Best Mug Shot...EVER

Smug S.O.B.

Scooter has a problem

He likes to peep at squirrels.

















No wonder the camera batteries are always drained.

Lavese las manos

I was in the ER at Ridges Hospital late one night with a friend who had a nasty migraine. She was back with the staff for some time, and I'd had a soda, so I ended up in the restroom. The inside of the stall door had one of those signs instructing patients how properly to collect a urine specimen. This one had the steps in English and Spanish, and I thought, cool! Then I read them. (I'd been at the hospital a long time already - reading urine collection isntructions was better than the blaring late-night television and the woman with the baby screaming "I see you fucking everywhere, man!" at some couple with a small child).

The problem: six steps in English, seven steps in Spanish. My Spanish...well, my Spanish is pretty much limited to what I (1) remember from 7th grade, (2) have learned watching Sesame Street with my daughter, and (3) have learned watching Dora with my daughter. Okay, it's a little better than that, but still, it stinks. It took me a minute, but I found the extra step (it was tucked in the middle, not at the end, which might have made it easier to spot). Spanish speakers are advised to "lavese las manos" - WASH YOUR HANDS.

That leads me to several questions. Are the bodies of English speakers not hotbeds of bacteria? Do English speakers not need hygiene reminders? Does speaking Spanish increase the levels of bacteria one harbors? Do Spanish speakers not wash their hands after urinating unless told to do so?

And one more thing: what, exactly, does it mean that that woman with the baby and the couple with the kid are always bumping into one another in places like emergency rooms?

Ah, Fall

I'm rooting for the lions

I have one friend who used to hunt. I'm not sure why he doesn't anymore, but I don't give him crap about it because I gave him enough crap about hunting when he was doing it. At least he ate what he killed and didn't mount animal body parts on the grill of his car or in his "den" as an alternative to actually wagging his dick around. No, he just went hunting quietly with his brothers and turned what he killed into food.

Last week, I heard a story on MPR about the issuance of permits to kill mountain lions. The story made me grumpy, so I filed it away in the back of my brain, adn now I've forgotten which part of the U.S. has so many mountain lions it needs dipshits to go kill them. Anyway. The woman being interviewed said she and her husband entered the lottery for elk every year, and were ecstatic to have their names drawn this year so they could "take down" some big animals. When they were given the opportunity to add on a mountain lion license for $15, they jumped at it because, as this woman put it, "It's the opportunity of a lifetime." Really? She's been waiting all her life to kill a mountain lion? Toward what end? She's not gonna eat it.

Look, I understand about thinning animal (I'm sorry: killing animals, let's not euphemize) populations "for their own good." I don't want mountain lions - or deer - starving to death. I really don't. But what's wrong with people who are so excited about killing things that they get all lathered up about killing something they can't even use?