I can donate some cat fur and we can create a whole new species!

I was in the bookstore and the clerks were talking about dog temperments and how some require more training to overcome certain inclinations. The clerk asked me if I had any dogs. "Nope, I have cats. I am very well trained."

The weather is actually normal for this time of year. Low 80s and a bit muggy. It's nice. But they need to repair my a/c soon. It's started turning off without me resorting to pulling the breaker, but it really isn't as robust as it used to be. I'm told this year they have a lot of spare parts as well as replacement units ON SITE and are operating on the assumption that all original units will need one or the other. I'll believe it when I see it. Since the fire and the firing of the maintenance manager (that BITCH), maintenance response has been pretty prompt and effective. But I've been burned before.

First day of vacation! Had brunch with a new friend, bought an outrageously expensive, gorgeous skirt at a boutique where my hair was the subject of much fawning (weird), am off to make an appointment for a mani/pedi, and then will clean the fuck out of my apartment in preparation for finishing the book without having chores hanging over me.

It's a good Saturday.

Yay Allyson! Has the new hair grown on you any? And does the outside affirmation help?

BF did the dog walk this morning so I got to sleep in ('til 8am, but still--lounging! in bed! past 6:30 am!). Since then I have changed the bed, done all the laundry, vacuumed the carpet and curtains, and shampooed the carpet. I am tired but feel quite accomplished. BF has taken the dog to be groomed, eaten lunch, read the paper and practiced his guitar. I can tell he feels VERY guilty for sitting about while I clean, even though I keep telling him it's fine. I harbor no bitter feelings since he'll be doing yard work all freaking day tomorrow while I go shoe shopping. Love me some shoe shopping!

that is a full day Robin.

I am watching the last 4 shows off my DVR is prep for returning it tomorrow. little sad.

I spent much of the afternoon finding out the weights of various lighting instruments and Schedule 40 pipe so that I could come up with a total weight for a lighting rig and determine if it is possible to hang with three truss units.

I wonder if it'd be cheaper to get Pat Robertson to hold the rig up with his legs.

No DVR! That is sad, msbelle.

Gar, I'm just saying that the things that bind a group together vary. If you've met ethnic group X, you know they're different from your ethnic group Y. But I do think of humanity as an ethnic group, and when you meet ethnic group Z, you may be more like them than X, or less, and your view of humanity expands, and your classifications also shift.

I don't think we're really doing much other than semantic headbutting. All I believe is that there's always an us. A really big us. An us that says "Humans. Group." And then you meet Martians and think "Whoa! Them!" But then there's a "Sentient beings. Group." Then you meet the dudes from Alpha Centauri, and it shifts again.

I don't have to like the Martians, or think they're other than pillaging ne'er do wells to expand one of the uses to include them. The Alpha Centauri might look at all of the Solars as a homogenous "them" while we consider ourselves heterogenous but still "us."

In other news, I taught Intro Krav this morning which is ninety minutes of talk, pep, and otherwise intimidating and seducing people who haven't signed up yet. Over half my class signed up, so I feel good about it. Then I taught a level 4 by myself, which is the first time I've done it officially. And it went pretty well too.

After that, lunch with a friend from out of town.

I am beyond tired, so there will be curling up with Anansi Boys and Crockett and Tubbs in my future.

So I was just poking around on the internets to see what was going on in LA this weekend and found this:

"Meet the Grunion"

Saturday night, Cabrillo Marine Aquarium leads visitors to a nearby beach to watch grunion make sweet, slimy love on the beach (bow chicka bow wow).

Sat | Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, 3720 Stephen White Dr., San Pedro | (310) 548-7562

When did a Buffista start writing for this site?

Man, Saturday Night Live was made for Tivo. This way, when you hit FF as soon as a sketch gets boring, you can watch the whole thing in like seven mintues.

ita - I agree semantics. Yeah, for non-sociopaths there is always an "us" - we human beings, or we sentient beings when we finally meet the ganymedians. But don't think that is an ethnic group because nobody is outside it. "American Indian" or "First Nation" or whatever is definitely an ethinic group - a social contruction, and mostly not chosen by the constructed to boot. That social construction did not exist pre-invasion. "We humans" is not the same thing. An ethnic group or nationality is a division; we are "we humans" but some of us are this type of human and other that. It could be looked upo as a type of shared hallucination with real consequences as gift with purchase.