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| [Monday, March 28, 2005 at 5:33 pm] |
| Subject: What I Want |
As the Terri Shiavo case comes to its inevitable, final conclusion, I have some thoughts. I can see both sides of this issue, but it's bigger than most of us, and therefore, I lean more one way than other as I've done my research.
Terri Shiavo is in her vegetative state due to heart failure. She had heart failure due to years of Bulemia. In the simplest of terms, Terri Schaivo was committing slow suicide when she suffered the heart failure. She's been trying to die ever since, but her family won't let her.
Okay, so you can probably guess where I lean on this issue. I've gotten countless impassioned emails from only one side of the issue, asking me to pray for her to recover, to pray for judges to return the feeding tube, letters telling me that the Christian thing to do is to not kill her, to give her the right to life. Odd, since she didn't seem to care about her own right to life when she still had one. I don't have any respect for any of these people's point of view; the truth is, this is not a religious issue, a right-to-life issue, or a disability issue. It is a personal rights issue.
This woman has been dead for years. The burden this has placed on her family is enormous; financial, emotional, and moral. Her husband is tired. I would be too. He knew her better than anyone. He should (and has) made the choice for her. No one else should have (and doesn't have) a say. And the people LEAST appropriate to make this decision is the public.
Florida officials had to close a school next to the hospice where Terri Shiavo is living out her last hours. Near-riot behavior has been exhibited by protestors in the streets and sidewalks surrounding the hospice. Angry, horrifyingly-worded signage is flashing on every newcast in every market in the country. None of this has influenced how I feel. I still believe she has the right to die, and that it is time.
Shortly after Terri's feeding tube was removed, I and my brothers received an email from my mother, who lives in Southern Florida. "What I want," she said, " is to not end up like Terri Shiavo. I don't want to be in a vegetative state, and I don't want you burning up your inheritance in such a frivolous way." I have my mother's medical power of attorney; I will honor her wishes to the last letter, including, when the time comes, a DNR order. Whatever it takes for my mother to die peacefully when it is time, and not be prolonged in a shadow life that harms everyone. I, also, have a living will and instructions with my husband and all my friends to the same effect: no keeping me in a persistent vegetative state with no brain. Let me go.
Today in the local paper, in the opinion section called Town Talk, I read something interesting. Town Talk is a place where ordinary citizens can get a few sentences of their opinions printed for others to see. This writer said: "When referring to dying, Paul, the apostle, said that he would rather be absent from his body and at home with the Lord. o those who are trying to keep Terri alive think that what Terri is going through is better than going to heaven or, do they think that Terri is not going there?"
Good statement, good question. Shouldn't she be allowed to go "home" now that her life is gone? Why are we insisting that she needs to stay? Why is it so important to others that this woman's life be prolonged, when she could go home now? |
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| [Friday, February 18, 2005 at 7:32 pm] |
| Subject: Captive Audience |
So, the other night I'm eating Swedish Fish with my girls the other night, when C R A C K, one of my expensive crowns came off, bringing with it a bit of tooth as well. Ick, yuck, ptooey!!
So bright and early Thursday morning I'm at the dentist's office, my $800 crown in a little ziplock bag in my purse. I fill out the appropriate paperwork and sign over my next-born child, and they usher me into an examination cubicle. Not a room, a cubicle. I can hear the whine of the drill in the next cubicle, the whir of a hygenist behind me, etc. And directly in front of me, near the ceiling, in the only line of sight I can have from my semi-reclined position on the vinyl exam chair, is a huge television set, showing several-minute-long vignettes about teeth, dental care, overlays, you name it. Talk about your captive audiences!
So, for twenty minutes I sat/lay there, feeling guilty and watching these terrible tooth pictures, all the while playing with my broken tooth with the tip of my tongue. Like I needed any help feeling bad enough already. I know I don't go to the dentist often enough. I have terrible teeth. I've always had terrible teeth. Going to the dentist means pain, it always hurts. It means money, because they always find something wrong, something expensively wrong. And this time, I was even more worried, because this particular tooth was already in bad shape when the first crown went on. I figured this time it was a lost cause and would have to be pulled.
So I watched the stupid television and worried. Then they took xrays. Then the dentist looked and cluckec at me. Yes, they can save it. They can put another crown on it. It will cost $500. Ouch.
But it really bugged me to have that tv over my head, reminding me of how bad a patient I was and how I wasn't taking care of my teeth. Guilt didn't work when my mother tried it on me as a kid, so why would adult guilt work any better? It doesn't cause action, it just causes me to feel bad about myself. I can't change how my teeth are, and even if I went to the dentist religiously every 6 months, it wouldn't save me teeth.
But hey, it's only money, right? |
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| [Wednesday, December 8, 2004 at 10:33 am] |
| Subject: Holiday, Schmoliday |
This is going to be rants and raves, because I've been grumpy since Sunday and it's just not going away so I'm going to write about it in hopes that it will finally leave me! LOL
First of all, the rave. You know how they say that saying something good first helps the bad go down better? Well, I do believe in that, so I'm going to start with the good.
There are three things that make it good that I get up to go to work early, while the rest of my family is still asleep. First, I get to see incredible sunrises. This morning's was prettier than most. I drive right into them, making my 20 minute commute actually quite pleasant. Second, there's that hottie at the Quick Trip that rings up my super-52 oz. Diet Coke refill every morning. He's a major flirt, quite young but just cute and always nice to me, flirts with everyone, and I can tell you, that attention from him just makes my day! It's worth dodging the pickup trucks and SUV's in the parking lot just to get that morning smile. Third, because I'm at my lab by 7:15 a.m., I get to leave work no later than 3:45 p.m., which means I have a good bit of evening to spend as I see fit.
More rave: Our Christmas tree is finally up, lighted and decorated, and it didn't take an act of Congress to get it done. Okay, the kids really weren't into it but they did it anyway, and I'm just happy to put away one more tub of decorations, getting my living room back in order. I'm also glad that I spent almost every evening last week baking cookies in anticipation of the family Holiday Party this past Sunday, and this means that the baking is done. Good thing, too, since I don't want to see another mixing bowl or measuring cup for at least a month!
