- Cute/full-of-feels video of the week: My 11-Year-Old Pit Bull Beat Cancer, So I Gave Him A Birthday He’ll NEVER Forget!
- It’s Time to End the Prejudice Against Pit Bulls. Agreed. My Sienna is 75% pitbull, and she’s a sweetie.
- New Guidelines For Readers. Summary: pretty much anything goes, except shaming other readers.
- Can You Love a Flawed Novel? Yes, I can.
- Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? I can’t even imagine.
- Fighting Fatigue: 5 tips for being positive when you’re tired.
- Getting Things Done: It’s Not the Same as Being Busy.
- 10 Ways You’re Making Your Life Harder Than It Has To Be.
- Dear Therapists, Doctors and Counselors everywhere: I regret to inform you, but the Internet is real.
- Your Home, Your Choice: 10 Home Explanations You Don’t Owe.
- Humanity Surprised It Still Hasn’t Figured Out Better Alternative To Letting Power-Hungry Assholes Decide Everything. Spot-on from the Onion again.
- If someone calls you out for saying something shitty… More good advice from Adulting.
- Uncomfortable truth: If your business needs free labor to grow, your business model is broken.
Things of Note:
Well, the back patio is currently a mess. Yesterday was an adventure in paint stripping, which… let’s just say it didn’t go well. And it ate up most of my day, which is why you didn’t get a lovely post about the front flower beds. But I will return to the fray armed with some steel wool, and then move on to priming and painting, and ideally by the end of the week it will be looking good enough to do a joint patio-and-front-flower-beds reveal post on Friday. Wee!
Speaking of Friday, anyone have any fun plans for the 4th?
6 comments
So many thoughts today! First, I CAN love a flawed novel, but just like the writer of the article mentioned, I will always be aware of its imperfections. Like, as much as I love Harry Potter and think those books are some of the best things ever written, Barty Crouch Jr should have just made something other than the Tri Wizard Cup a port key. Duh. Major oversight, Jo, but you’re still my favorite.
And the AT piece about not having to justify/apologize for your home! So much yes. Sometimes I find myself explaining why we don’t have a “real” guest room set up, but I shouldn’t worry about it! It doesn’t make sense for us to stick an extra bed in there when we have people sleep here a handful of times a year. I’d rather use the space more for something else.
I’m the same, I’m always *aware* that a novel isn’t the most well written, but that awareness takes a back seat to the story and emotional pull. It’s like she said about the Twilight books – I know, intellectually, that they aren’t the best, but I still get pulled into the story and enjoy it.
The home thing is tricky. I always feel the need to apologize for any clutter or chores that obviously didn’t get done. But hey, this house is very lived in and life happens, it’s not 100% spic-and-span all the time… or ever, really, haha.
I feel like the debate about leaving kids in the backseat and them ultimately suffering from hyperthermia is a hot topic, and while I don’t want to clog up your comments, I do have some thoughts about it. My problem is this:
“In Portsmouth, the decision not to charge Culpepper, 40, was made by Commonwealth’s Attorney Earle Mobley. As tragic as the child’s death was, Mobley says, a police investigation showed that there was no crime because there was no intent; Culpepper wasn’t callously gambling with the child’s life — he had forgotten the child was there.”
That is a direct quote from the article. Now let’s say this was the baby-sitter who had done this, not the parent. It would absolutely be considered a crime of negligence.
Perhaps I’m just a bit cold-hearted, and obviously as a parent I can in no way fathom the agony and torture these parents go through, but a crime of negligence HAS been committed. Intent shouldn’t matter. A drunk driver doesn’t INTEND to kill someone, but if they do, it is still a crime. I don’t see this as different. Yes, it is horrible, tragic, and many other awful things, but it is still an act of negligence (intended or not) that resulted in the death of a child.
Onto happier subjects!
I definitely love the article about your home and what not to justify. I always get so nervous when new people come over (none of the furniture in the living room matches! Will they notice the dings in the old cupboards? AH!) but I am slowly learning that my home is for me, and if I’m happy, that’s what should matter.
And the article about loving flawed books is so great. I definitely recognize flaws in most of my favorite books, but it doesn’t make me love them any less! I love getting lost in the characters and story, even if it isn’t perfect.
Yeah, the child in the car article is a hard one. It seems unclear how they decide whether to charge the parent or not. Usually ‘negligence’ in the case of children is from repeat behavior or compounding issues like drunkenness or drugs – things that social services would be called for (that’s my impression at least), so maybe since those weren’t in play they don’t consider it a crime of negligence? I don’t know. It’s a heart-breaking issue all round, either way.
Glad you enjoyed the other articles, though!
Leaving your kid the backseat (alone) is definitely a crime, especially here in FL are you kidding — it’s so friggin’ hot. I’ve seen people leave their pets in their cars with the window cracked a teeeny tiny bit and it makes me so mad.
My city is doing their fireworks on Thursday and then the neighboring city is doing them on Friday… I’m still not sure which day I’ll be going! Maybe I’ll just enjoy two rounds of fireworks and good food. 😛
Good luck with the patio! 🙂
I think if you leave your kid alone in the car to go run errands or something – on purpose – that’s definitely a crime. If, like in the case of the parents in the article, you’re so frazzled or stressed or routine is disrupted that you just forget, and in normal situation would never leave a child alone in the car like that – I don’t know. It’s a lot harder. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for those parents at the moment they realize what has happened/what they’ve done. I would hate to be judge or jury on a case dealing with that.
I don’t know if we’re going out to fireworks or not. The boy and I generally consider it not worth fighting the traffic, and just watch the NYC show on TV. Plus our dog is scared of fireworks, so she generally needs to huddle/cuddle from the noise of our local ones or neighbors shooting off theirs. The boy has the day off on Friday, though, and it is the pup’s birthday, so maybe we’ll do something earlier in the day. 🙂