It's nearly midnight at the House of Genius, and I can't sleep, so this is as good a time as any to prognosticate on one of the most complex problems facing families in America today, right?
As of 2003, according to the Census bureau, there were about 12 million single-parent families, including about 18 million children in the US. I'm quite sure that number has multiplied astronomically in the 9 years since, but this was the most current data I was able to nail down while operating on a single cup of cocoa. Either way, that's a LOT of kids who probably OUGHT to be getting child support from somebody. Statistics say that about 40% of them aren't.
I've been the mom in that situation. I've heard all of the excuses and the lies. I've wrestled with state enforcement programs, stood in courtrooms and pleaded with judges until I'm blue in the face, and now that the children concerned are grown, (and I'm still owed thousands in back child support, by an ex who is a federal employee, earning $15,000 a MONTH, and paying $34.50 biweekly toward his arrears, in spite of a current court order requiring a significantly higher payment), I have a solution to the problem.
The answer lies in Social Security. Men like my ex do not really care about the kids involved. All they care about is avoiding making child support payments. So I say... let them avoid it. In fact, quit trying to force them to pay child support at all. Instead, take their payments from their future Social Security.
If the parent doesn't want to meet the needs of the children now, while the children are small, then why should the government meet the needs of the person, when they are old? If he owes $40,000 in back child support, then suck it right out of his Social Security fund today, and send it to his kids. Maybe then he'll think - I need to work a second job, so I'll have a retirement one day. Or maybe he'll decide that he just needs to pay his child support now. Either way, the kids are taken care of. And isn't that the whole point?
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Motherhood - Part 2
Okay, the pressure is officially on. I've told the world about kid #1, and now everyone must know - did kid #2 turn out to be just as... special?
Well, you be the judge. My darling baby girl, Katie, is as special to me as any child could be to her mother.
From the time she was born, her gorgeous gigantic blue eyes drove her older sister crazy, a
nd a good solid smack in the head from Zabby to Katie when she was about 2 months old set the tone that would drive their relationship for the next 17 years. Now, before you put those horns and pitchfork on your mental image of Zabby, keep in mind that despite her angelic looks, Katie was always just about one drop more naughty than nice. :) But we had to love her anyway.
nd a good solid smack in the head from Zabby to Katie when she was about 2 months old set the tone that would drive their relationship for the next 17 years. Now, before you put those horns and pitchfork on your mental image of Zabby, keep in mind that despite her angelic looks, Katie was always just about one drop more naughty than nice. :) But we had to love her anyway.
When she was very, very young, she let us know just how stubborn she would be. She started walking much too early, just like her older sister. But one day, at her Nana and Papa's house, she took a face-plant style tumble into the sunken living room, and then and there decided that she would NOT be walking upright again. In fact, it took an enormous amount of coaxing, begging and pleading to get her to get up on her feet again, and she didn't do it until she was almost 16 months old! Of course, the crawling bit didn't slow her down any. In fact, she "crawled" on her tiptoes and hands, no knees involved, and scurried through the house like a chunky little monkey!
About that same time, my mom enrolled her in the local church's daycare program. A few days later, I went to pick her up, and discovered that my little "Sarah Katherine" had changed her name. When I told them I was Sarah's mom, they had no idea who I was talking about. It wasn't until SHE saw me, and marched over and said, "The name's K-T!" that we figured it out!
When she got a little older, she was a bit of a challenge. She had a learning disability which complicated her efforts to learn to read, and she had one of the worst cases of test-anxiety you can imagine. In fact, the year she was in 3rd grade, the state decided that all 4th graders who didn't pass the FCAT would be retained. Fortunately, she wasn't in 4th grade, because she threw up all over the test. When she moved up to 4th grade, they changed the rule again, and said all 3rd graders who didn't pass would be retained. Somehow she dodged the bullet again. But in typical determined Katie fashion, she informed me that the summer after 4th grade she WOULD conquer her reading problem. So she and I read just about 8 hours a day that summer, and by the end of the summer, she was reading on an 11th grade level. Over the next 4 years, she won the reading award every year at her school.
Last January, after deciding that the pace of normal high school was a little too slow for her (not to mention full of too many distractions!), Katie decided to give military school a try, and in June she graduated a year early, from the Florida Youth Challenge Academy. I am really proud of her. I'm even more proud about her decision to volunteer in the Summer School program for struggling 3rd graders at my elementary school. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what new mountains she's going to climb.
So, yes, Katie is unique and special, and smart and funny, and darn cute to boot! And her mama is mighty, mighty proud!
Cars: A Reality Check That I Can Never Cash
Have you seen that new Toyota commercial yet? The one where the girl who managed to, apparently pretty flippin' successfully, start up her own cake decorating business, and was saving up for a car, was GIVEN a brand new Toyota Corolla by the folks at Toyota? The one where she sits in her brand new car with tears of joy and gratefulness in her eyes?
Harrumph.
(This is the part where I remind myself that it is against the ten commandments to covet my neighbor's Toyota. But wait a minute. That chick does NOT live next door to me! I'm sure of this, because the commercial features her riding the public transit system all over the place, carrying her expensive cake boxes, and there is NO public transit system in this rinky-dink little rural town where I live!!) And did you notice all the kids she's NOT supporting? I guess the folks at Toyota were just overwhelmed with the critical public service she's providing.
I want her car.
Actually, I'm not that particular. But I DO want a car. Yes, yes, I know. I have a car. I have my darling Matilda, a 2000 Chevy Venture minivan, which I bought, with 30,000 miles on it, 7 years ago. It now has about 160,000 miles on it, the carpet has rotted out of the back from the thousands of times my kids spilled their drinks and neglected to tell me. The automatic door locks do not work. The little keyless door-unlocking device committed suicide in a hard rain storm. The fuel gauge is completely worthless. The windshield washer makes an interesting noise, but nothing comes out. The back wiper is a joke, since it only wipes the bottom of the trunk lid, and gets nowhere near the blooming window. The air conditioning is getting suspiciously less effective by the day. The cassette deck (yes, Matilda pre-dates CD players) eats anything you even think about inserting into it. The brakes require 10 minutes of softly voiced encouragement to be effectively applied when going anywhere near 50 miles per hour. The low coolant light flashes constantly (although the folks at the Chevy place assure me that we've got plenty of coolant, and this is just a computer quirk). And did I mention I just threw $500 bucks at repairs because the power steering fluid was leaking out like news about a gay politician? Oh, there is also the matter of the fact that it looks like poo, and it smells like it once contained about 13,000 nasty diapers. (It did - just not all at the same time. I call it the "Cumulative Funk Effect" or CFE for short.)
Harrumph.
(This is the part where I remind myself that it is against the ten commandments to covet my neighbor's Toyota. But wait a minute. That chick does NOT live next door to me! I'm sure of this, because the commercial features her riding the public transit system all over the place, carrying her expensive cake boxes, and there is NO public transit system in this rinky-dink little rural town where I live!!) And did you notice all the kids she's NOT supporting? I guess the folks at Toyota were just overwhelmed with the critical public service she's providing.
I want her car.
Actually, I'm not that particular. But I DO want a car. Yes, yes, I know. I have a car. I have my darling Matilda, a 2000 Chevy Venture minivan, which I bought, with 30,000 miles on it, 7 years ago. It now has about 160,000 miles on it, the carpet has rotted out of the back from the thousands of times my kids spilled their drinks and neglected to tell me. The automatic door locks do not work. The little keyless door-unlocking device committed suicide in a hard rain storm. The fuel gauge is completely worthless. The windshield washer makes an interesting noise, but nothing comes out. The back wiper is a joke, since it only wipes the bottom of the trunk lid, and gets nowhere near the blooming window. The air conditioning is getting suspiciously less effective by the day. The cassette deck (yes, Matilda pre-dates CD players) eats anything you even think about inserting into it. The brakes require 10 minutes of softly voiced encouragement to be effectively applied when going anywhere near 50 miles per hour. The low coolant light flashes constantly (although the folks at the Chevy place assure me that we've got plenty of coolant, and this is just a computer quirk). And did I mention I just threw $500 bucks at repairs because the power steering fluid was leaking out like news about a gay politician? Oh, there is also the matter of the fact that it looks like poo, and it smells like it once contained about 13,000 nasty diapers. (It did - just not all at the same time. I call it the "Cumulative Funk Effect" or CFE for short.)
I would like to sell the stupid car (if I could find anyone crazy enough to overlook the CFE), but it's Blue Book value is currently negative $450. And until I have a better option, I am NOT paying someone to take Matilda off my hands. I WOULD have traded it in during that delightful "Cash For Clunkers" program that our brilliant federal government came up with a few months back, but they decided that it's originally advertised 21 miles per gallon was much too fuel efficient to be considered a clunker. (Of course, the fact that today, on a good day, it gets about 17 miles per gallon was not considered at all!)
I NEED a new car. No, I'm not being vain. I don't just want a new car so that I can still smell just as fresh after a 20 minute drive as I did before I got in the car. I don't want one just so that I can avoid the pointing and laughter from all of the teenagers when I pass the high school and my car moans loudly as it turns. I don't want one just so I can avoid taking out a mortgage to pay for the gas it takes to get me back and forth to work (though that one is pretty tempting). There is also the small matter of the 17 year old in my house. Katie has graduated from high school, and needs transportation to get to her classes which start next month, and her job (which she doesn't have yet, but God willing, she will have VERY soon.) She is currently volunteering at my school during the 3rd grade summer school program, and although she only goes there three days a week, it's a hassle to get her there and back, while Steven and I both have other places to be.
So, I'm officially in the market. What am I looking for? Well, here are my requirements:
1. Must get at least 30 miles per gallon.
2. Must not smell like poo.
3. Must have cool air conditioning.
4. Must be able to stop on a dime... or at least on a street corner.
5. Must have something vaguely resembling a warranty still attached.
6. Must be able to seat 4 people at a time while still holding vast quantities of mac and cheese and peanut butter (in grocery bags, for Pete's sake!).
7. Must be cheap enough for me to still afford the mac and cheese and peanut butter!
If you happen to be aware of a vehicle that meets my high standards, please let me know! My 17 year old is eager to get her hands on Matilda!!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Motherhood - Part I
This October, I will have been a mother for 20 long years. My eldest child has graduated from high school, gone off to college, dropped out, gotten a job, and her ow
n apartment. She is just a few paychecks away from true independence.
So in honor of her, I have decided to dedicate today's blog post to my Zabby, child of my youth, through whom I have lived vicariously for many years.
***At the request of Zabby, this post is being edited so that it won't embarrass her as much. Thus, I must delete my first, favorite memory of her which demonstrates what a precocious child she was, and her future as an artist as well.
Instead, I'll replace it with an equally delightful, if rather more ... clean ... example of her early-developing artistic talent.
When Zabby was just a baby, we lived in Omaha, where we bought our first house, right outside the back gate of the Air Force base where her dad was stationed. It was an older house, but we'd put a lot into fixing it up, including installing some beautiful champagne-colored carpet in the living room, right before we moved in. At the time, her sister was not quite 1 year old, and she kept me completely exhausted, and little Zabby, at 3 years old, was a real dynamo. She was absolutely obsessed with Jello, so I tried to provide plenty of it for her, as bribery material. Also, unlike her fully-developed nocturnal personality, she loved to get up entirely too early. So one morning, imagine my delight as I crept from my bed before the sun came up, to strange sounds, resembling an elephant with bronchitis, coming from our living room / kitchen area. Baseball bat in hand, I prepared to eliminate the intruder, until I found, lit only by the light coming from the open refrigerator door, my darling child, with about 6 packs of Jello cups, open on my living room carpet, where she repeatedly shoved her tiny hands into the cups, making a horrendous, flatulating noise, before "painting" the Jello all over our brand new carpet. I dropped my bat to the floor, and cried. I scrubbed until my hands were raw. I rented a steam cleaner. I even called in the professionals, but nothing would remove my child's artwork from the floor. On the up-side, she was the first baby in her play group to figure out that blue plus red equals purple.
Her artwork has always been special. After that little incident, I tried to make sure she always had plenty of legitimate materials to work with - crayons, paint, sand, mashed potatoes, whatever. She used to make great pictures in her mashed potatoes with her finger, and sometimes a pea or two. But they were never little kid pictures - no happy little houses, and smiley faces and stick people. She had a whole different way of thinking from day one. She made pictures of cats with three tails (so they could braid them), or houses with bubble windows with goldfish in them, and gardens full of Barbie dolls on green stems. What a unique and joyful child she was!
When she was about 4 years old, I started letting her play with my computer. One day, she got on MS Paint, and drew a Winnie the Pooh, off the top of her head, in color, that was so amazingly realistic you would have thought an adult did it. (In fact, I tried to copy it later, and found that I couldn't do anything like it.)
In kindergarten, she wrote a story about an elephant which could blow rainbows out of its' trunk. The pictures were incredible. I kept thinking if I could ever find a way to publish it, I would, but of course there was never enough money, or time, or whatever.
When she was in second grade, we moved to South Carolina where I got my first teaching job. There, she drew a series of 4 pictures, of the same landscape over 4 seasons, and wrote a poem to go with them. Her teacher entered her work into the Young Author's contest, and she won the award for our school, district and eventually the state, and her work was hung in the Governor's mansion for a year. As you can imagine, I was, and am, very proud of her.
