Legitimate Rape?

Apparently, we're still struggling with the definition of rape. Despite statistic upon statistic stating that "stranger rape" (i.e. the made for TV idea of rape), is actually not that common. We have known for decades that date rape is the most common form of sexual assault. Much like every other crime, the odds of being attacked, murdered, raped, stalked, etc. by a stranger are minimal. Chances are, the assailant is someone you know and have agreed to spend time with.

Time.
Not body parts.
Yes. There is a difference.

Republican Todd Aiken's FB photo

Todd Aiken, a Republican, has defended his "No abortions EVER" policy by stating, "legitimate rape" rarely causes pregnancy.

The interview made headlines after Jaco asked Akin about his "no exceptions" policy on abortion. Akin responded that pregnancy from rape is "really rare," and added that, “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."http://www.globalpost.com/photo/5716579/todd-akin-legitimate-rape   - for more info.


The idea that carrying a baby to term as the result of rape is no better when the attacker is a stranger versus if the attacker is known by the victim. Bringing a child into the world as the result of a criminal violation should be 100% the decision of the victim. Period. Forcing a woman to endure an unwanted pregnancy is equivalent to rape itself.

My thoughts on this - and I have about a million but I'll keep it brief - are as follows. It may sound crazy but I liken date rape or rape perpetuated through drugging the victim with "date rape drugs" to an alien attack. Seriously. Hear me out.

We've all seen movies where innocent humans are abducted by aliens, usually while they're asleep. So imagine you're in bed. You go to sleep and when you awaken, something is bad. Something is very wrong. Your body doesn't feel right. You look around and are shocked to see your pajamas have been roughly removed and you...feel a soreness. Something you've never felt before and have no memory of what would cause this sensation. You straighten out your pj's as best you can and try to get up but when you do that odd sensation gets bigger and becomes painful. Something is very, very wrong.

Something inside of you is screaming. You realize it's your own voice in your head. You start to shake as you try to make sense of the blackness in your memory. You know something happened, you know your body has been violated, assaulted, but all you have is nothingness in the spot where memory belongs.

You know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you have been violated in the most sacred of spaces. You notice it's surprisingly cold in your room, when you look up you notice, finally a perfect circle of a hole through the roof. Above it, you see something shiny. Holy shit - a UFO? What the...huh??

And then it hits you - you have been abducted by aliens and...Probed. Hard. With no thought or care to you as a person. You are just a body that has been used and abused by an outside source for pleasure or research or heck - fun even!

You never agreed to this. You were just spending time with friends per usual. Except this time, there was an alien hiding in the crowd waiting for his chance to select and pounce on an unsuspecting victim. And pounce he did. And he made sure, you would have little to no memory of the event. But your body knows. Your body remembers. Your body is crying out for comfort and safety.

By the way, if you somehow get pregnant with an alien baby, that's your problem. Clearly your uterus and company did not get the memo about how pregnancy doesn't happen with "legitimate rape" due to the lady chemicals and the magical ability your cervix has to determine good, love sperm from bad, bad alien sperm.

Gentlemen, I have one thing to say: Anal Probe.
If it happens to you, it's probably your fault because you drank too much and wore a tight tee-shirt.
And you were fool enough to leave the skylight open.
You're sort of  a slut.

Trusting the wrong person (and being sexy - I'm only half kidding) means you deserve what you get right? Is that it?

Can you blame me?

Raccoon Whisperer

Once upon a time, I was newly married and living in my very first house of my own. I was alone because my ex-husband was in the Air Force and had been assigned a three month tour in Alaska so I was winging it. My sister and I took on many DIY projects and were victorious in pretty much all of them. Things were going swimmingly until the horrible day I decided to let my indoor cats hang out in my yard for a few minutes unsupervised. I lived on 300 acres of wildlife reserve so to say I had a huge yard was an understatement.

However, it wasn't huge enough apparently and the cats were somehow drawn to the road out front leading to one of my beloved babies being murdered by some piece of scum who didn't even slow down. Granted, I shouldn't have left them alone and I feel it is 99% my fault. But that 1% is nothing to sneeze at and if I had the chance to face that driver you'd best believe it would get ugly. Fast.

