Am I Wrong?

May 31, 2008

We got back home about an hour ago from the local weekend hangout.  It’s got a movie theater, skating rink, bowling alley, arcade, diner, pool room, etc.  You get the idea.  The Buddha has decided that since he is now a “teenager”, he should go places and do things.  This is a thrill to me.  When he came to live with us he would literally fall to the floor and cry if anyone spoke to him, or hide behind the furniture when people came to visit.  For him to decide to deliberately go out into the world to “see and be seen” is a monumental step in a healthy direction.  But to be completely honest, it’s also a big fat pain in the ass for me.

Here’s the thing:  I don’t just take my kids to large unsupervised public places and drop them off.  This makes me THE MOST unpopular parental figure around, but I just can’t justify doing it.  Having read a newspaper, or the internet, or caught a news broadcast at least once in the last ten years, I understand that leaving your kids places where no one knows who they belong to is just asking for trouble.

However, after the past month, I have come to the realization that I am one of three parents in our town who feel this way.  I have spent four Friday nights with roughly four hundred unsupervised teenagers at this place every time.  They get dropped off around six or seven and get picked up around eleven or eleven thirty.  And those are just the ones who actually stay there.  A lot of them just wait for their parents to get out of the parking lot and then hop in another car and leave. 

At least a third of these kids are under the age of sixteen.  It boggles my mind.  I can’t imagine a scenario whereby it would be okay with me to have my kids at a place like that for hours on end by themselves and me have no idea what was going on.  They are fighting, leaving and coming back, being accosted by strangers looking for “the girl from Yahoo”, and who knows what else.  What would you have to tell yourself to make leaving your children alone in that, okay? 

Is it that we consider our kids a renewable resource so it’s okay if we lose a few?  Are we really so tied up in our lives that we can’t spare a few hours out of a weekend to be with our kids?  I know that at this age they are almost intolerable.  However, I remember being that age.  I still ask my mom how it was that she kept herself from turning us all upside down in a bucket of water and leaving us there until we stopped wiggling.  She just laughs and says we weren’t that bad.  We WERE that bad!  We were worse. 

Being a teenager is the most uncomfortable time in life.  You are the most uncomfortable in your own skin that you will ever be.  You want to be treated as grown, and treated as a child, you feel like a grownup kid, you need everything all at once.  You yourself have no idea when you need what.  You might need two different things at once and all you can do is hope like hell that someone who cares about you can come up with at least one of them at approximately the right time.

But if the people who are supposed to care about you aren’t even going to bother showing up, you don’t have an icecube’s chance in hell of getting what you need.  and that is sad my friend. 

So, the question is……Am I wrong for being there, and watching out?

Sometimes I wonder.

 

 

 

*My computer hookup went AWOL the other night when I was posting this and I missed the fact that only half the post went up.  Sorry bout that.  Bet you thought I just went off half cocked, dintcha?

 

 

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Don’t Let Rachael Ray Fool You – She IS A Terrorist!

May 29, 2008

Rachael Ray might look all sweet and innocent, but she has the heart of a natural born killer! 

She has wiped out most of my favorite fried foods single handed and never batted one of her cute little eyelashes!  All of my fatty foods?  Gone like they never existed.  *sniff*  All because of her!  Rachael Ray.  That black hearted she-devil.  Greasy cheese burgers, deep fried potatoes, fritters dripping in Crisco.  Is that Taps I hear?

I bet she trained as a double agent at the CIA.  Have you ever seen a Culinary Institute graduate wielding a filleting knife?  It will make you shudder. 

Just because her little scarf is paisley doesn’t mean she isn’t calling down jihad.  I bet she’s got a spray bottle of EVO on her belt, concealed by that scarf.  She probably skulks around roadside diners in the dead of night setting up grease traps.  Oh GOD!  The inhumanity!

That spicy little strumpet IS a terrorist…….a FOOD terrorist.  And don’t you forget it!

 

P.S. Dunkin Donuts…..grow at least one functioning brain cell and give it to someone in your public relations department please.  They seem to have misplaced the one they had.

 

 

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ADD and ADHD – Or “Boy Do They Have It All Wrong”

May 28, 2008

Princess Bella has “ADHD” or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. 

Let me take a pause here to decide just where to start this blog, because I have so many things to say and I’m not sure just what order I want to put them in.  Hey there’s a bird out there picking on the dogs!  Cool!  Anyways, as I was saying, I think they totally misnamed this stuff. 

