The Day She Shout Out Loud

She convinced herself that there wasn't anything wrong in doing this.  There's a community for it, why not give it a GO?  (If you knew her routine, you'd get it.)  After all, one never knows, does one?

So, she submitted her Shout Out to the (perceived) widely popular evening newspaper:

OK. It's now or never.  I've mustered up the appropriate amount of courage and the butterflies are flying in V-formation.  LSW; originally from Jamaica; [inserted age] SBF; MA degree; great job w/govt (& love what I do); closely-knitted family (we actually like each other); never married; hope to be; no children; want children; Christian; love to journal/write/blog/tweet; baggage? outdated carry-on; laugh a lot; happy; gym 2-3x/wk; romantic; movies at home; like cooking n dancing n bowling n Monk; hate doing laundry (just sayin'.)  Ready to love (n be loved by) Mr. Right-for-me.  “Opposites attract but likes stay together.”  Could you see us getting and staying together? And, most important, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?  There.  I said it.  (Shout) Out loud. Tee hee.  S.O. folks, if you want a wedding invitation, you’d better post this! *crosses fingers* - Monk Fan [inserted email address]

Three days later, they published her ad, with edits.  The kind that were agreeable.  She wrote and told them so - as well as thanks for publishing it, of course.  After all, one should be thankful for free (personal) ad space, mustn't one?

OK. It's now or never.  I've mustered up the appropriate amount of courage and the butterflies are flying in V-formation.  LSW; originally from Jamaica; [inserted age] SBF; MA degree; great job w/govt; closely-knitted family; never married, hope to be; no children, want children; Christian; love to journal/write/blog/tweet; baggage? outdated carry-on; laugh a lot; happy; gym 2-3x/wk; romantic; movies at home; like cooking n dancing n bowling n Monk; Ready to love (n be loved by) Mr. Right-for-me.  Opposites attract but likes stay together.  Could you see us getting and staying together?  S.O. folks, if you want a wedding invitation, you’d better post this! *crosses fingers* - Monk Fan [inserted email address]

Then, she waited.  A pastime that had become familiar...

Claudia
www.cyopro.com
www.twitter.com/cyopro

Once it's out there...

Made a comment about the story of the children in the UK who voted 13:1 to have the lamb they had raised and hand-fed, slaughtered. The blog was carried in the Ottawa Citizen of 9-14-2009 (my comment at 4:12p.m., 9-16-2009). I hardly ever comment on blogs - I suspect this might have been about my second ever blog comment. I don't even remember the first, but, I wanna cut myself some slack - "just in cases." Usually, I just read blogs, and maybe a few of their responses, and move on. 'Cause, you know, once you get involved and put things out there - for any and everyone to see, well, it's out there. And, if there are comments about your comments, yours is the decision to deal with them - or not - and how to, if you decide to.

Anyway, in this case, however, I found both story - and comments - rather enlightening.

A copy of my own comment follows:

Not sure why my first submission didn't go through, but, here's the 2nd attempt:

My sentiments became rather mixed as I read on and on. They moved from:

LOL! - in response to the brouhaha of the activists juxtaposed with the quiet and firm decision made by the children to

OMG! These children are scary - from hand-fed "Good boy, Marcus eat up. Nice lambie," to "OK, Marcus, we're gonna have you killed now" to

OK, would the activists have to come out again after the purchase of pigs? to

Hmmm. A quiet realization that in this age of a rather irreverent treatment of many things once held almost sacred, (generally speaking now), it helps to be prepared for stuff that might otherwise conflict with our sensibility.

On some levels, this does affect our sensibility – as bigdaveinchina so aptly articulates. I too would not want to “lose too much.”

My dad was a pig farmer a long time ago. We also, later on in life, raised chickens. As a little girl into my teens, I’d witness, then get involved in, the raising and killing of chickens. For some reason, however, when we got to raising goats, we simply would not have them killed for meals. My parents got a kick out of the fact that they had to sell the goats then use the money to buy goat meat (mutton) from a butcher to prepare our meals. To this day, almost 20 years later, when we raise the occasional goat(s), he still has to do the same thing.

I'm now living in Canada and as I’m writing this now, I shake my head in wonder. What made it different for us to accept the cute, soft baby chicks growing into ready-to-eat chickens over the met-from-birth kids growing into frolicking goats? Was it because they were more …and here’s a term we didn’t use then…interactive? I dunno. Visitors to our home would suggest that our rabbits gave “good meats” as well, but, we would hear none of it. We had got accustomed to petting and playing with them all the time. I just knew we – as children – decided to kill and eat the chickens and we – as children – decided not to kill and eat the goats.

If this is being done for educational purposes, then, surely, as a few others have posted, complete the process (from the womb to the tomb). I rather doubt that any of those children who voted to have the sheep slaughtered would have made a similar decision, had s/he raised the animal as a pet at home.

Well, I hope not.


Claudia
www.cyopro.com
www.twitter.com/cyopro