Wild Mountain Honey

Economic Crisis

2008-10-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

I am loving this economic crisis.
Gas is down, groceries are down. I don't have a 401 K or any investments, so I have nothing to lose.
I can only benefit from a global recession.
Thank you crazy-ass bankers and stupid-ass home owners.

Plumbing and Bagpipes

2008-09-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

A steady drip from beneath the kitchen sink turned into a steaming geyser expoloding into the kitchen proper.

The water spread so fast within minutes I heard it dripping into the basement.

Thankfully this geyser was caused by my land-lady attempting to fix the original leak.

Now the kitchen floor is so warped my kids were playing "King of the Mountain" on the huge lumps rising beneath the carpet.
I am so not kidding.

There is a hole in the living room wall; Samson pointed out that it's shaped like an "L."

No water in the kitchen and only cold water in the bathroom. I just washed some cups and silverware in water I heated on the stove.

I was snapping at my kids tonight. It wasn't their fault, but I was snapping at them anyway.

A bagpipe band and fiddling family were giving a free concert tonight by the library.
After a day like this, no way we were going to some bagpipe music.

My kids loved the bagpipes and especially loved the fiddling family. They were both dancing and we were all laughing.

Who can be maintain a bad mood watching pipers in their kilts and sporrans playing traditional tunes and the wee ones a laughing and dancing?

Not I.
Well, not for long anyway.

National Politics

2008-09-02T08:55:00.001-07:00

This Sarah Palin pregnant daughter story is just too much to ignore.
I am not a McCain voter, never would have been but he certainly got my attention with his pick for VP.
However, today I think she was not a good choice.
A woman with a special needs infant and a pregnant teenage daughter has some personal problems to attend to. She really has not business leaving her family; they need her worse than John McCain does.
Did her daughter get pregnant as a cry of attention? Who is taking care of the baby? First Dude?
As a woman with children, I learned that many of my own ambitions and desires were put on the back burner for the needs of my kids.
I can't respect a woman who puts her political career above her home.
There are other women in the Republican Party, women whose children are grown.
Why didn't McCain pick one of them?

Kindergarten

2008-08-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

Samson's first day of Kindergarten.

I felt very guilty because I couldn't personally drop him off then pick him up from his first day of school, but he didn't care.

It's a hot, hazy day. There must be a fire somewhere because the whole valley is smokey.

The only indication that fall is coming are a few brownish edges on some leaves, and not that many leaves are affected.

Samson saw many of his friends at school, friends from church and the neighborhood. He was delighted to see kids he already knew and right now he is playing down in his room with two friends and Nathan.

I have this swelling feeling of pride. My boys are doing so well. They are just as happy and as healthy as two little boys should be.

Taking care of them is hard, hard work, but really it's worth it because we love each other so so much.

Hey! The Olympics Start Today.

2008-08-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

I met Sophie at Terra Linda Park last year, just a few blocks from my home in Portland.
Sophie, a small Asian woman in her late 30's, made eye contact with me and immediately approached me with the look of someone with something very important to say.

In broken English, she explained that she was a practitioner of Falun Gong. Because of this, she had been imprisoned, beaten, and tested for organ harvesting in China.

Despite my shock and initial refusal to believe that such things could really happen, I knew she was telling the truth.

Sophie had to go into hiding when she was pregnant with her third child. She gave birth in a mountain village, far away from any hospitals or modern medicine.

When her husband and children emigrated to the United States, they were forced to divorce and she was left behind. She knew her life was in danger; she was going to be killed.
Somehow she escaped.

Now,Sophie gets up every morning at 3am; she calls people in China, talking to them about things they already know.

Several weeks after our initial meeting, I happened upon Sophie and some of her friends practicing Falun Gong at the park while I was walking home after dropping my son off at school.
They were some of the nicest people I'd ever met.
They kindly invited me to practice Falun Gong with them, and I did.
The practice of Falun Gong was basically some stretching and breathing exercises. Sophie and company gave me a book to read and invited me to Sophie's house to learn more about the philosophical side of Falun Gong.

I wasn't too interested in learning more about Falun Gong's deeper spiritual aspects. I have already chosen a spiritual path and really don't need any distractions.
However, I was very impressed by the reality of Sophie.
She is a real person whom I met and touched and spoke with.
The human rights violations I hear about whenever China is mentioned became real to me, through her.
http://www.falundafa.org/

Still Republican Friendly

2008-07-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took my kids down the street to watch the Ogden Pioneer Days Parade.

I haven't been to a parade for years due to extreme hassle of attending one in the Portland area.

The parade started with alot of military representation. Hill AFB sits just to the south of Ogden and is a huge employer and influence on the whole area.

Also making their presence known, as if it weren't already, was our Lord and Savior's church here on earth. A procession of at least 50 missionaries, elders and sisters, walked down the parade route, clutching their scriptures singing "Onward Ever Onward." The crowd went wild and I got all choked up, encouraging my kids to cheer them on.

The state rep for our congressional district showed up, as did the news team from Channel 5, along with few other local minor celebrities I didn't recognize.

Sitting behind me were a few women decked out in all their Utah-esque glory. Teased and bleached hair, nails, carefully coordinated outfit, you know the type.

One of them was particularly loud, she was shouting out in her best Utah twang, "We're proud of you guys," or curiously, "Thanks for coming to Ogden," revealing Ogden's status as 2nd or even 3rd choice when it comes to Pioneer Day Parades.

Then what did we see coming down the street? A huge Barak Obama in a cowboy hat float.

I encouraged my kids to go wild over that. It was the Weber County Democrats- yes, they exist.

I raised my arms and shouted, "YAY DEMOCRATS!"

One of the Democrats walked over to me and we did the fist bump thing in an awkward, white, way.

The loud woman behind me was strangely quiet, no "We're proud of you guys," no "Thanks for coming to Ogden."

I kept cheering on the Weber County Democrats and I felt alot like myself.

Excuse me, I need to go Laugh now

2008-07-07T17:58:00.000-07:00

I'm working in the exciting world of insurance again.
Yes, sitting behind a desk in a sleepy little office, processing payments and quoting new vehicles.
It's not much, but it does qualify as gainful employment.

Sylvia is the sweetest, most non-threatening middle-aged co-worker I've probably ever had. Since she has been working there for 13 years, and I've been working there for 3 days; she gets to control the radio.

The radio tuned is to a country station, and not one of those cool rockabilly stations; it's one of those horrid country-that-is-pop-music-in-all-but-name-only stations.

Today, while concentrating on the fascinating glass claim of a certain Mr. Wilfred Hale, a Toby Keith song came on the radio and I felt sure I was going to run from the room.

Toby Keith writes THE most OUTRAGEOUS lyrics of any mainstream country singer.

This particular song on the radio was familiar to me only because it was the butt of a joke on 'The Daily Show' last week.

Here it is:

"And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The u.s. of a.
’cause we’ll put a boot in your ass
It’s the american way"

Just imagine my face as I heard this sonnet of patriotism emitting from Sylvia's radio and pity me. I almost exploded from the sheer effort of keeping sarcasm, disdain, and scorn locked inside.

(If ever you want to pick your jaw up off the floor, look up the lyrics to "The Taliban Song" by our good friend Mr. Keith).

My backyard

2008-03-20T18:36:00.001-07:00

After living in an apartment complex for over 6 years, I'm maybe a little too delighted to have a back yard.

This is like living in a real house. I have a back yard, front yard AND a garage and a driveway leading to the garage.

Yesterday, my next-door neighbor and I were watching the comings and goings of our across-the-street neighbors and making comments as to what it all might mean, when I attained enlightenment: I live in a neighborhood.

I'm part of a community.

I didn't really feel that way in the apartments; apartments have so much turnover.

With the one glaring exception of Samson's friend, Jan, we never made any good, solid connections within our apartment complex despite living there for so long.

We have some unbearable neighbors, some sloppy neighbors and a cute mysterious neighbor on the corner.

I'm glad we're here.

I feel Glorious

2008-03-13T19:15:00.000-07:00

A new friend was kind enough to get me a week-long membership to her gym.
This is one of those bright, airy new gyms. Every female-friendly amenity is avaliable except massages, dammit.
Child care, most wonderful amenity of all, allows this weary mama to bid Bye-bye to her children, and take care of herself for a while.

I spent 40 minutes on the treadmill, reading my trashy novel which unfortunatly is too bulky for the little magazine holders on the treadmill screen, but I wanted to look intellingent, you know, reading a book and all, so I pressed forward.
Then,I sat in a huge hot tub for a while, still reading my trashy novel, then I swam a few laps in the perfect-temprature pool. I left the trashy novel on the edge of the pool.
My body feels so good, I feel so relaxed.
Tomorrow I'm going to a yoga class. Does it get any better? What next? Will I be allowed a few minutes in the opium den afterwards?
I want to spend the rest of my life at this gym. I want my world to revolve around the treadmill, hot tubs and yoga class.
I hesitate to get myself a membership because A.) I don't have an income and B.) If I do get a job, will I even have time to use the gym?
That's the practical part of me, always looking at the what ifs and why nots.
The impractical part of me says, 'get a membership, you'll use it because you love this place.

Who will win?

Need Some Help?

2008-03-05T19:34:00.000-08:00

Backing my mini-van into our snow and ice covered gravel driveway is a mundane daily activity.

Today I got stuck. In my own driveway. Not watching where I was going, I bumped into some junk piled alongside the driveway. Trying to go forward and maneuver around the junk, my tires spun and spun on the still unmelted ice.

Grumpily getting the kids out of the van, my first thought after, FUCK!, was to go over and ask my neighbor if she had a tow rope.

I immediately wanted to ask for help.

My youngest sister Samantha takes pride in doing everything herself. She hates asking for help and does so with numerous apologies and plenty of guilt. Samantha moved most of her furniture into her house in Kemmerer by herself.

I considered Samantha and her aversion to asking for help, went back outside, moved the junk, backed the van up and over the icy spot, thus avoiding any humiliation or groveling.

Do I ask for help to often? Did I get so used to asking for help that I just automatically assume I can't do anything by myself?

Do those you ask for help think you are a clumsy idiot?

Don't you hate it when you offer to help someone and they refuse even though they obviously need it?

Are you/am I helpless, helpful, neither or both?

Do you hate asking for help?