I could tell a hundred more stories of the creative things she has written or drawn (or animated on her computer) or of her beautiful singing voice, or moving theatrical performances, but I
won't continue to embarrass her. She's a gifted girl, who has a lot to offer to the world, once she finds her niche. I have enjoyed being a witness to her growth these last 20 years, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she turns out once she has fully spread her wings and shown just what she can do. 
And with that in mind, I will end this post with one of my favorite Zabby quotes: "Mom, can I borrow your screwdriver? I want to grind holes in the trees to make doors for the bugs, so the birds won't have to work so hard to get them out." (Zabby, age 5)
n apartment. She is just a few paychecks away from true independence.So in honor of her, I have decided to dedicate today's blog post to my Zabby, child of my youth, through whom I have lived vicariously for many years.
***At the request of Zabby, this post is being edited so that it won't embarrass her as much. Thus, I must delete my first, favorite memory of her which demonstrates what a precocious child she was, and her future as an artist as well.
Instead, I'll replace it with an equally delightful, if rather more ... clean ... example of her early-developing artistic talent. When Zabby was just a baby, we lived in Omaha, where we bought our first house, right outside the back gate of the Air Force base where her dad was stationed. It was an older house, but we'd put a lot into fixing it up, including installing some beautiful champagne-colored carpet in the living room, right before we moved in. At the time, her sister was not quite 1 year old, and she kept me completely exhausted, and little Zabby, at 3 years old, was a real dynamo. She was absolutely obsessed with Jello, so I tried to provide plenty of it for her, as bribery material. Also, unlike her fully-developed nocturnal personality, she loved to get up entirely too early. So one morning, imagine my delight as I crept from my bed before the sun came up, to strange sounds, resembling an elephant with bronchitis, coming from our living room / kitchen area. Baseball bat in hand, I prepared to eliminate the intruder, until I found, lit only by the light coming from the open refrigerator door, my darling child, with about 6 packs of Jello cups, open on my living room carpet, where she repeatedly shoved her tiny hands into the cups, making a horrendous, flatulating noise, before "painting" the Jello all over our brand new carpet. I dropped my bat to the floor, and cried. I scrubbed until my hands were raw. I rented a steam cleaner. I even called in the professionals, but nothing would remove my child's artwork from the floor. On the up-side, she was the first baby in her play group to figure out that blue plus red equals purple.
Her artwork has always been special. After that little incident, I tried to make sure she always had plenty of legitimate materials to work with - crayons, paint, sand, mashed potatoes, whatever. She used to make great pictures in her mashed potatoes with her finger, and sometimes a pea or two. But they were never little kid pictures - no happy little houses, and smiley faces and stick people. She had a whole different way of thinking from day one. She made pictures of cats with three tails (so they could braid them), or houses with bubble windows with goldfish in them, and gardens full of Barbie dolls on green stems. What a unique and joyful child she was!When she was about 4 years old, I started letting her play with my computer. One day, she got on MS Paint, and drew a Winnie the Pooh, off the top of her head, in color, that was so amazingly realistic you would have thought an adult did it. (In fact, I tried to copy it later, and found that I couldn't do anything like it.)
In kindergarten, she wrote a story about an elephant which could blow rainbows out of its' trunk. The pictures were incredible. I kept thinking if I could ever find a way to publish it, I would, but of course there was never enough money, or time, or whatever.
When she was in second grade, we moved to South Carolina where I got my first teaching job. There, she drew a series of 4 pictures, of the same landscape over 4 seasons, and wrote a poem to go with them. Her teacher entered her work into the Young Author's contest, and she won the award for our school, district and eventually the state, and her work was hung in the Governor's mansion for a year. As you can imagine, I was, and am, very proud of her.
I could tell a hundred more stories of the creative things she has written or drawn (or animated on her computer) or of her beautiful singing voice, or moving theatrical performances, but I
won't continue to embarrass her. She's a gifted girl, who has a lot to offer to the world, once she finds her niche. I have enjoyed being a witness to her growth these last 20 years, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she turns out once she has fully spread her wings and shown just what she can do. 
And with that in mind, I will end this post with one of my favorite Zabby quotes: "Mom, can I borrow your screwdriver? I want to grind holes in the trees to make doors for the bugs, so the birds won't have to work so hard to get them out." (Zabby, age 5)
Friday, May 21, 2010
Things That Stink
In my not-online life, I've been making an effort lately to be less of a whiner. I try to complain less in general, have a better attitude about stuff, try to say positive things to people all the time, and it actually seems to be paying off in more positive stuff going on with me and around me. But that doesn't mean things don't stink, or that I don't have whiney thoughts. So, I thought I'd take a moment to vent, and just share some of my virtual whine (and there's bound to be some free cheese to go with that - not as good as gubment cheese, but free either way).
1. The first thing on my mind today that stinks is metabolism. It is SO unfair that some people can eat like a horse, and never gain an ounce. Or that those same, scrawny people are usually the ones who have those lives that miraculously balance out to allow time and money and energy to spend on frivolous exercise. (I call it frivolous because they're blowing time, money and energy on exercise that they're NOT obligated to do.) My time gets eaten by doing things like earning a living, cooking dinner, grading homework, taking classes, going to church, etc. My money gets eaten by things like bill paying, car repairs, and medication. My energy gets sucked up by the vacuum that is a 6 year old son, and chasing hyperactive fifth-graders around all day. So how am I supposed to have any leftovers to get me to the gym, to melt off some of the evidence of my flabulous nature? The fact that certain people can eat their body weight every six hours and never gain an ounce stinks. The fact that they can also spend the time, money and energy making themselves even more firm, fit and flat-bellied really blows chunks.
2. Second stinky thing - my daughters, or perhaps more accurately, the lack of them. I guess I had this one coming. When I was 17, and graduated from high school, I beat a path out my parents' front door, and enrolled at the furthest college I could find where I could get a scholarship. And I only went home between semesters because I had to. I suspect in truth my parents were really relieved. But I'm not. I miss my eldest, and not just because I'm not longer in control of every tiny little aspect of her life. (See, I can admit that I'm a control-freak, sometimes.) I miss having her quirky personality around, her weird insight on things, and all of the creative and interesting things she does. And she is just like I was at that age - blissfully oblivious. And my darling middle-child is off at military school, at least for about 3 more weeks, and that too is driving me nuts.
And here's something else that drives me nuts. I started this post on 5/21/2010, and something went really wrong, and half of it disappeared, and the rest landed in the DRAFTS box. So... there's what's left. Shut up. I'm an under-achiever.
1. The first thing on my mind today that stinks is metabolism. It is SO unfair that some people can eat like a horse, and never gain an ounce. Or that those same, scrawny people are usually the ones who have those lives that miraculously balance out to allow time and money and energy to spend on frivolous exercise. (I call it frivolous because they're blowing time, money and energy on exercise that they're NOT obligated to do.) My time gets eaten by doing things like earning a living, cooking dinner, grading homework, taking classes, going to church, etc. My money gets eaten by things like bill paying, car repairs, and medication. My energy gets sucked up by the vacuum that is a 6 year old son, and chasing hyperactive fifth-graders around all day. So how am I supposed to have any leftovers to get me to the gym, to melt off some of the evidence of my flabulous nature? The fact that certain people can eat their body weight every six hours and never gain an ounce stinks. The fact that they can also spend the time, money and energy making themselves even more firm, fit and flat-bellied really blows chunks.
2. Second stinky thing - my daughters, or perhaps more accurately, the lack of them. I guess I had this one coming. When I was 17, and graduated from high school, I beat a path out my parents' front door, and enrolled at the furthest college I could find where I could get a scholarship. And I only went home between semesters because I had to. I suspect in truth my parents were really relieved. But I'm not. I miss my eldest, and not just because I'm not longer in control of every tiny little aspect of her life. (See, I can admit that I'm a control-freak, sometimes.) I miss having her quirky personality around, her weird insight on things, and all of the creative and interesting things she does. And she is just like I was at that age - blissfully oblivious. And my darling middle-child is off at military school, at least for about 3 more weeks, and that too is driving me nuts.
And here's something else that drives me nuts. I started this post on 5/21/2010, and something went really wrong, and half of it disappeared, and the rest landed in the DRAFTS box. So... there's what's left. Shut up. I'm an under-achiever.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
2009 - Report Card
Well, folks, 2009 is over, and it's time to take a look back at the year and see how I did overall. I think I'll start with my "Farts, Fats, Faux Pas and Finances" resolution list, which I posted here on January 2, 2009.
1. I resolved not to marry anyone with more gas than a BP station in 2009.
STATUS: Achieved!! Although I was a little worried on New Year's Eve, when Steven developed a terrible tummy-ache that puffed him up like the Good Year Blimp.... he proved to be the responsible kind of fella who dutifully takes his Gas-X, and reports his retorts to the proper restroom facility. I was not forced to endure any methane exposure at all. (Well, that is, unless you count what happened after his darn toxic kisses passed the tummy-ache to me!!)
2. I resolved to stop doubly insulting people through mispronunciations...
STATUS: Achieved, sort of. Mostly I just focused on not insulting people at all...
3. I resolved to stop consuming vast quantities of corrosive beverages (i.e. Cokes).
STATUS: Ummm... in progress. I was doing pretty well with this one for a while, but during the holidays, I really blew it. It's funny how you can know that something isn't good for you, but then if it's convenient, you'll do it anyway. Like, if there was a package of Oreos sitting next to me on the table right now, that would be awfully convenient, and I'd probably eat every last one of them. Ahem. Or not.
4. I resolved to tame the beast within me...
STATUS: Achieved! If you've seen any of my newer pictures, you'll see that I have shorn the mane, and gone for a much shorter, more professional look. (Yeah, most people say "quirkier" but I like "more professional." It sounds more like this was the look I INTENDED to get.)
5. I resolved not to eat any Aussie hair products...
STATUS: Achieved, though I'll admit it continues to be a challenge. Why do they make them smell so yummy??? Exactly like grape bubble gum...
6. I resolved to contain my inner harpy...
STATUS: Improved. She escaped briefly a couple of times, like 2 weeks before the graduation deadline when my darling daughter was still 25% short of completion on one of her virtual school classes. And when I was getting ready to go to a job interview, and discovered that my other daughter had "borrowed" my panty-hose, and apparently used them as some sort of slingshot for launching dirt clods into the next county, as they were stretched out big enough to cover a rhinocerous, had more holes than my ex's excuse for coming in at 3 a.m., and were as full of dirt as a year's subscription to the National Enquirer. That really put me over the edge.
7. I resolved to slim down from aircraft carrier to frigate...
STATUS: Failed. Didn't happen, darn it. I can't imagine why. I joined a gym (only found time to appear there about 8 times... ), bought workout videos (and I'm sure I would have opened them eventually), got healthy diet lunches (which were so delicious that sometimes I ate two of them!), and I even started walking (okay, it only happened once, but it's the thought that counts, right???).
8. I resolved to build a real financial reserve...
STATUS: Improved. Sort of. I didn't manage to build a financial reserve. However, I did manage to detach myself from the umbilical cord that has been hooked to the local cash advance place, which has been sucking me dry with it's obscenely high interest rates. As for savings, though, I've currently got about $23. It's good to save some goals for next year, though, right?
9. I resolved to keep the end goal in mind, and get a handle on my urge to take more college courses, limiting myself to the 3rd graduate degree.
STATUS: Achieved!! It's ironic how I can twist dropping out of school into an achievement, right? But hey, I did it!
10. I resolved to have a better list of resolutions than the "Farts, Fats, Faux Pas and Finances" list.
STATUS: Well... I'm still working on that...
Overall grade: 50% achieved, 30% improved... that's at least 65% overall, so I'm not a complete failure.
Ugh. I guess it's time to come up with some new resolutions. Yay, 2010. Happy New Year.
1. I resolved not to marry anyone with more gas than a BP station in 2009.
STATUS: Achieved!! Although I was a little worried on New Year's Eve, when Steven developed a terrible tummy-ache that puffed him up like the Good Year Blimp.... he proved to be the responsible kind of fella who dutifully takes his Gas-X, and reports his retorts to the proper restroom facility. I was not forced to endure any methane exposure at all. (Well, that is, unless you count what happened after his darn toxic kisses passed the tummy-ache to me!!)
2. I resolved to stop doubly insulting people through mispronunciations...
STATUS: Achieved, sort of. Mostly I just focused on not insulting people at all...
3. I resolved to stop consuming vast quantities of corrosive beverages (i.e. Cokes).
STATUS: Ummm... in progress. I was doing pretty well with this one for a while, but during the holidays, I really blew it. It's funny how you can know that something isn't good for you, but then if it's convenient, you'll do it anyway. Like, if there was a package of Oreos sitting next to me on the table right now, that would be awfully convenient, and I'd probably eat every last one of them. Ahem. Or not.
4. I resolved to tame the beast within me...
STATUS: Achieved! If you've seen any of my newer pictures, you'll see that I have shorn the mane, and gone for a much shorter, more professional look. (Yeah, most people say "quirkier" but I like "more professional." It sounds more like this was the look I INTENDED to get.)
5. I resolved not to eat any Aussie hair products...
STATUS: Achieved, though I'll admit it continues to be a challenge. Why do they make them smell so yummy??? Exactly like grape bubble gum...
6. I resolved to contain my inner harpy...
STATUS: Improved. She escaped briefly a couple of times, like 2 weeks before the graduation deadline when my darling daughter was still 25% short of completion on one of her virtual school classes. And when I was getting ready to go to a job interview, and discovered that my other daughter had "borrowed" my panty-hose, and apparently used them as some sort of slingshot for launching dirt clods into the next county, as they were stretched out big enough to cover a rhinocerous, had more holes than my ex's excuse for coming in at 3 a.m., and were as full of dirt as a year's subscription to the National Enquirer. That really put me over the edge.
