Category Archives: current events

Remember, Remember

by Rima Posted on September 11, 2012

I remember arriving at school as a fourth grader one day in December to a message on the blackboard written by Sister Mary Rose. I had to squint to make out the lettering, because I was nearsighted, but I didn’t know it yet.

It read, “Remember Pearl Harbor,” and I had no idea what it meant. Was it a reference to a homework assignment I’d forgotten about? Some geography lesson I’d daydreamed through? I broke out in a cold, clammy sweat.

I waited all day for that ominous sentence to entrap me, but the moment never came. Sister Mary Rose didn’t mentioned the writing on the board that day, and no one, as far as I can remember, ever brought it up. It was only several years later, in a high school history class, that I actually put two and two together to figure out what “Remember Pearl Harbor” meant.

It’s hard to believe that twelve years ago, September 11th was just another day. I was thinking about those events, those people, more than usual this morning, probably because here in Cleveland the weather was almost exactly the same as it was eleven years ago – blue sky, warm breeze, sun. On the drive home from school, I asked my kids if they had talked about today’s significance and if so, what had been said. They’d had a commemoration, and they both seemed aware of its solemnity. Still, I felt compelled to retell the tale, wanting to make sure the weight of it was fully understood.

Because though September 11th will always be important, a day will come when most of our citizens will only know it as part of the dusty past. My children, not yet born in September of 2001, will always be one generation removed. They will never pause to think what they were doing at 8:45 on that morning, and they will never associate this date in history with competing feelings of patriotism, fear, and dread.

I suppose that’s how it should be. Still, let’s never permit September 11th to be another scribble on a blackboard. Let’s never forget.

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Posted in anniversaries, current events, reminiscing, weighty issues | 2 Comments

Flip-Flops: The Real Reason Dinosaurs Became Extinct

by Rima Posted on October 18, 2010

I consider going to an orchestra performance among those occasions in life when a person should dress up.  A half an hour before the babysitter arrives, I like to step inside my closet and take a look around. Sometimes I even try on as many as four or five outfits before settling on my little black dress.  As my husband and I are heading out the door, I’ll notice that he has once again tried to get away with a dinner jacket and Birkenstocks, so I’ll kindly ask him to change. And while he’s at it, would it kill him to get a haircut?

We went to a Cleveland Orchestra performance (or “show,” as the P-Dawg calls it) a few weekends ago.  I wore a little black dress.  And while sipping chardonnay from a plastic cup in the lobby, I happened to notice this:

Of course, not everyone has a spiffy black dress and sensible pumps or stilettos she can wear to the Rachmaninoff show. I understand that Jesus himself wore sandals and it’s not the 1950s anymore. But if you’re going to an event that’s hosted by a group of men and women in tuxes and gowns, my feeling is that you should dress similarly as a courtesy to them. Would you show up for a planned photo op at the White House in flip-flops and a tank?

We all want to be comfortable. That’s why we take our bra off the minute we walk though the door at night and sleep in our pajamas instead of hairshirts.  We have grown to expect our clothing to be more a second skin, less a sausage casing. The first time I tried to hang a clip-on tie on my son, he acted as though I was attempting an emergency tracheotomy. And I’ll be the first to admit that when I’m wearing a pair of Spanx or nylons, it’s all I can do not to start running in circles and lighting things on fire.

But I still maintain that dressing up is good for you.  If it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger.  It’s OK if you’re not 100% comfortable. (Remember, I’m sitting just a few seats over trying not to pick my own wedgie.) I think that when we go to some trouble about our appearance, we comport ourselves to match it. I think when we dress up, we become more refined versions of ourselves. We start opening doors we might have otherwise let slam in faces. We become more graceful or more debonair. We’re more inclined to smile at a stranger. We put our water bottle in the recycling bin instead of throwing it away.

Flip-flops aren’t the reason civilization is going to hell in a hand basket, they’re just the stone that starts the avalanche. First you wear flip-flops to the symphony, then you don’t bother to write your grandma a thank-you note for the cash she sent you at Christmas.  Next you plagiarizing your college thesis off the Internet and before you know it, you’re calling the president a liar on C-SPAN and leaving misspelled, incendiary, anonymous comments on someone’s post at Salon.com.  In twenty years’ time, you’re running the country (badly, in ALL CAPS).

I’m just saying it’s a slippery slope, and your flip-flops are perched on the precipice.

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Posted in current events, le beaute, pet peeves, rant-o-rama, Uncategorized | 12 Comments

I Would Like My Pellet Now, Please

by Rima Posted on November 18, 2009

I finally got my paws on some H1N1 vaccine, and all I had to do was pimp myself out for science.

I’m participating in an H1N1 vaccine study which aims to prove that a smaller dose of vaccine, when administered along with a type of protein that helps the body build up its immune system, works just as well as a full dose. I don’t know if I’m in the treatment or control group, but the P-Dawg assures me that I did get some amount of FDA approved H1N1 vaccine.

And all I had to do was sign a fifteen page release form, obtain a physical, take a pregnancy test, disclose what form of birth control I’m using, promise not to get knocked up in the next year, have three vials of blood drawn and swear to return every month for the next six months to have it drawn again, take my temperature every night for the next week, and agree to keep a “flu journal” in the event I get sick.

