watching Leon’s progress.
I’m astonished by how much I enjoy YouTube, especially some of the more creative original content. Who would have thought videos about a grocery store lobster would be this interesting? And, as I pointed out yesterday, I even went to the point of learning a little more about the bizarre mating rituals of lobsters! Who says you can’t learn new things as you get older? Brady does say that he can’t take Leon back to the wild, since he doesn’t live near the right habitat for lobsters. Maybe he’ll get him a friend soon.
MOVING ON…
Last night, as Bill and I were about to tuck in to our salmon filets, I noticed a photo in the Duggar Family News group. Someone had shared a potentially scandalous picture of a family at a Christmas tree farm. The dad and toddler aged son were smiling, and dad was holding up a chalkboard that read “Peace on Earth”. Mom and two little daughters were “gagged” with bright green tape and “tied up” with Christmas lights.
Naturally, there were a whole lot of comments about this photo. I will admit that I was shocked when I first saw the photo. I figured it was probably a joke, though, and didn’t take it too seriously. Other group members were a lot more outraged than I was, claiming that the photo was sick and abusive.
I decided to go Googling, and sure enough, I found out more about the source of the photo, which went viral in 2015. It seems this family had posed for photographer, Hannah Hawkes, who was based in Rosephine, Louisiana, and used the image for their 2015 Christmas card. The image promptly went viral, with many people seemingly very upset because they claim the picture promotes domestic violence, misogyny, and overall devaluation of females.
Personally, I would not go that far… I mean, yes, it’s a shocking image and, on some levels, I would call it potentially very offensive and problematic. But I can’t conclude that “the Johnsons” are necessarily a family in trouble, simply due to the controversial photo that floated around in 2015 and has now resurfaced in the Duggar Family News Group. I would need more information to come to that definitive conclusion. What I will state is that I think the picture is tone deaf, and it wasn’t a smart idea to put it on social media. Even if it was meant jokingly, supposedly as a dig at the stereotype of women nagging too much, when it comes to these kinds of images, particularly when children are involved, people are going to get upset.
I’m not sure this explanation necessarily helped her case…
There were also some responses to the photo back in 2015. For example, I found this blog post written by a woman named Deborah Cruz. Her opinion was titled “Why the Peace on Earth Holiday Photo Doesn’t Infuriate Me”– clever enough, I guess, since the photo did infuriate a lot of people. People, no doubt, eagerly clicked on that post just to read about, and indignantly comment on, what a misogynistic jerk Deborah Cruz really is (for not being infuriated)… only to find out that Cruz was on the negative side of the issue. She wasn’t “infuriated” about the photo; she was “saddened”, because she couldn’t imagine how anyone would think taking that photo was okay.
Again… I don’t think I would necessarily jump to negative conclusions about this family based only on the photo. It could have simply been posted due to ignorance or a serious lapse in judgment. But, the fact is, this joking image is reality for a lot of women in the world. There are many out there who are literally or figuratively bound and gagged, and they have no voice, because of their personal circumstances, bad luck, or even voluntary choices.
On the other hand, there are also women out there who actually enjoy this sort of thing– seriously— and are enthusiastic participants. But then, that particular “kinky” lifestyle choice does not seem to be what the photo is about. It seems to be about the joys of silencing women and girls, and that’s not cool, or politically correct, even in jest. I am not a big fan of PC culture, but I understand that it’s kind of the way of the world nowadays. If you don’t want to be PC, you can expect that a bunch of people will pile on you, especially on social media. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a tendency to react first and think later.
Regardless, I do not think it was a good idea to involve children in staging that photo. I’m not really a fan of kids being in a lot of photos online, anyway, but to show little girls being depicted as bound and gagged, even as a “joke”, is just a terrible idea on many levels. Especially when their little brother is not bound and gagged, and is shown seemingly cheering on his mother’s and sisters’ “predicament”.
It seems clear that the family was trying to make a lame joke and it really flopped, big time. I’m not sure I would make the automatic leap to domestic violence that some people made in 2015, and are now making since the photo resurfaced, at least not without more information. One person commented that it looked like this family kept having kids until they got a boy. I don’t know how that person jumped to that conclusion, not knowing anything about this couple. It’s entirely likely they always planned for three kids. Or maybe he was an “oops”, like I was. There’s really no telling, and I can’t make the leap based on one tacky holiday photo.
