Thinking Is Not Dangerous!

Type 1 Diabetes: Through a Mothers Eyes

2011-11-25T11:35:00.001-08:00

The denial.

I am so proud of my children. I had them when I was in my forties and like most mothers, they are extremely precious to me. They both are wonderful, shining stars. This means I am one of the growing numbers of women who have chosen to have children later in life. But being an older Mom also means that I am supposed to be less naive and have more life experience. So why wasn’t I using all that experience to act on my instinct that told me that something wasn’t right? Why was I ignoring the inner voice that was telling me there was something terribly wrong? How could I allow myself the luxury of languishing in denial when it came to something so important, life threatening and urgent?

Just weeks before being diagnosed

About two thirds of the way through the 4th grade school year, in March, I began noticing little things, things I brushed aside. I told myself I was just being paranoid. I noticed that my nine year old daughter Jacqui, was drinking an extraordinary amount of water and was constantly getting cups of crushed ice. She was getting up in the night to urinate several times. At first I thought she was drinking so much and using the bathroom more because she was such an active child and isn’t it normal to drink more when you play outside in the hot Southern California sun? And isn’t it normal to have to use the bathroom more if you drink more? Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I was thinking that these were the classic signs of diabetes but I quickly rejected this since Jacqui had always been such a healthy, happy kid. I was trying to make myself believe that my child couldn’t become the victim of a lifelong and deadly disease. But I watched her closer and kept those menacing thoughts to myself.

It was staring me in the face.

I watched Jacqui, carefully looking for obvious signs. Some days she was so normal, not at all what most people think a diabetic should be. She played with her friends and brother. She went to the pool and rode her bike and skateboard. She helped around the house and made messes with her art and craft supplies. So when she started dropping weight, I thought it was due to her getting taller and exercising so much, also it seemed that she was eating less. I thought her decreased appetite was part of a normal, developmental cycle. She complained daily about aches in her legs. I gave her children’s motrin and told her that she had growing pains, she had grown two or three inches over the past several months and so this was not much of a leap. In retrospect I wonder, what was wrong with me? How could I not have done anything when the signs were all so obvious? On the other hand and in my defense, the symptoms were intermittent and not occurring all at once. She would go for a week without the unquenchable thirst. The weight loss, at first, was slow and the “growing pains” just seemed to be normal for a kid growing so fast that her bones ached. But put them together and these are all symptoms of type 1 diabetes.

More signs.

School was almost out for the summer and both of my children were anticipating being freed from the restrictions of a rigid school schedule. They anticipated spending hot days at the pool and staying up late in the middle of the week. They looked forward to sleepovers with friends and days at the beach. We had fun talking about what we were going to do over their vacation.

With just three weeks left before school let out, we began planning our family foray to the county fair which traditionally ushers in our summer. We talked about driving to California’s Central valley to visit their grandparents.

Everything hummed along without a hitch except for a nagging and dark suspicion that something wasn’t right with my little girl. She had a single incident at school, just an accident I thought. She wet her pants when her teacher had not allowed her to use the restroom. She could not hold her urine. But this was only one isolated event, hardly anything to get all worked up over. Again I ignored the voice in my head whispering a little louder now: “diabetes.” Then the last week of school finally arrived. My son was finishing fifth grade and in September he would be going to middle school, he has Asperger’s Syndrome and is on a specialized study plan where he is mostly home schooled and so most of my energy had been focused on him making it through his last year of elementary school. Jacqui would start fifth grade in the fall.

Coming to my senses.

That last week of school seemed like it would never come. Jacqui came home void of energy. She walked in from school and flopped onto the couch and on two occasions fell into a deep sleep. Again, I really didn’t think much of this since I remembered my school days as being long and exhausting. In fact, I often wondered to myself how kids could stand being in school for so long each day... I mused that it had to be hard. Then the first day of freedom finally arrived. The first day of summer vacation. Midway through that first day Jacqui fell into a deep sleep and slept for over three hours. But it was overcast and gloomy and we were housebound that day so I thought she had fallen asleep due to boredom. But the next day she did it again, she slept a deep kind of sleep that lasted for several hours. She had lost a lot of weight by now, her clothes were hanging on her and we scrambled to find pants and shirts in her dresser that were two to three sizes smaller. I called the pediatrician and made an appointment for a few days later, I didn’t tell the lady answering the phone anything except I wanted to get her blood sugar checked - but then, after hanging up, I called back and asked if they could see her the next morning and I confessed my suspicions - I actually spoke the word diabetes out loud for the first time, they told me to bring her in. For the first time in three months I fell asleep thinking it was possible that all my fears had added up and I may find out that my daughter was diabetic. I hoped that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill. I was hoping it was something that could be cured with some vitamins or a change in diet. I was hoping that I was very, very wrong.