Plus, I get paid three hundred smackers for my trouble. Which won’t help me when I’m dead, but will buy me several dinners out.

I got vaccinated yesterday morning, and last night I started worrying that I might die felt slightly achy.

“P-Dawg, I feel kind of crappy. How soon would a person know if she was coming down with Guillain-Barré Syndrome?”

“About two to six weeks, I guess. Are you planning on getting Guillain-Barré?”

I made him promise that if I didn’t wake up the next morning, he’d burn my diaries and go through my blog to delete any swear words or references to my mother, and then I went up to bed.

This morning I feel fine. You can thank me next year, when there’s enough vaccine to go around as a direct result of my selfless dedication to medical research.

(That, or lay flowers on my grave. No carnations, please.)

© 2010 Rimarama. All rights reserved.
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Posted in current events, folly, I'll call it swine flu if I want to, medicine | Leave a comment

When Science And Life Collide

by Rima Posted on October 2, 2009

I came home from choir rehearsal last night to find the P-Dawg beside himself with glee.

“WE ARE NOT CHIMPANZEES!!!!” he announced as I knuckle-walked through the door.

I immediately put down my banana, stood upright, and joined him in the family room, where P-Dawg breathlessly informed me of the discovery of Ardipithecus Ramdus or “Ardi”, the fossil that has usurped Lucy’s claim to fame as mother of humankind. It’s the sort of news that has many scientists drooling over their pocket protectors, and the P-Dawg even more so because one of the members of the research team that discovered Ardi just happens to be a former professor of his.

I immediately went online and read all about this long lost biped cousin. It turns out she stood about five feet tall, weighed 110 pounds, and was in desperate need of a properly fitting bra.

In other words, she’s me, only furrier.

© 2010 Rimarama. All rights reserved.
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Posted in birds and the bees, current events, dippiness, folly, I crack myself up, nature | Leave a comment

I’m Just Here for the Party

by Rima Posted on March 5, 2008

I was one of the intrepid voters who braved treacherous road conditions and freezing rain to cast my vote in my state’s primary yesterday.

My voting location is an elementary school that I drive past multiple times every single day. It’s at the intersection of a main road and a cross street that bears the name of the school.

Yesterday, its front lawn was festooned with campaign posters. There were also balloons involved, and a big sign that read, “Rimarama, TURN HERE.”

But somehow, it took me seven drive-bys to locate it.

Once there, I ignored the side lot where everyone else in the state had parked and from where a steady stream of dejected Ohioans could be seen shuffling into the polling place. I proceeded to park the Ramamobile in the school bus parking lot, and was positively incensed upon finding that I was unable to gain access to my polling location via the loading dock nearest doors.

I did what any self-respecting and passionate voter would do: I backed up a goodly distance of about ten feet and threw the full weight of my body against the padlocked industrial double doors until they took me away in handcuffs screaming “Let’s Put the Hi back in Ohio!”

No, no.

I tried to pick the lock with my Target-issue Swiss Army knife.

OK, OK.

I jimmied the doorknob for about two seconds, then hung my head in resignation and shuffled along the sidewalk through freezing rain and raging winds to the main entrance.

But, friends?

The plight to exercise my democratic rights did not end there.

I followed the person in front of me into a classroom.

“Good morning, young lady! Would you happen to know your ward and precinct?”

“Uh . . . Jimmy Smitts?”

I made my way to my assigned table.

“Will you be voting Democrat or Republican today?”

“I have a question. By voting Democratic today, I am declaring myself a Democrat, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So, does that mean I have to vote Democratic all the way down the ticket forevermore? I mean, is it like a blood pact, where I can never go back to being an Independent and they inscribe my tombstone with a donkey after I bite it?”

(Blank stare from Velma McVoting Volunteer.)

“Here is your voting form, dear. Make sure you completely darken the appropriate oval with black ink and don’t cast more than one vote for any candidate. If you make a mistake, be sure to return your ballot and we will provide a new one. DO NOT attempt to correct any mistakes!”

For the sake of my own protection, I handed over the bottle of Wite-Out I had stashed in my purse.

Finally, I sat down at a table and set to the task of casting my votes. There were no butterfly ballots or hanging chads to contend with this time around, and yet I had difficulties.

I was confused by the county coroner’s lack of opponents. Same with County Recorder. Was I overlooking someone in the next column over? No, that appears to be a separate race, BUT what if I accidentally vote for two candidates and they throw my ballot out? What if I don’t vote for anybody and they throw my ballot out? What if I sit here too long and they throw me out?

I started to sweat under my parka.

Twenty minutes later, I had completed my civic duty and was in the process of an elaborate origami ballot folding technique, when the election volunteer sternly admonished that there was no need to fold up my ballot and won’t I just drop it in the ballot box please?

Which I did, but it killed me not to be able to peek inside and make sure the eagle had landed.

Anyway, Hillary better start readying the old Lincoln bedroom for me and the P-Dawg.

Because I’m pretty sure it was my vote that clinched the Ohio race.

© 2010 Rimarama. All rights reserved.
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Posted in current events, ignorima | Leave a comment