Hiatus

The movers come today at nine to box up all our stuff. Starting today, we’ll be living off paper plates, solo cups and takeout.

They put everything on the truck tomorrow.
On Saturday the cable cuts off.
On Sunday The Rajah and I fly south.

I might have little updates now and then — I might even use that stupid Twitter account I never use — but for now, I’m taking a break.

This too shall pass!!

One of the many reasons I love my husband . . .

. . . is that he doesn’t indulge in “I told you so.”

We were in a hotel over the weekend for a Mike Work Conference Thing-y and took the opportunity to play in the gym.  We do have a little gym in our apartment building here — one of the many things I’m going to miss when we move — but it has very few weight machines.  Thus, when confronted with the richness of row after row of Nautilus, I dove right in.

I was pumping out leg curls on this machine —

— when Mike wandered over from the free weights.

“Honey, you want to be careful on that one, or you won’t be able to walk,” he said mildly.

“I’m fine!!” I puffed.  “Feels good!” I panted.

Jeez, I know how to lift weights! Does Mike think he married some namby-pamby, delicate, fragile little thing? Hell no! I had a temp job moving furniture, for heavens’ sake!

I pumped out another set to prove my point.

Ladies and gentlemen, we all see where this is going, do we not?

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We finished our workout and stretching and walked up the stairs.  I admit to feeling a twinge of misgiving, seeing as how my legs didn’t quite RESPOND the way they normally do.  I took some Aleve and was relieved that everything seemed okay.

The day after (Monday) I was substantially sore.  I could *feel* what a mistake the machine, and in particular the last set of curls, had been.

And Tuesday?

WHAT THE *$%*ING HOLY HELL OMIGOD I CAN’T WALK OW OW OW OW OW OW WAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I spent yesterday walking around like a 90 year old after two hip replacements. I spent more time easing myself into and out of chairs than Nomar before receiving a pitch. I was munching Aleve like they were Altoids.*  Every time I sat for longer than an hour it was almost impossible to get up again.  I was tottering around like a toddler with a full diaper.

Thank GOODNESS it’s better today.  *sigh*

And what lesson did we learn from this, boys and girls?

Simple!

FREE WEIGHTS ARE BETTER THAN NAUTILUS.

. . .why, what did you think I’d learned?

*No, not really. But I wanted to!!!

Gatorland!!!

Since Mike’s folks live in Florida, I’ve visited there — oh, at least five or six times during the last decade.  And, to date, I had NEVER SEEN A FLORIDA GATOR.  I developed a very annoying habit of peering eagerly into every body of water we passed — be it pond, lake, river, or large puddle — while hopefully piping, “Gator??”

Well, dammit, I finally saw my gators!!!

They had a little alligator near the front just for me:

We were treated to an exhibition of alligator wrestling:

We got two packets of hot dogs to throw to the gators. And then proceeded to nail them DIRECTLY IN THE HEAD and they STILL wouldn’t get them. The big white birds standing on them as they floated around were MUCH quicker, more agile and more likely to eat the damn dogs than the gators were. I was heckling and yelling, “C’mon, gators! You’re at the top of the frickin’ food chain! Don’t let those birds steal your food, EAT THE BIRD!!!”

(We later closed the Circle of Life by eating Alligator Nuggets at the cafe. They tasted like overcooked chicken nuggets that had been misted with tuna water.)

Oh, and the birds were insanely fearless:

(As befits birds that live with alligators.)

We cheered and hollered “Jump!!” as instructed during the Gator Jumping show:

Naturally, we had to stop at the petting zoo, where we fed pellets to some VERY. DETERMINED. GOATS.

Two thumbs up for Gatorland, where Lissa finally got her full quota of gators!

P.S. Oh, almost forgot — as promised:

On the road again!

Having tasted the sweet, sweet air of freedom, I’m flying back for my last week of work and packing. But do come back tomorrow – I’ll show you Mike sitting on an alligator!!

I must be in Florida …

74 degrees outside? Check!
Swim before breakfast? Check!
Eating bacon while wearing a bikini? Check!
Evil assault magazines that hold FOURTEEN ROUNDS??