I watched her getting thinner & thinner

Reality.

Normally, the drive to the pediatricians office is not a long trip but I took a more circuitous route so I could prepare Jacqui for what may be some pretty harsh news. The nurses aid ushered us right into an exam room and after taking a single drop of blood and obtaining a urine sample the results were instantaneous and undeniable. Nothing would ever be the same, the dreaded cat was out of the bag. I was given a piece of paper with Jacqui’s blood glucose level and ketones hurriedly written on it and an order to go to the emergency room straight away. From that moment on, for the next three days, I was on autopilot. Day one was long and mostly spent in the emergency room intake area behind a curtain, hidden away in the corner where the ER staff talked Jacqui through getting an I.V. line set up with a constant drip of vital fluids that her little body had been craving and for the first time in a couple of months she was getting the insulin that her pancreas had all but quit making. The following hours and days were spent in Rady Children’s hospital with my husband, son and me crammed into a tiny room, around a bed where my baby girl was hooked up to I.V.’s and monitors. The staff came and went constantly through the small room and a parade of interns and residents filed through introducing themselves and asking the boilerplate questions. They filled our heads with information and advice but nothing they said or did could possibly prepare us for the reality of caring for a diabetic child. In fact, the hospital staff went far out of their way to sugar coat our upcoming plunge into our new roles. They didn’t want to scare us. Too late. I had been diving into the copious amounts of information on the internet and the outlook for children, suffering with this disease was very mixed.

We heard about how diabetics can and do live “normal” lives, becoming actors, politicians, attorneys, athletes, scientists and doctors but not once did anyone fill us in on the stark reality of what diabetics and their caregivers go through on a daily basis nor were we told about the statistics that were downright frightening. We were not told about how the primary care giver, (me) would spend night after night sleeplessly, monitoring blood glucose levels, all the while feeling helpless when those levels plunge dangerously low and then shoot up to the other end of the spectrum. Then there are the night time calls to the on-call endocrinologists searching for magical advice. We were trying to do everything right, everything perfect when in reality, managing blood sugar is a lot of educated guess work. We were not prepared for how dramatically a diabetic reacts to having a virus. A common cold can be life threatening for a delicate system already stressed from wildly fluctuating blood sugar levels. A cold can make diabetes unmanageable at home and can land your little kid back in the hospital where I.V.’s and experts take over where parents fall short.

Facts.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that kills children. That is a fact that you will not hear when you are being educated by your child’s health care provider. In my case, it was as if they all went out of their way to tell us just how normal a diabetics life will be and that managing the disease is easy.

Here are the facts. Cold and harsh, undeniable facts. If a diabetic wants to remain relatively healthy there is nothing that takes the place of checking blood glucose levels several times a day and making the correct adjustments. The parents and diabetic have to be constantly vigilant. One missed step can mean disaster. Not being there if the blood sugar drops to a dangerous level or rises to crazy highs can mean seizures followed by diabetic coma. Comas can lead to death or permanent nerve or brain damage. Oh and you think there is a lot of warning? Try again. Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) can occur within minutes and a diabetic can become unconscious within twenty minutes of the first symptoms. The most common time for a diabetic to go into a coma due to low blood glucose is during sleep. So how do you know when a sleeping person is having low blood sugar? You have to test them during the night. You have to stick their little, delicate fingers with a razor sharp needle to get that precious drop of blood. You do not have the luxury of ever sleeping through the night again. Get used to it.

Diabetes is the most common cause of kidney failure. 40 percent of people with type 1 develop severe nephropathy and kidney failure by the age of 50. Some develop kidney failure before the age of 30. Then there is heart and blood vessel damage. Diabetes makes getting cardiovascular disease far more likely. About 65 percent of diabetics die from some form of heart or blood vessel disease including stroke, narrowing of the arteries, heart attack and high blood pressure. Diabetics experience an increased risk of nerve damage, they can lose feeling in their extremities and often develop pain and tingling sensations. Let’s not forget damage to the eyes. Diabetes can damage the tiny blood vessels of the retina and if they live long enough, almost every single person diagnosed with type 1 diabetes will develop some level of retinal damage due to the disease. According to the CDC: “Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults aged 20-74 years. Diabetic retinopathy causes 12,000 to 24,000 new cases of blindness each year.” Type 1 diabetes is lifelong and until a cure is found my little girl and all other children and young adults diagnosed with the disease will have to inject themselves several times a day with insulin for the rest of their lives.