Do you do it even though you don't want to?

How far do you have to be pushed before you will ask for help?

Is it better to give or give others a chance to give?

Things that are pissing me off

2008-02-29T18:31:00.001-08:00

I just moved to Utah.
There are a few things pissing me off.
1. Haven't gotten a job yet.
2. Can't talk to Melissa because her phone is a piece of shit and she doesn't have internet access.
3. Sales Tax
4. Pumping my own gas.
5. Smog-Holy Shit the air quality is terrible. I never lived along the Wasatch Front before but I've been here often enough to know that there is an air-quality issue, but living with this thick haze is making me and my kids hack.
6. My dilapidated duplex smells like cat piss when I've been gone for a few hours and the place has been shut up. Can't wait for that 100 degree + weather this summer.
7. Sprawl, so much sprawl.
8. The water tastes like shit.
9. Cable TV. We used rabbit ears in Portland forever and we got enough channels to get by. I had to get cable here in order to get any channels. We 'accidentally' got the full package even though I wanted the basic package. Anyway, the children are watching way too much TV. I know that this is something I can control and should control, but it was easier when we didn't even have it.
10. The recreation district is a joke compared to Tualatin Hills. Don't even get me started on how inadequate it is. I'll start to cry.
11. Ugh, the local newspaper stinks and the Opinion page should be burned, not printed. Oy! The Ogden Standard-Examiner does not address social issues at all; Just crime, punishment, and laws- Never their causes. I really need to write them and set them straight.
12. I'll keep thinking about it and get back to you later.

The Fisherman

2007-12-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

Today in the brief, bright sunlight of noon at Winter Solstice I saw a man fishing.
I saw him from my seat inside the light-rail train that glides behind car dealerships, un-lovely apartment buildings, and beside an urban stream.
The stream is more like a river today thanks to heavy rainfall last night.
The fisherman gave me hope. Who would think to drop a line in this dirty and ignored path to the Pacific? Surely, he is an optimist.
Will the man catch a fish? Do fish even live in such a place? My hopes are yes and yes.

I am a mother myself.

2007-10-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

Beggars and Choosers, Motherhood is Not a Class Privilege," is a photo exhibit about women-poor women-poor women who are mothers.

Poor women who are mothers: I am one of them.
I've been on cash assistance welfare. I am still on food stamps. I don't have a car and I don't have a job.

I made a very poor choice when I married the father of my children. His various addictions have caused terrible hurt and turmoil in my life. My kids love him and I hate what he's done to me.

But back to being a poor mother. I know that I am a good mother despite all these obstacles. I know that I am doing my very best to raise my children.

But I feel inferior inside of myself when I see mothers who have money and have cars and have supportive husbands. I feel so bad somedays I want to collapse inside myself and give my kids away; give them to someone who can take care of them better than I can. Or at least better than me and my husband-in-name-only can.

It's a miserable feeling and intellectually I know the truth. The truth is that I'm a great mother. I am educated and I am smart. I will leave this marriage and make a better life for myself and my kids.
The cycle of poverty and addiction is not mine forever, I will throw it off and live a better way.

However, are there lessons to be learned from low low end of the income scale? I believe there are powerful lessons and foremost among them is compassion.

True compassion for a person's struggles without judgement. How many times have I heard, "You should have thought about that when. . . " "Thats what you get for having kids you can't take care of. . . .?"

How superior the person making these statements must feel. How absolutely perfectly privilaged they must be. I have made these statements myself, before the bad marriage and all the agony that came along.

It hurts to be poor, it hurts to see your kids go without. It hurts, but somehow it also shapes a better human being.

Ode to my little Blue Lunch Bag

2007-07-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

Soft and squishy,
manufactured in China, a polar bear gracing your front flap.
How many jobs have I dragged you to? How many refrigerators have I stuffed you inside of?

You were purchased at Wal-Mart over seven years ago. You accompanied me to my first ever call-center job (wheeee!)
You slogged through four years of lunches at The Big Bad Insurance Company. You tagged along to several other random and forgettable jobs.
Upon the birth of my children, I used you for sippy cups and snack storage.

I'd say I got well over my $6.99's worth of use out of you.

I've thought about replacing you, but why? You always preformed your duty faithfully, keeping my food safe, away from the food of others.

A while back, your handle started detaching from the rest of you, your sides becoming grimy, but no less beloved.
This morning you finally became unusable. The black plastic latch that holds your top to your bottom is broken beyond repair.
Little lunch box, tis the end of an era.
I'll give you a proper burial.
Say hello to your brethren in the municipal graveyard of broken cast-off, plastic stuff.
You had a good life.
Rest in peace.

Another Culture Appeals to me

2007-04-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

I just read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. Besides making me cry, I fantasized about being a petite, lovely Asian lady with sworn sisters but without the bound feet.

Now I'm going through a phase of loving all things Asian. We already have two Buddahs - a brass one and a wax one. I needed some plastic plates because my kids have broken most of my porcelin plates, so at Goodwill I picked out some shallow bowls with Asian characters on them.

My Japaneese roomate, Mimi, once cautioned me against buying anthing with Chinese characters on it because you just don't know what those characters really mean.

Being a loud, pushy American down to my very soul, I sought out an Asian lady who was also shopping at Goodwill to ask her if she recognized the characters.

She handed the plate to her husband, he deliberated for a few minutes and it turns out the characters were: Four, Seasons, Peace, Prosperity.

Works for me.

I hope they weren't offended.

This fascination with Oriental art and culture will die down, but it just goes to show you what a powerful book can do. It can not only transport you to a different place and time, but it can change you a little bit, too.

Since I love the cartoon Xiaolin Showdown, here's Omi:

Floating Honeys

2007-04-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

I saw these two unwittingly leaning towards each other on the Portland State University campus.
Walking around the campus I thought, 'So this is what it would have been like if I'd gone to an urban college.'
I'm glad I attended a small school in a small town. I liked those wide open vistas.

Rosalyn

2007-03-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

This is Rosalyn. She is a native of Brooklyn, New York. She thinks San Francisco is over-rated and L.A. is nice place to visit.

I've seen her hanging around the Park Blocks near the Portland Art Museum. With her outrageous hair and makeup, she stand out from the other regulars. I didn't ask Rosalyn about her hair. I didn't want to be rude.

We had a perfectly normal, mundane conversation as if we'd know each other for years.

I put a dollar in her cup and she acted surprised, not insulted or grateful, just surprised.

Missed Opportunity

2007-03-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

I started a new job in dowtown Portland, Ore. 2 weeks ago. The first day I took a walk on my lunch hour and I kept wishing I had my camera.

Everywhere I looked I saw a really cool picture.

Today I was taking another walk on my lunch hour and photojournalism's picture of the year slapped me ironically in the face.

A sign announcing the week's events outside the door of an old late-1800's church read: Saturday's Sermon: REALITY.

Just below this sign, on the church's door step, lay a man wrapped in a red sleeping bag.

I stopped and stared and wondered if he had chosen to sleep there on purpose, just for the poetic hell of it.

Wednesday the camera comes to work with me.

Birthday

2007-03-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

Today is my sister, Alyssa's birthday. She is 27. I am 33. Alyssa and I have never been particularly close. I do love her and I wish her a happy birthday filled with love. We weren't real good at expressing love in our family.
We grew up in chaos, 6 kids, a dog, a cat, some fish, and an angry, controlling, hyper-sensitive mother.
My mom is the dictionary definition of co-dependent. She expected everybody else, especially my dad to make her happy. She blamed him for everything and unhappily she passed that trait onto her daughters.
It's good that I know in my head anyway that no one else is responsible for my happiness, it's up to me. It's good to know that I shouldn't blame another for my unhappiness. These are good things to know, but harder things to believe.
At least I know them.

Stephen Madsen, Where are you?

2007-02-03T13:09:00.000-08:00

It's been almost, like, eight years since I met you and nearly six years since I saw or talked to you.
The last I knew you were moving to Salt Lake to attend grad school. How did that turn out?
I live in Portland now and every Saturday afternoon they play 2 hours of Greatful Dead music. I wouldn't be listening now if it weren't for you.

In fact, I live in Portland much because of the tremendous influence you had on me back then.
If my some miracle of the internet you stumble across my much-neglected blog, contact me.
-Leah

Winter Wonderland

2006-12-17T14:40:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, an angry winter storm blew in off the Pacific and kicked our asses. Hurricane-force winds mellowed slightly before they reached dear old Portland ripping up trees and knocking our power out overnight and into the next day.

Last night a transformer somewhere blew up and a big chunck of suburbia went black again. Not us, thank you Jesus, but directly across the street from us, our neighbors were in the dark.

Cedar Hills Boulevard is a major artery in Beaverton, flanked by all manor of fast-food restaurants, grocery stores, big box retaliers and a BMW dealership.

Making our way home last night, driving on a Cedar Hills Blvd that was as dark and empty as a country road was really. . . . creepy.

"This must be a nuclear holocoust would be like," I thought and shivered as I tried very carefully to get home in the dark.

I don't think I've ever been so happy to see the lights of home.

Literally.

Black Friday: USA v. Iraq

2006-11-24T14:13:00.000-08:00

My fellow Americans are enjoying a peacful day of overspending after a peacful day of pigging out. Are we the most blessed nation on earth or what?
Meanwhile our democracy-challenged protege in Iraq are slaughtering on another.
I feel so guilty sitting here on my privilaged ass while thousands and thousands of people are being in Iraq.
What to do? What to do? I really don't know, but I want you to know that it's upsetting and I"d like to care about pre-dawn sales and red-tag specials, but Iraq is a mess to put it mildly, and we, American's are responsible for the damage.

Land that I Love

2006-11-08T13:29:00.000-08:00

Whooo-Hoooo!
I've never been so excited about an election. This was the best election ever. I'm trippin': Go America!
Take That Neocons! See, you can't just run a country like you own the place. This is American and we're taking our country back from you assholes.
We are partying like the Superbowl here at my house. Little sausages, chips and salsa and a wicked sense of poetic justice.
Next to resign: George W Bush. Political Capital my ass.
How did that idiot ever get elected in the first place? I'm proud to say that I never voted for him and I'm a registered Republican.
Yeee-Hawww, Go Democrats. My friend Vicki was a loyal Democrat her whole life and I'm sure she's having a party in heaven.
Donkeys Rule.