People with ADD and ADHD do not have a deficiency of attention.  What they have is an overabundance of attention.  Their attention is captured by EVERYTHING at all times!  They don’t miss anything at all.  There is not one thing that goes on in this universe that they miss.  It might not make the top 10 on the list of important things they give notice to, but they didn’t miss it, I guarantee you! 

What happens is, they don’t focus on the things that other people  want them to focus on.  This is not a deficiency.  This is a failure to come to an agreement on what constitutes the most important thing.  That is a whole other ballgame.

It is my own personal opinion that ADD and ADHD are old ……..  for lack of a better word…..conditions.  And I use the word condition here NOT in the sense that it is something that needs to be “fixed”, but that it is possibly outside the norm.  I believe that we can lay our very existence at the feet of someone back in the misty long ago who was blessed with ADD or ADHD.

I say this because…..imagine this:  Our little cave-group is sitting around the fire in our pitiful cave, noshing on a few ptarmigan, all happy and stuff.  All of a sudden…..GROWLLLLL…..SNARLLLL!!!!….and whatever other mean nasty things happen when a sabre tooth tiger comes skulking out of the dark.  EEEKKKK!

Now!  Who do you want in your midst most: The cave-dude with ADD/ADHD who’s gonna whack that sabre tooth over the head with a big ol club, or the logical thinker who is going to weigh all the consequences of his actions before he does anything?  MY vote goes for the ADD/ADHD guy!  I believe with all my being that it was those people who acted first without thinking it all out, whose attention was on everything, who were watching it ALL and not missing anything,  that not only kept us alive but advanced us to the point that we can now consider their gift a problem and chastise them for it.

Because it is only now, at the advanced point our civilization has reached, that the gifts of ADD/ADHD become a “problem.”  Only now do we have to sit un-naturally still for hours on end as small children day in and day out for months at a time.  Only now do we have jobs that require us to be indoors all day long every day all year long.  Only now does the watchfulness and quick action inherent in ADD/ADHD become unnecessary.

Instead of calling ADD/ADHD a problem or making people with it feel broken, we need to name streets after them, have a national ADD/ADHD holiday, and celebrate the fact that it exists at all.  Because without it, we very well might not be here at all!

 

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Some Of My Favorite Things

May 26, 2008

I like to watch My Dearest Husband really concentrating on something he’s working on.  I love that look on his face for some reason.  It touches my heart every time.

Small kids and puppies always make me feel like whatever I’m doing is really interesting and important.  They follow me around and watch me intently, no matter what I’m doing.  If I’m taking out the trash, I feel like I should do it with the utmost care because they are watching and I don’t want to set a bad example.  This is why the puppies are NOT allowed in the bathroom.  I just can’t take the pressure.

The sun coming up in the morning is one of my favorite things.  Makes me feel good to know that the trusty steed made the journey safely through the night.

I like seeing the moon in the sky during the daylight hours.  It gives me the oobla dooblas.  You know what I mean?  Those cave man shivers over freaky things.

I like dusk.  That time of day after sunset but before it gets dark.  It’s an in-between time and it seems sort of magical to me.  There are possibilities in that little pocket of time that isn’t either one. 

I like the in-betweens.  Like birds and turtles and frogs.  They live in two worlds but not totally in either.  Land and sea or land and air.  And people in comas, or with amnesia.  There but not there.  Gone but not gone, here but not here.

I like the long, slow, hot summer days that seem like they will never end. 

I like chilly mornings with a hot cup of coffee, a nice warm throw, and MDH on the porch swing.  Dogs all lazy at our feet, the kids still asleep in their beds and us just enjoying each other in the quiet of the morning.

I like my guitar.

I like Phil, my iPod that I got for Mother’s day.

I like walking out back to visit Rocky, my mom, at her place.  I haven’t been able to visit my mom just whenever I wanted to since I was eighteen years old.  That’s a long time.

I like reading several books at one time.  That way, when I hit a slow spot in one, I can pick up another one. 

I like reference books.  I like school books.  I like history books.  I like fiction.  I like kids books.  I like soup cans.  I like cereal boxes.  I will read anything in print.  I used to read in my dreams.  I have no idea what  I was reading but I surely did read. 

I love the sound of children laughing.  I love the sound of them making plans.  I love the sound of them playing.  I even love the sound of them crying.  All of those sounds mean they are alive and that means there is hope.

I like firemen.

I like ambulance drivers.

I like watching my grandkids playing together when they think no one is watching.  That is true magic.

