Break out the pretzels...

here's even more proof that our president is a big boob! (I know we didn't need it, but here it is anyway.)

mishmash

It's my 3rd day off work and I'm finding that it's exactly what I needed. I've done a lot of nothing, but I've done quite a bit of something as well. It's not the something that I usually tie up my life with, but other things. Cooking things that take time, going through and folding all the gazillion socks that we usually just don't bother to mess with, watching movies more than once, and even taking the time to give myself a mini-pedicure. It's been good.
Even through my few days of doing not so much my brain has been as active as always. Thoughts of where I want to be in a year financially and physically keep coming to the surface and per usual I have gone back to my plan and moved it around a bit mostly to find that I'm still on track and things are good. Time goes so quickly with something, but with things like money they always seem to move so slowly. My "Verucaness" doesn't do well with waiting and when it comes to not having to pinch pennies even more so.
I am not the only one in the world who is on a budget. I know this. I"m sure that all the folks who have moved to Colorado due to Hurrican Katrina are on one. I wonder what they think of Michael Brown opening up a consulting firm right next door (in Boulder) that focuses on disaster preparedness. I think he's an ass personally. I can't imagine putting much faith in his company if I were seeking such a service, but then I wouldn't think that his old boss were worthy of being president either.
On another note I'm having corndogs for lunch. Yes, they are probably loaded with crap that I shouldn't eat but they taste good. So there. Ramble done.

Chip off the ol' block

B and I are watching Singin' in the Rain again. 3rd time in less than 24 hours. She's showing a real liking for old movies. WooT! Someone to watch all my favorite musicals over with. She even dances along with me, but maybe that's a bit too much to share.

Cheers!

ew...

It's official. I have shingles. It's gross. Apparently it's going to get a bit worse. I have the joy of the blisters bursting and forming scabs to look forward to. Now, if I could see this happening it might be interesting on a scientific level, but as it's on my back it's just annoying. I want it gone...NOW!!!

Read 3 Old Men

I read the blog 3 Old Men every day. I was excited when Abby announced that her dad was going to start blogging w/ his friends in tow. She'd posted several blurbs he'd e-mailed to her and immediately she and I agreed he should blog. Then, I got hooked by the whole pole barn saga and am eagerly awaiting an update after they've had guests stay in it. In the meantime I'm reading political writing from Abby's dad. It's really thoughtful. And I highly suggest reading it.

Here is a post from yesterday.

"To: Republican LawmakersFrom: We the peopleRe: President George W. Bush

In recent months, issues that have been largely speculative and colored by the traditional partisan posturing that characterizes American political dialogue have come into much sharper focus. President George W. Bush and his Administration have lead the country into an unprecedented and dangerous quagmire. It is increasingly clear that both Democrats and Republicans in their zeal to react to the Middle East Crises and the Campaign of Islamic Terrorists have been lead to act in ways that are now clearly detrimental to our country based on false and misleading information. To mention a few examples:

1. The Iraq War is not part of our War on Terror. It is and always has been an agenda of a small group of people from several non-governmental Think-Tanks [The American Enterprise Institute, The Project for the New American Century, etc.] that was effected in the guise of being a response to the 911 tragedy.
   
2. The justifications for this war were al Qaeda ties with Iraq and Iraq’s fabled weapons of mass destruction. This information was false, and the Administration knew it was false in October 2002 when the President went before Congress asking for the power to make war.
   
3. Congress did approve that power to disarm Iraq. But when Mr. Bush exercised that power, he went for a regime change, not disarmament. He was following the neoconservative agenda, not the will of the Congress.
   
4. There are now numerous examples that the Administration’s tactics have been executed through clandestine and corrupt pathways. While the "outing" of a C.I.A. Agent is the most blatant example, there are many other examples that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove, etc. are regularly acting covertly to control the outcome of the political process.
   
5. Through the efforts primarily of Mr. Cheney, Congress is being manipulated to pass legislation that is diametrically opposed to what America stands for - Torture, no Habeas Corpus.
   
6. Mr. Bush has appointed a man, John Bolton, who has been a major critic of the United Nations as our representative to the United Nations by waiting until Congress was recessed and making an interim appointment.
   

We, the people have been lied to and we now know it. The Members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, have been lied to. Worse, our young men and women who are dying daily in Iraq have been lied to.
It is time to recall that the Republican Party was brought into America’s consciousness as the anti-slavery party, a party dedicated to human rights. The first American Republican President was Abraham Lincoln, the man who saved our Union and freed the Slaves. He stands before us as a symbol of integrity and greatness. It is time for the Republican lawmakers to stand with the rest of America and restore the Union again, to join in the fight to clear this blemish of lies and manipulation from our political scene.
You were lied to too. There is no shame in opposing the misuse of power by a President who happens to be in your party. Party affiliation is not the same as your job as representatives of the people and the government of our Union. A simple perusal of any opinion polls should make it clear what the people feel. Many Democrats were wrong, as were many Republicans, as were many voters. We are in a period of our history where previous mistakes need not be perpetuated. Who knew that the President was going to misrepresent information and his intentions not only to his critics, but also to his allies?"

unusual post, I know

Alright, so I almost never engage in sports conversations unless they are about XGames type sports and it's usually positive and cheerful. It's not that I don't know about the major sports or whatever. Mostly it's because I just don't give a ratsass about these big time over paid sports stars who were probably the guys and gals that abhorred in high school and college.
However...