About two weeks later a tiny, calico kitten appeared in my backyard...it was kind of strange. She spent a lot of time hanging out around Harley's gravestone. I noticed her playing near it several times. The first time I noticed her was, in fact, near the gravestone (yes, a real inscribed stone laid flat in the ground don't judge.) The very next day the tiger lily edging it bloomed completely. You know I totally believe in signs and the universe and karma right? Well, now you do. I decided this kitten was meant to be mine and I would totally be able to woo her and make her mine.
The kitten did not receive that memo. She proved to be impossible to catch but she came out and hung around me every time I went outside all summer long. Cooking on the grill? Kitten time. Hanging out reading? Kitten. Mowing the lawn? Front row seat. You could just tell she wanted love so badly but was too scared to take the leap to let me pet her or pick her up. Her specialty was remaining just out of reach. I could get within a foot of her before she'd run away. We developed our own little language where I would copy her little "Meep! Meeep!" and make my own meeps when I was outside. I seriously treated this project like my summer job, dedicating hours almost every day.

A month and a half later, mid-August, slowly losing hope but still feeding her daily, I started to question if she would ever be an in-house kitty. A new problem was that raccoons had figured out there was delicious kitty food to be had at the buffet (aka my pool shed).

I adjusted the feeding schedule to just during the day to avoid kitten being eaten by raccoons.

With Labor Day looming I began to grow more bold in my efforts. One night I stood outside with my friend Emily holding pool skimmers as nets. Kitten was meeping,  I was meeping, Emily was ready to pounce with the skimmer for at least an hour. I thought our teamwork was absolutely going to bring my success.

Um, an hour outside meeping in an area known to have yummy kitty food in it did not end as planned. While I had my back to the yard and meeped my heart out, I saw Emily freeze, skimmer held aloft.

"Stop Don't make another noise" said Emily. "You are surrounded."

Huh?

"Turn around, the raccoons have answered your call."

Totally not believing her, I turned around ready to see nothing but my dark yard. However, she was telling the truth. There was a pack of baby raccoons (baby ones! squee!) running my way making the exact same sounds I had been making all night. There were at least five of them and although what I really wanted to do was pet them and snuggle them, Emily (shockingly) was not down with that. She charged them with the pool skimmer held out like some sort of shield device and ran into the house, dragging me inside with her. I'm pretty sure there was a lecture regarding why petting baby raccoons is not okay and also why we had to give up on the kitten quest for the evening. Because you know, mommy raccoons are probably not as nice as baby ones.

Like you wouldn't want to snuggle with these guys? Puh-leeze
Pic: animaltheory.blogspot.com

Although I deeply enjoyed by my wildlife experience I gave up. For that night at least. Later that week, I was hanging out with my Uncle Kenny. He had been my savior that summer turning my pool from a horrible swamp filled with tadpoles and opaque brown/green water into a sparkling blue lagoon. He had also been with me in my attempts at capture. He suggested that instead of chasing the kitten, maybe I should lure her into my mudroom with food. Just leave a plate of kitty food (during the day, no raccoons allowed in the house) and watch the mudroom.

Zoe all grown up!

After nearly three months of meeping and hunting kitten she was caught in approximately 30 minutes with virtually zero effort on my part. Of course.

Anyway, that's how I went from two cats to three again. Well, actually four because in a moment of hopelessness that I would ever catch outside kitten, I adopted another one from the Humane Society.

Yes. I...am a weirdo. But I'm surrounded by fuzzy kitty snuggletons! 

Sharkgina (Edited)

*Authors Note: This blog is intended for mature audiences only. And by mature I mean, I'm going to say the word vagina a lot and if you can't handle that you may want to click on any other link you can find.*

About a week and a half ago I went to see The Vagina Monologues with some friends. 

It. Was. So. Good. Eve Ensler, author of the monologues, is a goddess.

Last night I was reminded of the show in a way I hadn't expected. It all started when Jacob and I decided to go in the hot tub. A little unusual for me considering it's June and I hate all things hot or hot related in the summer time but I figured I could walk on the wild side. As we sat there I couldn't help but relax and feel the tension melting away thanks to the heat and jets massaging my back. This enjoyment lasted approximately six minutes. Because about then I realized I was really freaking hot. Like, lobster hot. We just got the tub and haven't quite found the right temperature setting and it appears that the water was 104-105 degrees. Yeah, HOT.

