Category: What the Boss likes

What the Boss Likes – back from a trip

Well, I’m back from my second psychonaut experience, courtesy of Yuggoth Pharmaceuticals.   My first was with salvia, and that was a brief perception of the world being made of “twizzlers”, aka thin strands of licorice.   And then nothing until I suddenly became aware again. 

This one was quite a bit different.  I can remember most of it.   A combination of the textures of puffed wheat and twigs, it was a bit of a task to ingest the fungi.  But with a cup of coffee, the couple of grams went down.  About an hour afterward, I could start to see rainbow patterns when I closed my eyes.  Then I could see a little trail of rainbow around most things that moved, including the kittens. 

The floor tile got my attention.  It is randomly brown, gray and white, an attempt to be stone-like.  I could see the colors shifting and then I suddenly could see skulls.  Thinking to myself that they weren’t scary, they took on the appearance of being the skulls of humanity’s ancestors, receding into the past. 

Now, during this, I could simply look away from the “vision” and everything was fine.  I was able to tend the sticky buns that were going to into the oven in a little while, feed the cats, etc.  I did find it funny since I could see the tiles moving rather like the one episode of “That 70’s Show” when Eric could see the wallpaper moving. It really does feel like that!

I decided to turn on the TV and went out to Netflix to watch a very nifty set of videos called Moving Art.  They are films of natural scenes, put to ambient music and artfully altered just enough to accentuate them e.g. slowing down the fall of rain, the crash of a wave, etc.

Watching these, I could feel the trip deepen, with time feeling slower and having an urge to giggle.  I also couldn’t look at anything in the video without seeing faces in it.   The cliff faces, the waves, the ripples, clouds, all were faces, often feminine or aged men, which was rather disconcerting, but when I looked away from the video, the living room was just fine.   

I then started seeing snakes/dragons/feathered serpents in the video, not threatening at all, just snakes but in a more than mundane way, much more seeing the ideal of “Snake”.   The video that was on a that time was a lovely fly over of Iceland, and the swirls of lava flows and streams gave a lot of fuel to those images.  I, being the myth soaked gal I am, of course thought of the midgard serpent, kundalini, the snake shedding its skin, etc. 

In amongst this, my husband took care of the sticky buns, and I had one, which was interesting since the caramelized sugar was a little too fascinating as a texture. 

Things became a little more disassociated, and I started to feel very cold. Right now, Pennsylvania is in the current artic cold that has been sweeping the US.  After wrapping myself up in various robes, afghans (the crocheted blanket) I just couldn’t get warm. I ended up in our bed, which has a heated mattress pad.  It seems I created my own personal little sweat lodge.  I don’t really remember any dreams, but woke up slowly with the thought that I didn’t need to borrow any ideas from any other culture than my own to have a mythos and I didn’t need to feel that I was always standing outside of everything, just observing.  My mythos for myself was enough, and if it included Bugs Bunny and jazz, that was just fine. 

After a long hot, and then cold, shower, I do feel much better than I’ve felt for a long time.  It does feel like this snake has shed her skin and can see things more clearly now.  What I find entirely too amusing is that I pulled a tarot card after all of this, and I got the knight of wands.  This can signify travel, adventure and coming back from a trip with more clarity.   I use the cards as a way to focus my thoughts but sometimes the universe seems to be just too interested in making things seem weird. 

So, take this as you will, from a hard atheist who is entirely too concretely minded. Did I see any “gods”? Nope, but it does seem to make your brain go places it generally wouldn’t otherwise.  I would recommend this experiment to most folks.  Do make sure you have a good minder around. 

now this is the kind of holiday tradition I think I’ll keep. 🙂

what the boss *loves* – when a trumpee website is its own best satire

Oh dear, there is a website called “The Conservateur” which is trying so very hard to lie about the vain not very bright trumpee women. One doesn’t even have to change the writing to make it utter satire (which is, yep, protected by US law). Now, I know, you’ll say, “Vel, this has to be a spoof site, but dear reader, it is not.

Let’s take a look at some of the photos from there:

Y’know because everyone who rides a horse wants to get horse sweat on their evening gown.

Poor Lara, who is claimed to have asked for horse at every birthday, but never actual rode it to know how stupid this picture looks to real horse women and men.

Then we get quotes like this “On frequent Fox News appearances and her weekly podcast, The Right View, Lara readily and articulately discusses the pressing issues confronting America. Before media hits, she “asks God to use her as a vessel.””

Hmm, while dressing exactly like this god supposedly says not to. Hmmm. I do love the writing here, nothing like pure sycophancy on the hoof.

I think it’s hilarious that either this dress will take up half a ballroom wrapping unsuspecting rivals like a spider, or poor Lara was convinced that it was “dramatic”.

Oh dears, no one is paying attention to Lara. Probably because she is just like orange moron senior, having no more taste than he does.

oh look , daisy dukes! (for those of you overseas, this is a reference to the Dukes of Hazzard (ridiculous redneck nonsense) TV show from the 80s where the females were generally in cutoff jeans shorts and midriff baring tops.