7. I resolved to slim down from aircraft carrier to frigate...
STATUS: Failed. Didn't happen, darn it. I can't imagine why. I joined a gym (only found time to appear there about 8 times... ), bought workout videos (and I'm sure I would have opened them eventually), got healthy diet lunches (which were so delicious that sometimes I ate two of them!), and I even started walking (okay, it only happened once, but it's the thought that counts, right???).
8. I resolved to build a real financial reserve...
STATUS: Improved. Sort of. I didn't manage to build a financial reserve. However, I did manage to detach myself from the umbilical cord that has been hooked to the local cash advance place, which has been sucking me dry with it's obscenely high interest rates. As for savings, though, I've currently got about $23. It's good to save some goals for next year, though, right?
9. I resolved to keep the end goal in mind, and get a handle on my urge to take more college courses, limiting myself to the 3rd graduate degree.
STATUS: Achieved!! It's ironic how I can twist dropping out of school into an achievement, right? But hey, I did it!
10. I resolved to have a better list of resolutions than the "Farts, Fats, Faux Pas and Finances" list.
STATUS: Well... I'm still working on that...
Overall grade: 50% achieved, 30% improved... that's at least 65% overall, so I'm not a complete failure.
Ugh. I guess it's time to come up with some new resolutions. Yay, 2010. Happy New Year.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
My Life Is Brilliant... My Love Is Pure...
... don't you love that song? Me too. It's so silly, and utterly nonsensical, but it delights us to think that there are men who think like that. Fortunately, there aren't, since we'd want to kill them the first time they fell madly in love with the lady on the back of the garbage truck while dragging the cans to the street.
No... no... no wimpy man for me, that's for sure. I've got myself a very romantic redneck honey who curls my toes and slaps a smile on my face. And in just 6 Saturdays, we're going to take the plunge, and get married. I CAN'T WAIT!!!
Have you ever been around someone that just made your heart ache with love for them? It's so funny. I've known Steven since we were little kids, and back then, when I used to follow him around with my puppy-dog eyes (okay, I didn't start doing that until about 8th grade), everybody said, "It's just puppy love. You'll get over it. No big deal." So I graduated, moved on... tried to forget about him... and proceeded to compare him to every fella I met for the next 20 years. And they all fell short, for one major reason - they didn't make me FEEL the way I felt when I was around him. But that was just puppy love, right?
So why is it that 20 years later, when he finds me on facebook, and we get together, I STILL feel it?? Surely it's just the novelty of the thing, right?? So why is it that 8 months after we started dating, I still get that feeling every time I see him???
Two words, people: TRUE LOVE.
Dang I adore him. So you don't like my sappy trip? Get over it. You're just jealous.
I have to say, 2009 has been the BEST year for me in a long time. My sweetheart and I got together, my eldest daughter, against all odds, graduated from high school, I got a new job that I L-O-V-E, my sweetheart proposed... and now, right before Christmas, we're going to get married and make 2010 a pretty darn rockin' year as well.
Life is good, people. The scriptures say that man is that he might have joy. Want to see what that looks like? December 19 - 7 p.m. - LDS Church. It's going to be a beautiful thing!
No... no... no wimpy man for me, that's for sure. I've got myself a very romantic redneck honey who curls my toes and slaps a smile on my face. And in just 6 Saturdays, we're going to take the plunge, and get married. I CAN'T WAIT!!!
Have you ever been around someone that just made your heart ache with love for them? It's so funny. I've known Steven since we were little kids, and back then, when I used to follow him around with my puppy-dog eyes (okay, I didn't start doing that until about 8th grade), everybody said, "It's just puppy love. You'll get over it. No big deal." So I graduated, moved on... tried to forget about him... and proceeded to compare him to every fella I met for the next 20 years. And they all fell short, for one major reason - they didn't make me FEEL the way I felt when I was around him. But that was just puppy love, right?
So why is it that 20 years later, when he finds me on facebook, and we get together, I STILL feel it?? Surely it's just the novelty of the thing, right?? So why is it that 8 months after we started dating, I still get that feeling every time I see him???
Two words, people: TRUE LOVE.
Dang I adore him. So you don't like my sappy trip? Get over it. You're just jealous.
I have to say, 2009 has been the BEST year for me in a long time. My sweetheart and I got together, my eldest daughter, against all odds, graduated from high school, I got a new job that I L-O-V-E, my sweetheart proposed... and now, right before Christmas, we're going to get married and make 2010 a pretty darn rockin' year as well.
Life is good, people. The scriptures say that man is that he might have joy. Want to see what that looks like? December 19 - 7 p.m. - LDS Church. It's going to be a beautiful thing!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Manis, Pedis, and Other Insults to My Intelligence
Yes, dear readers, I do know it has been about 47 years since my last blog post. (Actually, it's been about 6 months.) However, in the interim, something rather strange happened - I got a life.
A few days before my last post, the most absolutely fabulous fellow found me frolicking on Facebook. (That's for all of my alliterative afficionados!) Long story short, my high school crush decided to hunt me down, turned out to be every bit as delicious as I always thought he would be, and 6 months later we're engaged to be married. Yay!
Now what, you might ask, does this have to do with Manis (as in "manicures" for short), etc? Everything.
My 39th birthday is rumored to have occurred last week (I'm still refusing to formally acknowledge it), and my darling mother sent me a little cash with which to fund the manicure I desperately needed before I would be willing to dare take a picture of the gorgeous rock on my finger, to share with the family. So the children and I made the trek to our favorite salon, just to find that our favorite Chinese family actually had the audacity to take their one-day-every-decade vacation exactly when I needed them most! I was absolutely appalled.
But not to be beaten, I marched over to Wal-Mart to visit their competition. Let me just spoil the outcome of this story by saying that is one mistake I will NEVER make again.
First, I am not generally a nail-doing kind of girl. I get my nails done maybe once or twice a year, for very special occasions. On those rare occasions, I (almost) always go see Amy and Scott at LA Nails, whose English leaves a lot to the imagination, but who psychically always seem to know exactly what I want. I say this, having only just come to appreciate their particular gifts, upon realizing that not all Asian nail-doing types have this ability.
For instance, when I walked into the Wal-Mart salon, the rather suspicious looking Asian man behind the surgical mask called out, "I hewp zhoo?" To which I enthusiastically replied, "Mani and pedi for me... just the nails for my daughter..." who dutifully held up her well-chewed fingertips, and promptly got a set of lovely acrylic nails, which were painted in bright red, looking as though they had been painted by a 96 year old half-blind stroke victim with Parkinson's disease.
This fiasco was taking place while I was silently enduring the ice pick and sledge hammer on the bottoms of my feet, under the guise of receiving a pedicure. As always, I reminded myself that I would endure all for beauty, and besides, I couldnt' wait to see how my toes would look when dotted with a color called "I'm not really a waitress" - the most gorgeous metallic red I could imagine.
For the most part, the pedicure was uneventful, if unreasonably painful, as the woman cut one of my big toe nails down to the very quick, and then tried to cover up for this mistake by painting the end of my foot. This would end up being the least of my troubles, though.
After the pedicure, I was directed to the table, where I was left to soak my fingertips, with their nubby little nails, in some rather tingly, garlic-smelling sauce. Then I had a hand-massage administered by a tiny little Chinese sadist, who amused herself by seeing how many bones she could crack in 30 seconds or less. I should probably have been clued in by the green, curling dragon claws she called her own toenails, that perhaps she was one fortune cookie short of a Happy Meal, but I just kept thinking "endure all for beauty!!"
After a few minutes of soaking and bruising, she said to me, "Why you wan nail done?" pointing at my ring. "You get merry?" And I responded that yes, I was getting married, and decided to get acrylic nails to hide my ugly natural ones for the picture of my engagement ring. She then slapped the table so hard my teeth rattled, and her bowl of stingy garlic juice went everywhere. "You wan a fake a nail? Why you say mani when you wan fake a nail?" She then slapped my hands with a towel and shoved me toward the creepy guy behind the surgical mask, who continued to berate me in his barely intelligible English, somehow getting across the point that I had asked for one thing, when apparently I wanted something different.
I have to say... this greasy guy was just waiting for the folks from Immigration and Naturalization to come in for a pedicure. He kept looking at the doorway with these shifty eyes, over his mask, and he about had a stroke when I found his nail salon technician certificate behind the shelf of nail bottles on the table, and I pulled it up to compare his picture to his actual face, and realized they were NOT the same fella.
He then proceeded to slather about 4 feet of acrylic on each nail, until I ended up with a set of totally square, absolutely indestructible semi-French claws. I say semi-French, because the original idea was French, I'm sure, but I'm pretty sure that the original French tips did not start in the center of the nail bed, so they'd be an inch long. I'm sure they also were intended to have some uniformity of shape which in no way corresponds to the Piccaso-esque fiasco which is currently represented on the tips of my fingers.
To add insult to injury, though, was the cost. The sign posted at the doorway said that they charged $20 for a pedicure and $12 for a manicure. However, my total bill came to $70 - and the creepy guy added an $8 tip to the receipt AFTER I left.
So...was this venture a learning experience? Yes. I now know the difference between asking for a manicure and a "full set." And I also know the difference between an illegal hack, and a real nail technician. Next time I go to see Scott and Amy, I'm going to give them a big tip... and assure them that they need not worry about losing business to the folks down the sidewalk at Wal-Mart.
A few days before my last post, the most absolutely fabulous fellow found me frolicking on Facebook. (That's for all of my alliterative afficionados!) Long story short, my high school crush decided to hunt me down, turned out to be every bit as delicious as I always thought he would be, and 6 months later we're engaged to be married. Yay!
Now what, you might ask, does this have to do with Manis (as in "manicures" for short), etc? Everything.
My 39th birthday is rumored to have occurred last week (I'm still refusing to formally acknowledge it), and my darling mother sent me a little cash with which to fund the manicure I desperately needed before I would be willing to dare take a picture of the gorgeous rock on my finger, to share with the family. So the children and I made the trek to our favorite salon, just to find that our favorite Chinese family actually had the audacity to take their one-day-every-decade vacation exactly when I needed them most! I was absolutely appalled.
But not to be beaten, I marched over to Wal-Mart to visit their competition. Let me just spoil the outcome of this story by saying that is one mistake I will NEVER make again.
First, I am not generally a nail-doing kind of girl. I get my nails done maybe once or twice a year, for very special occasions. On those rare occasions, I (almost) always go see Amy and Scott at LA Nails, whose English leaves a lot to the imagination, but who psychically always seem to know exactly what I want. I say this, having only just come to appreciate their particular gifts, upon realizing that not all Asian nail-doing types have this ability.
For instance, when I walked into the Wal-Mart salon, the rather suspicious looking Asian man behind the surgical mask called out, "I hewp zhoo?" To which I enthusiastically replied, "Mani and pedi for me... just the nails for my daughter..." who dutifully held up her well-chewed fingertips, and promptly got a set of lovely acrylic nails, which were painted in bright red, looking as though they had been painted by a 96 year old half-blind stroke victim with Parkinson's disease.
This fiasco was taking place while I was silently enduring the ice pick and sledge hammer on the bottoms of my feet, under the guise of receiving a pedicure. As always, I reminded myself that I would endure all for beauty, and besides, I couldnt' wait to see how my toes would look when dotted with a color called "I'm not really a waitress" - the most gorgeous metallic red I could imagine.
For the most part, the pedicure was uneventful, if unreasonably painful, as the woman cut one of my big toe nails down to the very quick, and then tried to cover up for this mistake by painting the end of my foot. This would end up being the least of my troubles, though.
After the pedicure, I was directed to the table, where I was left to soak my fingertips, with their nubby little nails, in some rather tingly, garlic-smelling sauce. Then I had a hand-massage administered by a tiny little Chinese sadist, who amused herself by seeing how many bones she could crack in 30 seconds or less. I should probably have been clued in by the green, curling dragon claws she called her own toenails, that perhaps she was one fortune cookie short of a Happy Meal, but I just kept thinking "endure all for beauty!!"
After a few minutes of soaking and bruising, she said to me, "Why you wan nail done?" pointing at my ring. "You get merry?" And I responded that yes, I was getting married, and decided to get acrylic nails to hide my ugly natural ones for the picture of my engagement ring. She then slapped the table so hard my teeth rattled, and her bowl of stingy garlic juice went everywhere. "You wan a fake a nail? Why you say mani when you wan fake a nail?" She then slapped my hands with a towel and shoved me toward the creepy guy behind the surgical mask, who continued to berate me in his barely intelligible English, somehow getting across the point that I had asked for one thing, when apparently I wanted something different.
I have to say... this greasy guy was just waiting for the folks from Immigration and Naturalization to come in for a pedicure. He kept looking at the doorway with these shifty eyes, over his mask, and he about had a stroke when I found his nail salon technician certificate behind the shelf of nail bottles on the table, and I pulled it up to compare his picture to his actual face, and realized they were NOT the same fella.
He then proceeded to slather about 4 feet of acrylic on each nail, until I ended up with a set of totally square, absolutely indestructible semi-French claws. I say semi-French, because the original idea was French, I'm sure, but I'm pretty sure that the original French tips did not start in the center of the nail bed, so they'd be an inch long. I'm sure they also were intended to have some uniformity of shape which in no way corresponds to the Piccaso-esque fiasco which is currently represented on the tips of my fingers.