No big deal, I thought, I'll just get out. Only, even thirty minutes after getting out, I was still sweating. I'm very sensitive to heat ever since I'm pretty sure I had heat stroke during my internship back in college.

For this internship I had to live in Boston for the summer. Actually, I lived in Woburn, a suburb just outside the city as living in the actual city of Boston would have cost a fortune and my parents stubbornly refused to win the lottery or take out a second mortgage on the house. 

That summer it just so happened that there was an extremely intense heat wave. Our landlords claimed the apartment came with air conditioning. They lied. There was an air conditioner in the window but it poured out cool-ish air at best. 

One day, the temperatures rose to about 102 degrees outside with 100% humidity. Inside my apartment, however, it was easily 115 at least. I wish I were exaggerating but I sincerely believe this report to be accurate. I spent as much time at the office as possible to soak up their air conditioning, leaving there around 8:00 that night in an attempt to wait out the heat so my apartment would be tolerable. 

Attempt not successful.

I sat outside and read as long as I could and when I finally decided to turn in for the night it was past 11:00. My expectation that the apartment would be tolerable by then was not met in the slightest as the air conditioner wheezed out its pathetic breeze in the living room. I positioned a box fan to blow directly on me and fell into a fitful sleep. I awoke about 2 hours later sweating, nauseous, and dizzy. The air conditioner had completely failed  and was blowing out hot air. I did the only thing I could do, I crawled my way out of bed and into the bathtub where I ran cool water and laid under the shower until I felt my body temperature fall back into the tolerable zone. I wet a towel, opened all the windows and attempted to go back to sleep. I awoke again as soon as the towel warmed up and was even more nauseous and dizzy. Back into the shower I went. 

I don't know why my next move occurred to me but I'm pretty sure it was the smartest thing I've ever done. I decided to ditch the pj bottoms and panties completely in the hopes my lady business would somehow act as a vent for my internal volcanic temperature.

It freaking worked.

My vagina saved my life. She. Rules.

I sincerely don't know what made me think of it. Especially considering I had virtually no knowledge of the vagina during my growing up years. I knew that girls had one and boys didn't. I somehow failed to put things together despite my mother's special talk, given to me while shopping at Caldor, in the sixth grade. Yeah, yeah, girls got their periods and it was yucky. Okay, fine, whatever. That did not immediately apply to me.  Therefore, it was filed away somewhere in my brain to be taken out at a later time.

I surely didn't understand or ask about much of anything else. I honestly didn't know babies came out of there until I was in like, 7th grade and just so happened to have an Ah-ha! moment sometime after I got my period. I didn't even know what it was when it showed up by the way. I just thought I was either dying or had somehow had an accident of the doody variety magically, without realizing anything had happened. Sigh.

To further explain my lack of understanding of the birthing process, I had tried to puzzle it out for years because I didn't want to ask somebody and look stupid. So I just ignored that question and decided it was probably something to do with the belly button. I didn't want to think about that too much because belly buttons freaked me out. And still do. I don't know why. Just don't ever touch it because I will go ape shit on your ass like you have never seen. 

So last night when I found myself sweating and unable to cool down as quickly as I wanted I remembered my venting technique with fondness. I didn't actually have to re-enact it but I was briefly tempted. Because ever since that night being too hot makes me feel incredibly ill and I do not handle pain or discomfort well. I am a wussy pants. Which is why I share my story with you today. In case of emergency, ladies, now you know what to do.

You are welcome.

Respect the va-jay-jay ladies and gentlemen folks.
She is one bad mamma-jamma.
(Photo - No Hope for the Human Race)

Monsoon Wedding

Today is my and Jacob's first wedding anniversary. In honor of that I thought it would be appropriate to share the magical tale of our wedding.

We got engaged in October of 2010 when I stumbled upon a gorgeous ring in Jacob's underwear drawer. And by "stumbled upon" I mean I was putting his underwear away and saw the box. Alas, my radar for shiny objects simply couldn't ignore this treasure trove of sparkly goodness. So I kind of ruined any chance of a romantic proposal. I guess I'm just not meant to have a flash mob or string quartet choreograph any proposals. Not in this lifetime at least.

