Cute Clips Quotes

Mother-daughter relationships can be complicated and fraught with the effects of moments from the past. My mom knew this and wanted me to know it too. On one visit home, I found an essay from the Washington Post by the linguistics professor Deborah Tannen that had been cut out and left on my desk. My mom, and her mom before her, loved clipping newspaper articles and cartoons from the paper to send to Barbara and me. This article was different. Above it, my mom had written a note: “Dear Benny”—I was “Benny” from the time I was a toddler; the family folklore was that when we were babies, a man approached my parents, commenting on their cute baby boys, and my parents played along, pretending our names were Benjamin and Beauregard, later shorted to Benny and Bo. In her note, my mom confessed to doing many things that the writer of this piece had done: checking my hair, my appearance. As a teenager, I was continually annoyed by some of her requests: comb your hair; pull up your jeans (remember when low-rise jeans were a thing? It was not a good look, I can assure you!). “Your mother may assume it goes without saying that she is proud of you,” Deborah Tannen wrote. “Everyone knows that. And everyone probably also notices that your bangs are obscuring your vision—and their view of your eyes. Because others won’t say anything, your mother may feel it’s her obligation to tell you.” In leaving her note and the clipping, my mom was reminding me that she accepted and loved me—and that there is no perfect way to be a mother. While we might have questioned some of the things our mother said, we never questioned her love.

I remember our childhood days when life was easy and math problems hard. Mom would help us with our homework and dad was not at home but at work. After our chores, we’d go to the old fort museum with clips in our hair and pure joy in our hearts. You, sister, wore the bangles that you, brother, got as a prize from the Dentist. “Why the bangles?” the Dentist asked, surprised, for boys picked the stickers of cars instead. “They’re for my sisters,” you said. Mom would treat us to a bottle of Coke, a few sips each. Then, we’d buy the sweet smelling bread from the same white van and hand-in-hand, we’d walk to our small flat above the restaurant. I remember our childhood days. Do you remember them too?

Because another thing we look away from, in the killing of animals, is just how much they are like us. One of the things the internet has done is circulate, on a vast scale, short films of animals being cute. A lot of the time this means: being like us. I watched, once, some YouTube footage of a pig who had been raised by a specific human and allowed to grow old. In the clip the pig sees this human again after several years of separation and rushes over to the edge of the pigsty, braying and trying to leap the fence with what seemed to my eyes like joy: like the joy of recognition – indeed, of love. If you post links to such films approvingly, cynics – men (always men) born with the knowledge that they know best – will tell you, with lordly condescension, that you are anthropomorphising. By which they mean projecting human emotions and responses onto animals. When they say this, they tend not “to consider the possibility that if this were not anthropomorphism – if the pig just, as the film clearly suggests, had empathy and memory and other-directedness, if it was really overjoyed to see the person who reared it again years later, if it was capable of love – if the pig were showing the big emotions which we humans think make us special, then complacently slaughtering and eating pigs might become a bit problematic.

EVEN BEFORE HE GOT ELECTROCUTED, Jason was having a rotten day. He woke in the backseat of a school bus, not sure where he was, holding hands with a girl he didn’t know. That wasn’t necessarily the rotten part. The girl was cute, but he couldn’t figure out who she was or what he was doing there. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of him, listening to iPods, talking, or sleeping. They all looked around his age…fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary. He didn’t know his own age. The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jason was pretty sure he didn’t live in the desert. He tried to think back…the last thing he remembered… The girl squeezed his hand. “Jason, you okay?” She wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. She wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn’t work. She was seriously pretty. Her eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope—brown, blue, and green. Jason let go of her hand. “Um, I don’t—” In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, “All right, cupcakes, listen up!” The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he’d eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would’ve looked pretty scary if he hadn’t been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!” “I heard that!” The coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and his scowl deepened. A jolt went down Jason’s spine. He was sure the coach knew he didn’t belong there. He was going to call Jason out, demand to know what he was doing on the bus—and Jason wouldn’t have a clue what to say. But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way.

