on the eve of my holiday, well fraser's holiday, but a holiday's a holiday - anyway - have absolutely blown my budget to hell spending hundreds - many hundreds - of dollars on pet care this weekend.

first, the mystery of the itching hound. poor moose has been scratching for months. it seemed like a while, but when mike and i took him to the vet she confirmed that it had been since may. thank god his regular vet - "dr. longhair" - was out on holiday and we saw some other vet who seemed to have some clues. we described the *exact same set* of symptoms we did in may (which, i might add, got diagnosed as allergies then, along with the not-so-subtle implication that i was an overwrought mother), and she immediately said the word which strikes fear in the heart of all dog owners [insert fearful word]. it's like hearing you've got leprosy, or a wonky eye. "our dog's got mange? ugh!" immediately we tried to place the blame on the other bad parents at his daycare but then she asked if we had been taking him to marsh creek park.

*gulp* his favorite place to go boating. "yeh, a bit. yeh." exchange guilty glances.

the vet then informs us that our favorite haunt is a hotbed of scabies. louse city. mange paradise. great. our baby's hair is falling out and the fault lies squarely on our heads. an injection for moose, pills, oatmeal bathing soaps, and out of my wallet flies the first $200 of the weekend. but i'm only getting started.

back home, and to the scummy pond that is the new aquarium i've gotten a month or so ago. i've worked my doc wellfish chemistry set on it every three days, and the ph is balanced, the ammonia is perfect, and the nitrates are reading at zero. i've added bacteria to boost the life cycle, put in stresscoat to help the fish get all slimy, i'm not feeding them too much, i'm not changing the water too much, i've put in a plant to help them get oxygen, so what the hell is wrong with the freaking thing?? it's still all murky after a good month and a half. each time i go back to petsmart, or petco, or pets-r-us, they always seem to know just what the problem is, but after i've purchased another ten or twenty dollars worth of chemicals or bottom feeders or filters or what-have-you the fecking tank is still so dim i can't see whether the fish are even still swimming. and if i haven't mentioned it, i've had to replace my spotted corydorus more than once due to untimely demise. i'm not blaming the brown water - but i can't rule it out, either.

well, with company coming, i can't leave the thing rotting on my dresser, so i was determined to get to the root of the problem. first, i tried a new pet store: frazer zoo. the merchandise was a bit dusty, but the guy seemed to be genuinely into fish. scarily into fish. he said that i should IN NO WAY WORRY FOR I WAS NOT EVEN THROUGH ONE BIOLOGICAL CYCLE YET. he said it just like that, too. very seriously. then, he said that goldfish are filthy animals and that it was no wonder my tank was soiled. he seemed to think my problem was probably filtration. he seemed to be one of those pioneers who first saw a chainsaw and thought of putting a snowmobile motor on it. he said i should get a filter that could filter five or ten times as much water per hour as i had. ok, cool, this is a guy who can help me, i thought.

i charged through the shop, picking up new filtration equipment. more filters, cleaner tank! my shopping-justification mentality was in full effect. next, aeration. all the tanks in the store look cleaner cos the air is bubbling around a lot. yes, of course. bubbly airy water looks cleaner. plus, the dirt stirs around and can be filtered better. more air, cleaner tank! new aeration stuff in the buggy. next stop, new hood, new light. all the tanks in the store look cleaner cos they are all bright and shiny. right-o. tanks lit up like the surface of the sun look cleaner. plus, the plants, which clean the tank, will grow better with more light. new lights, cleaner tank! new lights in the buggy. now i am really getting warmed up. i was just able to go through the whole process with a tank heater before mike tried to stop me. "more heat, cleaner tank!" i shouted.

"maybe we better see how this stuff works before we get any other new stuff," he cautioned, quite reasonably, while positioning his body between myself and the heating equipment.

i threw a hundred watt bulb at his head, then charged him with the buggy and made my break for freedom, but he caught me just at the algae scraper centre. i got to leave with anything that was already in the cart.

once home, we assembled all the new technology, the fish seemed happy enough to see it. to be fair, they seemed happy enough to be swimming around in their own feces - the ones who've survived it, anyhow. honestly, the thanks i get.

what fraser said about "Anti-War Protests Around Europe" reminded me of this - it seems like less than half of the people killed in the world trade center attacks were even american. so the rest of the world has every right to be outraged along with us, especially britain, as she seems to have lost more people than almost anybody, except for us. looking down the list, though, none of those numbers are insignificant. two kiwis, even.

from the onion's holy fucking shit special edition - "american life turns into bad jerry bruckheimer movie"

"I read that the plane that crashed near Pittsburgh didn't hit its target because the passengers fought back," said Modesto, CA, dental receptionist Sandra Barkum through tears. "I just kept thinking, that's what Wesley Snipes did in Passenger 57. Except, in the end, Wesley Snipes lived."