Shortly after arriving home, Jacqui measures her insulin

The emotional toll.

The emotional and social implications are daunting due to the constant need to monitor blood sugar and for a caregiver to be there to administer insulin or carbs at a moments notice. Because of this, the likelihood of a diabetic kid going to a friends house for a sleepover is about as likely as waking up and finding flying unicorns in your garage. It gets worse too, no more carefree days spent with family, friends or anyone who is not trained to measure insulin dosages and give injections, count carbs and react properly in emergency situations. A diabetic child is really an out-patient who is dependent upon their parents for medical care 24/7. These children need to be with someone who can read the physical signals of low and high blood glucose levels and take the appropriate action. Low blood sugar is very dangerous and scary. Who wants to take responsibility for watching over a child with this kind of serious medical condition? Frazzled nerves of overspent parents who don’t get enough rest can often times create a stressful environment for the very people we are doing so much to protect. Going out to dinner and a movie while leaving the kids with a friend or a sitter becomes a dim memory. to successfully manage this illness, it takes a 100 percent commitment from the diabetic as well as the caregivers. All of this adds up to a stressful set of circumstances, that if ignored will eventually take a very ugly twist.

The stress of diabetes causes an emotional toll that is rarely addressed or discussed but is actually a major factor of this disease. The psychological impact of having to constantly monitor blood and diet is significant and not just for the person with diabetes but for their caregivers as well. Depression for diabetics can spiral out of control when blood sugar levels drop because low blood sugar often causes erratic behavior and self destructive impulses. If the diabetic doesn’t have seizures and end up in a diabetic coma the low blood sugar gives way to increased and inevitable high blood glucose levels which, when left untreated, cause organ damage or total failure and the depression causes inaction.

Financial problems often arise due to the astronomical cost of all the things necessary to treat and care for a diabetic child. We have excellent insurance but even so, the added cost is something that adds to the stress of our daily battle with diabetes. Our insurance covers the lions share of expenses but we still end up several hundred dollars, out of pocket, each month. For example, each test strip is about one dollar and we test anywhere from seven to fifteen times a day and even more if Jacqui has a cold or the flu.

How diabetes has changed our lives.

Diabetes has changed my daughters life for ever. She will have to wake up every morning and check her blood sugar before she can have a cup of coffee. Going to school for her will be even more challenging than school already is for kids her age since she will have to test herself while at school and be able to react to the test results appropriately. No birthday cakes, cookies, candy or other sugary treats during classroom celebrations. (Something Jacqui has always enjoyed.) She is able to accurately measure her own insulin and inject herself and so, for her, this is empowering. Never leaving the house without her “survival kit” is another change because leaving the house without it is not possible. We keep apple juice, testing kit, insulin and an ice pack in an insulated bag so we can grab it and go. As I mentioned, she can not stay at friends houses overnight nor can she leave for the day to visit the zoo with her friends unless one of her parents goes along.

It took me only a short while, after Jacqui went back to school in September to realize that it was not going to work out. The class sizes of up to 36 kids, crammed into a room with just one teacher, was hard enough for a healthy child. Every year I anticipated the never ending colds and flus that both of my kids brought home and passed to me. She was only in school for about 10 days when she came down with the first signs of a cold. It started with a sore throat and then came the fever. Her blood sugar, already crazy and unstable, went even more insane by climbing into the low 400’s. A normal blood sugar is around 120. Also with the cold she didn’t want to eat and so I was struggling with adjusting insulin doses for a kid who was unwilling or unable to get enough carbs into her body to use the tiny doses I would give her. When the blood sugar would skyrocket, I’d give her insulin which would have the chilling effect of making her blood sugar plummet into dangerous lows. Then, not surprisingly, I got the cold from her. I became so sick myself I could hardly do anything. I wanted so much to just sleep but sleeping was not an option. Jacqui’s erratic blood sugar levels terrified me and so I forced myself to stay awake so I could check her blood sugar every ninety minutes.

Thats’s when I decided to homeschool her. I was already homeschooling my son with Aspergers. This was our first year, but I was confident that it was the only answer for him. He was starting middle school and after looking into all the options available, I realized the public school system was going to be unable to handle his emotional problems and to meet his many needs. My sons condition makes it impossible for him to be in a classroom without an adult supervising him. Briefly, Aspergers is a high functioning form of autism that primarily effects a persons ability to socially integrate with their peers. Some are exceptionally intelligent but uniformly, they have serious issues when it comes to their social behavior. Ian, my son has a near perfect memory and likes history and is good with dates, places and names but he is unable to understand social protocol.

