Octobanana

I don't know why, but I never want to spell mañana correctly. To me, it just seems like it should be manyana, because I can't get over how much it looks like "banana," and I want to separate those two as much as possible, as "banana" and "tomorrow" are in no way related, unless you're going to give me a bunch of bananas tomorrow (or possibly you'll shoot me with a banana tomorrow, in which case I question your sanity.) "El Niño" does not pose this problem for me, for some deucedly opaque reason. Perhaps, I have always seen "El Niño" in conjunction with hearing it, so I never suffered through how to spell foreign words (it's easy in French, just say something in Latin and add a bunch of letters at the end that don't actually make a sound!)

In totally unrelated news, the Indonesian Mimic Octopus has reminded me why I love eight-limbed invertebrates so much. They're pretty and hideously intelligent, can color change, spray ink, and mimic other creatures, they can squish themselves into tiny spaces and steal all your crabs, and some of them are ridiculously venomous to boot.

Probably due to watching too much British television, I want to start calling the trunk of my car the boot instead, so that I can then tell people that I've got loot in the boot. (See also: deucedly, queue up, bugger off, bollocks)

2012, Are You Worried?

The Mayans. Aren't they crazy, with their crazy creepy calendar? I remember one point, after I first learned about that calendar, that I actually worried about it. I mean, the Mayans were incredibly clever. How could they be wrong about the end of the world? Then I started thinking, what if they just got tired of carving centuries of dates into a big rock? It's not as if they needed the information that far ahead anyway. But, you know, there are always the people who believe it, and the predictions of Nostradamus, totally and completely. After all, it's not as if we've been looking for the meanings to these prophecies (and fitting events to them as necessary) for several decades, if not for several centuries.

In my mind, it "works" in the way that horoscopes and astrology work; everything is just specific enough to gain your trust, but vague enough that it's easy to find something that fits. People are so focused on finding patterns and attributing symbolism to random objects/events/whatever, that they end up with a lot of false positives. It really is like astrology; here we've attributed meaning to random clumps of stars and then divine how they influence our mundane lives in an effort to predict the future. It's not as though every culture sees the same clump of stars in the same way, so how could we possibly ascribe meaning and import to them?

Really, what worries me about 2012 is just people. Maybe it will be the end of the world, but the real question is: will it be because it was always going to happen, or will it have been a self-fulfilled prophecy? Is it some sort of divine will, or just people with itchy trigger fingers?

(P.S. Do you really trust the prophecies of a civilization which did not forsee their own demise?)

Monsters

Some days, I feel more like a monster than other days. Some days at work, I have to euthanize animals, usually for space, which is probably the stupidest reason to kill something. Sometimes, it doesn't actually bother me. Those are the times I feel guilty that I don't feel guilty. Today, I finally had to euthanize a cat that's been at work a while that I particularly liked (that I, as the hand of Death, have skipped over for almost three months now,) as well as four kittens that I've watched grow up for the past two months. Today is not one of the days it doesn't bother me. I'm so frustrated with this job,and that I'm shoving animals in cages together to try to keep from euthanizing anything, and that when we go to mobile adoptions, everyone comes to pet the cute puppies, ignore the older dogs, and make excuses for why they can't take anything home (and, on occasion, why I'm a horrible and vicious person for having to euthanize anything at all.) They tell me how they breed their animals so that their children can witness the "miracle of life," then bring the unwanted offspring here so I can handle the inevibility of death, even if I as much as tell them that I'll euthanize the animals. Not to mention the people who surrender their 10 year old dogs and cats to us because they just don't feel like taking care of them anymore, and who don't bat an eye when I tell them that, due to space issues, or health, or temperament, I'll have to murder their faithful companion. Or those that bring strays from outside our jurisdiction even when we're so, so full, and then have the gall to tell me that it's my job to help the animals and, again, I'm a horrible person for not killing other animals to take theirs. Some of these say, "I'll just dump them on the street in Pearland so that you have to take them in!" and storm out in righteous fury. How churlish of me.

It's because of days like today that I dread coming to work for my two days a week (and we haven't even officially opened yet.) Those two days have the potential to be truly loathsome.