Now, the rants.
Sunday, we had our family Holiday Party. This is a big event, we swap names and bake dishes to share and get together and have a nice afternoon. Sometimes this is the only time I see my two brothers and their families all year. So last week I baked and baked so I could make cookie baskets for each of my brothers' families, one tray really full because they have four kids, and one tray not so full because they only have two kids. I even make one for my mom. I made mini-loaves of Orange Cranberry Loaf (to DIE for) and jars of White Christmas Bar mix. I even melted peppermint candies into wreath shapes, made homemade fudge, and bought expensive nuts to make the baskets look (and taste) absolutely perfect. There were 14 different kinds of cookies. When I finished the cookie baskets, I also made the side dish to take (my famous vegetable Basmati rice), and then spent virtually my entire Saturday shopping for just the right presents for each of the names I'd drawn. I bought specialized books for one brother, a food chopper and silk shirt for my SIL, plane models and a Smithsonian "Age of Flight" book for one nephew, and a fleece pullover and sport watch for my beefy oldest nephew. The best present was an art kit for my 6 year old nephew; it had crayons and markers and pencils and paints and activity books and stamps. I took great care in not only buying them, but in packaging them. My relatives enjoyed their presents; my brother immediately cracked open the book and spent the rest of the afternoon reading us excerpts, my beefy nephew discarded his dress shirt in favor of the fleece pullover, my SIL took the chopper right to the kitchen and tested it on a bag of nuts, and my littlest nephew took his new toy to the corner and played with it the rest of the day, even forgoing dessert in favor of drawing! It makes me feel good to know I made the right choices for all of them. I could have just gone down to Walmart and picked up 5 gift cards and given those, but I took the time to find out what they liked, what they wished they could get, so I could buy what would make them happy.
Go ahead. Ask me what I got. Go ahead! I'll tell you. I got pretty little gold earrings with Austrian Crystals. Perfectly lovely.
Except I don't wear gold, haven't worn gold for 20 years. I have some jewelry, but I wear the same silver earrings every day and have worn the same silver earrings for more than 7 years. It's not that I don't like change, for the right earrings I might change. But my SIL had no clue, she bought the earrings because they were easy and it might be something she wanted. It never occurred to her, or my brother, that maybe, just maybe, I don't need earrings? They didn't ask, although I'd asked a lot of questions to figure out what kind of presents my family would like. I busted my butt for a week preparing cookies for the cookie baskets, even made an extra tin of Snickerdoodles for my one brother who loves them and his wife doesn't bake. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I can honestly say that in the 20 years we've been doing these holiday parties this way I've never gotten anything that I can look back and say was memorable or something I could use or wanted. One year my SIL gave me a size M shirt. I've not worn a size M since I was about 12, I'm strictly a plus-sized gal. It is disappointing to take such great care and find that on the reverse end of that I'm just an afterthought. And it's not that I think there should necessarily be reciprocation for everything, but at least bother to put some thought into it, you know? Don't make me an afterthought; I'd rather have gotten nothing at all than what I got.
My second rant is for my husband. I love him dearly, but dang, he can be hard-headed sometimes! Yesterday I took off work to go with him and the girls to a homeschool event at a historic house. Santa was going to be there, there was a puppet show, it was a good thing for the girls. Besides, my car needed to go to the shop for brake repairs, I was exhausted from the weekend, so it was a good time to take off and do something fun. It WAS fun, for the first hour. That is, until it was time to leave, and my husband thought it would be okay to drive off the gravel driveway to turn around in the grass at the historical house, which was downhill from the gravel driveway. And we'd had 1.6 inches of rain overnight. And the grass was Zoisia grass. I'm sure you're already figuring out where this is going. We got stuck in the mud. LOTS of mud. Mud up to the running boards of our mini-van. Deep, sucking, immobilzing mud. And there were five cars parked in front of us, on the same downhill slope, and we looked at them and wondered if the tow truck driver was going to have a REALLY nice Christmas this year.
I called for a tow, while the people at the historical house were yelling at us about making a mess on their lawn, while the guy who was telling people to park was sending more and more people down the hill into the mud! We yelled back, of course, told them to go away. But, in all reality, I would have never gone down the hill in the first place. I'd have backed out of that parking lot before I even tried to go down that hill. When my husband started driving down that hill, I said something, but he went anyway. He tried to turn around, then he tried to back up, then he tried to go forward, then he was pushing the gas pedal but we were going nowhere. So we sat and waited for the tow I had to call. The weather had turned biting cold, so we waited in the van. Then other people came out of the historic house, saw us stuck in the mud, and went white with fear as they walked to their cars, also parked on the grassy hill. My husband and I pushed out a Volkswagon, a volvo, a mini-van, and a Tracker in the 20 minutes we waited for the tow truck. I won't tell you what my jeans and shoes looked like. Of course, no one bothered to give us a push, so we paid the tow truck driver $45 to winch us out. We pointed out the three other cars sitting on the grassy hill, and told him he might want to hang around and make some more cash.
And of course, if he'd just let me drive, we wouldn't have gotten stuck in the first place, because I know better than to drive to a low spot, on Zoisia grass, after an all-night rain, and expect to go uphill again. But then, I'm not the man, I don't know anything!
Well, now I do feel better! :)
CONFIDENTIAL TO ALEX: It's amazing to me that the crappiest football team taking any field today can STILL beat the pants off your beloved 49ers!! |
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| [Monday, November 29, 2004 at 8:38 am] |
| Subject: Thanksgiving |
My novel is available and can be read for FREE from now until the end of the year at http://susabelle.com/secondchances/
Thanksgiving comes and goes every year and basically it is always the same. This year, as in all even-dated years, we lost our kids to the idiot ex-husband, who had threatened them that "we won't have turkey this year because we can't afford it." Yeah, right. They had turkey, with all the trimmings. What a jerk to tell his own kids such things. Now it turns out that he is unemployed and looking for work, so there goes the miniscule amount of child support I've been getting pretty regularly since about February. It was nice while it lasted. In talking with the caseworker this morning, she was aware that the idiot's new girlfriend is living on the edge just by the address; it is low-income assisted housing. They just moved into there a few weeks ago. We've seen it, it's quite the lovely place. NOT.
