Mechanical Difficulty and Sexy Chicken

Bobby has been carrying on with his new mistress.  PDA all the time.  Shameless.

In flagrante delicto

He has taken a shine to rubber chicken in a way that is entirely unexpected and unprecedented.  But rubber chicken has kept his attention and most importantly, it fails to leave bits of matted fake fur, string, torn fabric, or anything at all in its wake.  And so, despite the fact that I am disturbed by the mind-boggling sexualization of a chicken, I too have taken a shine to rubber chicken. 

We spent Thanksgiving with D's parents, cooked them our awesome turkey (which is actually Alton Brown's awesome turkey), and watched an absurd amount of football.  And its been rough times at work.  Rotten Dog dug up the heuchera and astilbe in the back yard.  I had been putting a lot of time into organizing and promoting the event I'm putting together (with the help of some fine minions, I must say).  Not a great time to be struck with what seems to be carpal tunnel.  The pain is pretty much constant from on end of my right arm to the other.  It actually started about three weeks ago and has just gotten worse.  I've tried to baby it to see if it's just a strain of some sort, using my left arm instead, but all that has accomplished is establishing cramping in my left arm from all the typing and mousing I do at work.  I've been doing the paperwork at the office by pecking at the keyboard with a ballpoint pen.  So far, nothing seems to help.  

So though I've wanted to post a few things here, it's been difficult mechanically speaking.  Despite my best intentions, my online promotion of the swing dance event must seem a tad underwhelming.  I'll have to make up for it in face-time at other scenes.  My progress in online shopping for christmas presents is dead in its tracks.  I had a strong lead for awhile, our outside lights were up last Saturday, our tree and the stockings for the furkids are up.  Computer avoidance is a tad strange to me, but I've occupied myself with catching up with tv shows we've gotten behind on, notably Revenge (D is a huge fan of the original unabridged Count of Monte Cristo) and Modern Family. 

The Walking Dead has been a huge letdown in story-structure and pacing, with the apocalypse serving as mere background to the front-and-center angst and melodrama of characters who were likeable in the books but are flat and annoying in the poorly adapted tv script.  How do they survive?  Where do they get their water, how do they ration, who digs the latrines, is the redneck the only one who is useful or does someone else have a skill of some sort?  Everything that could be awesome about this blasted show is offscreen.

The idea of an apocalypse brings up stirring themes of cooperation redeeming mankind, the intricacies of human societies and how they suceed and fail, survival, the quality or transcedental import of civilization, there's a lot of good stuff there.  Man versus man.  Man versus nature.  Man versus self.  Man versus zombie.  When it comes to survival in general and survival of the species in particular, the skies the limit.  Show us how clever people can be, show us their obstacles and how they overcome them, don't spend thirty minutes of monologue lecturing to the audience about how depressing it all is.  What all?  What??  Instead of a few heartfelt scenes of backbreaking labor or teamwork or ingenuity, we're never shown how they live every day, there's just a bunch of empty blubbering about it.  It's filler.  I resent it.  And coming from me, who can find something redeemable in almost any piece of apocalyptic fiction, that is pretty damning. 

So even though we've been indoorsey because Cincinnati has had more rain this year than any other on record, there is less tv, which is good.  I'm finally getting back into Fallout New Vegas.  The xbox controller doesn't hurt my hand the way a keyboard and mouse seem to.  I'm also finally reading the rest of Earth Abides, which is a frustrating study in complacency and every single character is disappointing.  I'm not sure this one stays on the Post-Apocalyptic Literature shelf.  I have a hard time believing it has any re-read value at this point, but it is a classic, and the thematic struggle against apathy and complacency is a bit, ah, timely in my real life.  If it resonates then there's obviously some realism there.