Yawn, a governor's race.

2006-11-03T16:47:00.000-08:00

Ron Saxton wants to unseat Kulongoski as the governer of America's most pleasant but fiscally challenged state: Oregon.
He's going to loose not because Kulongoski is such a great governor or that Saxton is such a bad guy but because Kulongoski hasn't done anything shockingly bad or pissed off the wrong people.
Oregon is about the same as it was four years ago when Kulongoski was elected, and Saxton is blabbing the typical politician's promises of better schools and better jobs, but he's not exactly blowing us out of the water with his charisma.
Even a political enthusiast like myself can get sick of a politician and last night Saxton made me sick of him. While watching an hour's worth of news on TV, Saxton's bland commerical trying to distance himself from the problems of Republicans played over and over and over and over.
Kulongoski is no dynamo, but he's OK and in Oregon OK is good enough.

If independent Ben Westlund had stayed in the race I would have voted for him, just for livening the race up a little.

Accessories

2006-10-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

I love dangly earrings.

But not every dangly earring; there are some ugly-ass earrings out there.

My friend, Jenny, says that a pair of dangly earrings can make pajamas look glamorous. She is rarely seen without some funky bauble dusting her jawline.

Last spring I bought a wonderful pair of dangly East Asian-inpsired earrings with all sorts of beads and clanky charms jingle jangling all over the place.
I wore them alot and constantly fought off my baby's grabby little fingers. He couldn't resist all that action swinging from Mama's ears and I didn't want my earlobes bleeding.
But, I started getting the feeling that my signature earrings were bad luck; perhaps loaded with some mass-produced Hindu curse.
Firstly, I wore them to a job interview that I swear I nailed, but they never calle dme back.
I wore them the day I fell down and ruptured the quad tendon in my right knee. I'm still wearing the brace, BTW.
I tried to lose them that day by taking them off and throwing them down in a friend's car, but they made their way back.

Next I was wearing them when an orthopedic doctor told me how bad my injury was and that I needed surgery immediately.
I threw them in the garbage that time.
Maybe they weren't really cursed. I know they weren't and sometimes I want to go back to World Cost Plus Market tand get another pair.

Thursday I was standing next to a display of dangly earring. Buy One Get One Free!I impulsively bought two pairs of extra-dangly, sparkly, swingy, swanky earrings. I love moving my head any little way and feeling the jingle bells.
Batman Smells.
Mama has new jewelry.

Good News

2006-10-10T17:28:00.000-07:00

I hate those people who wheeny-whine about all their problems, so of course I don't want to be like that. I want to be positive and full of good news.
I know this is a matter of perspective. Of course it could always be worse; I could live in Bagdad. Shudder.
Good News is that I am working of recovering from my sick addiction to destructive relationships. I am re-reading my book "Women Who Love Too Much" and it's sinking in even more deeply than the first time.
My friend Jenny has been telling me for months that I needed to read it again, but I put it off, thinking I've learned my lesson, I can handle it now.
Wrong.
I can't reverse a lifetime of thinking and acting so easily. It takes a long time.
NO wonder people stay stuck in ruts, it's really hard to change. I know, because I'm trying.

Wind in the Quakies

2006-09-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

"Road to the River" by Maynard Dixon

Oregon is being blessed by a most magnificent Indian Summer. The sun was shining bright and hot today.
I got outside and I watched the sun swinging and swaying behind a cottonwood changing color.

Moving homes and joints

2006-09-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Hi,
Another long stretch without a post.
This time I moved. We were living on a third floor apartment and with my knee injury it was pretty impossible to leave the house.
Now we are on a bottom floor apartment. As far as moves go, this one was pretty easy. We literally moved across the parking lot. Still, some things are missing and I hope to find them.
Among the missing: J's passport (!)
My 2nd pair of glasses
A ream of printer paper
Instruction booklet for digital camera
By listing them, I'm hoping the universe returns them, especialy the passport, although I think J probably misplaced it before we moved; he likes to think it's my fault.

I can bend my knee at bout a 30 degree angle; Hooray!, I can sit in the front seat of a car again. Prior to this I had to sit in the back with my leg straight.
It is going to be another 8 weeks or more before I'm allowed to drive again. Let me tell you what a hassle that is!
Physical therapy isn't so bad, my mom had her knee replaced last year and she had me all scared about going to p.t. but really they have me doing such small exercies, it dosn't hurt.
However trying to bend my knee and keep it bent does make it a little sore.
Just take my advice; never, ever rupture a tendon.
My injury does make me extremely grateful for the miracle of modern medicine.
If I were alive 100 or more years ago, I'd be crippled for life. Seriously.
I feel really sorry for all the people in all the centuries past who mangled their knees and just had to live with it.
Thank you Jesus for Kaiser Permanente!

College and the Things I Didn't Learn.

2006-09-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

The lead opinion piece in Sunday's Oregonian was written by a college professor who was bitching about infantile college students.
She had some very excellent points such as: Why are we paying out the ass for college when most college students spend their time socializing and drinking and once they graduate they can barely balance a checkbook?
Ah, college. . . that blissful waste of time between childhood and the 40 hours a week of grey cubicle you will call 'work' for the rest of your life.
I remember college and I specifically remember sititng in my car many a lonely night, anxious to get away from the pressure of socializing and drinking and trying to act all cool and stuff.
I was able to pick up some radio stations from southern California at night, and thats when I heard Mr. KFI.
His talk radio show was so great. Every night he took random calls from all segments of humanity. He had no topics, no screeners and no agenda. He talked to everybody who called in about whatever was on their minds.
Mr. KFI fans had a favorite conspiracy theory having to do with Rubic's Cubes and secret government tests sights in the desert. At least once a night he'd end up polishing that old chestnut.
I don't think Mr. KFI is around anymore. I wonder what happened to him.
Anyway that is one clear memory of my college years, the rest is a little hazy.

The Movie Made Me Do It.

2006-08-31T19:39:00.000-07:00

I majored in Advertising and Public Relations.
No, Really.
My passion is jounalism but I took so many interesting advertising courses that it was just as easy to declare an advertising emphasis. Besides that, I wasn't very good at punctuation.
Whatever, the point is I love ads and I really love bad ads because it makes me feel smart to point out the flaws.
The worst TV commercial I've seen lately is for Hollywood Video.
Apparently they are trying to combat movies-by-mail and on-demand cable. They are doing it quite badly.
Their current ads feature normal-to-beautiful looking people choosing incredibly lame movies then regreting their choice.
It's an attempt at parody but it dosn't work because it dosn't ring true.
Even worse than the unrealistic premise of the ad is the message that customers have bad taste. Left to our own devices we slovenly movie lovers will watch something that sucks. We need Hollywood Video to save us from ourselves.

Attention Hollywood Video's ad agency:
Don't insult your money, er customers. Duh.
And spare us from your horrible satire; we grew up on The Simpsons and we watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. We know satire and if you can't do it well don't do it at all.

Designing for Disaster

2006-08-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

You can't turn on the TV, radio, or open a newspaper without being reminded of Hurricane Katrina today. We were all pretty shocked at the pictures coming out of New Orleans last year, and the Johnny Jihads of the world looked like ineffective little punks compared to a giant swirling cloud of rain and wind.
Are we prepared for another natural disaster, have we learned anything and more importantly have we done anything?
"The American Society of Civil Engineers last year gave the nation a "D" for its infastructure conditions, esimating it would take over five years and $1.6 trillion to fix the problems. "
So the infastructure of the USA is only one natural or man-made disaster away from total collapse?
Greaaaaat.
Will someone please tell me what our wise and noble federal government is doing about this? "Experts say that a transportation bill passed last year (to address these problems) is riddled with some 5,000 'earmarks' for projects sought by members of Congress that do nothing to systematically address the problem*"; such as the infamous 'bridge to nowhere' in Alaska.

In the words of our beautifully blunt on-line community: WTF?

Maybe roads and bridges and sewage treatment plants and landfills arn't exactly sexy, but damn; they're really really important.

Lets hope that all the Katrina anniversary celebrations draw attention to the extremely basic needs in our own country, and perhaps we'll start getting some much-needed maintenance.

Until then?
We're fighting wars in foreign countries; re-building the Gulf Coast (supposedly); cutting taxes (for rich people); and building cookie jar museams in North Carolina with federal money; but the airplane landing instruments at LAX keep breaking down.

Come and get us Islamo-nutcase-terrorists; we're wide open.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Italicized info by Chuck McCutcheon, Newhouse News Service

Strong Stuff

2006-08-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

Jane Eyre is a fantasy; a fairy-tale; complete female flippery that would NEVER happen in real life. However, 150+ years later people (like me) are still reading it and thinking about it.
The book is such a part of our literature heritage you probably already know the basic plot, so there will be no re-cap, only musings.
Our heroine, JE, was a strong woman. She wasn't strong only because she overcame some really bad situations, but because she actively avoided making a bad situation worse.

Two flawed guys tried to pressure her into marriage and she turned them down in a time when single women were treated like freaks.

After JE's engaement fell apart, she fled temptation without taking anything that didn't belong to her. She left the pearl necklace Rochester gave her and didn't even ask for the wages she was owed. She ran away from her fantasy love and his crazy wife and went out into the cold cold world all alone.

I would have taken the pearl necklace a few pieces of silverware on the way out.

Not Jane, she was going to make it by herself. Sure, she had to sleep in the forest and eat pig slop, but it was a small price to pay for a clean conscience.

Strong and pure Jane already knew she couldn't have lived with the guilt of being an illegitimate wife and living in a false luxury.

A weaker woman would have run away with Rochester, self-medicated the guilt away, nagged the jerk out of her life, and ended up miserable anyway.

JE stayed strong, made the hard but good choices and it all turned out OK in the end.
Even if JE hasn't gotten back together with Rochester, you know her life would have turned out well because she had conviction.
She made decisions that were good for her in the long run. To hell with Rochester and his lies and St. John and his 'you were made for work not love,' Jane was gonna take care of Jane.

If you've read JE, what do you think?

Time and its temptations.