To add insult to injury, though, was the cost. The sign posted at the doorway said that they charged $20 for a pedicure and $12 for a manicure. However, my total bill came to $70 - and the creepy guy added an $8 tip to the receipt AFTER I left.
So...was this venture a learning experience? Yes. I now know the difference between asking for a manicure and a "full set." And I also know the difference between an illegal hack, and a real nail technician. Next time I go to see Scott and Amy, I'm going to give them a big tip... and assure them that they need not worry about losing business to the folks down the sidewalk at Wal-Mart.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Procrastination
I have always been a procrastinator. When I say "always" I mean that in the most literal of terms. My mother carried me 10 months before she gave up and had me removed, somewhat like an obnoxious tumor, which only became more annoying once it was freed.
Nevertheless, this is not about how much I annoy my mother, although I'm sure my procrastination has often been a source of annoyance to her. This is, in fact, about regret.
I am notorious about procrastinating, and completely unapologetic about it normally. I generally do, eventually, get around to doing things, and I generally do my very best with them. But occasionally, something goes awry.
Take last night, for instance.
I've been enrolled in 2 classes through Capella University for the last 10 weeks, which post all assignments and expectations on the internet before the class even starts. So you would think that at some point, something in my brain would have registered important things like final papers due, and so forth. Well, it didn't happen.
Throughout the ten week period, these two courses (which were both taught by the same professor - no complaints there, best professor I've had from Capella so far) had a schedule which resulted in weekly assignments being due at midnight on Sunday night, at the end of each unit. So, each week, I would make a point of hitting at least one of the discussion board questions by Wednesday (so I didn't look like a complete slacker), and then everything else would wait at least until Saturday (if it was a really big assignment) or until Sunday night, and get turned in an hour or two (or 15 minutes) prior to the actual time it was due. This pattern was working well for me. I did great work, got great feedback, and all was well with the world.
Until yesterday.
You see, I failed to connect the actual due date of my final assignments to any part of my brain, and had just assumed Sunday at midnight would end this particular procrastination-fest. And this week, the non-slacking Wednesday job didn't happen either. I took a sick day on Thursday, thinking I could catch up, and then - ironically - actually turned out to be sick, and got nothing done.
So finally, Friday rolled around and it was time to start thinking about what needed to get done this weekend. Where I would normally have checked the site to see what was due, I didn't because the computers at school were too busy having a virus, and I had to spend my first several hours at home inoculating my home computers against the same bug. And then I went to Wal-Mart and turned a trip to pick up one tiny thing (a leaf blower) into a two-hour love-fest with my favorite retail Romeo. Anyway, I did, eventually, come home, whereupon I ate my dinner while I casually perused my e-mail, checked out a catalog that came in the mail, and generally farted around for a while. At about 9 o'clock, I decided it was time to get serious, and I logged into my class online. And served myself one first-class coronary, straight up.
I had e-mail from my professor on both class pages, reminding me that my final discussion board posts were due by 5 p.m. and my final papers were due at midnight.
I believe I actually shrieked.
Long story short, in the 3 hours that followed I hammered out several (late) discussion board posts, a discussion summary, and 2 fairly high quality papers of 15 and 21 pages. I was relieved to discover that Capella is located in the central time zone, which bought me an additional hour to work on the OTHER final paper, but I was ill-prepared to write it. I really had not fully developed even the idea I was going to write about, much less researched it. So, 42 minutes after it was due, with a heavy heart and a note of apology, I submitted a very inadequate piece of work.
Then, after addressing my e-mail, I proceeded on to bed, where I should have remained for the next 12 hours (particularly considering that it was 3 a.m. when I finally fell in). However, my guilty conscience had me up at 8, wondering how long it will be before I hear from my completely disgusted teacher.
My point: procrastination has a price. It is, eventually, quite miserable, and not worth it. I hereby assert that I will no longer procrastinate! I will take the bull by the horns and I will be assertive and I will get what needs to be done - done, promptly, and with panache!
And I'm going to get started on that immediately! Right after I have a nap.
Friday, January 2, 2009
New Years Resolutions
Having enjoyed a lovely visit with my parents and siblings this holiday season, having had the opportunity to review and relive all of my past choices, I now commit myself to the following New Year's Resolutions:
1. I resolve... not to marry anyone with more gas than a BP station in 2009.
2. I resolve... not to doubly insult anyone by mispronouncing the name of their church or the insignificant bit of matter to which I am comparing them (such as accusing someone who is a member of the Episcopal Church of being a part of the "Yep's a Popsicle" church... or letting someone I was trying to call a troglodyte think I was calling them a "chocolate dyke.")
3. I resolve... to make myself immune to accusations of hypocrisy from people whose blood is a 30% caffeine and 30% tannic acid, by resisting the urge to consume vast quantities of beverages which are capable of corroding metal surfaces. (i.e. Coke).
4. I resolve... to tame the beast within me... as I have been assured I can do with a tube of V05 and a couple of Aussie products.
5. I resolve... to resist the urge to eat the Aussie products, even though they smell so deliciously grape-candyish that it will be a significant effort to restrain myself on this matter.
6. I resolve ... to contain my inner-harpy, even if my children fall moderately short of my goals for them for 2009 (which are very modest, and only include things like admission into Juilliard University, a Nobel Peace prize, and completion of Algebra I [that one's for my 5 year old!]!)
7. I resolve... to slim down a bit, from something along the lines of an aircraft carrier, to no larger than a frigate, excepting, of course, my feet, which were declared tug-boats by my mother in 1986, and I'm afraid there's no going back.
8. I resolve... to build a real financial reserve, which doesn't involve any of the lint from my pocket, and is enough of a buffer to at least keep me in pantyhose in case of a real national disaster.
9. I resolve... to keep the end-goal in mind, and remember each time someone calls me a "perpetual student" that there is no shame in learning, but the third graduate degree really is my limit.
10. I resolve... to develop a list of New Year's Resolutions which doesn't summarize into "Farts, Fats, Faux Pas and Finances" as soon as humanly possible.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Clones Are Taking Over
I am disturbed. I am very disturbed.
(Okay, shut up. I'm not referring to my mental state. Or maybe... I am. Hmmm....)
Either I'm losing my mind, or the genetic pool is shrinking at an astronomical rate, and now we have Stepford celebrities.
Have you SEEN this Zooey Deschanel / Katy Perry / Lizzy Caplan thing? It's downright weird.
Being totally out of the coolness loop, I hadn't heard of any of these folks until the kids and I recently picked up a really weird movie thing (like a mini-series, really) called Tin Man, which I primarily wanted because it had Alan Cumming (whom I think is hot in a painfully weird, almost Peewee Herman kinda way) with a zipper on his head. Anyway, the girl in the movie, which is a bizarre take-off on the Wizard of Oz story, is Zooey Deschanel, famous enough that I had seen her before on something, but not enough that I had a clue who she is. She turned out to be a decent actress, so when I saw a picture of her on the internet, with the tag line "She kissed a girl... and liked it" I was a little disturbed. Then, it turns out, the article claims this isn't the same person. Yet looking at the picture, it surely was. So I went and got the movie box. (Okay, I sent Katie to get the blinkin' movie box. She's 15. Isn't that why we have teenagers?) I held the box up to the computer screen, and honestly... the similarity is so strong that I had to google it. And sure enough, it turns out that there are thousands of folks out there freaking out over the same thing I am, sort of. Because its not just the two of them. There's another one - Lizzie Caplan - and it's just downright creepy how much they look alike. People have posted all kinds of thoughts about how they were separated at birth (several years apart!), but I have my own idea. Here's how it goes...
So about 30 years ago, there was this nerdy scientist guy who bumped into a really hot girl at the A&P. He was just knocked out by how gorgeous she was, and he got a little bit obsessed. And when she dropped her purse in line in front of him, and a comb fell out, while he was helping her cram her stuff back in the bag, he discreetly pocketed the comb, which he took home to snatch her DNA from, to use in the first major human cloning project. Now, he wasn't really interested in the medical benefits associated with cloning. He was more of the wimpy, geeky genius type, who was so obsessed with his own empty life, that he was more motivated by the attempt to recreate his dream girl. So he cloned her. Several times. And obviously, with some success. Of course, then he had the significant trauma of realizing she was an infant, and before she was old enough for him, he'd be impotent. So, being a dork, he decided on the next best thing - a social experiment. He took his "triplets" and sent them to three totally different families in totally different places all around the country, to be raised by families with different values and lifestyles, to see if when they hit 30, they'd have the same favorite color, or all marry a guy named Brian. His plan backfired, though, when he failed to realize that the type of hotness in question could potentially result in his special girls falling into the public eye. And now, of course, he has gone into hiding in a cave in the mountains of Montana, in hopes that no one ever realizes that he manipulated human lives in hopes of creating his own Galatea.
What does our adoration of these cookie-cutter women say about our society? Hmmm. Maybe nothing. Maybe it says that we like tiny women with big bangs. :) (sorry... couldn't resist).
I'll tell you what worries me though. How many of them are out there who are NOT in the public eye? And what have they done with my hair-dresser????
Monday, November 24, 2008
Zabby, the Hair, and the Great Disappearing Brain
Zabby is my 18 year old fabularious wonder-daughter. She's very unique (her Senior Superlative even says so!). She's got this unbelievable waist-length hair, and this cool, gypsy-meets-molly-mormon kind of style: very modest, but quirky and funky and colorful. If it sparkles, she's all about it. She'll wear 25 bracelets simultaneously, with a broomstick skirt, a mohair vest, and pearls, and totally pull it off. She looks like that kid they're always trying to portray on t.v., but always end up going too trendy to get it right. Anyway, did I mention she's gorgeous? She is, when she makes the slightest effort. Like in the prom picture that I'm 99.9% sure I'm going to post on here. (Okay - it was more than the slightest effort - but I kid you not, she's fabulous with just lip gloss and a hair brush.) Problem is... she's one of those funky individuals who just couldn't possibly give a flip.
It's nigh unto impossible for me to believe that she in any way descended from my mother who literally, to this day, at 62 years old, will not go to the garbage dump without lipstick on. This child is perfectly happy wandering out the door with no shoes, no makeup, and no sign of a hair brush (as long as she has a funky hat).
Okay... enough about her looks... now on to the missing brain. :)
It helps to understand, as you ask yourself, "how can any self-respecting mother let her child go around like that?" that I keep telling myself she's smart enough to know better. But it may be that she's smart enough to know more than I do!
Her IQ is in the rather astronomical range of 141, which you would immediately assume translates into someone who is so smart that she wouldn't even need school. But the truth is... she's so smart, she needs a secretary. She can't tell her left shoe from her right. She never knows what day of the week it is. And she's been known to run into posts. (Admittedly, it was while walking and reading a book at the same time - but it has ha
ppened more than once!)
She's a cosmic underachiever, though. Where she is probably one of those kids that was meant to find the cure to cancer or something, instead, she inherited from me a bad case of the Idungivacraps and from her dad a bad case of the Nofreekinways. So instead, she's going to be the artsy-fartsy type. She's an incredibly gifted artist, and an amazing writer, who has already been published, and hopes to one day support her aging mother with the millions from her first novel. (Hey! Thirty-eight IS aging!! I didn't say OLD!)
So, as you can see... she's my pride and joy. She's my heart's devotion. She's the apple of my eye. She's the bane of my flipping existence!!!!
Let me tell you about her grades....
This, her senior year, is the first year I haven't been at the same school with her, and it's been a disaster. We missed out on the senior ads in the yearbook deadline, because dunder-butt never even noticed they were announcing it (every day for 9 weeks). And we narrowly missed ordering her cap and gown and invitiations for graduation for much the same reason. (And WHOSE idea was it that we order such things in October of the Senior year??? Probably the same doof-ball who decided we needed class rings in 10th grade, senior portraits 10 days after the junior year is over, and who told Wal-Mart to start putting out their Christmas stuff before Halloween.)
Ahem...anyway... this is the manner of her life. She is the poster-child for attention deficit disorder (as I'm typing this, she's scooping up her little brother in a bear hug, and knocking a plate of pizza onto the floor. Argh!!). Despite the fact that her mother was her assistant principal from 10th-11th grade, she could never manage better than mediocre grades (LOTS of B's), and actually ended up with a C in BAND (no, I'm not kidding) because she failed to turn in ONE STUPID WORKSHEET!!!. (Yes, I know it was over a year ago, but I'm having some trouble letting it go.)
Anyway, so she's a month away from her final semester in high school, with a 3.23 GPA, hoping to get into BYU, having never managed to take the ACT test (even though I kept writing the check...and she kept forgetting to turn in the paperwork!). Getting down to the wire (they want all their Freshman applications in December), she finally managed to take the test, but it was the perfect picture of Murphy's Law.
On the day of the test, she realizes she has no calculator (we stopped on the way and bought one) and she has no picture ID (couldn't buy that - and couldn't get a driver's license because we were afraid to let her behind the wheel). Luckily, they recognized her, and let her in. But, in true Zabby fashion, got sick as a dog in the middle of the test - I'm talking full-out stomach wrecking diarrhea sick - and they wouldn't let her go to the bathroom. She moaned and whimpered and sweated all the way through the first part of the test, just to streak to the bathroom during the break, and not make it back until they'd already finished the entire math section!! Then, of course, she wasn't done being sick... and long story short, $42 later, she comes out of the testing room and says, "Mom, I don't think I did very well...."
