Author Archives: Jen

About Jen

Jen isn't quite sure when she lost her mind, but it is probably documented here on Meditatio. She blogs because the world needs her snark at all hours of the night... and she probably can't sleep anyway.

The Story of “Lepicat”

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When I was doing my CIT training and during my first summer of counselling at a Girl Scout camp, my camp name was Leprechaun. I got it when I was 13 because I’m tiny, Irish, and a little on the feisty side. A lot of the international staff couldn’t pronounce it, so they called me “Lepi”.

When I started college that fall, I needed an email ID and I didn’t want to use “jmccabe” because that would be boring. Most of the Jennifer derivatives had been taken and “leprechaun” was too long to use. The server at UCSC is “cats”, so a lot of people have cat-related email addresses. (The various servers are actually named for T.S. Eliot characters like “rumpleteazer” and “mungojerrie”.) I was going to do “lepi_jen” but that one was rejected, so I did “lepi_cat” instead.

When I acquired my group of friends (many of whom I’d met the year before when I’d been visiting my friend Cougar at UCSC), there were about 8 Jen’s. So… they nicknamed us and my normal nickname was “Lepicat Jen”. Well… that soon evolved into just “Lepicat” (though Cougar still called me Leprechaun) and someone even created a special signature symbol for me. My other nickname was “Kitty Cat” because I can sleep almost anywhere and I had a habit of crashing on people’s beds in a ball while waiting for them to take me down to Long’s to get my antibiotics. (I had almost a constant case of bronchitis my first year of college.)

So… that’s the story. My college friends still call me “Lepicat” and it’s happened where I answer the phone and the voice on the other line is screaming “Lepicat!!!!!!” (This would be my friend Brian Green, who I will be seeing for the first time in two years on the 18th while Jon is in his Approval interview.)

Since I Am A Native Californian…

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I thought I should put my $0.02 in on the recall:

IT IS A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY FOR A STATE THAT IS ALREADY IN FINANCIAL PROBLEMS BECAUSE OF STUPID GOVERNORS FOR THE 30 YEARS BEFORE DAVIS WAS ELECTED.

OK… let’s look at the situation: a disgruntled politician who lost his bid for Senate is funding the recall and is running himself. Yo! Issa wants to be king — like he’s going to settle for anyone else having the governorship? California had problems LOOOOOONG before Davis was elected. It’s a state of 32 million people speaking 200 different languages which really has two separate cultures (north and south) and grows most of the nation’s food even though it’s really just a well-irrigated desert. In other words, it’s a tough state to govern and believe me, the previous years of Republican tyranny before Davis were just as bad. I remember having a 5 period day in middle school with science alternating with PE so that my school could have its performing arts program. That was 1992-1994… BEFORE Davis.

Oh yes… the economy is crappy everywhere and Silicon Valley is one of the worst places hit because there was an overexpansion in productive capacity known as the Dot.Gone bust. Yes… power bills are high — y’all are the ones who voted for deregulation in 1996. Don’t say that PG&E didn’t warn us — I remember the TV ads. You made your beds — now lie in them! Do you really want a schmuck like Bill Simon, Darryl Issa, or Larry Flint governing y’all? I mean.. Davis isn’t perfect, but at least he isn’t a smut peddler, someone who alienated himself from his own party, or a disgruntled person with weapons violations.

Gene Robinson

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CNN.Com: Episcopalians delay vote on gay bishop

I’m not in favor of his consecration as bishop because he is in a same-sex relationship but… I also think that someone is pulling some pretty nasty tricks to keep him from being bishop. If these allegations are true, why were they not brought up in the months between when the people of his diocese first elected him bishop and the General Convention?

From the email alleging the misconduct:

“My personal experience of him is that he … does not maintain appropriate boundaries with men. I believe this is an alarming weakness of character that alone makes Gene unsuitable for the office of bishop.

“When I first encountered Gene at a … convocation a couple of years ago he put his hands on me inappropriately every time I engaged him in conversation. NO GAY MAN HAS EVER BEHAVED TOWARDS ME THIS WAY [capitals in original] — and I have had over 25 years of associations with gay male colleagues in the Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and San Diego show business communities.

