Rant 'n Rave with Stray Katz Thoughts

Occasionally we all get a Facebook friend request we don't want. Some are easy to ignore some aren't. The toughest ones for me to handle are from kids. Just blowing them off isn't right, you know. I've talked to a 13 year old who asked to be my FF and explained to him that it was nothing personal, just that I reserve Facebook for adult usage. He was cool with that.


Now that summer is here we're letting the kids start Facebook pages. There were enough distractions during the school year that it was verboten. So when our 16 year old "friended" me, I had to think - do I want him privy to all my content. Answer - hell, yeah. I already tell him everything that comes across that may be of interest to him, and any of these blog posts that end up as Facebook notes he's already read. No problem with that, in fact, I'm pretty pleased that I made the cut.


Another kid, another story.

Our oldest graduated from High School last Sunday. Growing up, I never saw High School Graduation as such a major accomplishment. All the kids are doin' it, right? But our senior is high functioning autistic and, I gotta say, it seemed like a huge deal from the parental end of the telescope. And there he was, marching down to his seat, Otsego Lake in front of him, Fenimore Art Museum behind. A breathtakingly lovely setting. When his row was called up, he was nothing but himself, right index finger in the air, scribbling some imaginary words. While waiting to receive his diploma, he tried to catch his tassel in his mouth, like a puppy gaming a chew toy.


Was I embarrassed? Nah, that's just him. His classmate next to him in line just laughed, but not in a mean way. And when he received his diploma and sat down, checking it out briefly before turning to his encyclopedia of Looney Tunes cartoons, it was all good.

Speaking of all good, three cheers for Mark Sanford. I love this story. It's not that screwing around is the problem, at least not for me. Certainly it must be number one on Mrs. Sanford's list of complaints. What cracks me up is how Sanford types can preach so-called "values" while KNOWING that they are fuckin' around! I mean, it's one thing to go back on past rhetoric - people change their minds on things, experience shows that earlier ideas were wrong, stuff like that. It's another to be in defense of traditional marriage AT THE SAME TIME you are cheating on your wife. It's just delicious.

And why Argentina? Couldn't he have found someone closer to home to commit adultery with, or at least bring his Argentine lover to South Carolina and put her and her family on the payroll? That plan was good enough for Republican Senator John Ensign, last week's hypocrite.