Terrell Owens deserves nothing. He doesn't deserve a contract. He doesn't deserve to get another chance on the current team or on any future team. He's a conceited, spoiled JACKASS and poor behavior such as his deserves NO reward. I am sick and tired of seeing people with talent think that somehow that equates into them being able to treat others badly and not have some repurcussion. SCREW THAT!!! If you are a jerk then you get no reward.

Secondly, Jesse Jackson needs to stick to what he knows. I"m not sure what that is exactly, but he needs to STFU regarding an overpaid spoiled loudmouth that is getting his just desserts. This isn't about T.O. being black. It's about him being a moron. Period.

I just hate bad behavior. This fellow KNEW what he was doing before he did it, and so no insincere apology to save his job is really good enough. Sorry would have been not repeating his poor behavior with his new team. If you are really sorry you don't repeat the behavior.

My advise to T.O. (and the advise his family should have been giving him all this time)- "Social skills are hard. TRY HARDER."

Society of fear

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we are so consumed by fear in this country. It seems every headline plays on our fears and there is no escaping it. My thought is that it appears that the only way to avoid being afraid and buying into the control of fear is to be a bit skeptical of most everything you read and investigate further on news items etc. that make you feel a bit nervous.
I won't be afraid of all the negative. Life is far to short to focus on anything but the good stuff and how much is out there to experience despite whatever the risk might be.


-yes, this is another ramble.

I love Halloween.

I really love Halloween. It's really my favorite holiday of the year. I enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas, but for me Halloween is still unmarred by commericials and commercialism. I still enjoy the simple purchase and transformation of a pumpkin, eating the seeds for days after, and the joy of trying to figure out what to be. I just love it.

OUCH!!! My head! But this is goood medicine...

Really quickly I want to post two things that almost have made the pain of my sinus infection go away (almost):

The other 51% of the population that were apparently complete MORONS when voting are changing their minds about the bonehead some people refer to as “President.”

Staged...like we didn't know he couldn't have a normal conversation without some sort of help.

O.K. and this makes it three:

heeheeheee

I'm cleaning up the cyber-poo

After much analysis, thought and umpteen virus, spyware, everything-under-the-friggin’-sun-that-could-compromise-the-data-on-my-computer scan, and even a few tears of frustration I’ve determined one thing about my bank account being robbed. There isn’t a fucking thing I could have done to keep it from happening or anything I can currently do in order to make the process of getting my money back any faster. Nothing. I’m usually one to take the responsibility for catastrophes and assume that somehow I screwed up and that things are my fault. Not this one. There was nothing I could have done differently.

I realize this, but “those people” at the bank just don’t seem to realize that this isn’t something I did to inconvenience them. They act as if I was the one to take the money directly out of their own pockets. It’s almost an insinuation that this is something I wanted to happen and was just walking up to seedy individuals handing my account PINs and passwords out on a business card along with my SSN. It's crazy. "Well, Ma'am if YOU wouldn't have compromised YOUR information..." I realize I’m not the most computer savvy person out there, but at the same time there are a lot of people out there with a lot less knowledge than I have using the internet that aren’t being robbed. I know that there are risks and that I have to protect myself and I do everything from every “Protect Yourself from Identity Fraud” list I’ve seen. Their attitude of me being guilty until I can be proved innocent has made me somewhat obsessed to prove, if not to them but to myself, that I’m not crazy and did everything I could to protect my info. To prove to myself that it was THEIR system that failed and not some careless behavior of my own. I hate that. I hate that this makes me feel like I’m back on the defensive. I hate that somehow inside me I’ve allowed their negativism to make me feel like I somehow am at fault. I’m not. I didn’t want to be robbed and I didn’t put myself out there any more than any other person who has a bank account does.

Needless to say this is all rather disconcerting. It’s not just the missing money that has really disturbed me. It’s much more than that. It’s brought about the realization that I don’t trust myself financially. Despite all my work over the last couple of years to be confident in taking care of finances it doesn’t take much to make me cower. The bad thing is when it comes to your own money who should you trust more than yourself? No one! I should trust myself more than anyone to deal with MY money and the decisions I make financially, the decisions about where I keep my money, and how I choose to bank (in person, by telephone or on the web.) So, I have some confidence building to do with regard to my finances. I don’t know how. I don’t know where to start. I thought I was further along on the path than I am, but at least now I know. There are some cracks, but I will figure it out and gain back the confidence and hopefully there won’t be more tests to my trusting myself and my finances.

