Compare and contrast.

June 11:

July 7:

He’s a growing boy.

One of my coworkers is particularly impressed by the double-curl of Tig’s tail. She says she’s never seen that before. Here’s a better picture of it:

It’s a cat thing.

Gentlemen, you may be excused. Don’t blame me if you don’t care for the content of this post. You have been warned by the title and the category and, well, this warning.

You know, I think we already discussed how I have reached that phase of my life where I would cheerfully strangle, well, everybody if they’re around me at the wrong time. And no, I’m not exaggerating. In fact, I would have had words with God Himself if He had the nerve to be around me two weekends ago. And they wouldn’t be kind words, either.

The weekend before last, I was furious with Ukrops because their U-Scan machine a) didn’t accept my putting canvas bags on the bag rack, b) didn’t have an attendant around to make the machine accept my bags and c) stopped allowing me to skip bagging after the sixth item so that I had to pile everything on the bag rack and then put the articles in my bags after finishing up. I was furious. And by “furious” I mean “approaching Hulk-level rage.” I got to my car in the parking lot and was wondering what on earth was the matter with me, and why I was so angry. I was still angry, but it wasn’t making a whole lot of sense for me to be furious with Ukrops over some stupid computer problems. And then it hit me. Raging hormones. Teenage-level rage. The one I described in my last post about this subject.

It is absolutely astonishing to me that I have to relive the worst parts of my teenage years when I am supposed to be leveling off in my mellow fifties. And I am very, very mellow compared to the person I used to be. (Yes, really. No, I’m serious. You should have seen me in my twenties and thirties, when I didn’t bother keeping my anger in check, like, ever.) I mean, I know life isn’t fair. But to feel like I’m thirteen again? That’s just wrong on so many levels. These hormonal fits of rage are unpredictable. But they feel exactly like the ones I had when I was a teenager. And may I say: This sucks. This really, really sucks.

The good news is that my cycle is, indeed, settling down. (You boys can stop reading now. The ones that get all weirded out over women talking about—menstruation.) (EEEEK!) So phew, no 150 days a year for me, and no every three weeks. I’m approaching my old 28-day cycle. The bad news is that I also have unpredictable hot flashes. There are nights where I wake up drenched in sweat every hour. My usual time seems to be early morning, six-thirty-ish. But sometimes four, and sometimes seven. Not a day goes by when I’m not suddenly sweating in a room that was otherwise perfectly comfortable until that moment. I keep looking at the thermometers to make sure the AC is working.

I would say I now feel some kind of sympathy for what my mother went through, but that would be a lie. Really, I don’t care about anyone else’s hot flashes. Only mine. (Or is that the raging hormones speaking again? I can’t tell anymore.) I mean, I know what they’re going through, but it seems far less important than what I’m going through. Yeah, I think the hormonal fluxes are making me a little more selfish, too. I don’t recall being this way.

I have a couple of friends who are watching me keenly, what with their being about to go through the same thing in a few years. So I get to be a guinea pig on top of everything else.

“Golden years” my ass. This isn’t golden. It’s annoying.

Ice cream trucks would have bells. And that’s it.

No stupid songs.

No stupid noises.

Bells only.

Using anything other than bells would be a capital offense.

I hate living in an apartment complex in the summertime.

Our old buddy Ali Daragmeh, one of those unbiased AP reporters, had this to say about the reason for the violations of the truce by terrorists from Gaza:

Three weeks ago, Israel and Palestinian militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza agreed to a truce. Although the cease-fire is limited to Gaza, confrontations between Israel and Hamas in the West Bank have already provoked Gaza militants to violate the agreement.

Do you understand? It’s Israel’s fault that the terrorists are firing rockets and mortars. Because Israel didn’t violate the truce by acting against Hamas in the West Bank, but by acting against Hamas in the West Bank, they provoked Hamas in Gaza to “retaliate” by violating the truce. Got that? It’s Alice in Wonderland logic.

This is what passes for objective reporting by the Associated Press. And oh yeah—check out the unbiased lead.

Israeli troops in jeeps swooped down on the West Bank town of Nablus early Monday, shutting down a girls’ school, a medical center and two other facilities of a Hamas-affiliated charity, witnesses said.

Just in case you hadn’t gotten the point. And yes, this is what constitutes Israeli “provocation” to break the truce. Israel arrests terrorists and siezes property. That means Hamas is “provoked” into responding by trying to murder Israelis.

Yep. That unbiased media. Gotta love it.

One of the things that is extremely puzzling about any AP report on Samir Kuntar is why the AP insists on presenting Kuntar’s side of the story as if the facts were disputed. In every story about the Lebanese prisoner exchange, you now read something like this:

One of the Lebanese convicts to be freed in the deal has been held in an Israeli prison nearly 30 years for his role in a 1979 attack that Israelis perceive as one of the cruelest in their history.

Samir Kantar dragged a man and his 4-year-old daughter from their apartment to the beach below, and according to witness testimony, shot the man to death in front of his child, then crushed her head against a rock with his rifle butt. He also was convicted of killing a policeman. The man’s wife accidentally smothered their 2-year-old daughter in an effort to keep her from crying out and disclosing their hiding place in a crawl space in the apartment.

Kantar has denied killing the older child or crushing her skull.

He was caught by Israeli soldiers. When he saw that he was about to be caught, he murdered his two captives. There is no dispute, which is why he’s serving life in prison. And yet, the AP sees fit to include Kuntar’s denial in every article in which they mention his crimes.

Why?

What purpose does it serve?

How does it show “objectivity” to include a murderer’s protestations of innocence? There were witnesses. He was tried and convicted in an Israeli court. And still, the AP includes Kuntar’s lies.

I think it speaks volumes about the AP’s utter lack of objectivity when it comes to Israel.