Babies!

I love big families, and am trying to convince my husband that four children is the perfect number. He wasn't swayed by my argument that it's our patriotic duty to out populate the Iranians, but I think this argument might have a better chance - redheads are going extinct! As a redhead, Taylor is obligated to pass on his genes in order to preserve his kind! How could he be callous enough to do otherwise?

My Puppy is Disgustingly Cute!

... And if you disagree, you are wrong.

Typo

I flew down to Dallas last weekend for a wedding. I had a two-hour layover in Baltimore, so to kill time I perused through the bookstore and found this gem:
I immediately spotted a typographical error, and while it's too late to help Al Gore, I decided to do what I can here on my little piece of the Internet.
This is why I can't stress enough how important it is to have someone edit your writings. Otherwise, mistakes like this can happen.

Good Enough

A couple people I've spoken with who claim to be agnostic like to argue that it is impossible to know who God is and what he really expects from us (such as which beliefs about him or her are "right") and yet assure me that when they die God will surely give them a pass because they are good people. The criteria for their goodness is an oft repeated refrain: "I haven't murdered or raped or stolen from anyone."

Well, if this is the criteria for what makes a good person, then our expectations are pathetically low.

What makes a good person? Say we have man who hasn't murdered, raped, or stolen from anyone but regularly beats his wife? While the agnostics mentioned above wouldn't say he's a good person, wife-beaters justify their actions all the time: "Aw, honey, you know you shouldn't make me mad, I just can't control myself," "I'm just so crazy about you, you know I really love you," bringing their victims flowers and chocolates after planting black eyes on their faces.

Clearly this is an extreme example, but my point is that anyone can convince themselves that they are good people, because their circumstances are unique and therefore justify their actions. And the problem is, if God is unknowable, how can you ever be sure you meet his criteria?

Puppies are a lot of work

Morgan seems to think that the best time to wake up in the morning is at 5:30, although today she was feeling especially perky and decided she need to go out at 4:15. This resulted in a sleep-addled argument between me and Taylor that sounded something like this:

"Mmm, the dog ... is awake ... Taylor ... ?"

"..."

"Taylor! The dog is awake!"'

"(Yawn) What do you ... want to do?"

"I want ... to sleep ..."

"What ... about the dog?"

"Hmmm ... she should sleep too."

"I think she has to use the bathroom."

"You're probably right."

"So?"

"So what?"

"(Sigh) Fine, I'll take her!"

I stayed in bed while Taylor took Morgan out to "eliminate" and the whole time I kept thinking that I really should be doing something useful to help, like sleeping, wait no, I should get her breakfast ready, or, go back to sleep, or maybe I could check her kennel and see if she needed a new blanket, or maybe I should just stay asleep. In the end, I decided the best option was sleeping.

If you think that was unfair of me, don't worry. At 6:30 it was my turn to take Morgan out while Taylor slept on, and now I tired and yet too awake to fall back to sleep. So while now I'm watching bleary-eyed as Morgan runs circles around my couch with my shoe. I know there's something I should be doing to address this situation, but exactly what hasn't yet occurred to me.

Headlines!

Sadly, this has never happened to me.

Twisted Movie Trailers

We got a puppy!

They say the first step before having a baby is getting a puppy. Well, we're not having a baby anytime soon, but after much reflection, such as "Am I really willing to get up off my lazy butt and walk a dog every day?" and "Do we really want another furry thing that poops?" we decided we are ready. We're ggot a puppy we've named Morgan (in keeping with our British car theme). She is an adorable, 10-week old puggle. What is a puggle, you ask? Here's a handy diagram my mother found for me.
As you can see, puggle is a combination of something cute with something ugly, resulting, interestingly enough, in something very cute. In spite of the fact that my whole life now revolves around Morgan's "elimination schedule," she's been great to have around. I've met more neighbors in the past three days than the past month.

It's Morgan!



Morgan meeting the kids next door.