2006-08-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

My last post is 2 and a half weeks old. In cyber-time I might as well be dead.
What have I been doing? Nothing fun I assure you. I wish I'd been on vacation or had guests from out-of-town, but fate has not been so kind.
I took a nasty fall down a steep slope and injured myself quite badly. I actually had surgery. I've never had surgery before, except a c-section and I was up and around only two days after that.
My current status is disabled, really.
I can't walk into my apartment unassisted, I can't take care of my children, I can't drive, can't shop, can't walk to the mailbox. I'm home-bound, all alone, and it's a little weird.
Now I have time, time do to whatever I want as long as I can do it at home. Thanks to the internet, I can indeed do a lot from home, I could stay house-bound forever become one pale, ratty and paranoid recluse. But that's not me, I like going outside.

Ironic really, here I finally have all the time in the world, and I'm using it to resist certain amusments.
For example, I could have the TV on all day and really get a schedule going, but I'm resisting that temptation. Yesterday I did watch Oprah, I tried to pretend I didn't know she was about to come on, and yesterday's show wasn't even that good, but I watched and I'll probably watch again today. Cheating husbands, on today's Oprah.
I could also spend the whole day chatting on craigslist about any varity of subjects, but I've not gone there . . . yet.
Most tempting of all and therefore the thing I must resist the most is eating.
I could and dread to spend my day eating all the junk in the house. You see, my husband is back and being a skinny man, he can fill the fridge with whatever he likes, being a full-figured woman I must bear down and do something to ignore all the junk he's brought home.
It's not easy.

Help me Oprah.

Stay Back Starbucks

2006-08-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

Starbucks sales at coffee shops open at least 13 months rose 4% in July.
Analysts forcasts ranged from a rise between 6-7%.
The headline gasped "Starbucks sales sluggish, comsumers buying gas instead," or at least it should have.
Starbucks stock dipped as a result of the above sales information. The Corporation for Overpriced, Super-Sweet Coffee Drinks speculated that frou-frou drinks like the Banana Creme Frappucino and the Green Tea Bluberry Frappucino (which tates NOTHING like green tea) were taking too much time to prepare thus causing long lines thus driving customers away.

I used to be a serious Starbucks person. At the Starbucks conveniently located in my local Safeway, buying drinks with my Safeway Club Card assures that every 8th drink was free. Loading up on caffine, sugar, fat, and calories plus a getting closer to my 'free one' was an almost daily ritual.

My personal favorite: Grande Iced Mocha. No Whip.

I don't frequent Starbucks much anymore. It wasn't the outrageous price or the insane number of fat grams nor long lines that drove me away. I found a substitute: dark roast mate. Mate a tea from South America thats tastes god-awful in it's original form.
Some North Americans guys and their marketing company made it taste good and one box of 20 tea bags costs five dollars, four if it's on sale.
With some milk and honey, mate is about the best tea I've ever had, and it dosn't leave you with the rot-gut the way coffee does.
Not that I've sworn off Starbucks forever; it's still the occasional treat.
I'm hoping I never see the Mate Frappucino at Starbucks, I'm sure it will taste delicious.

Why the Oxygen Network has no credibility.

2006-08-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

This item appeared on the internet yesterday: "Women like Tech Toys more than Shoes"
Let me tell you right now: This does not apply to Me.
I think Sony or Verizon wrote this press release and paid the Oxygen Network to release it.
The first part of the article says that some group of women were given a choice between a plasma TV and a diamond solitare necklace and most of them chose the TV. As a woman, I must way we are hard-wired to put beautiful things on our bodies, not zone out in front of a mini-movie screen watching car chases and balls swooshing through hoops or goals or end zones or whatever.
Why would you choose a fancy schmancy TV when the old one works just fine over a real diamond necklace? It's not possible.
I guess men can't understand the allure of jewelry and I can't break it down other than to say it makes you look and feel good. TV dosn't make you feel pretty. You can't put a TV around your neck and feel the lights sparkling and the heavenly weight of money and love pressing against your throat like a crown. TV can't do that!

The article also says that women are just as tech savvy as men, this I believe- but still the part about TVs over diamonds, just dosn't ring true.

What do you think girls? Is this total baloney or what?

Oxymoronic

2006-07-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

I watched a terrific (are there any other kind?) show on PBS last night.
Wide Angle focused on women's rights in Morocco.
As it turns out Morocco has a pretty progressive monarch fighting Islamic extremists by educating women.

One particular interview was absolutely shocking.
The person being interviewed was a woman representing a group of Islamic fundamentalists wanting to take over the Moroccan government 'non-violently.' Naturally, the king is not too thrilled.

This is the shocking part: She is opposed to teaching women to read and write. She said she was in favor of educating women, but literacy was a stupid waste of time; not real education; an imperialistic plot.
"Why teach them to read," she asked. "just so they can read Coca-Cola?"
She continued, "A, B, C, what kind of education is that?"

OK, OK, what? Excuse me, what did you just say? You support education but not literacy?
She didn't offer any educational alternatives to literacy, just trashed it as the devil's work. To point out the extreme irony of her beliefs, I'm fairly sure that she is literate.

Hearing these words from a woman's mouth is astounding. What kind of brainswashing blabber is this? I might have expected as much from men in the Taliban, but to hear a woman saying that other women shouldn't learn to read and write was just. . . terrifying.

Wow, is this ever annoying.

2006-07-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

I know that Condi Rice has a really tough job and it must not be any easier when you have to spend all your time talking out of both sides of your mouth.
When she pledged humanitarian aid money to Lebanon I wondered how could she say it with a straight face and then how could she go home and live with herself?

We gave the Israelis money for their weapons, we haven't asked them to stop fighting Hezbollah, then we turn around and give money to Lebanon to aleviate the suffering which we are indirectly causing.

We are playing both sides of this conflict and it's crazy. Crazy.

Let's have some cojones here and pick a side. I pick Israel.

Now I pick Iran to send some humanitarian money to Lebanon.

Let's Talk About It

2006-07-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

The Yoo-nited States, Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran all agree to sit down and talk about it on The Dr. Phil Show.
Donald Trump is sitting in for the USA, Woody Allen is representing Israel, a weeping woman dressed all in Muslim-black is Palestine. Hezbollah and Hamas are two soccer hooligans who talk like Groundskeeper Willy from The Simpsons, and Jafar from Disney's Alladin is Iran and the obnoxious parrot on his shoulder is Syria.
Dr. Phil first asks Donald Trump why he can't get along with the soccer hooligans and Jafar.
The Donald shrugs and says he's trying but they keep beating up his little friend Woody, and he just can't let that happen.
The soccor hooligans jump up and start yelling and brandishing baseball bats with nails driven through them, Palestine weeps louder and Jafar strokes his beard, smiles and shoves a cracker in Syria's mouth.
Woody Allen goes on a long rant about how sorry he is for hurting Palestine's feelings, but he really needed a place to live after WWII and he wasn't exactly in his right mind after everything that happened and when Britain offered him a place to crash, he just took it.
The Donald smiles and gives Woody an encouraging pat on the shoulder. . . of course, of course.
The soccer hooligans jump up and down, they burn some effigies, Jafar and the parrot seem to be mixing up some chemicals or something on the far side of the stage.
Dr. Phil shakes his head and asks Jafar if he could explain his particular problem with The Donald and Woody, who is sweating and looking like he could really use some alone time in the bathroom.
Jafar holds up his long deadly fingers to silence the soccer hooligans. He smiles and thin wicked smile and narrows his eyes. The crusaders have offended Islam, the Jews humiliated Palestine, they must be eliminated and that is all.
The soccer hooligans yell some more, launch a few rockets and aim their machine guns into the sky. Palestine weeps loudly.
Dr. Phil furrows his brow and asks if Jafar can modify his stance in anyway. Total elimination of Woody probably isn't realistic.
Jafar says no, no compromise, only death.
This sends the soccer hooligans over the edge and Dr. Phil's security has to come out and settle things down.
After a commercial break, Dr. Phil sits down by Palestine and asks her what she wants. If she could have anything, what would it be?
Palestine wipes her eyes and says she wants a job and a safe place to live. She continues that she wants her children to be educated and thats pretty much it.
Woody stammers thats what he wants too, but how can he give her those things when soccer hooligans keep blowing up buses and conducting cross-border raids?
Jafar starts going off about anicent history, the Koran and infidels. The Donald checks his cell phone for the current price of a gallon of oil and the soccer holligans are so whipped up that Dr. Phil's security removes them backstage.

Song on the Wind

2006-07-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

Driving through New Mexico on Highway 666 the tire blew. I managed to steer the car to the shoulder, although a complete lack of traffic rendered such a safety-concious move impractical.

My Navajo friend, Fred, told me that white people were always doing dumb stuff like that: moving an impaired vehicle out of the way, sheesh, who cares? Leave the car where it is and wait for someone to come along and help you. Yeah, you might be sitting in the middle of the road for a couple of hours, but at least nobody can claim they didn't see you.

Surveying the shredded tire and rubbing my hot, wind-blasted back, the situation didn't look so good.
My passenger was an equally helpless white girl, suggested we try to change the tire ourselves.
"Have you ever changed a tire before?"
"No."
"Well, those bolts were screwed in with an air gun, and we'd seriously be here for the next 5 hours trying to get just one of them loose."
"We've gotta do something, we can't just sit here." whine whine whine.

I tuned out her whining and the wind brought me a gift.
Music.
A little girl singing a traditional song was herding some goats. I could hear the tinkle of the bells on their necks.
I saw the little girl in my mind: Dusty black hair pulled back in an untidy ponytail; wearing a long-sleeved red dress that any white person would complain was too warm for such a fiercely hot summer day.
She followed behind a few rag-tag goats, lightly tapping the ground or their butts with a stick.
Her song filled me like running water.
I noticed a small farm across the road and set back just a bit. There were even a few scrubby trees around the round houses.
It would be rude to approach their home. I just had to sit and wait patiently with my car.
They couldn't have helped us anyway, it didn't look like they had electricty let alone a phone.

A truck eventually came along. I can't remember how long we waited. We got a towed into town where a polite man quietly replaced our damaged tire with the spare.

Most likely they shook their heads and rolled their eyes as we drove away. "Good Luck, white bitches, don't be breaking down on our roads no more."

Highway 666 is now Highway 491; too many people complained of it's 'devil' name. But I can tell you from experience that it wasn't the devil's highway. It just went to Utah.

I'm 32.