When the president finally appeared on TV, it was George W. Bush addressing the nation, not Bill Pullman or Harrison Ford. At the conclusion of his address, Bush did not grab a leggy blonde reporter out of the crowd and kiss her. When Americans finally staggered into the streets, desperate to talk to anyone to try to make sense of what they had just seen, there were no Attack On America collector cups waiting for them at Taco Bell. The dead and injured did not, like Jon Voight, stand up in their wheelchairs as the music swelled. And Ben Affleck was nowhere to be seen.

"There are Air Force jets flying over Manhattan and warships in New York harbor, but none of it is exciting or entertaining at all," said Wall Street broker Irwin Trotter, 47, among the lucky ones who walked away from the destruction. "If the world were going to suddenly turn into a movie without warning, I wish it would have been one of those boring, talky Merchant-Ivory ones instead. I hate those movies, but I sure wish we were living in one right now."

fraser seems irritated with me that i don't agree with him when he says there will be further violence in the united states. it just doesn't seem real to me that this has happened, and it doesn't seem possible or thinkable that it would happen again.
a sequel would never get released this soon.

the celebrity telethon tonight was patriotic, heart-felt, and genuine. celebrities personally taking phone calls, tearfully asking for help. i watched it, beginning to end, and i believed them when they called for love, for peace, for prayer. but when, in the midst of these appeals for unity, i heard "because this is the greatest country in the world," i winced a little.

as long as we have to assert our superlative global stature, i don't know if we can be united with everyone else. it is arrogant and offensive for us to stand in a world full of allies and friends and say such a thing. it is enough for us to stand together behind the values of freedom, integrity, and tolerance. the united states doesn't have to be the greatest country in the world for this to have been tragic. the world stands beside us and grieves with us.

Don't be a racist.
Don't be a racist.
Don't be a racist.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Don't let this happen to us.

i am absolutely in favour of the head staying bare. he looks like a balding old man when the hair starts coming in. sad. very sad.

his naked head looks edgy and smooth. i like to rub my face against it. both hands spread out won't span it. if he gets cold he looks awesome in a skullcap. when it's hot he can cover it in a wet dewrag. slathering it in thick foam and scraping it with a razor is unparalleled joy. it towers over and stands out in a crowd, my own personal beacon. i've never been lost with fraser around.

What's the difference between the NYC Fire Department and God? The Fire Department answers when you call upon it, even unto death --Tom Radcliffe

add to enlightenment's day of remembrance prayer

In the aftermath of the recent attacks on the United States I have been hearing about numerous incidents of violence towards Muslims and other "Middle Eastern Looking" people. Not to say that all Muslims are "Middle Eastern Looking", but you get what I mean. I understand that everyone is angry about what happened, but taking your anger out on people who had nothing to do with these incidents is horribly wrong. These were not the people who attacked us. No matter what people around you are saying about someone, I urge you to think before you act. Remember that people by themselves are smart, but those same people put into a large group can become very stupid. Please try to understand that these are hate crimes against innocent people who are your neighbors. This needs to be a time for reaching out to others, not accusing them. Don't be a racist. Don't be a racist. Don't be a racist.

wes borland on limpbizkit.com

I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.

from the fountainhead by ayn rand

what do people read when they're afraid?

if this doesn't scare you, nothing will. the last time i looked, nine out of ten were either compilations of the writings of nostradamus or the history of osama bin laden. poor body for life, after something like two years in the top three, it's down to number twenty-five.

Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it.

from a guardian piece by seumas milne

i want to know who was providing the cell phone service for these people - can someone please tell me? i have sprint pcs and i can't get a freaking signal in chester springs half the time.

5:58pm and nic robertson is already reporting "heavy air detonations" in kabul, afghanistan on cnn. well, that didn't take long.

john freyer from allmylifeforsale.com visited me and mike yesterday. well, visited the stuff we bought from his life for sale. you can read about his visit here, in his own words. spoiler: don't read it unless you want to find out how mike and ashley *really* met.

in other news, what the hell is happening in the united states today?

but thank god, president bush is going to "hunt down those folks." um, folk? let me just paste something from dictionary.com

folk (fk) n. pl. folk or folks - The common people of a society or region considered as the representatives of a traditional way of life and especially as the originators or carriers of the customs, beliefs, and arts that make up a distinctive culture: a leader who came from the folk.

what, are we going to seek them out for a little round of "duelling banjo?"

why not "hunt down those responsible for this crime," or "hunt down the perpetrators" or even "hunt down those bastards?" he's a real comfort in a time like this. at least we are 100% guaranteed to go to war if it is remotely possible.

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?

ok, i will join the rest of the blogging world and profess openly my love for wil wheaton. well, his dot net, anyhow. and i will get right out there and say that i never even saw star trek in any of its incarnations before. except for that movie with the whales. but hokey mokey is he ever a sweet guy.

in honor of labor day weekend, some fabulous news from our friends at cnn.com - You're not imagining it. The United Nations' International Labor Organization (ILO) has the proof:

"Workers in the United States are putting in more hours than anyone else in the industrialized world."

i have to get out of here!