Free Love and Marriage

What a shocker that some of these women find a life of free-loving promuscuity "empty." Perhaps arranged marriages are the solution. Or not. My mother and I can't agree on clothing choices, and as my middle-school romances demonstrate, she often felt more empathy for the guys I rejected than me.

"Now Meghan," she'd say, "he's a nice boy. Don't crush his spirits."
My dad disagreed. "Crush his spirits, girl! Crush 'em!"

She'd probably set me up with a guy because she felt sorry for him. Although, if my parents had been serious about arranging my marriage with the handsome Lt. Caleb Cage, son of their close friends, I might have gone for it.

Harry Potter: No longer fun?

I wanted to select an entertaining book to read at the laundromat, so I went to my bookcase and immediately my eyes were drawn to my colorful Harry Potter series (all in paperback, except for the last one, which was given to me by my mother-in-law. It broke the conformity, but I'm never one to turn down a free $30.00 book). I thought about reading The Half-Blood Prince, after all, Book Seven is coming out next month, it would be good to be prepared. But I knew finishing it would be a commitment, and I wasn't sure I wanted to relive Dumbledore's death again. So down to Book Five, but no, it's even longer, and Sirius dies in that. Book Four, the longest of all, and Cedric dies, which no one really cared about, but still depressing. Book Three has always been my favorite, but I've read it a bunch of times, Book Two is the silliest of all the plot lines and my least favorite, and Book One is just a little boring, I haven't read it in five years. What was I to do? I had to read something at the laundromat, otherwise some greasy weird guy might try to talk to me. I scanned the books again, weighing the pros and cons of each.

In the end, I grabbed First Rider's Call and went on my way.

Harry Potter Theme Park

Sweet!

Another Pic

The Ghostly Bride. The portrait is her back in life. She's supposed to have whithered away in an attic, so I tried to make her skinny and angular. I've never been very good at drawing flowing dresses, but I'm fairly happy with how it came out. Let me know what you think!

Yet another amusing liberal how-to

I'm going to stereotype here, but this seems like typical liberal drivel. It's interesting to see how the other side sees me. And I find it down right amusing how this article completely confirms what I believe about most of them. Aw well, at least we agree we can still be friends (after the author has done his best to belittle me, of course).

Summer Shopping

I am not a fan of the new summer fashions. Perhaps the designers were watching
too many Jane Austen movies, because every single top and dress are the empire-waist style that only look good on skinny models, and just barely at that. When something doesn't look that great on the model who's supposed to be selling you shallow dreams of trendiness, you know something has gone horribly wrong.

This may surprise you, but I, Meghan, am not a skinny model, so my dressing room experience was especially bad. I am convinced that dressing room mirrors are designed to give you the worst naked-body image possible so you'll hurry up and put on clothes to cover yourself up. Unfortunately, all the clothes I tried on managed to make me look worse than naked.

The problem is that I have no discernible torso. My rib cage practically meets with my pelvis. So the last thing I need is an outfit that says "Waist-lines are for losers, lets hide your shape!"

I know that fashion runs in cycles, so if I'm patient enough all the empire waist tops, skinny jeans, and tight leggings will soon be gone and I can start enjoying shopping again in about 10 years. Unless some crazy fashion designer decides to bring back hoops skirts. They make my hips look big.

Haunted Mansion Fanart

My friend Chris is writing a musical based on the Disney ride "the Haunted Mansion." It's much like the movie, except it has a plot, people dance and sing, and it doesn't involve Eddie Murphy. I'd like to contribute, but since I have no skills when it comes to music, I content myself with drawing pictures. You can read Chris' musical here. And you should, it's very entertaining!

The female lead, Caroline, being attended to by ghosts. She is wearing shoes, rather than being a hoofed creature.


The male lead, Jamison, after discovering the Haunted Mansion is, indeed, haunted. Ghosts are rather harder to draw than I thought.