The only thing that made sense was to also homeschool Jacqui.

Everything has changed.

I can’t think of one thing that the diagnosis of diabetes has not effected in some way. From how my daughter exercises and plays to how she sleeps, eats and thinks about life. Her future may not include having her own children. She may experience one of the numerous and predictable side effects of this horrible and terrifying disease. But for now, she is my beautiful baby girl. My precious angel.

Seventeen Months Later

I’ve learned a lot and so has Jacqui. At the end of October, she started using an insulin pump. More education and even less sleep for me. Getting the basil (background insulin) levels worked out and the insulin to carbs ratio in order has taken the past three weeks. I’m beginning to feel comfortable with her night time numbers and have gotten used to changing the pod that is on her body and delivers the insulin, every three days No more shots. Don’t let anybody fool you, the injections are painful and had to be administered every time she ate. Now her PDM (Personal Diabetes Monitor) calculates the correct amount of insulin to carbs. It’s fast, easy to use and the newfound freedom is making a positive difference.

Jacqui today

Old People and Their Cell Phones

2011-11-16T10:50:00.001-08:00

I'm old. I'll be 55 in January. I love tech. My mother in law keeps TALKING about getting an iPhone. She thinks it will be hard to use but I keep fucking telling her that it is so easy, she may actually keep it turned on and use the fucker. She has some antiquated, difficult as hell, piece of shit cell phone that nobody (except my 12 year old asperger-tech-geek kid) could ever figure out how to use cell phone anti-technology crap-shit-mutha-fucker phone.... (Phew... I got lost there) Anyway... She is 79. She is a fabulous MIL. But when she travels and is "using" her POS fucking phone from the dark ages, she doesn't (a) turn the thing ON. (b) Does not charge it. (c) Doesn't know how to ANSWER it (d) Doesn't know how to retrieve voice messages (e) God forbid she gets a TEXT message, just forget it. That's impossible.

But Hurray! Some kindly relative, a cousin of my husbands', I believe, sat her down and showed her his iPhone. He almost had her convinced. But she hasn't sprung for the much needed upgrade in technology...YET. There's still hope. I really want to take a trip up to Central California to visit her. I LOVE her. I hate the lack of techy-goodness in her life. Also, since I'm on this little rant. She NEEDS a goddamned iPad. Get rid of that piece of shit, old as hell PC lady! Get yourself to an Apple Store or a Target and buy a fucking iPad for cryin' out loud. Spring for a wireless printer (they're cheap)and get a tech-geek to your house to set up a wireless network. Join the planet in all our wireless glory. Sit on your couch and surf the infinite world of the internets. Look at high res images of your fabulous grandchildren on a beautiful, compact, had held iPad!!!! Awesomeness is yours, reach out and grab it!

Here is proof that you CAN find any kind of image on the internet:

My NetFlix Manifesto

2011-09-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Netflix, this is my Manifesto:I do not think you understand me. Why should you? You don’t really listen when I tell you what I want. I am just one of your many customers. One that will be fleeing from you. One that is tired of screaming about what I really want. I’m laying it all out here. I’m tired of emailing you. You don’t read my emails so why do I keep trying? I joined NetFlix when you offered a great service. You allowed me to pick a film, or even multiple films, from your library and have them mailed to my house so I could watch them at my leisure. All I had to do was put them in the nifty, red envelope and drop them back in the mailbox. It worked for me. Then the internet became faster and more compliant with my needs. You guys were awesome. You offered a really fantastic dividend, I could hook up with NetFlix, online through my Tivo or PlayStationIII and get instant movies sent, via the web, right to my 47” Sony Bravia TV. Woo-hoo! Then, you upped the price. OK. I could understand this. Things cost more and that gets passed down to me. I wasn’t really upset by the price hike.Let me tell you what really pissed me off.Do you care?

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THING: I was a member of the NetFlix community. I was pretty much, always signed into your website. It was a daily ritual to check into the Netflix site. I found countless films, which I would have never seen, due to my NetFlix “friends.” It was a brilliant part of NetFlix. People read my reviews because they liked the same kinds of movies and TV shows I like. I rented films, based upon my NetFlix “friends” reviews. Then, one day, you pulled the plug on the NetFlix community. Check the date that you did this. I guarantee that your movie rentals dropped significantly right after you decided that the NetFlix community wasn’t needed. Right after you decided to get rid of the NetFlix online community, I stopped having movies delivered to my house. It was directly linked to the event where you pulled the plug on the NetFlix, internet community.