I once again got to go to Colorado for the Accessing Higher Ground conference. Wow, the mountains were beautiful! I took lots of pictures and have most of them up on a website, although I still have to sacn most of my stills. I had scanned them already, until a surge killed off my USB 512 mb drive yesterday! Bummer, but it was still under warranty so I'll have it replaced, just have to re-scan the stills. What a pain in the butt. Check out my favorite picture, I want to live right there, with that view! The photos were taken with a high-end HP Digital Camera.
Christmas preparations are well underway this year in our house. I did, for the first time in more than 10 years, attempt to shop on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. I wouldn't have gone out at all except that Walmart had this amazing deal on a digital camera, the Kodak 5 megapixel one with the optical zoom and docking base, for more than $100 off. AND they let me put it on layaway. So, I bought it, and will pick it up tomorrow. I can't wait, I'm tired of borrowing everyone else's digital camera when I want to take a picture to post on the web or send to friends. We also managed to pick up a miniature DVD player for under $30, and a few odds and ends. We were gone from the house for about an hour; it helps that I went to a rural Walmart rather than one of the suburban stores...there were no lines and plenty of merchandise! I will likely do this again next year, it was so successful. There is still much to be bought and wrapped, but we are trying to seriously tone down the Christmas spending this year.
The kids always get too much and play with it too little, and that is such a waste. And without the child support coming in, we can't afford to be overspending anyway.
So, the girls are going to get a set of bunk beds, and some toys. Tony is going to get some music CD's he really wants and a pair of roller blades. Everyone else is getting handmade!
I successfully completed NANOWRIMO 2004. I have over 52,000 words on my second novel. Okay, it's mostly crap, but after a good cleaning and about 18 hits at editing, it should be ready for primetime. In the meantime, I'm beginning to solicit agents to sell my first book. I'd love to see my name on the cover of a book! I already have ideas for the next book for NANOWRIMO 2005. If I could write a book a year, that would be cool. But I want quality, not just quantity, so we'll see how the second one turns out, considering that the first one really took six years to get to a "readable" point after I had the first ideas on paper.
Until next time...I would like to share this wonderful quote with you. "I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing Light of your own Being." -Hafiz |
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| [Thursday, October 7, 2004 at 7:47 am] |
| Subject: Ahh...falll...random thoughts |
Okay, so I've been slacking off in the blog department. Sometimes, I just get so busy and wrapped up in other things that I can't find the 20 minutes it takes to do this. And I don't even have cohesive thoughts for this blog, so I'll just do some random thoughts.
The other day I was editing a book called "Creative Communications" for a disabled student. I take text from books like these and convert it to audio files for students who need "books on tape." Some of the books are interesting, some are really boring. I figure, though, if I've edited a book, I could probably pass the class! Where's that test-out form? Anyway, this book was particularly interesting to me because it talked about the creative process, especially for writers and inventors. One particular chapter was quite encouraging, reminding me that my writing technique is really okay, and that getting stuck is normal. I've been working on a romantic novel for about four years now. I wrote it in bits and pieces, from the end to the beginning, then edited it through several times. At one point I'd actually printed it out to work on it in detail, all 175 pages of it, and it's a good thing I did, because soon after I managed to misplace the disk that my novel was on. So, I retyped all 175 pages. I've edited it three times since last November. I'm on what I hope is my final edit, and hope to publish it on the web on my website soon (keep watching here for details). Every night for two weeks I've tried to sit and do some editing on it; I made one small change early in the book that now I have to be sure I'm following throughout the book, which requires plenty of concentration. It is hard to write with three kids running around the house, a husband watching TV, plus all my usual chores and activities to keep up with. But with any luck, I'll be finished in another week, and can move on to another project. The chapter emphasized that "practice makes perfect," so I should be writing every day. I have an old clipping from a newspaper on my bulletin board, an Erma Bombeck column. The title prods me every time I see it: "Want to write? Then write, right now!" It reminds me that I should be writing, every day, at least some.
And I do, for the most part, but sometimes it's just emails, or notes to my kids. I need to do better.
It is fall, and I love this time of year. Time to drag out the fleece and long-sleeved shirts and sleep with the windows open. We've had an unusually dry fall, after an unusually cool summer, so the leaves aren't as pretty this year, and some leaves are falling early, leaving a lot of naked trees in our neighborhood. But I'm still loving it, and enjoying my drive home at night through the hills and valleys of my county, where the view is always spectacular no matter what time of year it is. My husband and I are going to go camping, sans kids, to enjoy fall before it gets too cold. We're going to Pere Marquette park, on the river, and taking our little RV. The poor thing hasn't been used since I bought it in May! My husband is really looking forward to this; I'm just looking forward to not having to work for a couple of days. I realized that I've not had a day off since about June, I've had work virtually every day since then. It gets tiring to be the only person earning money in the household, I can tell you!
And a last rant...when you're married you're supposed to share everything, and I do, mostly, but I thought my savings account was off-limits. I've been putting my extra money in there in order to save up to either fix my current car, or buy a newer one. I found out last night that the account is empty. It wasn't a lot of money, only $350 or so, but it's gone. My husband spent it. Because he can't keep from spending it. Any more money I get will go in a savings account that he has no access to. I could be mad, but it wouldn't do me any good. I worried when I put money in there that this would happen; I think it's probably my own stupidity that I didn't listen to myself then. Oh well. |
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| [Saturday, September 4, 2004 at 8:31 pm] |
| Subject: Missouri is a Backwater |
Of course, I don't like saying this about the state I was born and raised in, and plenty of my family members would certainly disagree with me, but I must be honest. We are definitely a backwater. A safe harbor for intolerance, bigotry, homophobia, and the Christian right. This is a state that believes that removing prayer from schools means that soon, very soon, Christianity will be eradicated forever from our homes. We won't be able to worship freely or raise our children in that strong, Christian, conservative way we think we should.
Puh-lease.