Taylor was my fashion consultant for Jamison, since he used to be a "happy goth/punk" himself. If you're wondering, Jamison is wearing checkered Vans. Taylor used to have a pair, and he's trying to convince me to let him get another.

More pics will come later when I feel like it! :)

My Cat

This creature, also know as my cat Healey, is normally a pleasant,
if vocal animal. He must have some Siamese in him, because he seems to think he can really communicate to us is he just talks long enough. While not the most desirable trait in a cat, he could be evil, so I guess I should be grateful. Except, for some reason, Healey decided the best time of day to share his thoughts is at four in the morning. This is by no means acceptable, but we haven't figured out how to make him stop. It's not a cute, inquisitive "mew" either, but a loud and long plaintive cry. Yet when Taylor and I managed to drag ourselves out of bed, we find out he's usually crying for nothing. He doesn't need food or water, he's not injured. No, he just wants to hang out with us. At four in the morning.

Our current battle plan is spraying him with a water bottle every time he cries in the middle of the night, but he's gotten to the point where he'll just take the punishment and carry on with his behavior. I don't know what to do. I'm getting very cranky from the interrupted sleep. I'm considering looking into voice-box removal, but I think that might be just a tad drastic at this time.

Taylor kindly pointed out to me this morning that this is what having a baby is going to be like, but I protested it would be different.

"How?" He asked.

I didn't have an answer.

The New Apartment

Some of you have asked, so here's an album with pics to my new apartment! Yay! Be sure to write nice things, like how much you admire my taste. :)

I'm back!

I've been without the Internet for nearly two weeks, which is such a shame because during that time I had so many droll observations that I wasn't able to post for your amusement. To make up for that, here is best news headline I've seen in days: "Squirrel goes on rampage, injures 3."

Those of us who went to Harding know how evil squirrels can be.

And now, it seems that I have my very own evil squirrel living in the tree by my apartment. Look at those eyes! Evil!

Moving

I've been comparing this year's move to last year. Last year I was moving across the country, carefully wrapping all my possessions in paper and packing them tightly in little boxes. This year, I'm only moving across town, so I've just been throwing everything in my KIA and taking it over the new apartment whenever I have free time. This move has been much smoother and less stressful than last year for sure. I do have one complaint however. My new apartment is on the third floor, and my legs are killing me! It's like an evil StairMaster.

I was chastised by our IT guy for being so out of shape. I admitted I do lead a rather sedentary lifestyle, but I was trying to be better about exercising. In my defense however, I think anyone except for a triathlon athlete would be feeling the burn if they were carrying heavy boxes up and down three flights of stairs eight times a day for a whole week. At least, I'd like to think so ...

So Gross I Had to Share it!

I try to keep my house reasonably clean, but for some reason my coffee pot always escapes my notice. I'll open my coffee filter and find that I left the used coffee grounds inside, which is usually accompanied by a little mold. If you are a person who always cleans their filter every time they use it, then you probably don't realize just how effective coffee grinds are for growing mold. If I ever decide to grow my own penicillian, I know exactly how to do it.

After running out of coffee filters, I haven't bothered to make coffee in probably two months. That means the filter from my last coffee making was left there to mold. When I finally pulled it out, I was shocked to discover a rainbow of mold had taken residence there. But the grossest, and yet oddly fascinating, part was this strange white mold that had the texture and smell of mushroom. It had completely filled the bottom of the filter bowl, and clung to the sides so tightly I could barely pull it out. Here's the final kicker: In that white mold, I discovered tiny, translucent inch-worms! GROSS! The filter - worms, mold, and all - quickly went into a sink of boiling water and bleach, where it will remain indefinitely.

What I don't understand is how the worms got in there. I understand that the air contains mold spores that are floating around looking for coffee grounds to latch onto, but could there possible be "larvae spores" floating around? Am I breathing larvae spores even as I type this? GROSS!

It's making me question my doubts about spontaneous generation.

You may be wondering if I am going to use that coffee maker again. Of course, it's a Gevalia!