NetFlix has shot themselves in the foot.... Then the other fucking foot. It is like they think we are total idiots. I understand there are a lot of idiots... I’m not one of them.Give me back the on-line, NetFlix community. Let us interact. Here are my other suggestions:I will pay more for better on-line content. The crap you are offering now is shit. Below par. Not even worth the $7 a month I’m paying. I’d pay $15 a month for better content on live streaming. Or here’s a suggestion:Allow people to pay for tiers of streaming service:$7.00 for basic service (what it is now)$10.00 for “Silver Service” - Basic service plus 3 premium movie a month$15.00 for “Gold Service” Basic plus 4 premium movies a month$22.00 for “Platinum Service” Basic and unlimited access to the NetFlix Library.OR - Just charge us $3 to rent a movie above the $7 a month charge...Do something besides send us endless bullshit emails. We want our NetFlix Community back.Oh, and quit sending out self serving, bullshit messages. We hate it.Give us back our ability to review movies and TV shows. Give us better content.

On Bird Ownership

2011-06-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

I was looking through the news on my iphone and came across this story about an incredibly intelligent bird, an African Grey parrot who can think in logical progressions. He can figure things out and knows when NOT to do something. Which makes him a fucking genius. He is probably doing calculus and writing a cookbook where ever it is that he lives. For a minute there, I was actually wishing I had one of these birds because wouldn't it be kind of cool to have a really smart parrot, after all, they are considered to be the gold standard bird to own. Then I remembered my short foray into bird ownership.

When I was pregnant with my first child I bought a white cockatiel and set up his big-assed cage right behind the chair I sat in to watch TV. Admiral Bird proceeded to pull his feathers out while preening and he screamed like someone was lighting his ass on fire. He shit like he was being paid for every blob of white and green pile of crap that poured out of him. I suspect, if you were to perform an autopsy on a cockatiel, you would find a mouth opening into a bottomless sack of bird shit.

Admiral Bird never stopped screaming and whistling. His sounds were varied and always loud. I tried everything I could think of to get him to talk. He would look at me and bob up and down and scream and shit. When he wasn’t screaming and shitting he was shelling his bird seed and tossing the hulls out onto the floor or pulling out, what seemed to me, to be perfectly good white, fluffy feathers. Here comes the real amazing part of this story; So, I thought... “hmmm, this bird needs a friend, a girl friend will make him happier and maybe the little fucker will do something besides scream and shit.” So, without having a gun held to my head, I drove to Birdland and purchased a female cockatiel for him. (Yes... I know, smart huh?) She was grey with yellow cheeks and she was sweet. At least while she was at the store she was sweet. And quiet.

I held her up to Admiral Bird and introduced the two. He cocked his head to the side and stretched his wing. He seemed sort of bored by this whole introduction thing. So, I decided to pop her into the cage with him. As soon as I put her in the cage with her new boyfriend, the once sweet and quiet bird became a maniac screaming machine. Admiral Bird was horrified by this change in his home life. They eyed each other from opposite sides of the cage. They shrieked AT each other and AT the TV. It was like they were having a goddamned screaming contest. They gradually decided they kind of liked each other but their favorite past time was screaming and whistling. What a moron I am. Not only did buying a second bird not make any sense to anyone who has a ounce of grey matter, it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I attribute this lapse in judgement to be due to the massive quantities of hormones that flowed through my pregnant body. Now I had twice the amount of feathers, seed hulls and shit and five times the volume. Measuring bird noise can be compared to the way earthquakes are measured on the Richter Scale, a 6.2 earthquake is like a hundred times stronger than a 5.9 earthquake. Two birds make 5 times the amount of noise as one bird. It’s comparable to the sound a Bell Jet helicopter makes when landing on your head.

After my son was born I tried to like the screaming fucking birds. They were making me hate them though. They made the screaming baby sound even louder. I tried playing music for them to keep them happier but they just danced while they screamed. After one particularly long day and night and not getting more than two hours of sleep I loaded them into the car along with their big, expensive cage and put my baby son into his car seat and drove the two back to Birdland where I was almost willing to pay them to take back the shitting, screaming, loud damned birds. I was grateful when they said they would keep them. And no, I did not ask them to also keep the baby. That would have been wrong. Wouldn't it?

So, yesterday, as I read that article about the genius bird and I began thinking how I would like to have one, I slapped myself in the head...Well, not actually but I should have.