I should have known better.

*sigh* Lissa, WHEN will you learn not to try on boots “just to see how they look”?

Rajah, being a cat, decided to help Mommy take pictures of her new boots:

Um, thanks kitty.

The color didn’t get captured that well, but the boots are a deep, rich burgandy:

Happy Friday Footware!

P.S. I updated the “Question on Rape Post” again

Ode to a Blue Gun, with apologies to Keats

Jay G waxed poetical over at his place:

Blue gun, blue gun, resting on the shelf;
Shall I use you to test my draw, a race against myself?
Perhaps you’ll teach a new shooter a proper grip and stance;
Or perhaps test an accessory, to give a better chance.
Revolvers, pistols, shotguns, even bayonets all have a form of you;
Bringing new meaning to the term “tangled up in blue”.

He addded, “Okay, so poetry ain’t my strong point…”

Well, I *do* claim to be good at poetry spoofs, so I offered the following in his comments:

Thou still unravish’d bride of quiet draws,
Thou foster-child of plastic and gun molds,
Raging gunnie, who canst thus express
The 4 Rules more sweetly than with pictures:
What powder-fring’d legend haunt about thy shape
Of Sigs or Glocks, or of both
In M&P or the dales of 1911s?
What levers or safeties are these? What mag release?
What practice draws? What struggle to retain in combat?
What bells and whisles? What wild ecstasy?

Who else loves their blue gun?  🙂

A Question on Rape – UPDATED X2

Now you see why I was posting nothing but kittehs yesterday?  Before we start, I would like to emphasize that all parties in Situations A, B and C described here are hypothetical.  HYPOTHETICAL. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

In order for us to rationally discuss the item of controversy, we must first lay the baseline:

If at any point during sexual congress (and that means before and also means mid-coitus) Person A says “Don’t”, “Stop”, or “I don’t want to do this”, if Person B does not immediately stop then s/he is committing rape.

Period.  The End.  If you don’t believe this, kindly seek the nearest exit, because you are not welcome at my blog.  Ever.

However, I am VERY confident that my regular visitors are still here, so let us continue to my question:

Is it possible for there to be an incident of rape without any participating party being a rapist?

I say yes.

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This unborn discussion has been rattling around in my head ever since the B, B & Guns when Bonnie told us she was a survivor. She said no, and he didn’t stop.

Situation A:

Alpha and Alphette are quasi-dating.  Or hell, married; doesn’t make a difference.  Alphette says stop, Alpha ignores her and finishes what he started.

Verdict: Rape.

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I followed the link from Bonnie and found Miss Britt.

Situation B:

Beta and Betty are both drinking at a party.  Beta starts to get it on.  Betty tells him to stop. He doesn’t stop.

Wait, no.  This is still situation A.

Verdict: Rape.

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But what about Situation C?

Charlie and Charlotte are hardcore drinking at a party.  They go back to a room to fool around.  They’re both drunk as skunks but manage to fumble their way through sex before they pass out.

When Charlotte wakes up in the morning she remembers nothing. Was she drugged?  Or was it just stupidly overindulging in tequila?

She is ashamed. She begins to get small flashes of memory*, but they are only split seconds — just physical instants that give her no clue how it actually went down.  She suffers from depression* compounded by guilt; she tells herself it was her fault for partying too hard and whatever happened, she was “asking for it.”

Verdict: . . . . . . . ..

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At many colleges and universities, inebriation is considered to limit or sometimes prohibit an act of consensual sex.  See, for example, Boston College:

If an alleged perpetrator has sexual intercourse with a victim who is incapable of consent by reason of sleep, drunkenness, stupefaction, or unconsciousness, the alleged perpetrator may be convicted of rape and the only “force” necessary for conviction is the minimal force required for penetration. In the case of drunkenness, this does not mean that the victim was merely under the influence of alcohol but that he or she was intoxicated to the extent that he or she was unable to give informed consent to the act. Rape may occur between people who know each other or who have had prior consensual relations with each other. [emphasis in original]

Charlotte was far too drunk to give informed consent.  By the rules, this constitutes an act of rape.

But I do not think that makes Charlie a rapist.