It's been quite a few centuries since the Christians were thrown to the lions. It is every day where non-Christians are persecuted and not allowed to worship freely or raise their kids the way they want. It is Christians who thnk that the whole world needs to be converted and invade other countries in search of victims for their "missionary" work. It is Christians who bring water and medicine and modern living into the jungles and third-world countries, but ONLY if the people in those places agree to become Christian in exchange for such humanitarian efforts.
And it's the Christians who recently helped a small group of ultra-conservatives pass an unnecessary amendment to my state's constitution. In our August 4th primary election, Christian conservatives managed to vote an amendment into our constitution to ban gay marriage. As one local newspaper columnist put it, "What am I missing? Is gay marriage really a threat to straight marriage? I've had lots of friends whose marriages have fallen apart, and there have been lots of reasons - other women, other men, booze, drugs, gambling, arguments about this or that. But if two gay men in the Central West End get married, would marriages elsewhere suddenly collapse?"
Yeah, what he said. I fail to see why gay marriage is such a huge threat to people. Why we need laws against it. By getting married and partaking of the civil rights available to other committed couples, how, exactly, are they hurting heterosexual couples in America?
I'm looking at this from an economic standpoint. I mean, who would have a fancier wedding than a couple of queens with an unlimited budget? Can you imagine the gowns, the decorations, the party favors? What about the food? I'd almost pay money to go to a gay wedding; it would be the most outrageously over-the-top event of the year. And lots of people would benefit; florists, costume designers, caterers, you name it. Many a teen would be put to work bussing tables and serving coffee from shining sterling silver carafes. No garage rock band for these folks; there'd be an entire symphony crowded onto the dance floor.
But even beside this economic boon, it would be an emotional boon for a lot of people. I have some amazing gay friends. They are amazing because they are smart, funny, loving, and unique, just like my non-gay friends. They are amazing because they are living their lives the way it feels natural for them to do so, even when public opinion is so horribly against them. They do not hurt me by their gayness, by their love for the world, by their demands for equal rights as people who love and live, just as I love and live. I do not see the harm in my gay friends having committed, even legally committed relationships. Do they not deserve the same rights as any other couple who commits to a lifetime of love and devotion?
Like I said, Missouri is a backwater. We already have a law against gay marriage, but those weirdoes in the Christian right just couldn't let that be enough. They had to make sure there was a constitutional amendment in place to protect them from gays who want to commit the grave act of getting married.
In my lifetime, I'm sure, I will see gays be married legally, if not in my state, in some other state. It will happen, and eventually gays will be allowed to marry. Just as women and blacks have been allowed to vote and own property. It is just going to take time, and I will be patient. But every chance I get to vote on such an issue, I'm going to be sure I'm there to do so.
My gay friends deserve at least that much from me. |
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| [Friday, August 13, 2004 at 7:56 am] |
| Subject: Not a Baby Anymore |
My 11 year old daughter blithely informed me last week that "Tony has hair in his pits. It's gross, mom."
Tony is 14, and for two months his voice has been boyish one minute, deep the next, and crackling the rest of the time. I knew he was getting close to puberty, but now I guess it's actually happened. Being a brave, open, and forthright mom, I made him show me his hairy armpits, with he did with a combined look of embarrassment and pride. I then asked if he had hair "down there" and he said "uh, yeah!" as if I should have known that (and of course, I did know that.). Further questioning revealed that this had been the case for about two months. Yikes.
A week later I took my 11 year old to buy a bra. She hasn't yet "become a woman," but she is in need of some support and protection.
Where did my babies go?
Of course, to me, they are still little kids. Just because physically they are changing and growing up doesn't mean they still don't need mommy, and that I still don't have an awful lot of work to do between now and when they turn 18, and even after that! It is a still a turmoil within me, though, about how much freedom to give them, how much to hold them back, how much true discipline is needed and how much I can let them fail on their own. I've tried to let them lead that change as much as possible; my son has gone from always wanting to spend time with the family to being the kid who wants to be ANYWHERE but in the same room with his siblings. My daughter is still kid-like enough to want to be with mommy and doesn't find places to hide or get away from me and the rest of the family, but I know those days are coming.
We've had our ups and downs; having Tony more mature means that we can leave the kids alone for short lengths of time with him in charge and we know the house won't get burnt down. He is big enough to cut the grass by himself, and to cook dinner once in a while. He's old enough to send into the grocery store to pick up a few items and still get out of there without getting ripped off or getting the wrong things. But on the other end of that, we've already had to punish him for sneaking out of the house after dark, and playing too many video games and hanging out with the wrong kids. I guess it all evens out in the end, I certainly don't expect him to be perfect (although sometimes my husband does) and I just try to remember how I was when I was his age, so I at least understand how he is.
It's an imperfect science, to be sure. But it's also an adventure. Kids are different than they were when I was growing up, there are different ways to get in trouble. Some might say more ways to get in trouble, and I suppose that's true with the advent of technology. I try to be aware, to be cautious, yet not be holding them back too much, either.
It will be interesting to see what the next few years bring. Parents always say "they grow up so fast." I would agree. |
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| [Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 7:21 am] |
| Subject: Your parenting license is being REVOKED! |
I wish parenting required a license, and that it could be revoked for gross negligence.
This is a common rant for me, but it usually simmers on the back burner until something brings it to the forefront. That happened yesterday, when George W. Bush came to our fair city to stump for his re-election. What's with that word "stump" anyway? As far as I can tell, GW has both legs intact, and so do many of the other candidates I see running for public office.
But I digress.
Anyway, here he was, coming to our fair city, right during rush hour, to talk about why we should re-elect him president. Now, I'm no lover of the Shrub, so my comments here may be colored by that opinion. However, there were tickets issued for people to attend the rally at the St. Charles Family Arena, which seats some 50,000 people. No one without a ticket would be allowed in. Doors opening at 2:30 p.m. for a 4:40 p.m. appearance, plenty of security, but no need to arrive prior to door opening time. Yesterday's high temperature was expected to be in the mid-90's with heat index over 105 and a Heat Alert had been issued by the National Weather Service.