Well... what could I say? The kid was sick. So I tried really, really hard not to anticipate the score report. I knew it would cause me pain, so I just went ahead and forked out the money to have her re-tested. Then... the scores came. And I'll bet you can see this coming...
If you know anything about ACT, you probably know that the scores range from 1 to 36, and most people get between an 18 and a 25. To be competitive at a school like BYU, which has pretty darn high standards, you really need the upper end of that range, along with a high GPA, great church leader recommendations, etc. We knew that the October test wasn't going to help her in THAT quest....
And then we got the scores.
Genius-child, beloved offspring of my loins, miraculously produced... a 34 in English, and a 34 in Reading... in spite of the fact that she was sick. She didn't get a regular composite score, because she missed the entire math test... and she got a 24 on the Science (ONLY better than 72% of all the students taking it), which probably has to do with the fact that she hasn't taken a science class in 2 years.
When one sees scores like that... and then hears her excuse for "getting distracted" when she was supposed to be getting her homework done...(its like her brain just disappears!)... one gets a little ... nuts. And she's been doing that stuff for...oh, about 18 years now. So I'm off my flipping rocker, and I've got no one to thank but Zabby, the Hair, and the Great Disappearing Brain. (Okay, that's a huge exaggeration. But you'll have to wait to find out where all my gray hairs came from until Katie is 18, and I can feel a little better about roasting her on the Internet!)
I love my Zabby... but I swear... she'd better marry a rich man. That's all I'm saying about that.
It's nigh unto impossible for me to believe that she in any way descended from my mother who literally, to this day, at 62 years old, will not go to the garbage dump without lipstick on. This child is perfectly happy wandering out the door with no shoes, no makeup, and no sign of a hair brush (as long as she has a funky hat).
Okay... enough about her looks... now on to the missing brain. :)
It helps to understand, as you ask yourself, "how can any self-respecting mother let her child go around like that?" that I keep telling myself she's smart enough to know better. But it may be that she's smart enough to know more than I do!
Her IQ is in the rather astronomical range of 141, which you would immediately assume translates into someone who is so smart that she wouldn't even need school. But the truth is... she's so smart, she needs a secretary. She can't tell her left shoe from her right. She never knows what day of the week it is. And she's been known to run into posts. (Admittedly, it was while walking and reading a book at the same time - but it has ha
ppened more than once!)She's a cosmic underachiever, though. Where she is probably one of those kids that was meant to find the cure to cancer or something, instead, she inherited from me a bad case of the Idungivacraps and from her dad a bad case of the Nofreekinways. So instead, she's going to be the artsy-fartsy type. She's an incredibly gifted artist, and an amazing writer, who has already been published, and hopes to one day support her aging mother with the millions from her first novel. (Hey! Thirty-eight IS aging!! I didn't say OLD!)
So, as you can see... she's my pride and joy. She's my heart's devotion. She's the apple of my eye. She's the bane of my flipping existence!!!!
Let me tell you about her grades....
This, her senior year, is the first year I haven't been at the same school with her, and it's been a disaster. We missed out on the senior ads in the yearbook deadline, because dunder-butt never even noticed they were announcing it (every day for 9 weeks). And we narrowly missed ordering her cap and gown and invitiations for graduation for much the same reason. (And WHOSE idea was it that we order such things in October of the Senior year??? Probably the same doof-ball who decided we needed class rings in 10th grade, senior portraits 10 days after the junior year is over, and who told Wal-Mart to start putting out their Christmas stuff before Halloween.)
Ahem...anyway... this is the manner of her life. She is the poster-child for attention deficit disorder (as I'm typing this, she's scooping up her little brother in a bear hug, and knocking a plate of pizza onto the floor. Argh!!). Despite the fact that her mother was her assistant principal from 10th-11th grade, she could never manage better than mediocre grades (LOTS of B's), and actually ended up with a C in BAND (no, I'm not kidding) because she failed to turn in ONE STUPID WORKSHEET!!!. (Yes, I know it was over a year ago, but I'm having some trouble letting it go.)
Anyway, so she's a month away from her final semester in high school, with a 3.23 GPA, hoping to get into BYU, having never managed to take the ACT test (even though I kept writing the check...and she kept forgetting to turn in the paperwork!). Getting down to the wire (they want all their Freshman applications in December), she finally managed to take the test, but it was the perfect picture of Murphy's Law.
On the day of the test, she realizes she has no calculator (we stopped on the way and bought one) and she has no picture ID (couldn't buy that - and couldn't get a driver's license because we were afraid to let her behind the wheel). Luckily, they recognized her, and let her in. But, in true Zabby fashion, got sick as a dog in the middle of the test - I'm talking full-out stomach wrecking diarrhea sick - and they wouldn't let her go to the bathroom. She moaned and whimpered and sweated all the way through the first part of the test, just to streak to the bathroom during the break, and not make it back until they'd already finished the entire math section!! Then, of course, she wasn't done being sick... and long story short, $42 later, she comes out of the testing room and says, "Mom, I don't think I did very well...."
Well... what could I say? The kid was sick. So I tried really, really hard not to anticipate the score report. I knew it would cause me pain, so I just went ahead and forked out the money to have her re-tested. Then... the scores came. And I'll bet you can see this coming...
If you know anything about ACT, you probably know that the scores range from 1 to 36, and most people get between an 18 and a 25. To be competitive at a school like BYU, which has pretty darn high standards, you really need the upper end of that range, along with a high GPA, great church leader recommendations, etc. We knew that the October test wasn't going to help her in THAT quest....
And then we got the scores.
Genius-child, beloved offspring of my loins, miraculously produced... a 34 in English, and a 34 in Reading... in spite of the fact that she was sick. She didn't get a regular composite score, because she missed the entire math test... and she got a 24 on the Science (ONLY better than 72% of all the students taking it), which probably has to do with the fact that she hasn't taken a science class in 2 years.
When one sees scores like that... and then hears her excuse for "getting distracted" when she was supposed to be getting her homework done...(its like her brain just disappears!)... one gets a little ... nuts. And she's been doing that stuff for...oh, about 18 years now. So I'm off my flipping rocker, and I've got no one to thank but Zabby, the Hair, and the Great Disappearing Brain. (Okay, that's a huge exaggeration. But you'll have to wait to find out where all my gray hairs came from until Katie is 18, and I can feel a little better about roasting her on the Internet!)
I love my Zabby... but I swear... she'd better marry a rich man. That's all I'm saying about that.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Back to Reality
For those of you who actually subscribe to this nonsense, I apologize for letting so much time, and so many events, to pass uncommented-upon. I shall try to rectify this horrendous error in the briefest manner possible.
1. Yes, I know Obama won the Presidency. Yes, I know that my dreams of seeing a female Republican in the White House have been crushed (at least until 2012). I survived Bill Clinton, I will survive this affront as well. However, I will note that if the man actually puts Hillary into any cabinet position beyond Secretary of Janitorial Services... well... anything I could possibly add to the end of that sentence would make me a target for the Secret Service guys, so I'll just shut up while I'm ahead. Even I can bite my tongue (mostly) for 4 years.
2. The world has changed in 3 months. My 20 year class reunion came and went, and being a teacher and a single mom, I was too broke to manage to attend it. That really annoys me. You know what annoys me more? I just learned that my best friend from high school (Cindy) has been living just a few miles from where I lived until I moved here!! And I had no clue. Which of course makes me wonder if SHE had a clue... and if she was just avoiding me because she heard all of those lame accountant jokes I've been telling for the last ten years. Honestly, knowing she's an accountant now, I might have to reconsider my position on how unbearably boring accountants are, because she was always the most fun person I could remember.
3. We moved (again). As much as I loved the farm (and I did)... cramming my three kids and myself into a tiny 450 square foot cottage, even lost in the middle of some awesome acreage, got old. Something about tripping over a box of dishes on the way to the toilet that tends to get you over the small thing rather quickly... Anyway, we're in Chiefland now. Here's the ironic part:
So I decided to home-school my middle child after her hospitalization, but I wanted to keep her supervised. So managed to make arrangements for her to spend her days at a local real estate office, doing virtual school assignments on her laptop. But driving 60 miles to go back and forth from Bell to Trenton to Chiefland to Trenton to Bell over and over was putting crazy miles on my car (and when gas hit $4.98 a gallon, I thought we'd be switching to peanut butter without the jelly!). So I finally decided to see about renting this awesome house that was sitting vacant next to our church in Chiefland for the last 3 years. We got it, so she'd be able to walk back and forth to her "school" at the real estate office. But immediately upon moving in, she stopped going, and now they're going out of business. Regardless, we love the house. (My bedroom is bigger than the entire old house!) And we're here to stay until directed otherwise.
5. I've gone back to school. It wasn't a hard decision. My student loans, after consolidation (because they were previously at $1150 a month!), are now at $551. My "highly qualified" teacher pay, for someone with 11 years of experience and 2 graduate degrees, nets me $2800 a month, after the health-insurance leeches and taxation. So there's not a lot left to throw around, while supporting 2 children and a very expensive high school senior who is now, technically not a child any more. Thus, I decided that rather than continue throwing over six grand a year at my student loans, I might as well collect another degree in hopes that it will help me overcome the stumbling blocks in my career created by the state financial crisis. I am pursuing my Ph.D in Special Education Administration through Capella University. It's an enormous amount of work, but very interesting, and it is the primary reason I haven't found time to post anything lately. Writing this gives me a guilty conscience when I've got three discussion posts due.
4. My inclination is to make a rant about my darling 18 year old daughter, but I think she's worth an entirely separate entry.... so I'll rant about my 5 year old son instead.
HOW can a 5 year old possibly out-grow a pair of pants in ONE week? I swear, he got these gorgeous pleated khaki pants for his birthday (Sep 29) and he wore them to church on November 9. But by the 16th, they were too short by at least an inch, and we couldn't button them! I would think that they had shrunk, except I didn't wash them. (Hey, he only sat in a pew in church in them, for pete's sake. I do have SOME sense of responsibility to the earth and to my electric bill. I'm not washing clean clothes!)
So I took him to target last night, and we looked for new pants in a 6 slim... found some that fit beautifully... but they didn't have a single pair of pants that were appropriate for church for under $14. What is that about??? Who can send their child to church in $40 worth of clothes? He's a boy!! He'll either destroy them or wear them out in 2 months!!
Sheesh.
Okay, so I bought him some sweat pants instead. No, he can't wear them to church. I'll stress over that problem at about 9:30 tomorrow morning.
1. Yes, I know Obama won the Presidency. Yes, I know that my dreams of seeing a female Republican in the White House have been crushed (at least until 2012). I survived Bill Clinton, I will survive this affront as well. However, I will note that if the man actually puts Hillary into any cabinet position beyond Secretary of Janitorial Services... well... anything I could possibly add to the end of that sentence would make me a target for the Secret Service guys, so I'll just shut up while I'm ahead. Even I can bite my tongue (mostly) for 4 years.
2. The world has changed in 3 months. My 20 year class reunion came and went, and being a teacher and a single mom, I was too broke to manage to attend it. That really annoys me. You know what annoys me more? I just learned that my best friend from high school (Cindy) has been living just a few miles from where I lived until I moved here!! And I had no clue. Which of course makes me wonder if SHE had a clue... and if she was just avoiding me because she heard all of those lame accountant jokes I've been telling for the last ten years. Honestly, knowing she's an accountant now, I might have to reconsider my position on how unbearably boring accountants are, because she was always the most fun person I could remember.
3. We moved (again). As much as I loved the farm (and I did)... cramming my three kids and myself into a tiny 450 square foot cottage, even lost in the middle of some awesome acreage, got old. Something about tripping over a box of dishes on the way to the toilet that tends to get you over the small thing rather quickly... Anyway, we're in Chiefland now. Here's the ironic part:
So I decided to home-school my middle child after her hospitalization, but I wanted to keep her supervised. So managed to make arrangements for her to spend her days at a local real estate office, doing virtual school assignments on her laptop. But driving 60 miles to go back and forth from Bell to Trenton to Chiefland to Trenton to Bell over and over was putting crazy miles on my car (and when gas hit $4.98 a gallon, I thought we'd be switching to peanut butter without the jelly!). So I finally decided to see about renting this awesome house that was sitting vacant next to our church in Chiefland for the last 3 years. We got it, so she'd be able to walk back and forth to her "school" at the real estate office. But immediately upon moving in, she stopped going, and now they're going out of business. Regardless, we love the house. (My bedroom is bigger than the entire old house!) And we're here to stay until directed otherwise.
5. I've gone back to school. It wasn't a hard decision. My student loans, after consolidation (because they were previously at $1150 a month!), are now at $551. My "highly qualified" teacher pay, for someone with 11 years of experience and 2 graduate degrees, nets me $2800 a month, after the health-insurance leeches and taxation. So there's not a lot left to throw around, while supporting 2 children and a very expensive high school senior who is now, technically not a child any more. Thus, I decided that rather than continue throwing over six grand a year at my student loans, I might as well collect another degree in hopes that it will help me overcome the stumbling blocks in my career created by the state financial crisis. I am pursuing my Ph.D in Special Education Administration through Capella University. It's an enormous amount of work, but very interesting, and it is the primary reason I haven't found time to post anything lately. Writing this gives me a guilty conscience when I've got three discussion posts due.