COSTCO or Things You May Want To Know About Me Before Friending Me ON Facebook

2011-04-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

It’s a Costco kind of day. How do I begin this latest entry into the weirdness that haunts the cobwebs of my mind? Where else can you buy tires, have them put on your car, shop for a big screen TV, fine jewelry, eye glasses, fill up with gas, buy enough food to feed the population of Haiti and finance a car? Costco. Which leads me to this story:

About a year and a half ago, my husband took away my Costco card. He actually took it out of my wallet and shredded it in a fit of anger. I love COSTCO but my husband took away my card because I would buy weird shit… Example: I purchased a gigantic can of Rosarita Refried Beans. It’s the size of can you might see in the kitchen of an aircraft carrier. I had to have it, in case I needed to give someone a birthday present or if I was ever invited to attend a baby shower at the last minute. You’ve probably guessed, I hate baby showers. But any real friend of mine, would know immediately, that if I gave them a massive can of Rosarita refried beans, that they truly are, one of the chosen people.

One thing you should know about me is, I hate to shop. I loathe going to the mall and I hate looking for clothes and shoes. Oddly enough though, I love going to Costco. It’s the same kind of high that shopoholic hoarders describe when they finally make the big time by appearing on TLC. I love the industrial size shopping carts and the building that NASA envies. I love the lady with the bouffant, blond hair who asks to see my card upon entering the sparkly, magic as unicorn turds, dock the space shuttle in, Costco building.

I start at the back of the store and work my way to the front. Meat’s in the back, meat that makes the regular grocery store meat, scared to call itself meat. I load some pork ribs in next to the ribeye steaks and 16 boneless chicken breasts, lined up and glimmering the purest color of gypsy moth feet... and those smart bastards who stock the Costco aisles, they are no fools. They have put the wine and liquor right next to the meat. So I whisk through the wine and find the 6 best, good deals and a bottle of premium vodka. A 24 count package of enormous muffins, a watermelon, a 12 pack bag of avocados, a bag of grade A-Deluxe baking potatoes, each one kissed by Elvis and the Pope. A new cutting board big enough to park my SUV on, a 110 count pack of dry erase markers, a box of 40 ice cream bars, so big I have no idea where it will fit in the freezer. A five pound container of whole, salted cashews, 2 pairs of pajamas for the kids, 4 bath towels made of 100% egyptian cotton and big enough to wrap the Statue of Liberty in as a homage to the artist Christo. A 20 pack value sized windfall of Viva paper towels, the cloth like paper towel. 2 cases of bottled Coca Cola from Mexico, where they use real cane sugar and put it in real, tall, glass bottles. A 2-pack dog sweater ensemble for the discriminating chihuahua, a massive 500 ct bottle of Advil gels, a carton of cigarettes and a fantasy flower arrangement of flowers from the rain forests of Brazil. Done.

Upon finally cramming the back end of my Isuzu Rodeo full of this wonderful, mystical love fest of yummy goodness and 100% extravagance, I feel the high wearing off. Oh hell no. I’m already Jonesing for my next Costco high and I haven’t even got the latest haul back to my suburban housewife fantasy homestead where we have an extra refrigerator in the garage.

So... Looking back on my shopping trips through Costco, I can almost, kind of see where my husband was coming from. Hey, I bought him cigarettes in bulk! How could he complain?

The Donald and Other Insane Ramblings....

2011-04-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

I start this blog post with a pain between my ears and a heavy heart. Or maybe I'm just sick to my stomach. I have tried to avoid hearing or seeing what The Donald is up to, but to my chagrin, he keeps sticking that wild swoosh of hair, out of the hole in the ground where he lives and spewing out some real tomfoolery. (That's polite talk for The Donald is a dip-shit.) He wants to be the leader of not just his own sizable empire, he wants to be the Imperial Galactic Czar. But since his starship is grounded, and will be until he gets his hands on a metric ton of dilithium crystals, he's going to throw a giant pile of American currency at a run for the presidency. Yee-haw! This little foray into the political sphincter muscle, is sure to provide hours of comedy gold. Not just 14kt gold, but 24kt, premium gold. The kind of gold that you can only get after careful purification processes.

I've been thinking; who possibly could be bat-shit-crazy enough to be The Donald's running mate? I eliminated Charlie Sheen right out of the gate. Yes, he is bat-shit-crazy enough but he also owns a comb. The Donald needs someone, whose own hairdo is so bad, so fucking horribly bad, that it makes The Donald's pile of cotton-candy-fluff-of-shit look good by comparison. The only person, with worse hair than The Donald's, is this guy:

But, he can't locate his birth certificate.

And so, after carefully thinking about it, I have found the perfect, bat-shit-crazy person to be The Donald's running mate... Without further ado, I give you the Republican Parties, sphincter-force-run-for-2012-dream-team:

I am happy to add that I got to sneak the word "sphincter" in twice.