So at 9 a.m., people were lining up outside the arena waiting for their chance to enter. More than five hours prior to the scheduled opening of the doors, more than 10,000 people were standing on an asphalt parking lot in the sun, waiting, on a day when a Heat Alert had been issued and every meteorologist that day and the night before had specifically warned people to stay indoors or find a cooling center if they didn't have a cool home. There were old people dressed appropriately for their age. There were young people. Couples with babies. Middle-aged people with older children.
By 10 a.m., the fire department was called to be on standby to assist those being overcome by the heat. By 11 a.m., the temperature on the parking lot, now covered with about 25,000 people of all ages and dress, had reached 107 degrees on thermometers the firemen supplied. The fire department called in the Red Cross to hand out water, and the ambulances started taking people away. It was still more than three hours until the doors would open for the event.
One of the people taken away was a 6 month old baby boy, who had overheated in the arms of his mother and father while waiting in the sweltering heat. The baby was rushed to the emergency room and spent six hours being rehydrated and cooled down.
What were these people thinking? What was the advantage of standing in line to go in a door, when they had tickets and would be let in anyway when the doors opened? What possessed people to bring their small children, subjecting them to the excessive heat? Why on earth would a six month old need to hear a speech from President Bush?
As a police officer, I think I'd have charged the parents with child endangerment. As a parent, I want to charge these parents with stupidity! They are obviously too stupid to be in charge of raising and taking care of a child. I hope that mother didn't sleep last night, knowing what she'd done to her little baby, all because she wanted to see President Bush and couldn't stay home until a more appropriate time to go to the arena. Where was her brain? Better yet, where was her heart?
It makes me sick to see such things. If she doesn't want to take care of a baby, then she needs to give it to someone else to take care of. She needs to give it to someone who cares, who will put HIS needs before hers, who will think before she acts.
I know there are other worse cases of child abuse and neglect out there, but I think this one incenses me so much more because it was sheer stupidity that caused that child to need medical attention. Sheer, pure, unadulterated stupidity.
And if this mother is an example of what Republicans are like, I sure am glad I'm not one! |
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| [Monday, July 12, 2004 at 7:26 am] |
| Subject: Oh, Oh, OH!!!! |
For the last year or so, I've been reading pretty regularly. That might sound odd, but for quite a few years, especially after it took me 20 years to get my bachelor's degree, I didn't want to read books, and didn't read books. At all. I read online news, magazines, might read and article or two about homeschooling, but I wouldn't sit and read a book.
And that's really a shame, because there is much out there to entertain the mind, heart, and other places! What got me back to reading was when I read a book with my 11 year old daughter, the first in the Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events books. We were fascinated. I read the small book in a night, it took my daughter three weeks. But still, it was quite entertaining, and I realized how much I'd been missing! So, we are now on the fifth book, but in the meantime, I've read a lot of other stuff to keep my mind all awhir. I've probably read 2 or 3 books a month for at least a year. I realized a week or so ago that I'd run out of books, and the last few yard sales I've been to have brought home some new things to read. Yummy.
I'm particularly fond of the Elizabeth Peters books, mostly about Egypt and Egyptologists and Archaeologists. I read Under the Lake a few weeks back, and although it wasn't my usual genre, I did like it. Currently I'm finishing up Once Upon a Pillow, a rather unique romance novel written as four vignettes about a powerful bed. I have enjoyed this one a great deal.
As has my husband. And he hasn't read a word of it!
Romance novels to some are silly, and if I'm not in the right mood, I find them tiresome and ridiculous. But in the right mood, and with a well-written tome, they are amazing, wonderful entertainment for women. Men, having never read them, may not understand the impact a well-written romance novel can have on a perfectly sane woman. Even a 40+ year old woman with three children and fat rolls and stretch marks. You see, a well-written romance novel is full of steamy, tantalizing, in-your-face sex. Sex with luscious descriptions of sex acts that take 2 hours to perform and center on the pleasures of the female character, rather than the male character. Sex that makes even a perfectly sane woman squirm in her chair, and later, squirm in her bed under the weight of her own man.
Slurpy, devastatingly effective girl porn.
My husband always looks at me funny when I read these types of books, because I can rarely put them down. I started this one Friday night and burned through over 300 pages by Sunday afternoon, despite having done 10 loads of laundry, trimmed the bushes in front of the house, played with my 2 year old, fixed some nice meals, and cleaned house. I'm down to the last 30 pages, which I might have finished last night except it was going on midnight and I needed to go to work this morning. And dang hubby's hide, he was ASLEEP! But, don't fear, I'd already taken advantage of my excited condition earlier in the day while the baby was napping and hubby didn't have anything else to do. *snurk*
Yes, the covers look silly, with bare-chested men in strange historical costumes crushing buxom wild-haired women to their hips. The stories are often silly as well, with deep historical overtones and massive exaggeration and a lack of even a mention of anything mundane. The descriptions of places and people and clothing are worthy of a bad-writing award, and the sexual scenes are enough to make most women blush to their very souls. But it doesn't keep us from reading them, because they make us feel so darned good. And squirmy.
It's been a long time since I read a good, juicy romance novel, and the one I picked ended up being perfect. I'm now on the hunt for more, possibly by the same authors (this book was written by dual authors) or by someone new. All I know is I want it to be filled with exaggerated descriptions, a barely-believable storyline, and plenty of good, steamy, SEX.
Hubby, watch out!!! |
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| [Friday, July 2, 2004 at 7:18 am] |
| Subject: It Never Pays to Take a Day Off |
I have a unique and wonderful job. I work at a local community college with disabled students. I run a computer lab, and inside this lab are several specialized computer stations for persons with disabilities; I also put adaptive technology (software or hardware) in classrooms as needed. 99% of the people I work with, who are adults, are wonderful. They are polite and courteous, ask for what they need, and are happy when they get it and tell me so. They are smart, capable people that have given me a whole new view of the world.