I like flowers and herbs.  I especially like the ones with more than one purpose.  I like the ones you can use for medicinal purposes.  In a past life (not the karmic kind, I mean when I was younger), I used to go out into the woods and gather them up and dry them out and use them on my family and myself.  It was way cheaper than going to the doctor and most of the time it worked as well as the fantastically priced chemicals they prescribed.  I still do that sometimes and I’m starting to get back into it a little bit.  They used to call me a witch doctor.

I love:

The smell of fresh cut grass.

The smell of a grill in summer.  You know something good is about to happen.

The smell of a lumber yard.  Sorry, I’m not quite that green yet.  That smell gets me every time.

I love a good story.  There is something about a well told story that just warms my cockles. 

I’m an oddball.  Ask anyone.  They’ll tell you.  I don’t eat seafood of any kind because it feels like cannibalism to me.  See?  Told ya!  But I’m a harmless oddball.  Anyway, those are a few of my favorite things.  Sorry but I don’t have the talent to set mine to music like that other person did. 

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If You Want To Be Entertained Today…..Go Here

May 21, 2008

I don’t usually do this, but I just spent a good hour all google eyed and interested and fascinated and thoughtful and rolling all over the floor laughing and just about anything else you can imagine while reading this guy’s blog. 

The intelligence fairy must have broken down outside his house the night he was conceived or something.  And the wit fairy must have been the one called to come help out, because this dude is full of both of them in the most charming and fun combination possible.

Have a good time.

http://urikalish.blogspot.com/

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Stuff keeps popping up!

May 20, 2008

About as much as I\'d like a red hot poker up my ........

    Just wanted to share with you a little glimpse of the surprises I keep getting up here on the hill this spring.  It’s my first year here and I have no idea what is going to pop up next!

 

They\'re not ALL roses!

 

 

 

 

Looks like it was outlined in a darker shade of pink.

Layer upon layer upon layer.

 

 

 

It just looks like a party, doesn\'t it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rose

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On Being Hacked On eBay

May 16, 2008

On the 24th of April we were hanging out at the old homestead, doing nada.  I was probably trying to make my way back to the end of the internet again.  The telephone rings.  I didn’t recognize the number so I answered it.  Normally I don’t do that.  However I live on my instincts and this time something told me to see who it was. 

Some lady asked me if it was MDH’s residence.  I said yes it was.  She asked if he was selling anything on eBay.  I said not that I knew of but that he had a way of surprising me sometimes so I had better let her ask him about that.  I took him the telephone and went back to my e-travels.

Not long after that he comes into the room looking more bewildered than he has since Possum projectile vomited when she was two.  (THAT was a HOOT!)  He tells me I need to check our eBay account.  Sure enough, someone has listed some hoity toity crap on our account for sale!  The lady on the phone bid on it and won.  I’m not sure what happened on her end to raise her hackels, but she somehow got a hinky feeling and decided to check it out.

What to do?  Well, on the home page of eBay is a link that says “Live Chat” or something to that effect.  I clicked on that link. 

And here begins the saga of the eBay bogus seller fees.  For some reason they decided that I was responsible for the fees that the bogus seller incurred.  I decided I was not.  I decided that if it was necessary, I would close out my eBay account and just do my business on Craigs list if I had to.

Well, it just so happened that every time I had time to try to resolve this issue, it would be bad weather here.  And unfortunately my internet connection is through satellite.  *sigh*  I talked to three different people in ten minutes in one conversation one day because my connection kept going down. 

The last guy I talked to that day kept telling me that I had to pay the fees I incurred when I listed the items for sale.  I kept telling him that in the first conversation I had, which I had printed out, we had already established that my account had been subject to unauthorized activity.  Therefore I was not responsible for the fees.  I was getting dizzy going around in circles with this guy.  Thank God the connection went down again before I succumbed to apoplexy! 

So, tomorrow, the 17th, is the day the fees were to be charged to my bank account.  I decided to give them one last chance to rectify the situation before I called my bank to tell them not to pay the charges.  I click the Live Chat link on the eBay home page.  I got connected to the right person the first time.  She asked me what the problem was, referred back to the previous conversations I had had with all the other people there, read the messages and alerts that eBay had sent me in regards to the unauthorized use of my account, and fixed the problem in less than five minutes.

I was blissed out!  I gave that little darling about a thousand atta girls, wished her a raise, a wonderful life, a jump in Karma and just about every other good thing I could think of! 

All I could think of was how glad I was that I had been pleasant to all of those other people I had talked to before her!  Because it could have turned out so different if I had blessed out her best friend in the chat center the last time I was on!