4. My inclination is to make a rant about my darling 18 year old daughter, but I think she's worth an entirely separate entry.... so I'll rant about my 5 year old son instead.
HOW can a 5 year old possibly out-grow a pair of pants in ONE week? I swear, he got these gorgeous pleated khaki pants for his birthday (Sep 29) and he wore them to church on November 9. But by the 16th, they were too short by at least an inch, and we couldn't button them! I would think that they had shrunk, except I didn't wash them. (Hey, he only sat in a pew in church in them, for pete's sake. I do have SOME sense of responsibility to the earth and to my electric bill. I'm not washing clean clothes!)
So I took him to target last night, and we looked for new pants in a 6 slim... found some that fit beautifully... but they didn't have a single pair of pants that were appropriate for church for under $14. What is that about??? Who can send their child to church in $40 worth of clothes? He's a boy!! He'll either destroy them or wear them out in 2 months!!
Sheesh.
Okay, so I bought him some sweat pants instead. No, he can't wear them to church. I'll stress over that problem at about 9:30 tomorrow morning.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Heroes
Everybody needs a hero, right? Someone they can look up to, respect, someone they'd like to grow up to be....
At nearly 38 years old, I don't often stumble over many of those, and the few that I do are generally long gone, having made their mark in the world long ago. There are many women I admire, and many I respect, but few that I can honestly say - I'd love to wake up in her flip-flops one day. Not to imply that I'm becoming cynical (surely not me...), but I truly was beginning to lose hope.
I'd dreamed, almost desperately, of Romney in the White House this winter. Yes, I was living in a dream world. 164 years after the first Mormon ran for President (Joseph Smith, Jr. - yes, the LDS Prophet - ran in 1844 - look it up!), this country still isn't ready to truly embrace the concept of absolute freedom of religion in terms of a separation of church and state. Sure, those who find their own errant ways threatened by the concept of religion want to drag prayer out of schools and the words "One Nation Under God" off of our official documents, buildings and currency - but it's these same hypocrites who are so obsessed with religion that they can't even consider a candidate for President who has slightly less than typical religious views.
Yes, I was dreaming. I'm over it. I spent months wondering how I would sleep at night if I voted for McCain, especially if he did something completely assinine, as had been suggested, such as choosing Charlie Crist, the very bane of my existence, for his running mate. I have no shortage of respect for McCain, but the fact remains that he is, by all definitions, elderly, and not exactly in perfect health, a combination which could spell disaster for the United States with the wrong Vice President in office.
However, after spending months wavering between voting for McCain, and placing the "anti-vote" - a vote I knew wouldn't get anyone elected, but would send the definite message that I wasn't satisfied with either of the major candidates - McCain has now made a move which has put me solidly behind him in this election. He has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. 
I have long seen great appeal in the idea of a woman in the White House, but I've yet to see a woman that I thought had the morals, the intelligence, and the back-bone to do the job justice. But Sarah Palin seems to be the kind of woman I'd like to be. She's obviously a hard-working woman, but she's also taking her family life seriously too, as the mother of 5 children, including one just born last spring, who has Down Syndrome. Initially, I was concerned about how that would affect her performance, although, as a Special Education teacher, the idea of someone in office who has first hand knowledge of the special challenges these families face due to educational bureaucracy really appealed to me. However, then I learned that her blue collar husband turned stay-at-home dad in order to support the family and his wife's career. I can't tell you how much respect I have for him, in making that difficult choice, and for the two of them pulling that off successfully in a society where there is so much emphasis on men being the primary bread-winners in the family.
Everything I've read about her stand on the issues has appealed to me. Abortion, for her, is a black and white issue, as it is for me. Gay marriage is as well. And, conversely, as governor of Alaska, she pushed her legislature to fully fund education in her state. I can't imagine what that's like, in my second decade of education in Florida, where fully-funded education is an oxymoron of the highest degree.
I read that some folks believe that McCain somehow thought that Palin would win him the votes of the disgruntled female voters who were hoping Hillary would take the Democratic nomination, and frankly, anybody who believes that apparently is only motivated to get a set of breasts in office, and doesn't care one whit about the issues, since Palin and Hillary are about as different as night and day.
I have long said that I wanted to see a woman in the White House, and Hillary never satisfied that urge because, to her, powerful woman = man in dress. She's about as feminine as an old jock strap. Contrary to Hillary's delusions, slapping on a little lipstick does not make one a lady. She could take lessons from Palin, whose beauty and poise are just icing on an intelligent, determined, and morally solid cake. 
Sarah Palin is my hero. This ticket could only get better if she were running with Mitt Romney. But then the pair of them would be so good-looking, these vanity-obsessed democrats would never take them seriously!
Sarah Palin is my hero. This ticket could only get better if she were running with Mitt Romney. But then the pair of them would be so good-looking, these vanity-obsessed democrats would never take them seriously!
Five Things You Don't Know About Me
I was challenged to do this... and I've never been able to resist a challenge, so here goes:
1. I have six toes on my right foot. Heh. Just kidding. Actually, I was once attacked by a kid with six fingers on each hand - I kid you not. Well, technically my car was attacked by her. She was the "surprise invitee" to my daughter's 8th birthday sleep-over party. And after she shoplifted while we were picking up the cake, and tried to strangle (literally) my 5 year old, I decided she needed to go home. But her parents refused to come to the door, and wouldn't answer the phone. And when I left her on the porch and ran for my car, she chased me and proceeded to rage and scream and bang on my car windows as I tried (successfully, thank goodness) to back away without running her over. I hadn't noticed the spare pinkies until her little fists were beating on the glass next to my face. But the kids noticed it too, so it wasn't just a fear-induced delusion.
2. I secretly covet my neighbors' livestock. :) Actually, my neighbors just have cows and donkeys, and I don't really want the donkeys. But I would love to have at least one milk cow, a bunch of chickens, a couple of pigs, and a horse or two. I have secret fantasies of marrying a farmer. Unfortunately, farmers don't generally join ldssingles.com since they're usually a lot more involved with their tractors than their computers. So I don't have much of a chance of meeting one.
3. I'm writing a novel. It's a slow, slow process, and would probably go a lot faster if I put more time into it. But it's a modern day Mormon romance, and since my life is pretty devoid of romance at the moment, I'm really lacking on inspiration. Is it wrong to pray to have my fat melted away over night so some fabulous priesthood holder will be able to see past my mile-wide backside to my mile-deep testimony?
4. I have always wanted to own my own business. Most of my adult life, in my head this has looked like a teacher-store - one of those stores where teachers go to buy cool posters, and manipulatives, and idea books. I even know exactly where I would put it. If I only had the $300,000 I'd need to start it up, I'd get it cranking and involve my kids in the family business!
5. I have the solution to the deadbeat dad (and mom) crisis in America: deduct past due child support from people's Social Security. If the deadbeat were to die, the kids would get it anyway, and isn't it a shame when a parent is worth more to their kids dead than alive? At least if they could collect it from the parent's Social Security, we could reduce the impact of deadbeat parents on the welfare system, and force them, in the long term, to take care of their kids, by having to work more years to take care of themselves.
6. Yes - I know there wasn't supposed to be a six, but I still had more to say, so quit counting.
I know something that the majority of the world hasn't figured out: Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and there is a living prophet on the Earth today, and he receives revelation from God, and he can help us figure out what to do in these troubled times. His name is Thomas Monson, and he is the leader of the LDS Church. Check him out at http://www.lds.org/ or ask me and I will tell you more.
I saw a bumper sticker a while back that said "If they were arresting Christians, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" I'm a smart-aleck, and seriously sarcastic, and completely goofy 90% of the time. But on the off chance that there's someone out there who doesn't know where I stand with Jesus - make note. Jesus is the Messiah. He came to earth, as a part of the great plan of salvation, knowing He would be crucified to pay the price for our sins. He made it possible for us to return to live with Heavenly Father one day, and I love Him.
So lock me up. I've already been convicted. :)
1. I have six toes on my right foot. Heh. Just kidding. Actually, I was once attacked by a kid with six fingers on each hand - I kid you not. Well, technically my car was attacked by her. She was the "surprise invitee" to my daughter's 8th birthday sleep-over party. And after she shoplifted while we were picking up the cake, and tried to strangle (literally) my 5 year old, I decided she needed to go home. But her parents refused to come to the door, and wouldn't answer the phone. And when I left her on the porch and ran for my car, she chased me and proceeded to rage and scream and bang on my car windows as I tried (successfully, thank goodness) to back away without running her over. I hadn't noticed the spare pinkies until her little fists were beating on the glass next to my face. But the kids noticed it too, so it wasn't just a fear-induced delusion.
2. I secretly covet my neighbors' livestock. :) Actually, my neighbors just have cows and donkeys, and I don't really want the donkeys. But I would love to have at least one milk cow, a bunch of chickens, a couple of pigs, and a horse or two. I have secret fantasies of marrying a farmer. Unfortunately, farmers don't generally join ldssingles.com since they're usually a lot more involved with their tractors than their computers. So I don't have much of a chance of meeting one.
3. I'm writing a novel. It's a slow, slow process, and would probably go a lot faster if I put more time into it. But it's a modern day Mormon romance, and since my life is pretty devoid of romance at the moment, I'm really lacking on inspiration. Is it wrong to pray to have my fat melted away over night so some fabulous priesthood holder will be able to see past my mile-wide backside to my mile-deep testimony?
4. I have always wanted to own my own business. Most of my adult life, in my head this has looked like a teacher-store - one of those stores where teachers go to buy cool posters, and manipulatives, and idea books. I even know exactly where I would put it. If I only had the $300,000 I'd need to start it up, I'd get it cranking and involve my kids in the family business!
5. I have the solution to the deadbeat dad (and mom) crisis in America: deduct past due child support from people's Social Security. If the deadbeat were to die, the kids would get it anyway, and isn't it a shame when a parent is worth more to their kids dead than alive? At least if they could collect it from the parent's Social Security, we could reduce the impact of deadbeat parents on the welfare system, and force them, in the long term, to take care of their kids, by having to work more years to take care of themselves.
6. Yes - I know there wasn't supposed to be a six, but I still had more to say, so quit counting.
I know something that the majority of the world hasn't figured out: Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and there is a living prophet on the Earth today, and he receives revelation from God, and he can help us figure out what to do in these troubled times. His name is Thomas Monson, and he is the leader of the LDS Church. Check him out at http://www.lds.org/ or ask me and I will tell you more.
I saw a bumper sticker a while back that said "If they were arresting Christians, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" I'm a smart-aleck, and seriously sarcastic, and completely goofy 90% of the time. But on the off chance that there's someone out there who doesn't know where I stand with Jesus - make note. Jesus is the Messiah. He came to earth, as a part of the great plan of salvation, knowing He would be crucified to pay the price for our sins. He made it possible for us to return to live with Heavenly Father one day, and I love Him.
So lock me up. I've already been convicted. :)
Monday, August 25, 2008
A Special Kind of Stupid
I've got a 17 year old daughter who, if left home alone, will honestly forget to eat. She gets so caught up in ... whatever... (a book, Spongebob, watching paint dry...)... that she is completely oblivious to the passing of time, and doesn't even recognize the pangs of hunger in her belly. I've always said it takes a special kind of stupid to forget to eat. And judging by the ever-expanding size of my backside, I must be absolutely brilliant.
However, I have to say... her place as the flower of the family has been overtaken... by me.
Did you ever have one of those days when you knew you should never have bothered to roll out of bed? Well, I do believe I've got one for the record books.
Let me preface this absurd tale with a little disclaimer - this has been absolute hell week, and as a result, I've been dropping IQ points by the hour, as I worried myself sick over my middle daughter who has been in the hospital for the last 8 days, which also explains the extended period without posting on my blog. (Don't worry, she's fine. It's a story for another day.) Oh, there was also the 4 day layover with Tropical Storm Fay, which put our entire world on hold until today. But that's another story too.
Anyway, so I'm more than mildly sleep-deprived, and severely stressed out... thus it is no surprise that when it came time to get ready for work this morning, I wasn't quite prepared. Somehow, I failed to do enough laundry during the storm, and I was down to one pair of work pants - the hated chestnut brown ones, which nothing really matches. When I'm desperate, though, I've been known to pair them with a butter yellow tunic I got from Cato last year, that has a johnny collar and a drawstring waist, and is just so flattering and adorable that I actually bought an identical one in white to wear to graduation in June (except it disappeared immediately thereafter.... I'm suspecting that one of the girls killed it in a load of red laundry, and rather than present me with the offense of its pink remains, just put it out of its misery, in the garbage can outside... but that, of course, is yet another story). Anyway, so I was planning on wearing the brown pants and yellow shirt, right? Except everything I own needs to be ironed (the downside of cramming a family of 4 into a 450 square foot cottage - no storage space!).
So while simultaneously cooking my son's breakfast this morning, I set up the ironing board in front of the stove, and got busy ironing my clothes. The pants are that delightful gabardine, that generally requires only minimal heat to drop the wrinkles, so I did them first, and then threw the shirt on the board, while I was putting the muffins in the oven. As they baked, I got busy with the ironing, making sure to thoroughly saturate my shirt with starch, since I like my clothes really, really crisp. Unfortunately, though, the iron didn't seem to want to evaporate the starch, like it normally does. So I touched the bottom of the iron to make sure it was hot enough (and roasted my fingertip). Confused, I tried ironing longer, pressing harder... nothing. I just couldn't understand it. The more I tried to iron, the tastier those muffins smelled, but the starch spots just wouldn't go away.