But in every basket of apples, there's bound to be at least one with a worm, and that one with the worm is stinking up the entire basket. This student is visually impaired, has been all his life. He makes my life miserable, for no other reason other than the fact that he is miserable, and thinks everyone around him owes him something. He is not a young man; he is certainly old enough to know how to treat people with respect and courtesy. One of my student workers, also a man over 40, has known this student since they were kids, and informs me that this student has always acted this way. It seems hard to believe that he has taken this attitude with people for years and has not had anyone give him a smack-down! I know I'm ready to, but my professional status and reputation wouldn't allow it.
He has been attending classes here for about 2 years now. His tuition is paid for by a state organization whose focus is rehabilitation to the workplace. He is on a track in microcomputing, with a goal to teach people how to use computers.
This poor guy is just out of his league. He gets frustrated at everything, and seems incapable of meeting his own needs without first berating those around him for not providing for him. No matter what we do to accommodate his needs, it isn't good enough, and he's always threatening to go to the news, hire a lawyer, call the ACLU, etc. I'm the person he hates the most, because in his mind, I'm the one ultimately responsible for providing his accommodations. His most recent blowup happened Tuesday night after I'd left campus for the night and he got to the first day of his shortened summer class and couldn't find his adaptive software on a computer in his classroom. Of course, I was off on Wednesday, so I wasn't here to help then, either, but it was determined by others that day that the software was indeed in the classroom, just not on the computer he thought it was on. His counselor on Tuesday night had tried to go to the classroom and show him where the software was installed, but he refused her help. By the time I came into work on Thursday, all hell had broken loose and he had written a nasty letter to my boss and left a copy on my desk.
Of course, my boss and I are used to dealing with him, and the letter doesn't mean anything, as it was basically his "notice of intent to file a lawsuit" and doesn't require a response. I'm gratified, however, that he finally put his complaints in writing, because should he ever sue me, I've got grounds for a libel suit! Not that I'd ever sue, but it is a bit of a comfort to know that I could if I wanted to! I was accused of being "lazy" and that he has "overwhelming evidence of gross negligent behavior." He has received "shameful and inadequate services" from me.
It's funny how one person would have such desperate issues with me and how I do my work, while the other 200+ students I do things for have never had a complaint. I've never treated him with anything less than a respectful and helpful attitude, and have jumped to every demand as he made them. I've even bent the rules for him, as he is diabetic he sometimes needs to eat quickly to prevent a blood sugar problem and I've let him eat in our lab, which is forbidden to other students. I also have allowed him to store his books, bags, tape recorders, and other things in our lab so he didn't have to carry them around campus when he didn't need them, something I don't let other students do. I've been as helpful to him as I can, and this is how I'm repaid for going above and beyond the call.
The harassment is unending. The student has gone so far as to get the cleaning people to tell him what is on my desk and what I had for lunch (asking them to check the trashcan for "evidence"). If he comes into the lab and I don't happen to be here, he brow-beats the student workers until they tell him where I am, or says "has Susan already gone home for the day?" I work a 40+ hour week and have responsiblities elsewhere on campus, and frankly, where I am or whether or not I've gone home for the day or not are not his concern nor is it any of his business. I have scheduled and non-scheduled time off, just like any other employee, and I meet my obligations every day. I may not be perfect, and all of my staff is certainly not perfect, but we've done a pretty good job of accommodating all of our students' needs over the last four years.
It is unfortunate that this student is the way he is. It has gotten to the point now that disciplinary action will need to be taken. We have had two meetings with this student and the Dean of Students, where acceptable behavior was outlined and clarified. The next step is another meeting with the dean, where I will again voice my concerns, as will his counselor and any others that have had the privilege of dealing with the student's tirades. This meeting will result in disciplinary action against the student, ranging from disciplinary probation to banning him from my lab to outright expulsion. It really is sad that it has had to go this far, but in the end, we wouldn't allow a non-disabled student to act this inappropriately, so we can't allow this student to behave this way either.
It is sad. But I will enjoy my job more if this bad apple is tossed out of my basket! |
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| [Tuesday, June 29, 2004 at 8:13 am] |
| Subject: Sometimes You Get What You Ask For |
Sometimes you get what you ask for, and it's pretty much what you asked for! My husband came home last night after being let go from the circus. He drove straight from Colorado to Missouri in about 14 hours or so. I was very glad to see him and I don't want him to go back.
For him, it felt "weird" to sleep in a regular bed and be in the house he hasn't been in in four months. It really hasn't changed, but maybe it felt like it had. He slept fitfully, but at least he was next to me in the bed. It was nice kissing someone besides the baby goodbye this morning before I left for work. And it will be strange to fix a meal for an extra person; no more quickie mac and cheese meals or "fix your own peanut butter sandwich" nights. LOL And, I got to work in 20 minutes flat, instead of the 75 to 90 minutes it normally takes.
He was tired. He was aggravated at how the circus treated him at the end. But in reality, he was happy to be home, or he wouldn't have driven straight home like he did. When he pulled into the driveway last night and climbed out of the van, we were all really happy to see him. Today he is decompressing at home, unpacking a few things, reconnecting with his kids, doing some laundry, getting his bearings. Next week or the week after will be soon enough to look for work, right now, I just want him to be home and be with us. Tomorrow we will have a "family day" and I'll stay home from work and we'll go to the park and picnic with some homeschoolers and just "be the Kelmers" for a while.
I don't think finding work will be a problem; a new shopping plaza has opened up nearby and lots of shops there are hiring. There's always Walmart, too. He doesn't even have to work full time, part time is good enough, with him home, our expenses are lower so he won't have to work so much. The last four months have been constant work for him, and for me. We'll all be getting a bit of a break now. He can spend time building our business back up, reconnecting with the local agents, and we'll build this slowly but surely. We won't starve, we may have to cut a few corners, but we'll be fine.
And for now, we're all just happy that he is home. I have never felt so emotionally out of control in my entire life, not even after my split from my now-ex husband. This was a very rough patch, and I never ever want to do this again. Tonight I will leave work at 4:30 and drive straight home and get there by 5 p.m. and have someone waiting for me with a big kiss and a hug, instead of me leaving work at 4:30 p.m. and getting home at 6 p.m. after picking up the girls from the sitter and driving through brain-numbing rush-hour.