I guess patience really IS a virtue.

 

But you know what?  I’ve been thinking about it today.  I know my side of this equation inside out.  They don’t know ME from Adam’s house cat.  I could be anybody.  I could be just trying to get out of paying fees that I really did incur.  I’m sure people do it all the time.    And it wasn’t their fault that the weather intervened the first few times I tried to get this done.  On their end, it must have looked like I was backing out of the conversation every time things got sticky. 

So, in the end, when I had a chance to stay on the conversation, it took eBay a full five minutes to fix a problem for me that could have been a disaster.  And they did it with good grace and were very pleasant about the whole matter.  Not bad for a place that you absolutely cannot contact on the telephone.

Now, if I could just figure out how on earth that lady got my phone number to call me in the first place I think I could lay this whole thing to rest.

 

Things I’ve learned: 

1. Change your passwords often.

2. Be pleasant to the people you want something from.

3. Change your passwords often.

4. Try to see the situation from the other point of view as well as your own.

5. Change your passwords often.

6. Don’t give up.

7. Change your passwords often.

It sure made my day when she said it was all taken care of and my account had been credited.  I just love it when something like that happens.  It just starts my day out right!

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On Being “Nice”

May 14, 2008

I think people today have the wrong idea about what “nice” is. 

I cannot convince my kids that setting boundaries with other people isn’t mean.  Let me give you a hypothetical conversation to illustrate.

Daughter: We split up.  I feel bad about it because he really wants us to stay together but I just don’t love him anymore.  Now he won’t leave me alone.  He calls me all 50 times a day, he comes to my work and causes trouble and I’m about to get fired, I just don’t know what to do.

Me: It’s my opinion that any contact you have with him at this point is only encouraging him to believe that there is still a chance for the two of you.  Are you sure that there isn’t?

Daughter:  Absolutely NO chance.  I really tried.  I don’t hate him, but I just don’t love him anymore. 

Me:  I think the best thing right now would be just to tell him that you have to stop having any contact with him.  There isn’t any reason to talk to him.  If you’re done, it’s only dragging out his agony to continue.  Simply tell him its over and stop taking his calls.

Daughter:  But that’s so mean!

Me: What’s mean about telling him the truth?

Daughter: Well it sounds so harsh.

Me: It’s not harsh, it’s called honest and to the point without alot of superfluous crap added in.  Set your boundaries and stick to them.  The sooner you do that the sooner he will get it and move on.

Daughter:  It just sounds so mean to drop him like that.  I don’t want to be mean to him, I just want him to go away and leave me alone!

Me:  And you think that the way to accomplish that is to continue talking to him?  As long as you do that without setting limits, he will think that you’re doing it because there is still something left for him to say or do to get you back.

Daughter: I don’t want him back, but I don’t want to be mean to him either.

< insert the sound of me banging my head against a brick wall here>

 

Since when is honesty mean?  Since when is setting boundaries mean?  Since when is setting limits mean?

Why is it that people suddenly believe that they should sacrifice their own peace of mind on the alter of someone else’s hopeless dream?   That doesn’t make sense to me.  That kind of “nice” is inherently dishonest.  That kind of “nice” is meanness in its worst and most underhanded form, because it delays the inevitable and holds out false hope.  What it really is, is the refusal to stand up and take the heat for your own feelings now, by putting the other person off until they end things themselves because they feel the dishonesty and can’t tolerate it.  It’s cowardice. 

 

My definition of being nice is being honest even if it isn’t the most comfortable thing at the moment.  It saves hard feelings later on down the road. 

If I know what my limits are, but I refuse to tell you, then I have no room for complaint if you cross them.

So how is setting limits mean?  I just don’t get it.  What’s so “nice” about  dishonesty?

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Word Play

May 9, 2008

Speaking of words…..not that we were……But anyway

Let’s play with words today, just because I’m bored and I have nothing better to do except housework and I avoid that like the plague.

Grumptious-Someone who is grumpy but in a delicious way.

Wit for Brains – Some one who is witty but in a shitty way.  Shittily witty.  Or wittily shitty.

Bother in-law – An in-law (or out-law) that won’t leave you alone.  This one is a unisexual term that can be used for all in-laws of any persuasion.

Pooppees – It’s what puppies are until they are housetrained.  Count on it, I know!

Crapromise – That’s a promise someone makes but they have no intention of keeping it.

Crampromise – Along those same lines, a compromise that never really pans out.