I have a friend who had two sons from her first marriage, then got remarried and wanted to have just one more baby with her second husband. Surprise! She got pregnant with twin girls, then in the six months after they were born, she got pregnant again with a son. She had her tubes tied when he was born, because she certainly never planned for five kids, and definitely didn’t want any more babies. But, based on that one commenter’s observation of that photo, my friend might have been trying for a boy. Even if it that were true, what’s wrong with it? Sometimes, I think people really go too far with the armchair analyses, although I suppose I am as guilty as anyone is when it comes to that.
A lot of people reacted to the photo with extreme negativity, and claimed that it “promoted abuse”. Even from a money making standpoint, it was a pretty bad idea. I don’t know if Hannah Hawkes is still in business, but it does look like her Facebook page is deleted. Based on her comment, it sounds like she got a whole lot of heat and the wrong kind of attention for taking that picture.
It may have gotten to the point at which Hawkes was canceled, or she may have decided to cancel herself. If that’s what happened, I think it’s a shame. I’m not a big fan of “canceling” people, since canceling people can have devastating effects on people’s lives that might not fit their “crimes”. I also dislike mob mentality, since I don’t think it should be up to private individuals to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Hawkes is probably a perfectly nice person who had a lapse in judgment. Hopefully she learned from it, and didn’t let this setback derail her career.
But yes, just for the record, I don’t think the photo was in good taste at all, and regardless of the family’s intentions, I agree with whose who deemed it a very bad, or at least unwise, concept. However, as shocked as I was when I first saw that photo last night, I can see on Pinterest, that it wasn’t even an original idea. Other families have posted similar photos of wives and daughters bound and gagged during the Christmas season, along with a sign reading “Peace on Earth” or “Silent Night”. And in one photo, the child is the one who has bound her parents in Christmas lights, but everybody’s smiling.
I guess this situation just goes to show that one bad idea preserved online can last forever…
AND FINALLY, ONE LAST TOPIC…
Sorry I didn’t mention this in the post title, but yesterday, I watched this outrageous video by Mama Doctor Jones, aka Dr. Danielle Jones, OB-GYN… She’s being taken to task in Alaska for her so-called “racy” content that “promotes abortion”. I’m not going to opine more about this video in this post, since I think this topic deserves its own post and plenty of rantings from yours truly. However, I did want to share the video with the interested, to give you all a chance to see it before I go off about it. I’ll probably write about it later today or maybe tomorrow, because people are just plain stupid. Especially conservative white men who have an anti-woman/pro-life/pro-gun agenda to push as they claim how much they “love freedom”.
People in Fairbanks, Alaska who are shitting on Mama Doctor Jones’s outstanding and informative YouTube channel need to get a life.
Today’s featured photo is of the Boothbay Harbor blue lobster. Bill and I visited there for my birthday in June 2011, and I got a picture.
So yesterday’s “boring” post about water and limescale actually generated a lot of comments– for my blog, anyway. I know there are a lot of mommy bloggers out there who go viral and get hundreds of comments on their posts. But they tend to be sunny people who write things like “totes amazeballs”. I’m not like that. But since everybody poops, everybody needs water, and most normal people like to poop in clean bathrooms, I guess yesterday’s potty post resonated! Good for me! And thanks to everyone who read and commented! I probably ought to take a look/see at the bathroom in the basement. I almost never use it, but it also has some lime build up.
There’s still a little buildup, but it looks a lot better than it did yesterday.
And I just looked, and sure enough, that toilet has pretty terrible limescale build up, too. So I treated it with vinegar, and then tried the sink and the water is barely flowing. I have a feeling the pipes have lime in them. I treated it with baking soda and vinegar, but it may need a professional’s attention. This house has pretty terrible lime issues. When we first moved in, the buildup was so bad that we literally couldn’t turn on one of the faucets in the shower. It was completely stilled by calcium. The basement bathroom rarely sees any action, so I guess this is a reminder that it pays to stop in on occasion. Curiously, the toilet on the main floor doesn’t have much buildup at all.
I have a few things on my mind today, so this post is probably going to be multi-faceted. Now that I’ve written more about lime scale, and the payoff from yesterday’s project, it’s time to move on to the next topic. And the next topic is lobster.
A couple of days ago, Bill and I watched some random videos on YouTube. I ran across one about a guy who rescued a live lobster from the grocery store and kept it as a pet. I don’t know what made me decide to watch that video, but I found it absolutely fascinating. It also kind of made me a little ashamed of how much I enjoy eating lobster. This guy brought the lobster home, cut the rubber bands that rendered him helpless, and dropped him in a saltwater aquarium, where he gave him the name Leon and observed his behavior.