P.S. this could lead to a whole other blog entry about how hard it is to heal and mend behaviors that are reinforced with abuse, but I think I did that one briefly and don’t really want to beat the dead horse, but sort of do…

Look what a pretty table. I'm perfeshunal. 

I made pretty food.

Seeeee!! Look how pretty I made the food. The flowers weren't as tasty as I was hoping, but over all they weren't that bad.

I have sand in my underwear.

There are days where life is so unpredictable that it blows you out of the water. You land on the beach and just think, “What the fuck?” because somehow that is the only sentence your brain seems to be able to process. Today was that day.

I walked to work today. My bike ride has become too short. Not that the distance has changed, but my ability has changed. I need a longer amount of time to work my cardio and my muscles so rather than try and ride around the neighborhood a bit I’ve opted to walk at least once a week. The thing about walking is that somehow as my legs move one in front of the other my brain processes. It takes in the surrounding of birds, trees, traffic, the height of the sun and the temperature of the air. Perhaps it’s needless to say this, but I’m going to anyway. The walk is exactly what I need to be invigorated for work and writing. By the time I got to work this morning I had a good idea of writing down all these thoughts. I did an outline and then got busy with the workday.

Two-thirty p.m. Finally time for lunch. I was starving, but needed cash for both food AND for laundry so my first stop was the bank. I went up to a teller, gave her my info and….

“I’m sorry, but you are overdrawn.”

#1- WTF?!!! I just got paid. “How could that be?” I asked and the woman turned her screen toward me. There was a major…o.k. when I say major here I’m not trying to create drama. I actually mean MAJOR as in THOUSANDS!!!…withdrawal not of my making. #2- WTF!!??? I asked how that could be? That wasn’t a transaction I initiated and it’s completely against how I handle my account. Why wasn’t I called? How could this happen? Where is my money? Who took it? #3- WTF? #4- WTF? SHIT!!!! How do I resolve this?

“Ma’am, you can call our customer service to handle this issue. There is a phone over in the hallway.”

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I want a PERSON to explain this to me. A PERSON!!!!

“There are people to explain on the phone. Over in the hallway.” Yeah, thanks Betty I’m a WASP w/ a Japanese last name Tanaka. (yes, I’m naming crappy customer service reps names here.)

So, over to the hallway I go. The phone. The black phone of “customer service” place on a faux marble counter. I call *whatevertheextensionis and get a person. Of course I need to be transferred. NOOOOOOOOOO!!! THIS IS MY MONEY!!! I WANT A PERSON!!!

“Blahblahblahblahblah…3-10 business days. Blahblahblahblah…do you want someone to contact you about what we find?” says “Maggie.” I don’t even think she was real, but more like an automaton they gave a “eeeeeeeeee” name to. Mageeeeee. Mageeeeee. Gah.

#5 WHAT THE FUCK!!! YES, I DO WANT SOMEONE TO CONTACT ME. A REAL PERSON PREFERABLY

I hang up the black plastic customer service phone/Mageeeee and walk back to my office. My legs not invigorating my brain into though or resolution. It’s a chant of wtf? wtf? wtf? wtf? I get to work and customer service calls. “You have to fill out some paperwork at the branch and set up a new account.” Legs moving to the rhythm of wtf? going back to the bank.

“Hi. I’ve been robbed. Here is the fraud number.” Minutes. Phone calls. Stuff. Kind banker boy who has only worked at the bank 5 months and can at least pretend to care. No money. No money.

I have 3 to 10 business days before they resolve this. 3-10 business days. Three to ten…. That’s a long time. In the meantime I get to call the police, the FTC, the crime units at the police, the credit reporting agencies, anyone I have auto-withdrawals or auto-deposits with, the bank, the bank, the bank. #2000- WTF!!??

I needed this

Sitting on a deserted cold beach watching the waves come into shore and wash the sand leaving a print that fades is one of the most cleansing activities that I can think of. It doesn’t just relax me. It goes deeper. Much deeper into my being not only washing the sand clean, but washing all the residue frustrations and torments in life leave behind. There are few other places or things that can do this for me. Late last week I discovered one.

Sophie & Ives- Untie Me

There are a handful of albums that I can go to when I’m frustrated with the weight of the everyday world. This one is the newest of them. For me it washes over like a salty wave shifting and moving the things that are worrisome out of the way and leaving behind a clean slate. It leaves a purity that remembers what it is to love simply, enjoy simply and hardest of all be calm and quiet. I’m not very good at those. This reminds me that I am capable of that state.