 

Alright, I ran out already.  But I just got to thinking about the word “bill”.  It can be someone’s name, it can be the long hangie-out piece on the front of a hat, it can be the really long hard lips on the face of a fowl or a platypus, it can be something you send to congress, or it can be something you have to pay.  We really make our words work hard don’t we?  

I love words.  They are some of my favorite people.  And since my brain got smushed, they have become a source of endless amusement for many people, including me.  For instance, the time at the Pawn Shop, in June, when a customer was leaving and I told him to have a Happy Thanksgiving.  I have NO idea where that came from.  I was trying to tell him to have a good weekend.  My brain has a mind of its own, though.  That’s probably why I told another customer to have a good idea instead of a good afternoon!  Although having a good idea is never a bad idea, after all.  And then there was the time I was trying to tell someone about Princess Bella’s latest accomplishment.  “She can ride a horse without training wheels”  Hmmm  No, that’s not quite right is it?  I tried it three times and bike came out horse every time.  Finally Bella had to say it for me. 

Now you’re going to see a horse with training wheels all day long aren’t you?  *giggle*  Good!  Me too!  Now, at least I won’t be the only one! 

It just goes to show you, a word is worth a thousand pictures. 

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Happy Birthday To The Buddha and Other Stuff

May 7, 2008

Today is The Buddha’s birthday.  He’s officially a teenager now.  Thirteen.   *sigh* 

This means he is eligible for being locked up in that cave on the outskirts of town until he becomes fit for human company again. 

There are times when he is fun, funny, warm, caring, witty and charming.  Then there are those other times.  Those times when he is “talking” and all I can hear are the howls of wild animals and all I can see are the jumping flames of his campfire reflected off the cave walls.  Then he turns back into that sweet kid again and the howling beasts are just the puppies playing and the campfire is really just the sun.

Teenage years are a schizophrenic time.  Lord I need some severe counseling to get me through it this time!  I’m not near young enough to be doing this again!

But I digress.  The birthday went well today.  It was just a small family thingie.  We had food from the new Taco Hell/KFC, to quote MDH, who took Buddha there to get dinner.  MDH has a hate/hate relationship with KFC anyway.  He can’t tolerate the fact that you can get chicken nuggets at any fast food joint in town except the one place  that sells chicken exclusively.  It chaps his ass in the extreme.  I guess now they will have an excuse.  They will be too busy making all those burritos & tacos to have time for nuggets. 

He got a few gifts that he liked.  His faves were the digi camera and the digi photo album.  The first picture he put in there was one of the only ones we have left of his baby brother, who died.  That thing paid for itself that instant. 

Princess Bella was suitably jealous and grumpy.  She hates it when it’s not all about her.  I feel her.  I always did too on my brothers’ birthdays.  There was only one of me and three of them and I had to wade through all of their birthdays before I got to mine.  I always felt the good stuff dwindling away as their birthdays went by.  It seemed like there wouldn’t be any good stuff left for me by the time MY birthday came around.

I blew up helium balloons, laughed like evil Donald Duck when I inhaled it, put up a banner, etc, etc.  It was fun.  And thank goodness it’s over.  Now I can go back to being a slacker-grandma. 

 

I had a thought today while I was watching the news:  Why is it that we carry around hand sanitizer by the 55 gallon drum, but the new trend is to kiss each other?  WTF is up with that?  Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?  I mean, if I don’t want to get all infested with your germs, then do I really want your mouth on my face, for God’s sake?  I think not! 

I’m not even one of the super dooper hyper clean germophobes and I still don’t want folks slobbering all over my damn cheeks!  It’s just nasty.  I reserve that for my family and a very very few super close friends.  And the friends are only under the mistletoe at Christmas when I’m drunk.  Or at a party under pretend mistletoe when I’m drunk.  *giggle*  I’m just kidding. 

And sometimes babies, although if I were the baby’s parents I wouldn’t want people slobbering all over my baby either.  It just seems like a bad idea.  I mean, here they are, zero, no built up immunity yet, and some joker with the plague decides to come play smoochie face with them.  YUK!  Note to all my friends with new babies:  I will hold your baby, I will make goofy faces at your baby, I will get down on the floor and play with your baby on their level, I will talk to your baby in their own language, I will even cry with your baby (this is the brain damage, pay no attention), but I will not-I repeat-I will NOT kiss all over their face.  End of announcement.

P.S. I will also try very hard not to let them suck on my fingers, because (again-the brain damage) I have no idea where I’ve been.

 

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