This was an unexpectedly fascinating and somewhat sad video… I might not ever be able to enjoy eating lobster rolls again.
I’m sure on one level, Leon is happy enough not to be someone’s dinner. On the other hand, Leon escaped death, but now lives in an aquarium, where he depends on the kindness of the guy who “adopted” him. He can’t really hunt, and he has no lobster friends to hang out with or have sex with… I guess lobsters have sex, and I’m sure Google would tell me if I cared to research further… It might be too early for me to explore the potential joys of lobster fucking, though.
Okay, I have to admit, my curiosity got the better of me. I Googled, and sure enough, lobsters enjoy a rather “kinky” sex life. Apparently, female lobsters attract mates by repeatedly peeing on their faces. And lobsters have urethras under their eyes that evidently make this possible. The female lobster pees on the male, then runs away. Female lobster pee evidently has the magical essence of an aphrodisiac, and after a few days of golden showers, the male lobster gets romantic and loves the lady lobster enough to cause reproduction. Wow… the things you learn on the Internet! And this was all inspired by a YouTube video about Leon, the lobster, who was rescued from the grocery store and now has a job teaching humans more about crustaceans. Leon should be proud. Not everyone has the chops to make it as a YouTube star.
I highly recommend watching the above video, if you’re interested. I legitimately found it informative and entertaining, and it reminded me that the animals we eat are still sentient beings with personality. Sigh… I really should be a vegetarian. Maybe someday I’ll give up my carnivorous ways… live on wine and beer, instead. Which brings me to the last two topics, lectures and lost causes.
Seriously… I don’t like the idea of promoting drinking, but this COVID-19 lifestyle is a real fucking drag. Last night, I had a mild meltdown after reading an article about how Dr. Fauci thinks we’ll be forced to wear masks on airplanes from now on. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. I have a feeling that this prediction of his– while entirely possible– probably isn’t going to happen. Why? Because the world is a big place, and there are parts of it that are still pretty undeveloped. I remember being in Armenia in the mid 90s and seeing that most people there still weren’t wearing seatbelts, even though they have been “required” in most modern places for many years. And I simply doubt that people all over the world are going to embrace being forced to wear masks forever. They are uncomfortable, impractical, and annoying, and while they may save lives, a lot of people are inherently selfish.
Moreover, even in so-called “civilized” places, people are still losing their shit over masks. And they are deeply polarizing, with a lot of smug, self-righteous, left leaning all knowers discounting and insulting those who are legitimately terrified of government overreach and tyranny. Look at how many people are freaking out on airplanes. There are a lot more people wigging out in the “friendly skies” these days. Obviously, the masks are causing stress. And don’t tell me they aren’t. In 2019, there weren’t nearly as many people misbehaving on planes. What’s changed? People have to wear masks. THEY ARE AN OBVIOUS PROBLEM for a lot of people, even if some people don’t think so.
The fact is, you may not mind wearing a mask at all, but that doesn’t mean your neighbor agrees, nor should they have to agree if we’re living in a free society. Disagreeing with masks doesn’t give someone the right to be unruly on an airplane, of course. All I’m saying is that telling someone that masks are “no big deal” is disingenuous. To some people, they ARE a big deal. If they weren’t, there wouldn’t be so much bad behavior, violence, and legal morass surrounding their enforced use. And I think that not respectfully listening and trying to understand why some people aren’t embracing face masks is going to help prolong this situation we’re in.
Now… before anybody comes at me, let me state that I realize that masks are necessary for now. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t wear them. What I am saying is that this talk of forcing people to “mask up” (ugh, hate that expression) forevermore, and dismissing their concerns about the depressing prospect of that, as you tell them it’s “no big deal”, is part of what is driving all of this stubborn rebellion. Nobody likes to be condescended to or lectured– at least not when they haven’t paid tuition and specifically asked for a lesson. Telling someone to “get over it” is rude and disrespectful, and it’s not likely to inspire cooperation. And while you may think they’re rude for non-compliance, there are always other perspectives in any situation. I just think the wise person will take a minute to try to understand the other perspectives, even if they seem ridiculous. At this point in time, even ridiculous people can still vote, right?
When I venture into comment sections and someone raises a concern about masking– even when it’s done in a respectful way– there’s almost always a slew of comments from people who lecture, insult, condescend, or outright dismiss those concerns. Those who are anti-mask, or simply have concerns, then get pissed off and more stubborn, and some of them get pissed off enough to vote in politicians who don’t support mask mandates or vaccines. Unfortunately, a lot of those politicians also don’t support other policies that are community oriented or family friendly. So maybe you don’t have a vaccine mandate or mask requirement, but you also have some white, Southern, conservative yahoo who wants to make guns easier to buy and abortions harder to get.