I honestly didn't care about the lack of panache, I was just happy to be engaged to my Jacob. I suspect this is what it's supposed to feel like. Just happy and glowey and all that lovey stuff my tiny little black heart usually scorns.

Neither one of us wanted a big wedding. I had already had one and was basically phobic of wedding dresses and giant cakes by that point and neither of us felt the need to spend thousands of dollars on a big fancy affair. We had summer vacation plans to visit Ogunquit, Maine and about two weeks before we were due to leave decided that Maine would make a lovely back drop for a wedding. Initially it was going to be just the two of us but at the end of the day, we just couldn't not invite our closest friends and family members.

So, we had 16 intrepid wedding guests who were incredibly kind enough to re-arrange their entire lives to be with us. We had a vision - picnic and beach day! We kept it classy and ordered some giant sandwiches with all the fixins. We found a beach (thanks Wells!) where we were able to have the dogs with us because they were our wedding party. We found a super nice Justice of the Peace named Judy who helped us find a shop to get some flowers and when she called Jacob "James" at the end of the ceremony it was more funny than anything else.

Paulie and Remy  in their wedding finery.

When we found out there was a 90% chance of rain, we were kind of freaked. Sure, there was a gazebo at the beach but who wants to hang out in a gazebo in the pouring rain? The place we were staying at in Ogunquit was owned by 2 fabulous gentlemen - Scott and Bruce at The Gazebo Inn - they are incredible and it's an insanely nice place - highly recommended! Anyway, we ran to them and told them of our plight and they offered us the use of one of their properties for FREE. Seriously - these guys are amazing human beings and they gave me such comfort knowing that we had a Plan B and it wouldn't break the bank.

The umbrella is not a prop. It's a necessity.

Our brave photographer - Shane - didn't let the rain slow him down! I'll let the pics speak for themselves - it was a beautiful, messy celebration of a day. Kind of perfect actually.

Our entire group! Notice - my dog is the only tool not looking at the camera.

Our first smooch as a married couple!

World's smallest wedding cake.

Yeah - we're sexy and we know it!

Cooties - don't get 'em.

It's been a good week. Until today. When my immune system crashed out after living with Jacob's plague all week. I thought I was good, safe even, because I have an immune system that is Ti-tan-i-um. Gangster. I work with kids, I get exposed to every germ from every town and school district in a 50 mile radius. Seriously. People come from far and wide to get a piece of this wisdom.

Alas. I can only fight off regular viruses and this one is clearly some kind of super strain of evil suckage. Good thing I work across the street from CVS where I was able to get supplies after leaving work today. My cocktail for wellness is a must-have when I don't feel well.
Orange juice and Canada Dry Ginger Ale mixed together. More OJ than Ginger Ale for extra Vitamin C. This combo has been with me since childhood. My mom must have taught it to me but I have no idea if my sister or brother still use it.  I suspect this may have been a genius sneaky move by my mom to get us to drink more orange juice as kids when we had colds or something. Whatever, it's delicious and I believe it has magical healing powers.

As a kid my mom had a series of wellness remedies. I'm not totally sure where they came from but there was definitely some kind of French Canadian spin on things. First of all, I was never a soup eater when I was kid. Unless that soup was my grandmother's chicken and rice soup which we referred to as "Memere Soup." Memere is pronounced Mem-may and is the Frenchie version of grandmother. Anyway, she made good soup. I liked it. But I would only eat it with whole or diced canned tomatoes in it. The juice was the most important part but the tomato chunks were okay too. Alongside the soup we always had Saltines. Not just when we were sick but every day. We would eat them with butter smeared on them, we would crumble them into the soup, and when we were sick we would do both of those things as well as just eat them because they were the only thing we never threw up.

Clearly, all of these remedies worked because I am still here. Alive and kicking. Well, actually, today I'm just alive and phlegm-tastic, but whatever. I survived childhood didn't I? Anyway, who's coming over to make me soup?

Soup! Soup! Soup!
Come make me some!