Geoffrey's shark project. 

SHARKS!!

I love my children. I'm really proud of the work they do. Check out Geoffrey's diarama of a Great White Shark. It was fun to work on together and he really put a lot of hard work into it.

Who took the fun out of FUNdraiser?

I know I touched on this subject before, BUT...

Really it needs re-addressing. I love my kids. Most of my life is spent making sure that they have the things they need, that they learn things that are (in my opinion) important, and trying to make sure that I create an environment for them that is healthy. This isn't about how much I love them. It's about stopping with the stupid $@%$^ fund-raisers already!!!! WTF? Right now we have the following going:

~ Entertainment books
~ Sally Foster gift wrap and other miscellaneous crap
~ begging my friends/family/business associates to donate items of worth to be auctioned off at a silent auction
~ selling tickets for said silent auction
~ a school carnival (lowest "ticket package" is $10 PER child!!)

Then to top it off I'm being constantly bombarded with requests to volunteer. I have to say no to a lot of the things because they are during working hours and I can't always take time off. So, when I was presented with the opportunity to volunteer at the Carnival I filled out the form and sent it in. I heard nothing back. And nothing back. And still nothing back. Tonight at 9:00 p.m. I got a call asking me to work a booth for TWO HOURS for THIS, yes THIS, Saturday! Hello! After not hearing for a good 10 days I figured they didn't need me. wtf? Do the people who are making the decisions about timing these types of things communicate or are they modeling their communication on that of the feds? Who are these people that don't have lives and can fulfill all the fund-raising obligations that they are burdened with? They obviously don't sleep because after I work all day, cook dinner, clean up a bit, make sure the kids have all their homework completed and make it to bed by 9, and then often work a little more I'm DONE. I don't have more time, energy or inclination to work a second job. And asking people to buy crap they don't particularly want is work, and work that I'm not particularly fond of or good at doing.
We currently have FIVE fund-raisers for the school going on at once. This doesn't count the bike-a-thon they are doing just before the carnival. Why so many at once? Are they cramming it all in so we won't have more later? Yeah, don't kid yourselves, my friends. I'm sure I'll have more going on even over Christmas break.
Now let me ask you, if you knew this is what being a parent of an elementary school aged child was about wouldn't you just want to pull out your checkbook, pass along a bit check to the school and be done with all of it? FUCK! Don't even get me started on WHY all this fund-raising is even necessary (Thanks feds for spending billions elsewhere.)
(By the way, all of those that have helped by buying an entertainment book, gift wrap or other paraphenalia from S.F., donated some cool item to be auctioned, plan on going to the auction, or have helped in any way to my children's school getting $$ for things that the gov't should be providing THANK YOU 1000 times over!! I do appreciate it.)

Brussel Sprouts

What strange little vegetables they are. Somewhere between broccoli and cabbage, but really not like either one at all. I like them. They are quite tasty.

(yeah, I just needed to delve into something not so angry. I'm trying)

Sacrificial Brown. Just say NO!!

Oh for fuck’s sake! Does anyone really believe that Michael Brown resigning makes a damn bit of difference? Does this head taking the fall for Bush make it alright that our country is not ready for a disaster even after we’ve given up our Rights in the name of national security? Sorry, but I’m not buying this anymore than I bought Bush’s plea for us to go to war and fight terrorism. My children and loved ones are not safer. We aren’t. Look at NOLA & the rest of the Gulf Coast and tell me that Bush and his government are ready to respond to another grand scale terrorist attack and I’ll laugh in your face. This country is not prepared despite all the money and fear that the Bush administration has spent in the last 4 years. And yes, I’m pointing the finger of blame at more than Michael Brown.

So, I’ll shout this from a bullhorn the second I see even one of the Bushites~

“FUCK YOU Mr. Cheney, Mr. Bush, Ms. Rice, et al!!! Fuck you until you are down on your knees in the muck and grime of what is left of our country and begging to the corpses that you’ve created, both here and abroad, for forgiveness! Don’t you think that a simple resignation is going to cut it. I don’t accept this sacrifice and neither should the American people.”

*And by the by, I know you are watching me big “Patriot brother.” You just keep watching because the VOTE and the American people are watching you right back. Grab some Orwell and tell me what you think.

Oh reeeeally?

By all recent accounts that I've read the funding was cut from the Army Corps of Engineers to help maintain and repair the levee system that was protecting the citizens of New Orleans. Stories following the devastation and destruction show that the local, state, and federal agencies were not prepared for a catastrophic storm with the magnitude of Katrina. (do I really need to post even one link for proof of this?) O.K. so my point? Well, my point is exactly what the fuck did they waste the paper for this proclamation for if they weren't going to back it up? Fuck you, Mr. Bush for all your lies and false promises. Do us all a favor and resign before this nation is shamed even further by your blundering bullshit.