2006-07-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

For some reason, when I was a teenager/young adult I thought that by 32 I'd have it all together and be in the prime of my life.
This meant I'd have enough money and a nice, apple-cheeked family of my own. At age 20, 32 sounded like middle-age.
Welllllll, Reality hasn't exactly lived up to the fantasy.
But I'm 32 for 5 more months, there's still time.

A Gen X-er Reminisces

2006-07-12T18:52:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE- Pearl Jam has promised to donate $100,000 to several groups that focus on climate change, renewable energy and other environmental causes as part of an effort to offset carbon emissions the band churns out on tour.

"Wow," I thought, "Pearl Jam is still around. . . and touring?"
Pearl Jam was thee band back when I was really into bands about 14 or so years ago. Has it
been that long? Dude, I'm gettin' old.

Remember the whole grunge movement? I wore flannel shirts, baggy T-shirts, chunky, working-class type boots and I even grew my wavy hair out all Eddy Veder-esque.
Is Pearl Jam the only grunge band left?

Nirvana-suicide; Soundgarden-broke up; Alice in Chains; overdose. Who else was there? I can't even remember now. That was way back when music came in CD form and I've long since sold the mediocre ones for drugs.

I remember, laughingly, that back then, every town was about to become the 'next Seattle'.
I was living in Salt Lake City in 1995 and attending alot of live shows when some grunge-drunk local told me that Salt Lake was about to become the next Seattle.
Poor guy, he was so sincere. Unfortunatley for the local SLC bands, Salt Lake was about to become the next Salt Lake. Musically that means Michael McLean and the MoTab, not The Jack Mormons despite their totally cool name.

From 1996-1999, I listened to 3 bands almost exclusively: Alice in Chains, Jane's Addiction and Sublime. By then, I knew what I liked and wasn't interested in keeping up with the scene anymore.
(Speaking of Jane's Addiction: I am ever so pisssed at how Dave Navarro turned out. You could have been like Perry, man, but now you're just another cheese-ball celebrity.)

In 2000, I met Stephen Madsen in the basement of the house I was renting. He was the only guy I knew with a beard. He turned me onto the Grateful Dead and convinced me that all cool people live in Oregon.

All this talk about old bands has me feeling terribly nostalgic. I shall now blow the dust off "Nothing's Shocking," and be more like the ocean.

Mountain Woman Meets a Muslim

2006-07-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to tell you about my first-ever conversation with a real-live Muslim man from a Muslim country.
Sorry to say, I'm a hick and the social circles in which I move in don't usually include Muslims.
I already know the basics of Mr. M's religion because my own husband is from a foreign country that is home to a large Muslim population and I read alot and listen to NPR; however I was eager to get the political perspective about the Current Situation from The Real Deal.
Mr. M said a few things that were genuinely suprising. First of all, I asked him if his home country, Pakistan, knew where Osama bin Laden is hiding, and if so do they have the power to give him up?
Mr. M replied that the United States doesn't really want OBL, that OBL is just a puppet.
A puppet of whom?
The Saudis, all the terrorists who drove planes on 9/11 were Saudis, and who did the U.S. invade after 9/11? Afganistan and Iraq.
Well, weren't Taliban supporting the 9/11 terrorists?
No, they were just giving them space to train and leaving them alone.
So the US should have invaded Saudi Arabia?
Yes, but they couldn't because the Bush family and the bin Laden family are business partners. Bush knew about 9/11 ahead of time, Bush killed his fellow Americans that day so he could justify invading Iraq. . .
at this point Mrs. M was thrusting her review of 'Fahrenheit 9/11' in my face and I put up the "Too Crazy" Defense and changed the subject.
Still, the idea of OBL as a puppet has never been presented to me before, and it really blew my mind.
The second most interesting thing I learned is that Mr. M is being watched by the FBI.
Mr. M is married to a Christian, American citizen.
One day he and his wife visited the airport in the small town where Mrs. M grew up. A few days later an FBI agent came to their home while Mr. M was out and questioned Mrs. M; going so far as to ask her if she thought she may have married a terrorist.
I was truly shocked and now I am convinced that BushCo. is taking their anti-terrorist measures too far.
I'm also glad that John Roberts had to sit out the recent Supreme Court ruling about Bush's pushing the limits of presidential power. If Roberts' had voted, naturally he would have voted in favor of Bush, and we could kiss privacy as we know it good-bye.
Mr. M and I talked about a few more issues, but these two points stuck out in my mind as the highlights.
Mrs. M insisted that I borrow her copy of 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' I'm not sure I really want to watch it because the only other person who recommended it to me dosn't exactly keep up with the issues.
What do you think? Is it worth watching, or is it just crazy?

Anniversary

2006-07-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

Five years ago today I met J. He said later that as soon as he saw me he knew that I was the woman God sent him to America to find.
And I was wearing shorts; he thought that was sexy.
Five years ago I ate this shit up with a spoon. Today if a guy laid those lines on me I'd ask to see a bank statement and references from previous girlfriends.

We took this self-portrait on Memorial Day. If we look old and exhausted maybe its because we just got done hiking up a hill and through a thick forest where a snake actually fell on J.'s shoulder and completely freaked him out and then I fell down in some mud and tipped the stoller over, nearly bashing our offspring's head on a rock.

Or maybe we look old and exhausted because we're still married.

The cycle continues.

Queen of Fools

2006-06-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

I inhabit three worlds.
First the world of myself, my family, my friends and all our mundane problems.
Next the world of current events with al-Queda, global warming and the Portland City Council tumbling along like wet clothes in the news cycle. And finally, the fantasy world, where Brangelina is king and TomKat desperately wants to unseat them.

Some interesting parallels developed in the second and third worlds lately. Namely, Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the world, donating the bulk of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Huzzah! Finally a news story that gives you some hope for our in-the-shitter society.

I'm glad that some of the crazy-rich and crazy-famous are using their powers for good, like Brangelina and their adopt-the-world campaign. Or old-ass Cher is calling congress and urging them to get our troops some better helmets.
(Remember when she pranced around a battleship with her old tattooed ass hanging out of her 'outfit'? Oh Cher, you are priceless. Some day gay men will wait for hours to visit your preserved corpse alongside Lenin's.)
Look at Bono, that guy got rich countries to forgive the debt of poor countries! Excuse me Bono, sir, can you call my student-loan lender for me?

Then there's Paris Hilton.
A woman so repulsive that her creepy, car-washing commerical for Carl's Jr. was pulled due to complaints. Not even the horniest 8th grade boy wanted to see that.
I have a friend who tells me there are girls in California who want to be Paris Hilton, who idolize and emulate her. First of all, I can't believe that, and second of all if this is true, those girls are fools and she is their queen.

I'd like to see that vapid bitch start building some schools for orphans in South Africa. But then again, maybe we need her in the world so that we more appreciate men like Warren Buffett and Bono, whose generosity and activism make them great, not their money or fame.

Summer Solstice

2006-06-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

It's Summer Solstice and all the British New Agers are stuck in traffic leaving Stonehenge.
We have a summer solstice tradition in my neighborhood, too.
My local Safeway re-decorates with a Western/Cowboy theme for a month each July. I don't know why, just a summer kind of thing.
Speaking of the western/cowboy theme, in Wyoming, where I grew up, summer is like taking a deep breath before winter settles back in. The wind is forever blowing something across the highway; occasionally tumbleweeds, but most of time it's snow.
Snow snow snow. Cold Cold Cold
As a kid, I held onto each non-below-freezing summer day like a squirrel hoarding nuts. I stayed outside as long as possible not only to avoid my mother but for the pure novelty of being outside in a land that is normally inhospitable 9 months out of 12.
I craved summer so much that I moved to the desert southwest.
Sun sun sun. Hot Hot Hot.
So much sun I refered to working on my tan as my part-time job. I had brown legs, blonde hair and a batallion of water bottles in the trunk of my car.

I must have finally gotten my fill of summer down there, because now I live at the end of the Oregon Trail where it's not too hot and not too cold and soggy in between.

Is there a Black Hole in Here?

2006-06-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

My little blue notebook is missing and I won't rest until I find it.
All kinds of important stuff like appointments, addresses, directions, phone numbers, confirmation numbers and other assorted very valuable info disappeared along with my little blue book.
Now I could seriously live without most of that information because, but most vitally this notebook contains a credit card number that I desperately, desperately, desperately need.
I've torn my place apart over the past 2 days, searching ever searching for my notebook.
Today I told my 3-yr-old son and his friend that if they found it I'd bake cookies.
No Luck.
Where is that notebook? Where in my 1,000-square-foot apartment could it be? I even visited the dumpster yesterday and poked at the last bag of garbage I threw away, just in case, in a moment of extreme insanity, I accidently tossed it.
No Luck.
I'm gonna go crazy if I don't find it so please pray that whatever cosmic black hole swallowed my blue notebook spits it back out again.
Or, provide me with another credit card number; which ever you choose will be fine.

Sitting Goddess

2006-06-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

-For Jenny

The Old Flame

2006-06-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

I first heard his voice through a window. I was smoking a cigarette - brooding and melancholy that was my style. He was spinning some tall tale, loudly and colorfully, that was his style.
When we first made love I could hardly believe my luck. My stomach still seizes up at the memory.

Before him I was girl, he made me woman. He didn't take my virgingity, that was long gone. Instead he taught me that grown men don't want silly little girls, they wantmature women who can hold up the world while it's falling to pieces around them.

He couldn't commit and after two years of waiting I left him in Vegas. It's where he wanted to be.

Willie Nelson sings an incredibly sad song called "Angel Flying too Close to the Ground." Thats my song to you, Ricky. I know you're probably still in Vegas, in the same house, in the same situation.

I'm in Portland now, married with those kids you said you'd never be able to give me.

Roy saw my first son a few years ago. Did he tell you? I wanted to ask him about you, but I didn't, it felt too weird. I mean, it was pretty obvious that I'd moved on.

You were right, it never would have worked between us. You were always right. I still love you, always will. I know you're happy about that.

Walt Whitman and the Universe

2006-06-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

Walt Whitman spent many long lonesome hours walking the shores of Long Island, contemplating universal truths.
Before my current incarnation as suburban wife and mother, I was a solitary wanderer; walking alone through God's own masterpiece, the Colorado Plateau.