Yeah, there will still be fireworks going off late into the night from all the neighborhood kids, but it won't bother me so much because I'll be laying in bed talking with my husband, enjoying his embraces, revelling in how good it is to hear the rumble of his voice back in my life. If I wasn't sure how big a part he played in my life before, I sure know now, and if I ever doubted my love and devotion for him, there can never be any doubt again.
And I'll never again say, "How can I miss you if you won't go away!" |
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| [Monday, June 21, 2004 at 7:42 am] |
| Subject: It Must Be Almost 4th of July |
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 sleepy |
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I can tell it's almost the Fourth of July. All the fireworks stands are in full swing (*BUY ONE, GET FOUR FREE* *LOWEST PRICES IN JEFFERSON COUNTY*) and all day yesterday I got to hear the pops and cracks and booms of my stupid neighbors shooting off hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars worth of fireworks the first day that the stands were open. It wasn't so bad during the day, when an occasional set of pops and cracks disturbed my peace, but once dark came, it escalated. There were booms, bangs, cracks, pops; at one point it got so loud I couldn't hear the TV and had to close the windows. That bugged me most because the weather was beautiful for a change and I could turn off the air conditioning and open the windows.
This past fall I moved from a place where fireworks were illegal to a place where anything goes. Along with the adult stores, which don't bother me at all, we also get all the fireworks stands that can possibly be put up on every corner of every main thoroughfare. And I don't really mind the fireworks so much, except when they happen late into the night and keep me and my children awake. I work for a living, which apparently some of these neighbors don't (which makes me wonder how the can afford the fireworks in the first place), and 5:30 a.m. comes awfully early when you were awake until midnight listening to bottle rockets and whizzing firecrackers.
To their credit, most of my neighbors stopped by about 9:30 p.m. and went inside. Most of my immediate neighbors have small children and work full-time so keep a schedule similar to mine. At 9:00 p.m. when I was trying to put the baby to bed, though, it was going on pretty strong. At 10:00 p.m., she was still awake and I felt sorry for her. It wasn't her fault that she was being kept awake. I think the worst was the big ones that went "fwoooosh....BOOM," enough to rattle the windows. I was still hearing those at 10:30.
And I think I felt more sorry for the neighborhood dogs than I did for myself. The poor things were barking their lungs out with each pop, crack and boom.
I'm glad I'm leaving town for the fourth of July. Of course, I don't know if I'll end up in a place that will not have fireworks, but I'm sure hoping so. I don't mind going to the big fireworks display at the local park, where we can all ooh and ahhh together in unison and watch the pretty lights. And when I was younger, I did as much firecracker-lighting as the next kid. But as an adult, with children trying to sleep, it bugs me a great deal that we are being disrupted by this. Can't people understand that there is a reasonable hour and time to this stuff, and an UNREASONABLE hour and time to do it?
Maybe I'm just getting cranky in my old age. Hrumph!! |
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| [Tuesday, June 15, 2004 at 12:36 pm] |
| Subject: I Didn't Sign Up for THIS!! |
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 cranky |
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My husband left on March 19, 2004 to run away with the Circus. He is the boss clown and will travel with them until early October. He spent the last month in California, and is currently in Utah and will be in Colorado soon. We live in Missouri, so he is slowly but surely making his way back east towards us.
Three months without my husband has been more than trying. When he left, we were having some difficulties financially and emotionally. For the last three years, he's been a stay at home dad to our three children, trying to earn a living performing. When September 11th happened, as it did for most of us, it eventually killed our business. We get occasional bookings now, but nothing serious or enough to keep us from having to take outside work. When the offer to go with the circus came, it was a Godsend in many ways. We quickly sold his old vehicle and bought a newer minivan for him to travel in, borrowed a cargo trailer from my brother, I sewed up a half-dozen new costumes and packed towels, sheets, and off he went, less than three weeks after we found out he was going to go. There had been a bit of angst, a lot of worry from me, but it was still the right thing to do.
I knew that after this was over, I'd get a husband who was happier to be home, we'd have a lot of bills paid and there would be enough money for me to buy a newer used car. I knew, too, that I'd have a chance to appreciate what it was like to be without him, and find out how important he is to me.
We've gotten that all in spades. Hubby wants to come home, and almost has, several times. What's kept him going is the money, which allowed us to buy a small, well-used, old RV and enough money to travel with it, in addition to paying off some old bills. That second part, about me appreciating him; well, I've been slapped pretty hard with that one. I never realized how big a part he played in my life until he was gone. We always teased each other when we'd be leaving for a job or to go shopping, wherever we would be separated, "how can I miss you if you won't go away?" Well, I take it back. Each and every time!!
I miss my husband desperately. I know, it sounds like a silly line from a very silly romance novel. But this is the best way I can describe how deeply his absence has affected me. I thought after the first few weeks, I wouldn't feel the sting of his absence so much, but the fact is, after three months, the loss is just as sharp today as it was then. I miss him desperately. I cry virtually every day, and only manage to sleep because I work myself to death during the daytime so that I'm too exhausted to think by the time I go to bed. If I don't, and go to bed after a "light" day," I find myself tossing and turning, my mind going a zillion miles an hour, and wishing I had someone to talk to. After three months of separation, I've figured out that what I miss is the companionship of someone to talk to, to bounce ideas off of, to think with, to share with. I have lots of friends locally, and a big online community I hang out in, but it's not the same as those two hour conversations we used to have at night in bed, after the kids were asleep and the TV was off and the cat was curled up between my knees. I miss that very much. I miss being able to share with him my little success and my big ones, to have someone understand my frustrations, to have someone be supportive of my efforts and creativity.
And there is much to frustrate me these days. There is the 20 minute commute that is now 90 minutes as I have to take the younger girls to daycare and still get to work on time. This means I spend 3 hours on the road every day. There is the fact that I'm saddled with all the shopping; the diapers and milk and food and kitty litter and shoes and etc. I have to plan and cook all of the meals. I have to be sure we don't run out of things like trash bags and laundry detergent. And I have to pay the bills, which I found out yesterday was more important than I thought, when our electric got cut off because I failed to mail the check. I had the money, just didn't spend it! Pretty dumb, but then, a it also shows what I'm managing to forget with everything else that is going on.
