So Robin’s cat, Boots, is just plain weird. He eats people food… You know, like a dog. Oh and it’s not just dairy items. He’ll eat broccoli, black olives, cereal, dry noodles, and so much more. He also likes to eat plant leaves, sing to himself in particularly echo-friendly sections of the house, hang his paws over the top of Robin’s dresser mirror (from sitting on top), perch on Franklin’s tank, lick the bathtub foam after someone takes a shower, swatt at the bathtub faucet while the water’s on, and a new one as of today… lick the dust off of the blinds in Robin’s room. Yep, he’s a freak. A big, fat ol‘ freak.

Thank you, Jes. You’ve been a wonderful friend to me throughout this transition. And your humor really helped. I love you so much. Thanks man for being a wonderful sister. Okay, enough with the sappiness… quick, fake cry and embrace.

Oh and in case you forgot… 38 Days!

“The mainstays of the American economy are self-improvement products such as makeup, hair spray, hair coloring, perfume, soap, deodorant, and clothing. Since women are the main buyers of self-improvement products, advertisements are geared to women. Their one purpose is, of course, to sell.

Ads must convince the consumer of her need. To do this, they must first persuade her that she is inadequate and incomplete without a particular product. Advertising preys upon, contributes to, and reinforces a woman’s poor self-image. As a result, powerful and disturbing feelings of inadequacy tug at a woman’s mind-and her checkbook. She buys beauty in the form of soap, attention in the form of perfume, romance in the form of shampoo.

Age spots, split ends, graying hair, and cellulite-fates worse than death, if the media propaganda is to believed. Years ago, women, while conscience of their appearance, didn’t worry about age spots because, thought they had them, they didn’t know what age spots were. And if they did, they weren’t bombarded with warnings about them.

It’s not enough for women to wash and brush their hair. Now they are expected to condition it, dye it, color it, curl it, spray it, mousse it, and cut it in fashionable ways. They change hairstyles about as often as their underwear, which itself comes in a multitude of colors and styles. Woman-recreated in the media’s image.

Not only is today’s woman barraged with this female beauty propaganda, her husband is. Silently, she watches him watch. When she-and he, she supposes-stacks herself up against bronzed bikinied beauties, she sees nothing but a formless slab of whitewashed cellulite. How can she compete? Depression. Stress.

The Christian woman is particularly stressed because she knows that enduring values are spiritual, that character is far more important than appearance, and that while people look at the outside, God looks at the inside. But every time she hears a seminar leader (who is usually beautiful) talk about inner beauty, her mind is on outer beauty. Guilt. Stress. “

– an excerpt from “Women Under Stress” by Randy and Nanci Alcorn

I just thought it was interesting to read during today’s rest time at work. Some areas, sadly, are more on the true side than I’d like to admit.