Along with the usual survival stuff, I carried a few other essentials in my backpack: Journal, peace pipe, and Walt Whitman.
One autum day, staring into the waves off Paumanok, he thought:

"Aware now that amid all that blab. . . I have not once had the least idea who or what I am/
I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can."

I can really relate with W.W. today. Contemplating all of creation can make the poet/philosopher feel very small and powerless. Then just as you get some perspective back, start thinking that maybe you arn't so helpless, a big wave comes ashore and knocks you senseless.

Behold the Bargain

2006-06-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

Thomas Friedman's got it goin on as far as foreign and domestic affairs are concerned. I read his column religiously.

He has a new book that I must read, so I put myself on the waiting list at my public library. I was #208 when I first placed my request (back in March.)
I haven't checked my place in line recently.

I won't pay full-price or even eBay or Amazon price for it.
My house is overflowing with books; most of them were gifts or garage sale finds. I have little kids, and you'd be amazed at how many kids books you can buy for .10 cents.

The last time I paid full price for a brand new hard-cover was when I bought "America, a Citizen's Giude to Democracy Inaction," and only because the waiting list for that book was so long they weren't even allowing people to request it anymore.

Anyway. . today we're browsing used books for sale at a public library, and there is was: Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat,
Brand-new Hard-cover edition.
Take a Deep Breath.
Check the Inside Cover for a Price.
$6.50. $6.50 (?) $6.50!!
(Background Music:) The Hallelujah Chorus.

Throw in two kids books for .25 cents and you have two very satisfied book enthusiasts and one drooling baby.

Rhetorical Question, but I gotta ask it. .

2006-06-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

Why was Bill Clinton nearly impeached over an extra-marital affair he lied about, while George W. Bush is the most unpopular president since WWII for many reasons and everybody is just assuming he's keeping his job.

I generally don't Bush-bash because I don't think it does much good, but come on! I'm a registered Republican and I hate this guy.

The ecomony is doing well, but we're mentally unstable. We're the most unhealthy, stressed-out, heavily-medicated country in the world, and we can't take much more of this.

The guy is an alcoholic after all.

I was once told, "George Bush prays everyday."
I also pray everyday and have a deep faith in God.
So does Osama Bin Laden.

Here we go again. . fighting a war for God.
He really doesn't need us to do that for him. Thanks anyway.

I'd rather go to Clinton's church than Bush's.

Memorial Day and the Mountains

2006-05-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day means more during war time. I'm grateful to live in the United States. I'm also well aware that many of my fellow citizens spent their Memorial Day in dusty, hostile and miserable foreign countries while I spent my Memorial Day in the cool, placid mountians of Oregon.

Thank You servicemen & women for your ultimate sacrifce.

Nobody has ever come out and said that the Iraq war was started because George W. wanted to settle a family grudge against Saddam Hussein. But that's what I think. Even if we hadn't been traumatized by Sept. 11, George and the neo-cons would have drummed up some other excuse for invading Iraq.

I saw our fearless leader speaking on Memorial Day. He thanked the dead for their sacrifice then added that we wouldn't tarnish their memories by giving up the fight. We would finish the mission.

I wished he would have just left it at "thank you."

Friends with Benefits

2006-05-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

I'm watching prime time with my family tonight, and a new show called 'Falcon Beach' is being previewed on ABC Family.
A clip from the show has one teenager suggesting to another that they could be 'friends with benefits.'
This is family television? Remember, Disney owns ABC - lovely.

I've always found the concept of 'friends with benefits' an absurd one, and certainly not one I want to see explored on a family TV show.
The whole 'friends with benefits' charade was invented by a man, or rather a group of irresponsible guys. It's the latest round in the centuries-old game of men trying to get sex for free.
Women can't really sleep with a man regularly without developing feelings for him, we're just not hard-wired that way.
I've known my share of tough chics who like to play like they don't care for the guy and they're screwing, but it's a bunch of crap.
Women have emotional needs, and guys don't want to deal with all that heavy stuff. They just want sex.
So some frat-boy or boys invented 'friends with benefits',then marketed it as the hip new way for men and women to relate.
They even gave it a cool catch-phrase, because what woman would participate in something that really should be called 'prostitution without the money'?

Who Wants to Be An American Idol?

2006-05-23T15:21:00.001-07:00

I'm coming out of the A.I. closet.
I watch faithfully every Tuesday night. I call my mom on Wednesdays to find out who got booted off because she lives in an earlier time zone.
After Mandisa was voted off (you're beautiful, sister!) Taylor was my man.
At the first audition he was clapping his hands, stomping his feet, and wailing like a black white man. He even sang "Sing that Funky Music White Boy!" The dude is classic.

Katherine McPhee, on the other hand, is a vapid, goodie two-shoes slut.
She's got a nice voice, and a lucious bod, but the girl is practically a cardboard cut-out. Her attempt to cover Aretha Franklin was fucking horrible.
Simon said Taylor wouldn't make it to the Top 24. The king was wrong, long live the king!Speakin of Simon, nobody cares what Randy or Paula have to say, it's all about Simon. He's so cool. A cold prickly to be sure, but I'd rather hang out with Simon than the other two, not that it's ever going to happen.

Four years ago, American Idol didn't even register on my radar. I heard about that girl who won on the radio, but other than that I couldn't have cared less.
Three years ago, I snobbishly avoided it as a show for teenagers.
Two years ago, I caught a few episodes and was drawn in by the magnificently talented Fantasia.
Last year I caught a few more episodes and sighed with dissapointment as yet another beautiful white girl won.
This year I waited anxiously for the audition episodes to start in January, and delighted in every hideous performance. I could watch audition out-takes for the rest of the year until the new A.I. season starts up.
American Idol is the only show I can watch with my little kids, then still have adult discussions about it with everybody from my little sister to my retired downstairs neighbor to the internet chat rooms.
Everybody watches Idol, and I mean everybody. The only people not watching are those poor souls who have to work on Tuesday evenings, and those hard-core geek/hipsters who distane such pop-foolery.
Weirdly, nobody I know votes.
Not even me. I tried to vote one time but the lines were busy.
Of course I'll be watching the finale tonight. They've got me hooked. I heard that Meatloaf is performing. (?)
(Can you believe that guy chose such a shitty stage name? )

A Mixed Race Baby

2006-05-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

Obviously, this is my child.
It's obvious to you because I am posting a picture of him on my blog. In real life however, it's not so obvious that he is my child because he looks nothing like me.
His dad is black and I am white.
Growing up, I only saw black people on TV, and my parents weren't exactly progessive thinkers when it came to race relations.
I never considered race or racism my problem.
Our little cross-cultural family lives in a pretty liberal big city on the west coast. No one has ever commented negatively about our conflicting skin colors, but it's out there.
Sunday afternoon - Mother's Day-we all took a walk down to our local grocery store.
Walking down the street with my very tall dark husband, I noticed people, in the safety of their cars, staring at us.
Staring at us.
Apparently, a black man, a white woman and two little children walking together is still a bit shocking.
How can I prepare my beautiful kids for this world that considers them an oddity? Sure, it's not as bad as it used to be, but I'm their mother, and I worry.

American Polygamy

2006-05-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

For several years I lived in southwestern Utah.
Polygamists, or Poligs as everybody in Utah calls them, are just part of the scenery like fantastic rock formations and quakies on sides of mountains.
I learned about poligs in the same casual manner I learned about rock climbing; it's just part of culture.
The women wear long dowdy braids with the trademark bump of hair over the forehead. They don't wear make-up, but always wear pioneer-style, long-sleeved dresses, even in the roasting desert summer, when the sun doesn't shine so much as it thunders.
It always irritated me that the women look like freaks, but the men just blend in. The only way you knew a man was a polig was when you saw him with the women. Otherwise, you might be dating one and not even know it.
That really happened to a roomate of mine.

Poligs keep to themselves; they don't even like to make eye contact.
To get to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, you have to drive through their little town, but nobody stops there for gas.
Nobody.
And thats the way it's been in Utah for the past century: We know they're there, we know what their doing, but everybody just looks the other way.
Recenty, only within the past 10 or 15 years, women and men who've escaped or been forced out of the polig community have been speaking out.
The 2002 Olympics also shone a spotlight on Utah poligs, their renegade ways, and the general public's complacency about it.
Now the Utah Attorney General and the FBI are getting tough, and if you've heard what Warren Jeffs is accused of, you know why.

You may think me strange but, I'm not against polygamy under the right circumstances
Chinua Achebe, author of "Things Fall Apart" writes about pre-Christian western African society. Polygamy there is completely normal and practical.
West African women had way too much work to do by themselves, and men were always doing crazy things like attacking neighboring tribes and getting killed, so polygamy worked.

Modern Utah poligs like to say they are living a 'higher law' or practicing the 'old-time religion', but in reality theirs is a weird sexual thing that has long out-lived it's practical purpose.
The Mormon Church practiced polygamy over 100 years ago, at a time when female chruch members outnumbered men almost 7 to 1, and women simply couldn't be alone on the American frontier.
When the FBI put Warren Jeffs on it's Top Ten Most Wanted list I know that a secret cheer went out in the hearts of many a poligamist woman. And probably some of the men, too.

I knew one ex-poligamist woman and she told me she wanted to be normal, just like everybody else.

Citizen Uses Ironic Political Satire

2006-05-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

While walking out of a coffee shop, my jaw about hit the pavement. A man wearing a white towel over his head, huge black sunglasses, and an obviously-fake beard was driving a white van slowly through the parking lot.
I almost dropped my iced latte.
He saw me staring and theatrically stroked his beard.
I pivoted, a few other people stared at him, then I saw the signs in the back of the van and started running after him.
I knocked on the window of his van, I tried to get him to stop or roll the window down. He probably thought I was pissed off and ready to rumble.
Praise Jesus, I had my digital camera on me and started taking pictures as he drove past.
He must have seen what I was doing because he stopped the van, jumped out and gave me this great pose.
Unfortunatly you can't read the writing on the signs in this picture, Damnit.
The Left side says: "Disgraced traitor John Kerry" with a great picture of a 2-faced Kerry.
The Right side says: "Arabs for Bush" and "Vote Bush."
We didn't talk, as soon as I put the camera down, he said he had to get back to work and drove away.

Could It Be Any Easier?