I also am still maintaining our business as best I can. I no longer perform, I don't have the time or energy for it, but I still book out work as it comes in. I am still doing the weddings I'm contracted to do, because I like doing them and long-term don't want to screw this up because we'll need that income when he comes home and isn't working anymore. I still work full-time at the college, and still homeschool my kids. And on top of this I'm trying to get the RV ready to travel, and it needs a lot of hands-on work to be ready to roll in three weeks so that the kids and I can drive to him in Nebraska and spend a week with him. The idea is to leave him with the RV and bring back the minivan, so he can put his pants on standing up.
Add to that a 2 year old who needs to be potty-trained, keeps getting ear infections, and fell at the babysitter's, injuring herself enough to require a few visits to an orthopedist. And mix in a 14 year old boy with a teenage attitude and a newly-diagnosed seizure disorder, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop! My blessing is that the middle girl is healthy and well-behaved, and I don't have to expend much worry-energy on her.
So, things are busy and hectic and weird, and I don't remember thinking it would be this hard when my husband first talked to me about the idea of going with the circus. After all, I'd been a single mom before, and had even gone back to school full time the last time I'd been a single mom, and my kids had been very young then. I've been rather stunned by what I can't seem to get done, what falls on me that I never thought about, and how absolutely lonely I feel doing everything by myself.
It is such an overwhelming emptiness sometimes that I will just sit in stunned silence some nights, knowing I should get up and do something useful, but on the other hand feeling so wholly unmotivated that I couldn't care less.
My husband will be home in October. Hopefully by then I won't have totally lost my mind. And soon I'll at least have a few nights where we can lay in bed and talk and share and encourage each other. I hope it recharges my batteries! |
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| [Friday, June 11, 2004 at 7:49 am] |
| Subject: What Are You Doing Laying on the Floor Twitching Like That? |
I'm one of those mean mommies. You know, the ones that make you brush your teeth, do chores, and refuses to buy the latest Playstation II or XBox or any other form of video game. I've been a mean mommy for at least 14 years, when I gave birth to my first live child.
Recently, my mean mommy-ness was re-affirmed as a good thing, but not really in a way I would have liked. On May 23, my birthday, I had a friend over. I've been teaching her how to sew. We were hip-deep in her project, a large floor pillow, when my oldest son's friend came bursting into the house, panic on her face. My 14 year old son was having a seizure. My friend and I raced down there, to find him unconscious on the floor, drooling heavily. He was safe, but he sure wasn't himself. My friend asked lots of questions; fortunately for all of us, her husband is eplileptic, and she is a teacher, so she had a lot of experience. After about ten minutes, with the help of a big strong brother, we walked my son back down to our house about four houses away. He was oblivious to his surroundings, didn't know who I was, didn't remember anything. Of course now I know that all this was normal, but as an overworked virtually single mom, it was all a bit stunning.
We spent four hours in the emergency room getting tests and diagnoses. His tox screens were clean, which, to a mom of a teenager, is a very proud moment indeed. He'd not taken anything, drank anything, popped anything, or smoked anything. Not that I thought he had, but in the ER those were the first questions. They asked me lots of questions about what he'd eaten, what he'd been doing, etc. It was a Sunday, and a pretty average one at that. The weather was nice, so the kids had been out playing and running around. I'd had another friend in the house earlier to help me with a project, she'd left shortly before all this had happened. I'd fed my kids and about 4 other neighborhood children mac and cheese and hot dogs, nothing unusual there. What WAS unusual was the fact that he'd probably spent two hours straight playing a video game at his friend's house and that is when the seizure occurred.
If I needed one more reason to hate video games and not need them in my house, this was a major one. My son has diagnosed ADD and is being treated with a time-released Ritalin. He's been taking medication successfully for ADD since he was just under 5 years old. I know, I can hear the naysayers out there, that drugs are bad and we shouldn't be labelling these kids, but my first and best argument is that you don't live with him, I do, and I am also his mother. I make the decisions, and I choose medication over any other method for his form of ADD because I have done my research and because it works for him. I've since found out that his medication did not cause his seizure, either.
So, over the last three weeks we've gone for several tests, including sleep-deprived EEG's. His MRI and CT's are normal, which means no brain tumor, but his EEG came back abnormal, with a tendency to seize. Every 12 minutes or so, his brain sends out an overall electrical signal, and once in a while, that signal overloads and causes a seizure. He started on meds that we will be monitoring over the next several weeks.
While the doctor can't say for sure what the trigger is, I can pretty much say with certainty that it is the video games. I never liked them before and I certainly like them less now. And I suppose that keeps my standing as a mean mommy intact, but if it means my son will never have another seizure, then I'm happy with that designation. |
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| [Thursday, June 10, 2004 at 12:08 pm] |
| Subject: So, You Think Someone Will Miss You When You Are Gone? |
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 confused |
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I'm a news junky. I read traditional news online (stltoday, cnn, the new york times, usa today) and some more non-traditional sources (fark, plastic). Every day online is a new adventure in all the news that is the news.
So this morning, I'm reading the news online , and in my local paper was a small blurb about a man found dead in his apartment in Tokyo. His skeletal remains were found dressed in pajamas, face up in bed, a paper dated from February, 1984 on his bedside table. He had likely been dead 20 years.
So, in the course of 20 years, who didn't miss this guy and figure out something had happened to him?
How can you be dead, not seen, missing, etc., for 20 years, and not have a single person go looking to see what has happened to you?
If I died tonight, would anyone notice I was gone? Or would I just be a passing blip on someone's radar screen, easily dismissed and easily forgotten. I looked for more depth to the story, it seems the man divorced his wife and moved into an apartment in the building, which had never been occupied and never was occupied due to some sort of building dispute. Because he couldn't pay his bills, he stopped going to work. No one noticed there, I guess, either!!
Seems so odd, to not be noticed if you were gone. How awful was this guy, anyway? And am I even close to being that awful? Maybe I'd better keep an eye out, make sure someone is checking on me regularly!! |
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