Assign a file or paper tray to collect single-side printed paper for reuse. Boycott paper sourced from virgin forests and reams sold in plastic. Cancel magazine and newspaper subscriptions; view them online instead. Digitize important receipts and documents for safekeeping. Digital files are valid proofs for tax purposes. Download CutePDF Writer to save online files without having to print them. Email invitations or greeting cards instead of printing them (see “Holidays and Gifts” chapter). Forage the recycling can when paper scraps are needed, such as for bookmarks or pictures (for school collages, for example). Give extra paper to the local preschool. Hack the page margins of documents to maximize printing. Imagine a paperless world. Join the growing paperless community. Kill the fax machine; encourage electronic faxing through a service such as HelloFax. Limit yourself to print only on paper that has already been printed on one side. Make online billing and banking a common practice. Nag the kids’ teachers to send home only important papers. Opt out of paper newsletters. Print on both sides when using a new sheet of paper (duplex printing). Question the need for printing; print only when absolutely necessary. In most cases, it is not. Repurpose junk mail envelopes—make sure to cross out any barcode. Sign electronically using the Adobe Acrobat signing feature or SignNow.com. Turn down business cards; enter relevant info directly into a smartphone. Use shredded paper as a packing material, single-printed paper fastened with a metal clip for a quick notepad (grocery lists, errands lists), and double-printed paper to wrap presents or pick up your dog’s feces. Visit the local library to read business magazines and books. Write on paper using a pencil, which you can then erase to reuse paper, or better yet, use your computer, cell phone, or erasable board instead of paper. XYZ: eXamine Your Zipper; i.e., your leaks: attack any incoming source of paper.

EVEN BEFORE HE GOT ELECTROCUTED, Jason was having a rotten day. He woke in the backseat of a school bus, not sure where he was, holding hands with a girl he didn’t know. That wasn’t necessarily the rotten part. The girl was cute, but he couldn’t figure out who she was or what he was doing there. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of him, listening to iPods, talking, or sleeping. They all looked around his age…fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary. He didn’t know his own age. The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jason was pretty sure he didn’t live in the desert. He tried to think back…the last thing he remembered… The girl squeezed his hand. “Jason, you okay?” She wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. She wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn’t work. She was seriously pretty. Her eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope—brown, blue, and green. Jason let go of her hand. “Um, I don’t—” In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, “All right, cupcakes, listen up!” The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he’d eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would’ve looked pretty scary if he hadn’t been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!” “I heard that!” The coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and his scowl deepened. A jolt went down Jason’s spine. He was sure the coach knew he didn’t belong there. He was going to call Jason out, demand to know what he was doing on the bus—and Jason wouldn’t have a clue what to say. But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you

Did he really just ask me to take Ash out tonight? Was he insane? He didn’t deserve her. Any guy who would blow her off for something his daddy wanted shouldn’t get to have her. “Sure,” I replied, hearing the clipped tone in my voice. Stupid-ass cousin of mine had no clue what he was asking for. I was already headed for hell; I might as well enjoy the ride. “Great, thanks, man. Her favorite place to eat is the Seafood Shack. Just meet us there at six. I can grab a drink and spend a few minutes with you guys until I have to head out and meet Dad.” She hated the fried shrimp at the Seafood Shack, and their sweet tea always tasted bitter. It was Sawyer’s favorite place, and she had no doubt agreed with him that it was the best place to eat in town. He didn’t know her at all. “Since I’m agreeing to help out, let’s do this my way. I hate the Seafood Shack. I’m sure Princess Ashton won’t mind slumming it at Hank’s. The burgers there are better than anything the Seafood Shack has, and she really needs to taste their sweet tea.” Sawyer frowned a moment, then he nodded. “Okay, Ash’s agreeable. I’m sure she’ll be fine with Hank’s. I’ve not taken her there but a couple of times, and I think she might agree with you on the burgers. I remember her scarfing one down.” With bacon and cheese on a toasted bun. She even makes these cute little sounds of pleasure as she eats one. One of the many things I couldn’t believe he didn’t know about her.

Longganisa was curled up on her bed beneath my desk but stood up to greet me. Today, she was outfitted in a leaf-patterned hoodie that bore the Brew-ha Cafe logo. Cute, simple, and practical since Longganisa hated the cold. I clipped on her leash and led her around the cafe. Her usual admirers surrounded us, and we spent some time on pets and belly rubs. When we got to the front of the shop, Leslie was helping Adeena bag her order. "Longganisa, show your Tita Adeena some love." Adeena was more of a cat person, but she loved my little wiener dog almost as much as I did. Longganisa adored her as well, and Adeena was the only person other than me and Jae who was allowed to pick her up. Even Tita Rosie didn't get that privilege. Adeena snuggled Longganisa close to her chest, and Longganisa rewarded her with a few licks. "Oh, my bestest girl. Your kisses will sustain me through all my family lecturing.