For Anyone Who Wants To Know What A Teacher Makes, WATCH THIS!

2011-03-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

Literal Thinkers In My World of Sarcasm

2011-03-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

I am sarcastic. I grew up around sarcastic people. My mom was the queen of sarcasm, my step father had no clue. He was a literal thinker who ruined all the sarcastic good times. I learned, early on, that what was being said was a cover for something else. It hones your comedic senses to be raised by a sarcastic mother. She’s been dead for forty years and so I can’t remember exactly what kinds of things she’d say but I know I had to think quick to keep up with her wit.

This brings me to today. Being sarcastic in an ocean of literal thinking jerks. Yes, jerks who expect me to apologize and say “I was just kidding...” I have a rule and it’s a good one. I never, ever say to an adult, “I was just kidding.” I cut kids some slack because they are, well...kids. My kids however, for the most part, are exempt from this practice. I almost never tell my own two kids “I was just kidding.” I let them sink or swim in my ocean.

I was recently brought to think a lot about sarcasm and how some literal thinking jerks can ruin a good time. Once upon a time I had a boyfriend. This was way back when I was about twenty two. He was or I should say, is a very talented musician and I often wondered what became of him and his friends and band mates. I decided to Google him. I found his email and sent a friendly note. He wrote back and we exchanged about 3 emails when I decided to inquire about some old, lost mutual friends whom I believed he may still be in contact with. In my good natured (yes it was) sarcastic way, I asked; “I’ve often wondered what happened to “Question Mark Man” (fake identity is used here) I imagine he is probably in a federal prison doing time for scamming charitable organizations out of their money. And about “Mr. Bass player” I imagine he has lost all of his hair and got real fat, and about “bass player’s girlfriend” I’ll bet she is a meth addict. All of these were supposed to be in jest, since I had no idea what really became of these three individuals. It was sarcasm and it was obvious. But not to literal-thinking jerk-ex-boyfriend. He didn’t read the rest of my email but he read the three sentences about the long lost mutual friends and his answer went something like this; “Question mark man” died last year of cancer, bass player still has his hair and is in good physical shape and bass players girlfriend is, “doing quite well.” I sent back an email that went like this; “I was close.” he didn’t answer. So, I sent back another email; “I guess I can forget that career as a psychic” - the internet tubes were silent. No reply. Literal-jerk-ex-boyfriend was waiting for an apology for being sarcastic. Uh-uh. No way would I send an email back saying “Obviously, I was just kidding! I was just joshing. Please, please, please forgive my insensitive inquiry about your dead best friend whom I remember fondly. I didn’t mean any of that stuff about scamming charitable organizations out of their money. It was supposed to be funny but I can certainly see how badly this effected you since your friend died of cancer and there I went, being sarcastic, I was just kidding.”

Literal-jerk-ex-boyfriend is an ex-boyfriend for a reason.

The advent of the social network on the internet has brought out the literal-thinking-jerks in droves. There’s even emoticons to address this. I also refuse to use these annoying, little symbols to represent an obviously, sarcastic remark. Let the literal-thinking-jerks flap in the breeze of my sarcasm. Hang ‘em high in the ever shifting wind that blows from my fingertips onto my keyboard and blesses the pages of facebook or other blogging sites with the beauty of my sarcasm. I know I type things that the literal-thinking-jerks will never understand. I have been blocked from some of these peoples walls or blogs or pages. I should have a chalkboard in my office with tally marks where I keep score of the people who unfriend me. Literal-thinking-jerks should all band together and leave us sarcastic people to our own world, our own parallel universe, where we all “get it.” In my parallel universe, sarcasm tags and emoticons would not exist because we would not need them. When I typed “Japan moved twelve feet closer to the United States in the aftermath of the big earthquake. They are still trying to sneak up on us.” no one would gasp in horror and unfriend me. The people in my universe would smile and understand the true meaning of friendship (and sarcasm.)

Oh, and bass player’s ex girlfriend probably did become a meth addict, so there.

The Importance of Water Heaters

2011-03-03T23:13:00.000-08:00

Everyone who takes a shower has one. We don’t give it lots (or any) thought. It’s not obvious (usually.) It’s just there, day after day. Ours is in the garage, next to the garage door, in the corner. For almost twelve years it’s kept our water hot. They’re not very attractive, just big cylinders with copper pipes and hoses and vents. Ours has earthquake straps holding it in the corner up on a small bench-like structure. Red knobs with markers and stickers that indicate all kinds of fire danger make it into some kind of robot-looking-mid-century-monster. It looks the same as the water heater we had when I was ten. I guess that the design is efficient enough to keep around. The thing that brings me to writing about this is, last night, the reliable old water heater, quit making our water hot. It was done. It died.