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Do you see what I’m getting at here?  I’m trying to be very clear about not blaming Charlotte.  She is showing signs of trauma and clearly had a horrible experience.  I consider her a victim of rape.

But in a situation of mutual drunkenness as I described, is it Charlie’s fault that he didn’t know that? If Charlotte is willingly (albeit drunkenly) pulling off clothes, stumbling into bed etc., are you going to say Charlie is a rapist for the sex that he thought was consensual?  If Charlotte never said “stop”, never said “don’t”, and was an active participant in the run-up and also *during* the event, can you properly say that Charlie is a rapist?

I do not think so.

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Why on earth would I open such an ugly, traumatic and serious can of worms on a blog habitually dedicated to cooking, kittehs and Kahrs?  Well, here’s one reason:

Women, young and old, need to realize that every man out there, no matter his appearance, persuasion, race, profession and/or religious inclination , is a potential sexual predator. Hell, men have been trying to abuse us sexually since we were in grade school, from fathers and uncles and brothers, let alone non-related males, a girl child is not safe, if she is not under her mother’s wing. The woman’s liberation movement only made it easier for men to get some free sex. Be always be aware that men’s most sigle minded purpose is to mate, and to mate as much and as often and with as many women as they can possibly get away with. Some men take this desire to the last possible degree, and they will have no patience with courtship and rituals, and even kill their victims to hide their crime. Of these, we must be even more leery of. The problem is, that it is hard sometimes to tell the violent predators, from the common ones. That is why women must treat every single encounter with a male, as a potential rape, and avoid any kind of confinement alone with a male. Do not give men a chance to have privacy with your body, unless you have made a conscius, not a drunken, decision to engage in sexual relations. Don’t lose sight of this very real clear an impending danger… A woman is never safe, if she is not aware of her surroundings and the fact that she is perceived as weak and seen as a potential victim by these would be predators…
soy1loba 9:26 AM

“That is why women must treat every single encounter with a male, as a potential rape, and avoid any kind of confinement alone with a male.”  What an absolutely horrible way of going through life.  It does not differentiate between situational awareness — always keeping an eye on your surroundings so you can spot potential problems — with assuming as a matter of course that every single man out there probably wants to rape you.

Here’s another, which I will not directly quote:  It is not uncommon for comments on rape posts to contain words like “It makes me ashamed to be a man.”

I think men get a bum rap on this.  Should I feel guilty for being a woman since Susan Smith and Andrea Yates were women also?  And (this part is not hypothetical) I was a hall counselor for incoming freshmen once upon a time.  I had to tell the young men, “Dude.  Be seriously careful.  If you’re both drinking, and she decides the next morning that she didn’t mean to do it, that can count as rape.  She wasn’t able to give consent, no matter if she ripped off your clothes and jumped your bones.  Be careful.”

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Allow me to emphasize again the differences between Situations A, B and C.  The men in Situations A and B were clearly told “No” and proceeded regardless.  The man in Situation C was not given any such signal.

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I throw the question out to my readers:

Is it possible to still sympathize and empathize with Charlotte as a rape victim, without excoriating Charlie as a rapist?

*Thank you to Bonnie for the RAINN links, which I got from her post here.  HUGE thanks also because I emailed her this post last night (in case she wanted to read it ahead of time and to make sure she was okay with the linkage) and she wrote a VERY kind response.  Among other bits of wisdom, she said:

I’ve read it, and not only do I not mind, I’m VERY happy that you’ve chosen to address this.

If I spent my life looking at all men as the enemy (which is tempting after a situation like that), I wouldn’t have gotten married, and I would have never gotten started with blogging.  Men are everywhere.  Women’d be crippled if they had that view.

Guy she married is pretty lucky, ain’t he? 🙂

UPDATE: Thank you so much for all your insightful comments!  In response, I’d like to clarify one aspect of this post.

Situation C was created entirely out of my head.  I can therefore tell you with authority what happened.  (Ah, the godlike power of authoring fiction . . . )

But it’s not always that easy in real life.

Consider this Rashomen effect interpretation:

The facts: Delta and Darlene are at a party together. They have sex that night.

