Pictures of the cats.

Emma, the sweetheart we adopted from the shelter.
The feral kitten Boots.

$150,000 Done Right, Failing at Dressing for the Workplace

Recently I was asked to attempt to dress more professionally at work. I've no real issue with this (besides the expense) but I do suffer from a lack of stylistic direction. How does a 26 year old dress without looking too young, too old or not professional? My job also entails working with mostly older people in their 50s to 90s so being too trendy and flashy is an issue. I'll admit I'd been dressing like Pam from the Office, a variety of button up shirts and pants with flats.
I went out and purchased some skirts, my mom sent me a nice dress and I recently purchased several pairs of heeled winter shoes. I've even made an effort to wear pantyhose.
I really think dressing for success should be some sort of college class. Changing from the collegiate uniform of tee shirts and jeans to a professional "bank president" look (the image my boss gave me to aspire towards) has been very difficult for me. I've gained some weight while working my desk job and admittedly feel rather uncomfortable in my new, larger skin, and have an even harder time dressing myself. This is particularly rankling as I view myself as rather fashionable.
Take today for example. I am wearing a cute pair of red heeled ankle boots, houndstooth tights, a gray knee length pencil skirt, a gray blouse, a wide belt and a chunky red necklace. One of my patients came in and said "You look like you are getting ready to go out partying" (unprompted, I certainly did not ask him what he thought of my ensemble). Hurmph. And here I thought this outfit was one of my most professional yet. I'm still undecided about this outfit, I feel pretty in it, so would rather not decide it's a failure.
So here's the rub. Despite my disgust at Sarah Palin's views on many issues I really like the style she is being dressed in for her campaign (A style that's apparently cost GOP doners over $150,000 in the last two months). As opposed to Hillary, whose mannish suits seemed an attempt to disguise her femininity and negate any sex-appeal, Gov. Palin's outfits look professional, kicky and flaunt her womanhood without being overtly sexy. I do not think a woman has to dress like a man to be successful. Hillary did not need to pantsuit it up in order to be perceived as a competitor. Denying our lady hood is not feminist.

So, in taking a page from Sarah Palin's fashion book, would these knee high boots (I own a similar pair) be appropriate at work?


Has she broken the knee high boot barrier, allowing all of us (even those of us who work with the olds) to enjoy snug warm wintertime legs?

*Note, I just talked to my boss who said my outfit is probably OK, but knee high boots are only appropriate for hookers. alas.

I don't understand!

Confused! I had to google to make sure, doubly sure, that the democrat's symbol is the donkey and the republican symbol is the elephant.

The now-famous Democratic donkey was first associated with Democrat Andrew Jackson's 1828 presidential campaign. His opponents called him a jackass (a donkey), and Jackson decided to use the image of the strong-willed animal on his campaign posters. Later, cartoonist Thomas Nast used the Democratic donkey in newspaper cartoons and made the symbol famous.

Nast invented another famous symbol—the Republican elephant. In a cartoon that appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1874, Nast drew a donkey clothed in lion's skin, scaring away all the animals at the zoo. One of those animals, the elephant, was labeled “The Republican Vote.” That's all it took for the elephant to become associated with the Republican Party.

I can only assume there are elephants also on the scarf somewhere, they just accidentally were not visible in this picture.

Obama Rally in KC

I went to the KC rally for Obama on Saturday which was very exciting. We arrived there at around 3:30 and pretty easily got through the security gates and into the field that had been cordoned off. The crowd got pretty thick within minutes so we sat on the grass (there was no way to move one way or another so thankfully I didn't have to go to the bathroom) for several hours as we waited. He arrived around 6 which was preceded by local politicians like Kathleen Sebelius and Emmanuel Cleaver giving speeches.
There were a ton of secret service snipers around on the surrounding buildings and several helicopters circling the event.
On the picture above I've put an arrow pretty near where I was standing. I was about 50 feet away from the stage. I'm pretty sure it's fairly accurate because there is a little boy in the picture down and to the left that was sitting on his fathers shoulders for parts of the speech, completely obscuring everyone in my general vicinities view. Needless to say, we weren't pleased with the little kid.
Obama's speech was a rendition of several other recent speeches with bits about KC and MO thrown in. He briefly mentioned that he met the KC Chiefs head coach which got a round of boos from the crowd. Poor Herm. It was cool to feel the attention of the crowd, which seemed to be really listening and very calm. The whole thing had a feeling of a gospel event. There were no shouts of "kill him" in reference to McCain. Generally everyone was upbeat and orderly.
I was surprised at the general population of the crowd. I'd say at least 3/4 of the people were black and the other 1/4 were young people in their 20s and 30s. There were a lot of families. I don't know if it was because the rally was in KC (which is more racially diverse than the surrounding countryside) or if Obama has just incited massive interest and support from the black community. Unsurprisingly not a lot of white middle class people in their 50s and 60s showed up.
According to the news 100,000 people went to his rally in St. Louis (earlier that afternoon) and around 75,000 people from KC went to the rally.

Fox news headline winner:

"Hip-Hop Dancing Colin Powell Fuels Speculation He'll Endorse Obama
Colin Powell showed off his hip-hop moves at an 'Africa Rising' Celebration in London Tuesday, fueling speculation that the former secretary of state is about to endorse Barack Obama for President."
I didn't read the article, but the headline is a winner.

New cats.

I just read my dutiful husbands blog about our new cat Emma followed today by another post (2 in one year! Oh, how I long for reliable internets) discussing the appearance of the feral kitten Boots who has recently been hovering around our house.