Then, as I went to set the iron down in frustration, you can imagine the horror that befell me, as I realized that I'd never managed to get the starch out of the closet - and had sprayed my favorite shirt down with Pam!!! I was so aghast that I dropped the iron, whose high-quality plastic casing shattered into a million pieces on my tile floor. The light was still on though, even though all manner of wiring was visible, so I figured it would probably still serve my purposes, and I chose another shirt - a lightweight cream sweater (which I would normally never wear in Florida in August, but I was desperate to match those darned brown pants!!!) and I placed it on the board to be ironed. Unfortunately, I failed to realize that on the way down, the iron apparently bounced on its tip, and created a jagged edge which, when applied to the fabric, resulted in a horrendous, irreparable snag.
One blouse, one sweater, one iron - 15 minutes. I guess I should be thankful that I didn't starch the blasted muffins!
Yes, my daughter's place as flower of the family has been usurped, by me - the bloomin' idiot.
However, I have to say... her place as the flower of the family has been overtaken... by me.
Did you ever have one of those days when you knew you should never have bothered to roll out of bed? Well, I do believe I've got one for the record books.
Let me preface this absurd tale with a little disclaimer - this has been absolute hell week, and as a result, I've been dropping IQ points by the hour, as I worried myself sick over my middle daughter who has been in the hospital for the last 8 days, which also explains the extended period without posting on my blog. (Don't worry, she's fine. It's a story for another day.) Oh, there was also the 4 day layover with Tropical Storm Fay, which put our entire world on hold until today. But that's another story too.
Anyway, so I'm more than mildly sleep-deprived, and severely stressed out... thus it is no surprise that when it came time to get ready for work this morning, I wasn't quite prepared. Somehow, I failed to do enough laundry during the storm, and I was down to one pair of work pants - the hated chestnut brown ones, which nothing really matches. When I'm desperate, though, I've been known to pair them with a butter yellow tunic I got from Cato last year, that has a johnny collar and a drawstring waist, and is just so flattering and adorable that I actually bought an identical one in white to wear to graduation in June (except it disappeared immediately thereafter.... I'm suspecting that one of the girls killed it in a load of red laundry, and rather than present me with the offense of its pink remains, just put it out of its misery, in the garbage can outside... but that, of course, is yet another story). Anyway, so I was planning on wearing the brown pants and yellow shirt, right? Except everything I own needs to be ironed (the downside of cramming a family of 4 into a 450 square foot cottage - no storage space!).
So while simultaneously cooking my son's breakfast this morning, I set up the ironing board in front of the stove, and got busy ironing my clothes. The pants are that delightful gabardine, that generally requires only minimal heat to drop the wrinkles, so I did them first, and then threw the shirt on the board, while I was putting the muffins in the oven. As they baked, I got busy with the ironing, making sure to thoroughly saturate my shirt with starch, since I like my clothes really, really crisp. Unfortunately, though, the iron didn't seem to want to evaporate the starch, like it normally does. So I touched the bottom of the iron to make sure it was hot enough (and roasted my fingertip). Confused, I tried ironing longer, pressing harder... nothing. I just couldn't understand it. The more I tried to iron, the tastier those muffins smelled, but the starch spots just wouldn't go away.
Then, as I went to set the iron down in frustration, you can imagine the horror that befell me, as I realized that I'd never managed to get the starch out of the closet - and had sprayed my favorite shirt down with Pam!!! I was so aghast that I dropped the iron, whose high-quality plastic casing shattered into a million pieces on my tile floor. The light was still on though, even though all manner of wiring was visible, so I figured it would probably still serve my purposes, and I chose another shirt - a lightweight cream sweater (which I would normally never wear in Florida in August, but I was desperate to match those darned brown pants!!!) and I placed it on the board to be ironed. Unfortunately, I failed to realize that on the way down, the iron apparently bounced on its tip, and created a jagged edge which, when applied to the fabric, resulted in a horrendous, irreparable snag.
One blouse, one sweater, one iron - 15 minutes. I guess I should be thankful that I didn't starch the blasted muffins!
Yes, my daughter's place as flower of the family has been usurped, by me - the bloomin' idiot.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Vices
So... yesterday I read a quote from Kathryn Heigl, who was reportedly raised in the LDS Church... (okay, she was raised by an LDS family, and I'm fairly sure they periodically took her to an LDS Church...let's not split hairs, 'kay?) Anyway... she said something about how she's being lazy about the church, and that she'd have to quit the smoking and the drinking if she were to go back to church. Hmmm...
I was really, really lucky. When I joined the Church, I had never smoked (still haven't, never will, yuck). I had already quit drinking (quit when I learned I was pregnant with my first child - technically 2 years before I was legally old enough to drink - my career as an alcoholic was pretty short-lived). And although I had learned to really like coffee if it had enough hazelnut or amaretto sauce in it, I had already figured out it was causing my migraines, so I'd pretty well quit that too. And, I was pretty much of a mind that drinking tea was like unto drinking syrup. The first sip wasn't too bad, but you just had to start gagging after that.
Point being - I didn't have to make too many big sacrifices to qualify as meeting up to the basic societal standards of the Word of Wisdom when I joined the Church.
But this is not to say I don't have a vice or two. Aside from an occasional chocolate binge, my latest kick is commonly known as "Saving Grace" - a t.v. show that is aired on TNT on Monday nights at 10/9 central starring Holly Hunter. Now, I know when it comes on because I happened to see a commercial for it yesterday. I actually watch it on my computer, by downloading the episodes off of iTunes. If you've ever seen the show, then you know why I have to do this. #1 - This show is NOT fit to be playing with wide-awake children around the house. Besides the fact that Detective Hanadarko is an absolutely horrible role-model who celebrates every vice she's got (and seems to have them all), there's also the ever-present possibility of a sudden and completely unnecessary bout of nudity. When I watch it on my computer, I can zip right through those embarrassing scenes the same way I sometimes do when I accept a romance novel on my mom's recommendation and it turns out to be a bit racier than I was anticipating. Except the computer has a fast-forward button, where with the book I just have to flip pages really fast. Anyway, you get the idea.
So I was watching an episode today and I just had to ask myself... what is it about this vile character that appeals to me so much?
Well, first off, I want to grow up to be the actress who plays the main character. Holy mackerel, that woman is RIPPED!! I mean, she has arms like a MAN - a BUFF man!!! Okay, I'm calm again. Serious
ly, how do women get like that? I think, in real life, her vice must be pumping iron, because her body is really amazing. I would LOVE to look (and be) that strong. Of course, I'd have to sell my kids to afford the years with a personal trainer and a personal chef that it would take to get there (not to mention the plastic surgeon). Oh - and let's make it worse. She's FIFTY years old!! I look like HER mother, and yet she's old enough to be MINE!! (We agreed not to split hairs, remember?!?!)
Okay... back on track. What is it about this heavy drinking, heavy smoking, over-sexed, frequently cursing character that appeals to me? Here's my theory. She is bad. She is really, really bad. She has an angel that follows her around, and when he makes her mad, it's not unusual for her to decide to fling Froot Loops at him with a spoon, or wrestle him, or cuss him out, or whatever. The dude is sent from GOD, and yet she has no issues with telling him where to stuff it!! That's bad!!
Conversely, I am very, very good. I do not drink, or smoke, or curse (often... does "dangit" or "fart" count?) or have sex with men in bar bathroom stalls while people get murdered 3 feet away. My house is immaculate (compared to hers at least). I go to church and read my scriptures and pray and pay my taxes and try to act like a responsible person (90% of the time).
So that's it... I like her because she is so bad that she makes me look like a saint!! My vices - chocolate, and a little too much inappropriate t.v. - are nothing in comparison to this woman who has her own personal angel assigned to follow her around!
That... and I really want to grow up to look like that. Well...grow down, I guess. (I think she's about 5'2".)
I was really, really lucky. When I joined the Church, I had never smoked (still haven't, never will, yuck). I had already quit drinking (quit when I learned I was pregnant with my first child - technically 2 years before I was legally old enough to drink - my career as an alcoholic was pretty short-lived). And although I had learned to really like coffee if it had enough hazelnut or amaretto sauce in it, I had already figured out it was causing my migraines, so I'd pretty well quit that too. And, I was pretty much of a mind that drinking tea was like unto drinking syrup. The first sip wasn't too bad, but you just had to start gagging after that.
Point being - I didn't have to make too many big sacrifices to qualify as meeting up to the basic societal standards of the Word of Wisdom when I joined the Church.
But this is not to say I don't have a vice or two. Aside from an occasional chocolate binge, my latest kick is commonly known as "Saving Grace" - a t.v. show that is aired on TNT on Monday nights at 10/9 central starring Holly Hunter. Now, I know when it comes on because I happened to see a commercial for it yesterday. I actually watch it on my computer, by downloading the episodes off of iTunes. If you've ever seen the show, then you know why I have to do this. #1 - This show is NOT fit to be playing with wide-awake children around the house. Besides the fact that Detective Hanadarko is an absolutely horrible role-model who celebrates every vice she's got (and seems to have them all), there's also the ever-present possibility of a sudden and completely unnecessary bout of nudity. When I watch it on my computer, I can zip right through those embarrassing scenes the same way I sometimes do when I accept a romance novel on my mom's recommendation and it turns out to be a bit racier than I was anticipating. Except the computer has a fast-forward button, where with the book I just have to flip pages really fast. Anyway, you get the idea.
So I was watching an episode today and I just had to ask myself... what is it about this vile character that appeals to me so much?
Well, first off, I want to grow up to be the actress who plays the main character. Holy mackerel, that woman is RIPPED!! I mean, she has arms like a MAN - a BUFF man!!! Okay, I'm calm again. Serious
ly, how do women get like that? I think, in real life, her vice must be pumping iron, because her body is really amazing. I would LOVE to look (and be) that strong. Of course, I'd have to sell my kids to afford the years with a personal trainer and a personal chef that it would take to get there (not to mention the plastic surgeon). Oh - and let's make it worse. She's FIFTY years old!! I look like HER mother, and yet she's old enough to be MINE!! (We agreed not to split hairs, remember?!?!)Okay... back on track. What is it about this heavy drinking, heavy smoking, over-sexed, frequently cursing character that appeals to me? Here's my theory. She is bad. She is really, really bad. She has an angel that follows her around, and when he makes her mad, it's not unusual for her to decide to fling Froot Loops at him with a spoon, or wrestle him, or cuss him out, or whatever. The dude is sent from GOD, and yet she has no issues with telling him where to stuff it!! That's bad!!
Conversely, I am very, very good. I do not drink, or smoke, or curse (often... does "dangit" or "fart" count?) or have sex with men in bar bathroom stalls while people get murdered 3 feet away. My house is immaculate (compared to hers at least). I go to church and read my scriptures and pray and pay my taxes and try to act like a responsible person (90% of the time).
So that's it... I like her because she is so bad that she makes me look like a saint!! My vices - chocolate, and a little too much inappropriate t.v. - are nothing in comparison to this woman who has her own personal angel assigned to follow her around!
That... and I really want to grow up to look like that. Well...grow down, I guess. (I think she's about 5'2".)
Of course, if I were to wake up looking like that tomorrow, no one would know it because my unbelievably ripped biceps would be appropriately contained in a very modest outfit. But it would still ROCK!!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
I Am Such a Schmuck.
I just have to quickly post this note, after my last rant.
It's related to the Murphy's law thing, somehow. Things don't have to just go wrong, so much as prove me wrong though. I should have made all of those obnoxious claims about the men on these LDS dating sites a long, long time ago.
Tonight a fellow sent me a smile... and he turns out to be nothing like the jerks that I complained about in my rant. In fact, he and I have so much in common, my daughter suggested that I might have made him up and written his profile myself!
Hmmm... unless I'm having a really bizarre version of that "Faces of Eve" thing... I may have actually been contacted by a man who is not a cretin or a reject of any sort. He's a college graduate, gainfully employed, a Gator fan, loves his kids, (named one of them after me)....
Maybe now I need to write a rant about the steadily increasing price of gasoline. Apparently, I have an untapped gift!!
It's related to the Murphy's law thing, somehow. Things don't have to just go wrong, so much as prove me wrong though. I should have made all of those obnoxious claims about the men on these LDS dating sites a long, long time ago.
Tonight a fellow sent me a smile... and he turns out to be nothing like the jerks that I complained about in my rant. In fact, he and I have so much in common, my daughter suggested that I might have made him up and written his profile myself!
Hmmm... unless I'm having a really bizarre version of that "Faces of Eve" thing... I may have actually been contacted by a man who is not a cretin or a reject of any sort. He's a college graduate, gainfully employed, a Gator fan, loves his kids, (named one of them after me)....
Maybe now I need to write a rant about the steadily increasing price of gasoline. Apparently, I have an untapped gift!!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Lookin' For Love in All the Wrong Places
You know, I found my last husband on the Internet. We always told people we met at the mall - and we did. Or at least that's where we arranged to actually meet for the first time after finding each other through an Internet dating service (which shall remain nameless so as to prevent people from mistaking what is about to be a rant for an endorsement of said service).
Since the man is the father of my darling son, I will refrain from the urge to spend the next hour describing what a witless cretin he is. Suffice it to say, he left when his absolutely perfect gift-from-God son, whom he had BEGGED me to have for 2 years, was only 6 weeks old. And I keep hoping one day he'll remember what child support is, and perhaps pay some.