Delta’s point of view: He was drinking with that hot chick Darlene and scored.  Awwwww yeah!

Darlene’s point of view: She recalls having a few drinks at the party and the next thing she remembers, she’s waking up with Delta the next morning.

The situation could therefore be:

1. Delta and Darlene drank too much. Darlene made a bad decision and greatly regrets it.

Reaction: Darlene needs to take responsibility for bad choices made as an adult.  We feel sorry for her and empathize with her, but she made her own decisions; she wasn’t victim to a perpetrator.  (Except for herself.)

But it could also be

2. Darlene got drugged last night. The first drink she took had a mind altering substance. Delta slipped it into her beverage, whisked her upstairs when she got foggy and had sex with her.

Reaction: Delta is a rapist. We feel pain, rage and empathy for Darlene. She should have had a buddy watching her back, but she didn’t commit any other errors and she definitely didn’t deserve to be roofied.

But what if it’s yet another situation?

3. Darlene got slipped a drug by Omega, the douchebag in the corner who intended to take advantage of her later.  She got friendly with Delta instead who, not knowing she was drugged, thought it was consensual sex.

Reaction:  We feel pain, rage and empathy for Darlene. She should have had a buddy watching her back, but she didn’t commit any other errors and she definitely didn’t deserve to be roofied.  But it’s NOT Delta’s fault; everyone was drinking and he wasn’t sober enough to realize that his date was drugged.

And now, what if it deteriorates into complete he-said-she-said?

4. Darlene says that she has no memories of the night before, believes that she was drugged and was therefore coerced into sex.  She was too ashamed to go for the urine test the next day so there isn’t any physical proof. Delta says that Darlene was partying right alongside him and that sex was consensual.

Reaction:  This is the type of situation where I would lean towards giving sympathy to Darlene while not assigning blame to Delta.  Your milage may vary; I don’t think there’s Only One Right Answer here.

Oh, and I am very glad that we all agree — soy1loba has some serious issues.

UPDATED UPDATE: Wow! I’m amazed by the number of people who left thoughtful, intelligent comments below.  As I wrote before, I’m not looking for Only One Right Answer; that being said, my commenters fell heavily on the side of personal responsibility.  In retrospect, that doesn’t surprise me; a lot (most?) of my readers are gunnies, and gunnies are HUGE believers in personal responsibility.  You break it you bought it; it’s up to you to insure your own safety; etc. etc.

Number One Lesson to take away from this: Sex + alcohol can = massive trouble.

So behave yourself, kiddos, and always have a friend watch your back!

The least controversial post ever

Good morning everyone! I’ve decided today to bring you a post full of sweetness and light!

You see, I’ve had a subject rattling around in my noggin for quite a few days. Apparently the stupid thing won’t go away until I write about it, which I plan to do tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately, it’s a rather touchy subject. It’ll be opening myself up to quite a bit of criticism and maybe even some blogger h8.

Quite frankly, I’m afraid of pissing people off.

But hey, learning to be less afraid of pissing people off is part of growing up, isn’t it?

Anyway, in the spirit of harmony and forgiveness, I offer you the following picture dump. Enjoy!

For Alan

It’s official — the iPhone is the preferred tool for gunbloggers:

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JAY G: “You better hope I don’t tell about your reading selection in the bathroom!  Bodice-ripper, Lissa? Really?”

LISSA: “You’re kidding!  You’re making fun of me for THAT? I was sure you were gonna make fun of me for having the Little House books in there!”

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BETH (rolling eyes): “There’s a Simpsons quote for EVERYTHING when those two get together.”

SCI-FI (indignantly): “That wasn’t Simpsons! That was Ren and Stimpy!!”

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LISSA:  “So, guys, we call our current apartment the Kitty Den.  What should we call our new Florida house?  Castle Sunshine, maybe?  Kitty Den South?”

BOREPATCH: “Nope.  Gotta be the Raj Mahal.”

LISSA:  ” . . . . . OMG. Yeah.  Done and done.”

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Thanks so much, y’all — I had a wonderful time!  I’m gonna miss you guys so much!!!!

lovelissa