On a side note... why do people dump animals?!?! I have no words for the depths of hell these people should endure. I'm not sure the feral kitten Boots is a dumpee, but there have been others (one desperate lonely recently pregnant wild dog springs to mind) and every time I see a poor animal so close to the highway I shudder. I don't particularly enjoy peeling them off the highway, nor do I like running over their corpses every day if I don't peel them off the road. People: (and I know my blog reading audience probably doesn't contribute to this epidemic) animals do not survive in the wild. Instead they become road kill. Or starve to death.

Emma the cat, however, was not a dumpee, at least on our property. As my husband said in his blog "We picked up a new cat from the Human(sic) Society (which involved having a retina scan, providing a family tree dating back to when my great, great, great (you get the picture) Grandpa Bobglegbhabob crawled out of the primordial ooze...".
Which in a nutshell means they made us jump through all sorts of hoops to adopt Emma. However, she is a total sweetie and immediately took to our dog Kiley and within minutes of sniffing around our house was comfortably lazing on my lap. As Bob also mentioned, she is overweight and is having trouble with the diet I've placed her on. If we go anywhere near the kitchen she gets up on her food area and literally howls for food. I think she got so big by eating the other cat's food while in the shelter. She is also a very messy pooer. I've literally found kitty litter on my ceiling. It's amazing. She is the Jackson Polluck of poo boxes.
Not one to forget my deceased animals so quickly, we got Emma to scare the mice that have been hovering around our house. I suppose it's to be expected in an old home, but I'm really not a fan. As soon as Pretty Lady had been dead for 2 weeks the mice were back. We knew we needed a cat. Several days after Emma's arrival we found a mouse trapped in our kitchen sink. I quickly picked up Emma and stuck her on the counter and backed away, to avoid the impending bloodbath. Instead she looked quizzically at the mouse, grabbed it by it's tail, and proceeded to bat at it for the next 20 minutes on the ground. Finally I took pity on the mouse (who had been playing possum for most of this time) and stuck it under a cup and moved him far far away from our house. We've not seen any mice since, hopefully Emma's poo box masterpieces are enough of a scent explosion to scare them off.

The feral kitten Boots was sitting in front of our house around last Thursday afternoon. I attempted to catch her (again, we live by a busy highway not 20 feet away from our house and one wrong move would send any animal into the hungry jaws of death) by using food and clever stalking with the boys but she escaped into our back woods. The next day she was back and I fed her again, but this time did not attempt to catch her. She's not a particularly angry cat, she just keeps her distance. When you remain 6 feet or more away from her she just ignores you happily. When you encroach upon her boundaries she simply glides that distance away from you again. Yesterday it was rainy and cold and she appeared by our sliding door hungry and wet. Crying in her kitten voice for more food. It was pitiful. I put a bowl of food just inside our house and snuck around back as she was eating and closed the screen door. Trapped cat! After discovering her predicament she eventually made her way into the bathroom where it appears she has not moved. I left her enclosed (as to avoid being bothered by Kiley) with some food, milk, a litter box and a towel to curl up on. I did attempt to handle her last evening, wearing a pair of Bob's glass proof gloves, but the hissing and spitting (and a tiny scratch to my hand) warned me not to try to tempt fate further. I must say the glare on that cats face every time I look at her is one that would send me straight to my doom, if she had any such power.

I really don't know what to do with her now. If she remains unfriendly she will have to be an outdoor cat. I hope she is young enough to become people friendly. My plan is to bribe her with some tuna this afternoon and see if she will eat out of my hand. I doubt it will be today though. Anybody want a little black kitten with white feet?

Debates. Old People. Honorifics.

I recently read a NYT article about addressing older people as "my dear", "sweetie" or other somewhat demeaning non-honorifics. As someone who spends most of my time with the olds I find myself using "dear" quite a bit. Never once did I consider it to be rude, but I will not be saying it anymore. In my defense I usually use "dear" when I've forgotten their names in an effort to remain friendly. I'm going to move to using "sir" and "mam" when I need a proper honorific.

This is why I took special offense to McCain's overuse of the phrase "my friends" in the "town hall" debate last night. I wish I'd counted, there are varying reports of his usage online from 14 to 23, but more than once is just patronizing. Senator McCain, I am not your friend. You are the man with 7 houses and 12 cars who left his cancer ridden wife to diddle the much younger, hotter heiress. You are a man who just learned how to Yahoo. I'm sure the internet is a series of tubes in your world. If you become president I will attempt to ignore your public addresses as I've successfully avoided watching President Bush for these last 8 years. Seriously, can anybody actually stand to watch him speak?

Obama, however, is an enjoyable speaker. I don't know if this is my politically left bent or his tendency to actually appear to have through through his statements before speaking aloud. In the debate last evening he spoke past his time limit several times, which was a bit cringe worthy. Also before he began every statement he let out an audible "huuuuuuh" as he was gathering his thoughts. He could deftly avoid this by standing away from the mike while making his thinking noise. Still, he is never patronizing and always seems well reasoned.

I was a bit tired of both of them repeating the same things they said in the last debate. McCain, you already accused Obama of being to vocal about his willingness to capture Bin Laden on Pakistan's soil. Obama, you already returned with the "bomb bomb bomb Iran zinger". I know both of you think the American people have forgotten the previous debates exchange, but we didn't. It was almost verbatim. There were even times when one candidate would say one thing, the other would refute and the first candidate would say the same thing they just said. Yes, we heard you both. Getting the last word does not negate the other's talking point. Nor does their stupid talking point (like the 3 million dollar "overhead projector" McCain kept accusing Obama of earmarking) somehow trump the others record.

I think I'm right on par with the rest of the US when I say I'd prefer fewer "talking points" and more in depth answering of the questions. However, Obama, tall and stately, I think won the debate hands down. McCain's creepy touching of the participants and overuse of "my friends" really made it hard to listen to him. And I do love my Obama, so I'm biased.

Thank God McCain seemed to avoid using the word "Maverick".