But I digress. (I have been known to do that.) This is not about the cheese-ball I was married to. It's really about the cheese-balls I'm not ever going to marry.
So... being a single mother, and very active member of the LDS Church, I feel a certain need to locate a viable candidate, get married in the temple, and follow the traditions of a "real" Mormon family. (This may be, in small part, due to the fact that my 4 year old son told me the other day that "I need a daddy in my house!" and "Mommy, if you don't find me a daddy, you can marry me, and I'll be the daddy, cuz I love you!" - Obvious evidence that he's spent way too much time listening to his two teenage sisters.)
Anyway, following the motivations of my heart and my church (and my son), I signed up for a membership on a certain dating website that is designed and intended only for members of the LDS church to meet up, pair up and get hitched. What a stroke of brilliance that was.
Now, as far as the site itself is concerned, I only have one issue - all of the men who are members of a dating site for Mormons who are clearly and obviously NOT Mormon! I'm referring to the intellectually challenged twits who call themselves delightful names like "Well-Hung-Joe" and explain, in their interests, that they "don't have a drinking problem - I drink, I get drunk, I fall down - no problem!" Yes, that sort of humor is definitely going to draw lots of attention from a society of female teetotalers.
I guess they probably can't legally discriminate against the idiots who don't know what the LDS in the name of the website means. But for you morons who haven't caught my drift yet, it's not Lazy - Derelict - Sexoffenders.
Ahem.
Anyway, back to the purpose of my rant.
If one can overlook the geniuses who haven't realized where they belong yet, there are two primary groups of men to choose from on this site:
- 1 - the extremely young returned missionaries who hit every branch on the ugly tree while they were falling out of it, who are currently unemployed (but looking!) and living in one city or another in the lovely state of Utah, most likely with their parents, and who will probably find their soul-mate at a Singles Ward activity.
- 2 - the 49-53 year old never-been-married before bachelor.
Now this guy comes in two versions as well:
- a - the fitness freak who has never had a real, committed relationship before which translates into having too much time on his hands. Of course, he's not too creative, since the best thing he could come up with to do with all of that time was to try out-buff Mr. Universe. Of course, in his photos one will also see that he has taken every opportunity to show off his razor-sharp pecs (if not his razor-sharp mind) at every extreme sporting opportunity he could come up with - hang-gliding, sky-diving, rock-climbing - all manner of exertion, with absolutely zero productivity. But Mormon women don't value a man who is productive, do they???
- b - the balding, pot-bellied plumber / postal worker / CEO whose entire profile describes what his fantasy woman entails - and tells you little or nothing about him. And of course, every 49-53 year old balding, pot-bellied bachelor makes a point of telling you that the "overweight chicks" need not apply - ditto for the divorced, working women, and all of those females over 25 years of age. Every one of these Einsteins believes that his comb-over and root-beer belly qualifies him for a blonde, 23 year old beauty queen. Of course, this may well explain why the guy is a 53 year old never-married bachelor. That train has passed, man! Wake the heck up!!
*SIGH*
I'm going to be a millionaire one day. I'm going to open up an LDS matchmaking website that caters to women. We will check the guys' temple recommends, and get references from their Bishops. We will refuse to match men with women more than 10 years younger than them (unless the WOMAN requested it... there's an Anna Nicole in every religion, I'm sure) - and we will require men to have some sort of a hobby or pastime which is not all about making THEM look good!
Okay, I'll probably go broke. Hey, come to think of it... that's one goal I've already half-way achieved!! That makes me feel pretty good about myself... guess my work here is done. :)
Since the man is the father of my darling son, I will refrain from the urge to spend the next hour describing what a witless cretin he is. Suffice it to say, he left when his absolutely perfect gift-from-God son, whom he had BEGGED me to have for 2 years, was only 6 weeks old. And I keep hoping one day he'll remember what child support is, and perhaps pay some.
But I digress. (I have been known to do that.) This is not about the cheese-ball I was married to. It's really about the cheese-balls I'm not ever going to marry.
So... being a single mother, and very active member of the LDS Church, I feel a certain need to locate a viable candidate, get married in the temple, and follow the traditions of a "real" Mormon family. (This may be, in small part, due to the fact that my 4 year old son told me the other day that "I need a daddy in my house!" and "Mommy, if you don't find me a daddy, you can marry me, and I'll be the daddy, cuz I love you!" - Obvious evidence that he's spent way too much time listening to his two teenage sisters.)
Anyway, following the motivations of my heart and my church (and my son), I signed up for a membership on a certain dating website that is designed and intended only for members of the LDS church to meet up, pair up and get hitched. What a stroke of brilliance that was.
Now, as far as the site itself is concerned, I only have one issue - all of the men who are members of a dating site for Mormons who are clearly and obviously NOT Mormon! I'm referring to the intellectually challenged twits who call themselves delightful names like "Well-Hung-Joe" and explain, in their interests, that they "don't have a drinking problem - I drink, I get drunk, I fall down - no problem!" Yes, that sort of humor is definitely going to draw lots of attention from a society of female teetotalers.
I guess they probably can't legally discriminate against the idiots who don't know what the LDS in the name of the website means. But for you morons who haven't caught my drift yet, it's not Lazy - Derelict - Sexoffenders.
Ahem.
Anyway, back to the purpose of my rant.
If one can overlook the geniuses who haven't realized where they belong yet, there are two primary groups of men to choose from on this site:
- 1 - the extremely young returned missionaries who hit every branch on the ugly tree while they were falling out of it, who are currently unemployed (but looking!) and living in one city or another in the lovely state of Utah, most likely with their parents, and who will probably find their soul-mate at a Singles Ward activity.
- 2 - the 49-53 year old never-been-married before bachelor.
Now this guy comes in two versions as well:
- a - the fitness freak who has never had a real, committed relationship before which translates into having too much time on his hands. Of course, he's not too creative, since the best thing he could come up with to do with all of that time was to try out-buff Mr. Universe. Of course, in his photos one will also see that he has taken every opportunity to show off his razor-sharp pecs (if not his razor-sharp mind) at every extreme sporting opportunity he could come up with - hang-gliding, sky-diving, rock-climbing - all manner of exertion, with absolutely zero productivity. But Mormon women don't value a man who is productive, do they???
- b - the balding, pot-bellied plumber / postal worker / CEO whose entire profile describes what his fantasy woman entails - and tells you little or nothing about him. And of course, every 49-53 year old balding, pot-bellied bachelor makes a point of telling you that the "overweight chicks" need not apply - ditto for the divorced, working women, and all of those females over 25 years of age. Every one of these Einsteins believes that his comb-over and root-beer belly qualifies him for a blonde, 23 year old beauty queen. Of course, this may well explain why the guy is a 53 year old never-married bachelor. That train has passed, man! Wake the heck up!!
*SIGH*
I'm going to be a millionaire one day. I'm going to open up an LDS matchmaking website that caters to women. We will check the guys' temple recommends, and get references from their Bishops. We will refuse to match men with women more than 10 years younger than them (unless the WOMAN requested it... there's an Anna Nicole in every religion, I'm sure) - and we will require men to have some sort of a hobby or pastime which is not all about making THEM look good!
Okay, I'll probably go broke. Hey, come to think of it... that's one goal I've already half-way achieved!! That makes me feel pretty good about myself... guess my work here is done. :)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Premonitions... and Other Intriguing Ideas...
One of the coolest things about being unemployed (and there are SO many!) is finally having time to read all of those books you've been dreaming about. (Of course, this makes the assumption you have a library card, since you can no longer afford to buy them... but that's a whole different rant.)
Anyway, the other day I bought a book called Premonition by Randy Ingermanson. This was not the type of book I'd normally buy. My usual type is either a minimally graphic romance - often Nora Roberts - or preferably a romance with a Christian theme, since I can feel pretty confident those won't suddenly turn into bodice rippers, something old Nora can't always be counted on for. Anyway, this is neither.
I really bought it for two reasons: #1 - I was perusing the stacks at the Christian book store next door to the movie theater while I was waiting to take my kids to see "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (cool, but ends abruptly, and seems lacking in the sense of doom which should
certainly accompany a trip to the center of the earth)... and I found this book on the discount $3.97 table. Usually, these books are $3.97 for a reason - but once in a while, there's a gem, and I'm a sucker for a good bargain. #2 - the cover of the book had a sticker on it which issued an irresistible challenge - We guarantee you'll love this book or we'll refund your money. Isn't that brilliant? If I was cheap, I'd have read it, said I hated it, and sent for my four bucks anyway. Luckily, my conscience wouldn't allow me to do that... particularly since I LOVED the book.
Here's the deal - it's book two in a series, but you really don't have to read book 1 to follow it (I certainly didn't. It was probably on the $13.97 table.) The premise behind it is that this couple, Ari and Rivka, are a couple of modern day Jews (she's "Messianic" which apparently means she believes that Jesus is the Messiah but she's still a Jew, and he WAS agnostic, but ... well... )
Anyway, through some sort of a science project accident which happened in the first book (Ari is a physicist), the two of them manage to get zapped back into ancient Jerusalem, in the years shortly following the resurrection of Christ. While the idea is a little sci-fi-weird, it gives a really unusual insight into what the life of practicing Jews was like back in Jesus' time, using and explaining a lot of Hebrew terminology, while presenting a fascinating, if heart-wrenching, plot about the experiences these two American Jews have while trying to prevent the assassination of James, the brother of Jesus.
I won't give any more of the story away, but I will definitely recommend it. It was enthralling.
It raised some questions for me though.
So... we know that Jesus was a Jew - that He attended the temple and participated in the rituals of the religion during that period, right? I'm sure He followed all of the rules about kosher dining, and so forth. So....
If Jesus was a practicing Jew, and He's supposed to be our example for how to live, then why aren't Christians more like Jews?
Now, I know that the scriptures say that we no longer need to practice ritual sacrifice since Jesus provided the ultimate redemption Himself, but what about the rest of it? Why don't Christians, if they really want to be more like Christ, actually do the things He did?
I suspect that this is largely due to ignorance. As for me and my house - well, prior to reading this book I never really thought about how Jesus conducted Himself on a daily basis. I mean, sure I thought about being kind to others, and turning the other cheek, and the moral of all those parables that Jesus taught. But what about the rest of it? I wonder if He expects us to... or has He, over the last couple of thousand years, realized we've forgotten all of that stuff, and decided we're pretty okay people in spite of it?
This is a topic which will require much further investigation on my part. I'm sure I'll post on it again. In the mean time, feel free to share your comments. Thanks.
Anyway, the other day I bought a book called Premonition by Randy Ingermanson. This was not the type of book I'd normally buy. My usual type is either a minimally graphic romance - often Nora Roberts - or preferably a romance with a Christian theme, since I can feel pretty confident those won't suddenly turn into bodice rippers, something old Nora can't always be counted on for. Anyway, this is neither.
I really bought it for two reasons: #1 - I was perusing the stacks at the Christian book store next door to the movie theater while I was waiting to take my kids to see "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (cool, but ends abruptly, and seems lacking in the sense of doom which should
certainly accompany a trip to the center of the earth)... and I found this book on the discount $3.97 table. Usually, these books are $3.97 for a reason - but once in a while, there's a gem, and I'm a sucker for a good bargain. #2 - the cover of the book had a sticker on it which issued an irresistible challenge - We guarantee you'll love this book or we'll refund your money. Isn't that brilliant? If I was cheap, I'd have read it, said I hated it, and sent for my four bucks anyway. Luckily, my conscience wouldn't allow me to do that... particularly since I LOVED the book.Here's the deal - it's book two in a series, but you really don't have to read book 1 to follow it (I certainly didn't. It was probably on the $13.97 table.) The premise behind it is that this couple, Ari and Rivka, are a couple of modern day Jews (she's "Messianic" which apparently means she believes that Jesus is the Messiah but she's still a Jew, and he WAS agnostic, but ... well... )
Anyway, through some sort of a science project accident which happened in the first book (Ari is a physicist), the two of them manage to get zapped back into ancient Jerusalem, in the years shortly following the resurrection of Christ. While the idea is a little sci-fi-weird, it gives a really unusual insight into what the life of practicing Jews was like back in Jesus' time, using and explaining a lot of Hebrew terminology, while presenting a fascinating, if heart-wrenching, plot about the experiences these two American Jews have while trying to prevent the assassination of James, the brother of Jesus.
I won't give any more of the story away, but I will definitely recommend it. It was enthralling.
It raised some questions for me though.
So... we know that Jesus was a Jew - that He attended the temple and participated in the rituals of the religion during that period, right? I'm sure He followed all of the rules about kosher dining, and so forth. So....
If Jesus was a practicing Jew, and He's supposed to be our example for how to live, then why aren't Christians more like Jews?
Now, I know that the scriptures say that we no longer need to practice ritual sacrifice since Jesus provided the ultimate redemption Himself, but what about the rest of it? Why don't Christians, if they really want to be more like Christ, actually do the things He did?
I suspect that this is largely due to ignorance. As for me and my house - well, prior to reading this book I never really thought about how Jesus conducted Himself on a daily basis. I mean, sure I thought about being kind to others, and turning the other cheek, and the moral of all those parables that Jesus taught. But what about the rest of it? I wonder if He expects us to... or has He, over the last couple of thousand years, realized we've forgotten all of that stuff, and decided we're pretty okay people in spite of it?
This is a topic which will require much further investigation on my part. I'm sure I'll post on it again. In the mean time, feel free to share your comments. Thanks.
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