As for Fauci’s predictions about masks on planes… I will state that I think money will be the deciding factor on this. I think there are people who are already looking for innovations that make it harder to contract illnesses in buildings. There’s a lot of money to be made with a solution like that. You can bet someone out there is looking for a way to filter air so that people stay healthy and productive. It’s not necessarily a trend that arises for the public good, either. It’s because there’s money to be made, and money drives a lot of people into action. Healthy people can work longer and generate more money.
Some people don’t want to travel if they have to wear a mask. Just yesterday, I mentioned a dream I had about moving to New Zealand– probably been watching too many Mama Doctor Jones videos. She is moving to New Zealand. Someone on Facebook mentioned that that sounded nice. I said I don’t want to sit on a plane that long in a mask. Flying sucked enough before the masks. The seats are uncomfortable, the fares are high, the food is inedible, and there are a lot of rules to follow. Now, many people have this dystopian “hall monitor” mentality, where everybody is watching and judging everybody else. Personally, I think I’d rather stay home or drive somewhere, than sit on an already uncomfortable flight for hours with a mask on my face. At least in a car, I don’t have someone watching my every move.
Same goes for cruising. Some people don’t mind wearing masks on ships, but others won’t like it. I think of the ships Bill and I tend to frequent, where booze flows freely. A person could sit and drink all day, if they wanted to. I have also personally witnessed people on ships getting drunk and belligerent. I remember hearing about v-loggers who were on SeaDream last year, documenting the trip, which was supposed to be “maskless”. People got COVID on that trip, and the v-loggers mentioned it, causing SeaDream to force passengers into masks again. The v-loggers were on the receiving end of a lot of anger, mainly because SeaDream cruises are very expensive and people were wanting to escape the COVID rules for a bit. No such luck. I know I don’t want to drop ten thousand bucks on cruise fare for an experience like that. There ain’t enough free flowing Prosecco in the world.
I think about how Royal Caribbean just built several HUGE ships in the last ten years or so, and now they’re in the news because 48 people tested positive for COVID on a recent cruise. Having such huge ships is bound to become a liability, especially if people are turned off of traveling due to draconian rules. Cruising will be probably less popular if people have to wear masks as a general rule. One of the things that makes cruising fun is socializing, and a big part of socializing is seeing people’s faces and non-verbal communication. Masks make it hard to forget the troubles of the world. They are a visual reminder of how fucked up things are. One of the reasons cruises are appealing are that they allow people to forget things that are stressful. So I think forced masking from now on will probably not fly in the long run.
It may not be a bad thing, though, if people travel less. It will be better for the environment. But it will also force some people to find new ways to make their livings. Again, I think money will be what drives this trend. If enough people decide to stay home, the policies will be amended… and/or someone will come up with a way to make traveling maskless safer.
Either way, I think people should try to be more understanding, patient, and willing to listen to other viewpoints without turning shitty. We’re in an unprecedented era for most people who are living, but don’t forget, this is NOT the first deadly pandemic of humankind. One hundred years ago, Spanish Flu killed lots of people. Masks were a thing back then, and I’m sure the thinking was eerily similar that things weren’t ever going to be normal again. But they eventually did go back to “normal”, although we came away with more knowledge.
To take it a step further, think of all of the crazy stuff that’s happened in the last hundred years. I wonder how people felt during World War II. Did they think the war would go on forever? Did they think the world was going to end? Some people probably did… but as you can see, they were wrong. There will be life beyond COVID-19 for those who don’t die from the disease. And I think it will more like it used to be, which may or may not be a good thing. Some of the COVID changes haven’t been bad, after all.
And finally… I think it’s inevitable that most everyone will end up with COVID at some point. But it will eventually be less deadly, because it’s not in the virus’s best interest to kill everyone. I still think getting vaccinated and staying away from other people is the best way to go. And if you have to be in a crowd, masks make sense. But I don’t think they should be something we strive to normalize forever, and I don’t think they’re the end all be all of fixing this problem. They’re just one facet of the solution. This is a problem that needs to be solved, not “lived with”. Fortunately, history shows that some human beings are very good at finding solutions. So that’s what keeps me going, for now…
But, I will admit, sometimes I envy those who have already peaced out of this life. As extraordinarily fortunate as Bill and I are, I find today’s world frightening and depressing, and I wonder what the point of it all is…
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
You must be logged in to post a comment.