Then we can go to the pearl clutching of how Catholics are just be ever so abused. “Across the West, with secularization at an all-time high, there is increasing ostracization of religious people. Over the last few years, religious bigotry has escalated in Europe with the burning of Catholic churches and the terrifying return of rampant anti-Semitism.”

hmm, you mean anticatholicism like this lovely Jack Chick tract that “good conservative Christians” aka evangelicals still pass around?

Catholics aren’t very smart to learn who they are bedfellows with.

And then as lovely example of cultists showing that they are liars, we get this

“So my question to you is, what will it take for you to repeat Jesus’s words, “as You will?” I encourage you to willingly surrender to your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then take up your cross and follow Him to Heaven. 

All to Jesus I surrender all. “

when gee, this is all about high couture and “culture”. Funny how they seem to forget the whole give up *everything* and follow me. They rely on “Hey, you aren’t asking that where I can hear it, so evidently you don’t want me to.” Wonderfully convenient, eh?

It’s hard to find a single page on this unintentionally hilarious website to that one can’t find some utterly unaware ignorant conservative demonstrating just how idiotic they can be.

“Astrology is not the only trend that attempts to replace or reinvent religion. Practices such as manifestation, witchcraft, voodoo magic, and tarot card reading are becoming popular among young women and teenage girls. Teen Vogue currently has an entire section dedicated to witchcraft, and many variations of tarot cards have flooded the market. Several of my friends and sorority sisters have gone out and bought a deck, (noticeably all secular). It’s clear that people who’ve rejected religion are desperate for spirituality and are looking everywhere but the church.”

yah mean, like what the sainted Reagans believed in?



and “From the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad to Dolly Parton to Miss USA, there are few things more American than big hair. While there’s nothing better than a salon blow-dry, you don’t have to go to the Dry Bar to get that perfect balmy blow-out. As someone who has dealt with puffy and thick hair my whole life, I have learned to embrace and style my big hair, and I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way! Today, I have you covered on my favorite tips for achieving a little more bounce and volume. I’m giving you the rundown of my at-home hair routine, products, and hot tools to help you style that perfect all-American hair.”

and yep, article accompanied by a 80s pic of a Dallas Cowboy (american football team) cheerleader.

It just can’t get any more ridiculous.

Oh dear, conservatives thanks for being such complete twits.

What the Boss Likes – more kitten videos!

Here are more videos of the foster kittens. Against astreja’s advice, I have named them since I got tired referring to them as the “orange kitten”, “the other orange kitten”, “the brown tabby kitten and “the other brown tabby kitten”. So we have Ulysses, the orange kitten with the white socks (and my husband’s pick of the litter literally), Goose, the orange kitten without the white socks (and honorary flerken), Porthos the dark brown tabby kitten and Hobbes, the lighter brown tabby kitten.

Since these are up on Youtube and I entertain myself by ripping apart theist claims there, the poor frustrated theists have to attack the fact that I’m taking care of kittens since they have nothing else.

What the Boss Likes – our foster kitty

We have a foster momma cat and soon to have kittens. She showed up in our garden. I had thought she was a male kitty, thanks to a couple of fluffs of fur on her butt but she had a secret. Her name, for the moment, is Cleo. She’s a classic tabby with the whorls of color on her sides, rather than the stripes like most of our others. Once the kittens can eat on their own, the Humane Society will take them so they can find homes.

I also was able to remove a kitty from an idiot neighbor, and took her to the Humane Society. It broke my heart that I couldn’t keep her, but the very nice people at the shelter said she would be okay since she was young and friendly. I am a misanthrope with reason.

And a picture of our goofy cat Apollo who is sleeping under the coffee table.

What the Boss Likes – some random things

Here’s a set of random things I’ve been doing.

I’ve read Charles Foster’s “Being Human: Adventures in 40000 Years of Human Consciousness”.   I had seen an ad for it, and thought it looked interesting.  And it was….for a while.  He can do a nice turn of phrase but his endless worshipping of the “noble savage” that he invents from the paleolithic gets very tiresome.  He also has no clue about logical fallacies and repeats them too.  I ended up feeling that everything he wrote was entirely false, every “adventure” made up wholesale, including the supposed dinner at Oxford.    He ends up nothing more than the average woo-peddler, histrionically trying desperately claim that somehow quantum physics can be enlisted to his side of what amounts to nothing more than magic. 

Husband and I have a subscription to Scribd, and I’ve read an inordinate amount of books on it.   I do like the magazines too, but for some reason, they are almost all from Great Britain, Australia and South Africa.  However, since I have a tiny, narrow garden, the gardening magazines from Great Britain are actually far more useful to me than the ones here in the US which assume you have a quarter acre or more to plant. 

Since I am on a hiatus from a job, I’ve taken to walking every morning around the lake in a local park.  A doctor’s visit and the associated weighing in gave me a wake up call.    Oh those pounds do pack on when you aren’t looking.  Here are some photos of wildlife, and some more flower photos from the garden.

Egret
Strange ducks that I can’t find examples of anywhere
A couple of domestic ducks hanging out
white roses
A very black iris that is a volunteer in the garden and taking forever to open
the pink rose from a few days ago now opened and blushed from the sun