2006-05-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

It is so easy to vote in Oregon. They actually send you a ballot in the mail. You can fill it out at home. It's like an open book test.
I admit that as a voter in another state I voted for some candidates based on the lyrical qualities of their names. I just never heard of these people running for County Commisioner at Large or Dog Catcher Extraordinaire.
The big races like governor and state senator get lots of press coverage, but the majority of the candidates in the small races are literally unknowns.
Oregon is also nice enough to send a voter handbook in the mail containing names, pictures, and little biographies of the candidates in almost every race.
Today, I browsed through the voter handbook and voted at my leisure.
It was much better than scrunching into a little box and pulling a curtain with about as much coverage in the back as those hospital gowns behind me, then quickly voting for whoever sounds good because I don't want to keep everybody else waiting.
Once voted for the wrong guy! (It was Mike Leavitt-shudder.)
I knew he was going to win anyway - Utahns love their Republican incumbents, but I despise him and just wanted him to know it. After getting over the horror of my mistake, I decided it wasn't worth the hassel to get another ballot and possibly stand in line again, or make the other politically active citizens wait any longer.
Voting in Utah, and most other places, is also a major hassel because you have to figure out where to vote.
You can't just walk across the street to the elemetary school decked out in "Official Polling Place" signs. No, most likely your particular 'district' votes at some senior citizen's center you've never been to on some road you've never heard of, in some part of town your regularly avoid.
You'd think that with all the ease and convenience of voting, Oregon would have one of the highest voter turnouts in the country.
You'd think that wouldn't you?
Voter turnout here is about average, no more, no less than any other state.
I've got to wonder, why?
If the state offered to send ballot collectors to your home, then would more people vote?
If you could vote telepathically, would more people vote?
Probably not. One day I might accept that some citizens just don't care. They don't think their vote counts, or that nothing will change even if they do vote.
I don't get those people, I don't accept their thinking.
It's got to be something else.

I Heard it on the Radio.

2006-05-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

I could listen to NPR all day, except Saturday mornings when those annoying car guys are on board.
Today was a particularly gratifying day for me because I spent a good 2 hours in the car driving across town listening to NPR.
My 3 year old son was not in the car, so I didn't have to listen to Dora the Explorer sing about bouncing balls or Thomas the Tank Engine's Childrens Choir harmonize about the glories of being a train.

If you were listenting to a Top 40 or an adult contemporary station today, here is what you missed:

American Idol ,the biggest TV ever, was turned down by all the networks twice before Rupert Murdoch's daughter told her dad to buy it.-Thank you Rupert Murdoch's daughter.

Americans are more likely to trust their government over their media-What? They trust the government? Those Fools!
Ethnic Serbs may move from Kosovo if that country becomes independent-Kosovo is big enough to be it's own country?
The Prime Minister of Italy dosn't think America is too strong, but that Europe is too weak-holy crap, did he reallly just admit that Europe is weaker than America?
Google is playing offense against Microsoft and hiring big time lobbyists and lawyers-good for Google I hope they make lots more money.

I love learning this kind of stuff, I love it.

This made me somewhat of a dork in grade, middle, and high school, where smart wasn't cool but, all my years of collecting tibits of history, politics, science, and society makes me one brutal Trivial Pursuit player.

Of Riots and Protests

2006-05-01T11:22:00.001-07:00

May 1, 2006; USA-A nationwide day of pro-immigrant protesters take to the streets.

I've never been involved in a public protest. I prefer to write letters to the editor and e-mails to elected officals; I'm kinda poindexter like that.
I don't think peaceful protests work. As a young jounalist, I was sent to cover a students protesting the rising cost of college. If you are attending school now, or will be sending someone in the future, you know how effective that was.
May Gandhi forgive me, but who has 40 years to wait around for change?
All our major sucessful American protests of the 20th century: Vietnam, Civil Rights, involved some element of violence.
It seems as if injuries have to be sustained and property destoyed in order to bring a measure of credibility to the protester's demands.
That's right, it takes a riot.
From the days of the French Revolution rioting commoners force the powerful to listen.
In the past month, we've seen riots in Nepal and France (those frogs love a little civil disobediance). The rioter's demands were met and pretty damn quickly, too.
It's got to be some intense rush to literally set the establishment on fire.
No wonder rioting is so popular.
Americans have gotten away true rioting. We riot when our team wins the Super Bowl. We think political rioters are crazy.
I say they're not crazy; they're effective.
Let's put it another way: You can hold hands with Cindy Sheehan and wear obnoxious T-shirts, or you can make a Malatov cocktail, and set some tires on fire.
Who would you be more likely to listen to?

Blue Period

2006-04-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not happy this week. I want to climb into the hills by myself and just stare out at a nice view for a long long time.
Alone. All Alone.
Unfortunatley, this is impossible because I live in the middle of a big city, I kicked my husband out, I have two little kids to take care of by myself, no gas in my car, no money, no motivation, no fun.
Mental health wonks call it depression, thats a good label, if I weren't so depressed I'd think up a better one.
Many of the best writers and artists are/were (before they off-ed themselves) depressed: VanGogh, Picasso, Hemingway.
So they drank, screwed everything in sight or cut off their ears, whatever, not that it helped much.
In our civilized society, experts and scientists diagnose mental illness then treat it. Much of this treatment comes in the form of medication. There seems to be a med for every emotion we feel.
I'm not going to go all 'Tom Cruise' on psychology and anti-depressants, but I don't think medications are the magic answer.
I don't have chronic depression, I don't spend my days lying in bed, refusing to get out. I just feel like shit once in a while and I want to enjoy it.
Thats why I cling to my fantasy of sitting on my mountain-top, all alone, for a long time. Breathing. . . in. . . breathing. . . out.
Maybe drinking some tea (mate) and smoking some weed (stanky), that usually makes me feel better.

Men: A Problem For Women

2006-04-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

I am a smart woman. Just ask me. I'll expound for hours about how smart I am.
Sadly, there is one area in my life in which I am amazingly dumb.
That would be the 'man' area.
Boyoboy can I NOT pick 'em.
I have classic "Women Who Love Too Much" Syndrome. I pick an asshole to partner with, then spend a few frustrating years trying to change him. Of course it dosn't work and misery ensues for all.
After I figured out my problem, I was suprised to realize how many other intelligent women I know and love are just like me.

Giani, My brilliant literary arts major and Scrabble partner in college.
Kacey, The only person from high school I keep contact with.
Renee, An incredibly brilliant and financially responsible ex co-worker.
Gigi, My brilliant and current best friend.
Esther, My friend, neighbor and sister in suffering.
All of my biological sisters.
Me

Thinking about all my fellow "Women who Love Assholes Too Much," there is one overwhelming good that has come out of so much sadness: Our support and love for each other.
The support I get from the other women in my life will always surpass any trifling affections a man throws my way.

Read "Women Who Love Too Much" and "Things Fall Apart."
The first book will help you understand why you love jerks, and the second will illustrate a time-tested method for keeping women happy.
They don't expect too much out of a man.

Plea from an Addict

2006-04-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

"America needs to end its addiction to foreign oil"--Our President.

Like all addicts, I do things I shouldn't, such as buy gas from the likes of Royal Dutch Shell.
Royal Dutch Shell is the 4th largest corporation on earth. (Who's #1? click here.)
Like all evil corporations, Royal Dutch Shell's priority is making money, no matter the human cost.
Just do a Google search for Royal Dutch Shell and Nigeria. You will find an environmental and social catastrophe. (see above photo)
Every time we pump gas, we're actually pumping blood. Literally - blood;
Nigerian blood, Iraqi blood, and American blood; the carnage that leads into your gas tank is appaling.
Two dollars and seventy-five cents is really quite cheap for a gallon of blood.
What can I do? The guilt is getting pretty heavy.
I can:
1) walk
2) take public transportation
3) have my car converted to run on natural gas or bio-fuel.
4) buy a hybrid
5) buy a diesel

Options 1&2 are nice in theory and I use them when I can, but have you ever dropped your kids off at day-care, then traveled to work, then picked your kids back up at day-care, then got home and collapsed barely before dark on a bus?
Sorry, but as long as I have the choice, I'm going to pick convenience over 5 days a week of living hell. Any human being would do the same.

Now we come to converting my car to a cleaner, cheaper, less bloody form of fuel.
To the tune of $2,000.
Naturally I don't have that kind of cash laying around, so it's unrealistic.

OK, option #4, buy a hybrid. What a joke, some don't even get better gas mileage, and again, too expensive.

Now to #5: buy a diesel.
Did you know that Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable oil? He wanted farmers to grow their own fuel.
Hello Brilliant. At least it seems brilliant now, back then it was only common sense.
Today, you can't dump a gallon of vegetable oil in your average diesel engine. It still takes some monkey-ing around to covert a diesel engine over, but here's the point: our entire oil problem could have been avoided in the first place.

I don't know how the oil thing got so out of control in such a short time, but I do know that the clock (or time bomb) is ticking and we need an affordable solution fast.
Like 5 years ago.
Options and technology exist, but they are out of reach for Josephine American like me because of the expense.
Please big, bad goverment, big heartless corporations, please Bio Willie, please, do something about this.
I need help.

Today I Survived.

2006-04-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

These are my boys. Aren't they cute?
In about 10 to 15 years much younger women will be chasing after them.
Until then, they belong to me.
Every screaming, whining, crying moment is mine to treasure forever.
Fortunately, I also get the laughs, smiles, hugs and kisses.

Did you ever see one of those women walking around a store while their infant screams and another young child holds onto their legs?
That was me today.
Before I had children I thought, "Why can't she shut that kid up?" or "Doesn't she know how annoying that is?"
To answer my old self:
"If I could grown an extra arm, breastfeed and still keep shoppping, this child would be silent, and of course I know how annoying this is, but I have to buy some household products so you can just shut the fuck up."
I love my children, but honestly I don't know why I wanted them so badly. A deep-rooted maternal instinct overuled all logic.
I just wanted to be a mom. Check that one off the old to-do list.

Moonrise, Hernandez New Mexico

2006-04-15T22:31:00.000-07:00

My favorite photograph of all time.
It's hard to explain how you can feel so completely alone in the desert, yet at the same time feel like something is always watching.