“If I were a straight woman reporting heterosexual harassment by a straight male priest, would you hesitate to take the matter seriously? Well, I am a straight man reporting homosexual harassment by a gay male priest from another diocese.”

Out of fairness here, the final vote is being delayed to look into the charges. Still… how exactly did Canon Robinson touch this man inappropriately? Did he hold his hand to long? Did he touch his shoulders? Did this person wait to report it until he found out that Canon Robinson was gay???

I know that given my past I shouldn’t be so skeptical of this man’s allegations because I too was afraid of being believed about this at one point. Still… why did this person wait until the eve of the final vote to report this? That makes it just really suspicious.

The other charge is that a website that the Canon started has links to erotic pictures. Canon Robinson denies having anything to do with the site for a few years. My questions: what made these pictures so erotic? Two men holding hands? Was it straight-up pr0n? Do they really think that someone with that much to lose (I’m talking Canon Robinson) would affiliate himself with a site like that???

I’m really disappointed here. I mean, yeah… I don’t want him consecrated, but give the man a fair shot!

Being a Domesticated Lepicat

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If you want to hear the story behind my nickname of “Lepicat”, let me know in the comments section and if enough people ask, maybe I’ll post it. 🙂

The past few days have seen me baking bread, making lasagna portions to freeze (it’s cheaper than frozen dinners and much healthier), making fruit salad, and doing other miscellaneous things around the kitchen. We got a new blender after our old one (which someone had given to us because they didn’t want to take it when they moved) started smoking while blending my chai shake on Tuesday, so I’ve been having fun with it.

I also finished a lap throw/afghan last night that had been sitting in my crocheting/mending pile for 6 months because my wrists were so worn out from working on it. (Note to self: two-ply afghans are just as bad as three-ply ones and can cause major “carpal afghan syndrome”.) I decided to just finish the row of double crocheting around the edges to make it look pretty and it only took me 45 minutes to finish. I washed it (mostly to get the cat fur off since my cats have both nap-tested it numerous times) and I put it in my big black suitcase to give to Mom when I head to the Promised Land in two weeks. (Well… the icky deserty land surrounding the Promised Land — can you tell that I hate L.A.?)

My next project: squares for a patch work afghan. I’m hopefully going to have it done by Christmas though I think it will be finished when it’s finished.

A Friday Five Wake-Up Call

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Before I answer these could I please request that nobody shoot me?

1. What time do you wake up on weekday mornings?
If I have to be somewhere, it’s an hour before I have to leave. Otherwise, 9:30 or 10 is a fair wake-up time. I’m a night owl and getting up that late compensates for the hour or two of sleep I lose when my thundering horde of cats decides that it’s time to run around the house and over anything in their path or when they decide that anything that moves needs to be killed. (Claws in feet at 7 am = a crabby Jen if she doesn’t get to go back to sleep.)

2. Do you sleep in on the weekends? How late?
Saturday: Again… it depends on if I have to be somewhere. If I do, I get up an hour before I have to leave. Otherwise, I’m up by 10. (see above explanation)
Sunday: I’m up at 6:25 (give or take 10 minutes) so I can shower (and then toss Jon in the shower by his ears) and make myself look pretty for church. Of course, I can always go back to sleep in Jon’s office once we get there because I don’t usually have anything to do for the 8:00 service.

3. Aside from waking up, what is the first thing you do in the morning?
Flip on CNN to see if there’s anything important happening.

4. How long does it take to get ready for your day?
About 35 minutes without breakfast. 45 if I make something to eat on the run.

5. When possible, what is your favorite place to go for breakfast?
A bagel place. It was Posh Bagel when I was living at home and I haven’t quite found a place in Ohio.

What’s In A Name?

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Jennifer is the #6 most common female name.
0.932% of females in the US are named Jennifer.
Around 1188300 US females are named Jennifer!
source namestatistics.com

Yeah… this is why there were 3 of us in my kindergarten class, 5 of us in my high school chem class, and 8 of us in my group of friends in college. It’s why all my college peeps call me “Lepicat”.