That must be why a picture is worth . . . so much

Take My Job, Please

2006-04-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

Call centers are really shitty places to work, and I should know because I've worked at several of them.
Yep, I've been a professional customer service rep for 6 or 7 years now.
But here's the irony: I'm not very good at it, in fact, I suck.
Even more ironically, call-centers (thats right, more than one) are begging me to come work for them.
I loathe being on the phone, and have become quite clever in constructing ways to stay off it. Really, it's amazing how much energy I will pour into not doing my job.
When a call starts going really bad my blood pressure rises and all the pranayama (Yogic breathing) on the sub-continent can't help me now.
I mock the caller's ignorance, idiocy, parentage, geographical location, and so on.
I make smart-ass remarks, which always suceed in enraging the customer further; and when the call is finally over I replay everything that was said, and dream up better come-backs.

I'm not good because I couldn't develop a callous around my soul.

My glamourous career in customer service started in college.
I attended school in a beautiful little town where the job scene was not nearly as spectacular as the views.
These were the employment options:
1) On-campus: Oh please, oh please, will you pay me minimum wage to clean up after a bunch of punks away from home for the first time, please? I want to spend my time between classes throwing away used condoms and hosing vomit off the dorm showers.
2) Fast-food: I can't even begin to explain how horribly wrong I am for food service, it's just that bad.
3) The call-center: it seemed to be the least offensive of my options.
Getting hired wasn't a problem. They always needed fresh meat. Turnover was at least 50%. Probably more. Probably alot more.

As of now, I'm still in customer service, but my customers are the same 3 year old and infant every day. They are extremely demanding and I can't hang-up on them, but I certainly prefer their company to those customers at my old job.

And to finally tie my head line and photo into my entry today, if some hard-working, educated Indian nationals want my shitty customer service phone job, they are welcome to it.
I'll even give them good references.

Kiss My Bumper

2006-04-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

I have one bumper sticker on my car.
Just One. It's white (the color of my car) and has two words written in green:
Humboldt County.
Now if you know what Humboldt County is famous for, then you'll understand why I'm driving so slowly.
Some bumper stickers crack me up, like: "Republicans for Voldemort." Hilarious, under-stated, I love it.
As you can see, I am pro-bumper sticker, up to a certain point, but when your car is covered with obnoxious stickers advertising your sexual preference and your ignorance, beware.
I know you think you're cute, but let me asure you, . . . you are not.
My second least favorite bumper sticker sags on a tiny powder-blue car of early 90's ancestry. It is often parked in front of the Blockbuster Video next to my local Safeway.
The offending sticker says: "ACLU: We don't hate all religions/ just Christianity."
OK, you are a moron. An uneducated, narrow-minded moron.
Clearly you are Christian, and clearly you think the ACLU is picking on your faith.
Earth to moron: You aren't doing your religion or yourself any favors with that bumper sticker. Rather, you are reinforcing the stereotype of the paranoid, Bible-thumping, fundamentalist who is about as truly 'Christian' as Santa Claus.
This brings us to my most hated bumper sticker.
This one occupys the quickly vanishing empty space on the trunk of black a wannabe -but can't afford the real thing- VW Jetta. This car offends in the parking lot of my apartment complex and I see it several times each day.
Yech.
This car is covered with bumper stickers expressing a certain colorful lifestyle and voting choices in direct conflict with our ACLU-loving friend from above.
While many of the stickers are just eye-rollers, the one I hate most reads: "Stupid people shouldn't breed."
Oh, Really? "Like you?"

Ode to an Eastern Spring

2006-04-08T20:53:00.001-07:00

The best roomates I ever had were Japanese, and I went throught alot of roomates.
I found them while looking at a community board on my college campus.
It was one of those messy cork-board deals advertising everything from free kittens and used cars to students looking for rides to L.A.
My future roomate drew a picture of a crane on her posting. I was immediatley charmed, thinking: This looks serene.
I was right, serenity is BIG with the Japanese. They don't want any boat-rockers- never, ever.
I guess that's why I wasn't born in Japan. I'm one of those people who just can't shut up or leave well enough alone.
But I did learn (at least) three essential things from them: Love of tea; Long, long baths are good; and a certain type of subtle, delicate beauty that we fat, noisy Americans usually ignore on our frantic commute to world domination.
I'm talking, in part, about the cherry blossom; the ancient symbol of spring and new beginnings.
The cherry blossom is small and lovely. . . delicate, full of hope and innocence, not unlike Hello Kitty.
It's easy to appreciate big showy mountain-top views looking across miles of canyons and winding rivers at sunset, but it takes a finer intellect to stop and really inhale the beautiful and precious realm of the fleeting cherry blossom.

When I pass from this world, I will immediately apply for the job of painting butterfly wings and lizard scales.

Only tender souls will ever get the cherry blossom right.

How Shocking; Not Really

2006-04-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

If I were George W. 's mama I might have a hard time smiling for the cameras today.

So. . . Scooter Libby said Jr. (thanks Maureen Dowd) was OK with leaking sensitive info about Iraq to his favorite White House reporter.
The only really shocking element of this story was actually seeing it plastered all over the internet this morning. Those of us who have no love of W. are just sitting back, mouths agape at how far this president has fallen.
I mean, we were hoping he'd get that arrogant smirk off his face, but nobody dreamed he'd crash and burn this hard.
Back in 2004, we were gnashing our teeth and tearing at our clothes over his 'victory'. I mean who on earth would vote for this guy?
Maybe you suspect I live in a blue state; you are correct.
I lived most of my life in red states and I hear that some of the folks back home are actually turning against Bush. Thats amazing considering how hard-core they were about 2 years ago.
I want to pick the brain of a red-stater and find out when they realized their beloved George W. really is an incompetent boob.
God Bless America, and our beloved, much treasured (by me) free press, and our award-winning checks and balances system of government.

Immigration: Give us your children.

2006-04-04T15:50:00.000-07:00

Let's call the immigration debate it what it really is: The Mexican illegal alien worker debate.
My solution is so simple it will never work.
Make the employers of illegal aliens pay higher taxes to cover the government resources their employee's soak up.
This will never even make it to the floor of Congress for debate. The Big Corporations who own the huge farms that need harvesting will never let this happen.
So, as is always the case, the focus is on punishing the peons instead of making the patrons pay their fair share.

I used to work at a deli on the outskirts of a large agriculteral community.
Once in a while, families of migrant workers came in to buy snacks.
This is where I met Juan Carlos.
Juan Carlos was about 6 years old from what I could guess. He had sparkling black eyes, short. spiky black hair, and a mischevious grin.
His mom would point to items in the display case and Juan Carlos would translate. His mom usually bought potato wedges and macaroni salad; our cheapest items.
She always paid in cash with hard, scarred brown hands and perpetually dirty fingernails.
Being an English speaker, Juan Carlos had a huge advantage over his parents.
One day I offered him some old jalepeno poppers we were going to throw out at the end of the day.
He loved them.
After that he'd slyly ask if I had anything free to give him. I always did.
His mom seemed alarmed at the extra food I was putting in their bag, but using international sign language I tried to let her know it was OK.
Juan Carlos told her something that seemed to ease her nerves, and she paid me with those same stained, gnarled hands.
Cash money. Under the table.
Weeks and weeks later Juan Carlos came into the deli and asked for the reglar stuff. I tried to tease him and play with him, but the sparkle was hard to see, like looking through a smudged-up window.
Then he paid me, in cash, with diry, scraped-up hands capped with jagged black fingernails.

I was so ashamed.
What kind of world is this?
What kind of civilized country lets little kids pick our salad fixings while we argue about immigrants stealing social services?

Surely not my country.

Through Good Times & Bad

2006-04-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

This is me and my friend, Flower. I've known this girl for years. I stayed with her for a week after I left my husband. She's one of those friends you can always count on.

I'm brand new to the blog scene, I feel really insecure about my blog so far.
My first entry sucked, because I was trying too hard.
So today I'll just let it go.

My marriage.
I feel really stupid sometimes for actually marrying my husband. There were red flags from the start and I got many friendly warnings from the people around me. But, I married him anyway.
He's charming and sexy, a hard-worker, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious.
However, over the past 4 plus years, his bad traits have far surpassed the good ones.
A middle-aged, divorced friend of mine gave me a self-help book entitled "Women Who Love Too Much"
At first, I scoffed. "I don't need this, this book has nothing to do with ME."
Then I started reading it and I was shocked, shocked, at how accurately that book described me and my none-to-healthy relationship.

It was so hard, but I left him. It's been about a month and a half since I changed the locks and didn't tell him about it.
The good news is that I'm starting to see some positive changes on both his part and mine.
The bad news always follows the good so here it is: Slipping back into old patterns is still much too easy. Old fights are only one dirty look from exploding.

He is, however, making a consious effort to work on some of his problems. I consider this a minor, no, no minor about it; it's a miracle.

It's so hard to make real changes, I can totally understand why people keep putting up with bad relationships for years and years. Change can be too hard and too scary.

It's so damn hard.

But if this works out, it will have been so worth it.

The Road to Heaven

2006-04-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

So this is my blog.
CitySlickerMama is my friend IRL, she turned me onto blogging.
Thanks to you,
friend.

I live in the suburbs of big city on the West Coast of the United States.
After earning my degree at a picturesque college
I migrated
West
from the Interior, the Inter-Mountain West, five years ago.
The more liberal vibe of the Coast was calling my name like a fog horn.

Finding myself now the mother of two beautiful bi-racial children.
Boys
Parenthood really is the ultimate learning experience.
My marriage is a difficult one, but it is my marriage and a central piece of my life here on Earth.
We are technically seperated, and it's my job to keep it that way until this unhealthy dance gets a new fiddler on the floor.

This afternoon my dear friend Gigi and I took our small children to the library for a storytelling program.
Gigi's mom went with us.
Early into the program my baby started fussing so I left my older boy w/Gigi's mom and walked around the libaray w/my baby. I was scopeing out a quiet place to nurse my child.
I stopped in the fiction department and picked up the only Truman Capote book on the shelf: "The Thanksgiving Visitor"
I remember reading excerpts from this book in middle school. My first exposure to Capote, and his world of hard-eyed gamblers and their harder-eyed flooseys.

How do you make a plural out of floosey?

That said, I love Capote, and Joan Didion, Jack London, Garrison Keillor, and the other masters of the Short Story.

We found a quiet place to nurse, I got a few pages read, I took my kids home and how I'm writing a blog.