It’s kind of a jolt to the psyche when you turn the hot water faucet on and nothing but icy cold water comes out. I grabbed a flashlight and went out to the garage to check on it. Maybe someone had inadvertently turned the red knob to “Vacation.” Maybe some kid had just plain turned it off. It happened about four years ago. Yes, it did. But this time, when I shined the flashlight on it, I saw water leaking from the bottom. I knew it wasn’t happy news. I turned off the gas line and felt like crying.

Today, after some debate, my husband conceded. He is stubborn. He wanted several opinions. He would have liked to have, some kind of water-heater, respiration team come over and breath life into the old girl. Alas, she was D.O.A. - a total loss. Dead. Gone. Pushing up daisies. The last rights were read and I begged our regular plumber-guy to “...please, oh please, put in a new hot-water-heater-today...PLEASE” and then I added.... “...but only for under $900. --- In fact, let my husband talk to you... it has to be around $850. Any more than that is HIGHWAY ROBBERY.” And so, the plumber and the husband talked and came to terms. The hot water heater was installed for the right price and now we have luxurious showers and the dishwasher is humming along.

It’s amazing, just how much, one misses hot water when it’s gone. Ice-cold showers? Oh-fucking-no. Dishes do not come clean in cold water. No, they do not. Clothes, (no matter what some brands of detergent say) do not get really clean in cold water.

Today, I discovered the importance of a water heater. I took a shower tonight in hot-water-splendor. I felt a renewed appreciation for something we all take for granted. I wanted to give a speech... “I’d like to thank the academy, my mother, my children, my agent... BUT, most of all, I’d like to thank my plumber.”

Yes, “...thank you Scott the Plumber, without you, I would never have achieved a fabulous shower experience...”

Why I Love Apple. The Apple vs PC Debate

2011-02-21T12:57:00.000-08:00

What is this strange affection I have for my Apple products? Why do I feel so passionate about them? Ever since I “hooked-up” with my first Macintosh Computer, back in 1988, I’ve been in love. Is it addiction? Is it blind allegiance? Have I misplaced my secret membership card, for the loyal order of The cult of Mac and just didn’t realize it? The reason I ask these questions is not because I expect a lightening bolt to come crashing through the ceiling of my house like the ever knowing fist of god, clutching a note that holds the answer to these queries, it’s just that I question my own mindset on this particular topic. Or, maybe it’s just idle curiosity.

What got me thinking about this is this; Today, I was reading an article about one of my favorite topics, Apple. The internet is rife with them. This one was in PC World’s on-line edition. The article was shrouded in anti-Apple speak, (it is after all, a PC Mag) questioning the logic behind Apple’s upcoming Macbook Pro upgrade. The article wasn’t all that critical, what got me was the comments. I’ve seen them all before. They are comments which are cloned by the Apple haters. Why would anybody pay THAT much money for a computer that has the same specs as a PC? I’m used to seeing that comment, it is a standard for all who do not belong to my secret organization. The part that got me was this; “All that extra money for a fancy cheap case and a boring OS.” OK buddy, them are fightin’ words. I had to force myself not to respond. I can’t think of any bigger insult, that a Window’s user could hurl, than to suggest that Apple’s ultra-elegant operating system, is “boring.” I wanted to actually sign in to PC World, (forcing me to become a member) so I could smack down the moron. “Cool your heels,” I thought to myself. Do not, allow this nitwit, to bait you into the endless PC vs Mac debate. They are, after all, Neanderthals, who will never, ever, in a gazillion years, understand the underlying force of what working with a beautifully designed, brilliantly conceived, magical as flying pony-unicorns, Macbook Pro is like. No amount of argument, with one of these boneheads, has ever once, budged him, from his redundant, sniping perch of ignorance.

Being a lover of all things Apple is an intangible experience to describe to outworlder, PC people. They are devoted to buying the least expensive, clunky, unattractive box in which to order their boring, unimaginative lives. Pouring over numbers and organizing legal briefs does not need to be done on a machine which is meant to create works of art. Ah-ha! I’ve hit on one of the core and principal reasons I was sucked into being a devotee of Apple. It was, after all, back in the late ’80’s when I needed a better, faster way to do graphic art. Making print ads the old fashioned way was just beginning to be done using Adobe Illustrator® and Image Pro®, Image Pro would soon become known to all who were in the Ad Biz as Photoshop® and Photoshop®, as well as Illustrator, were only available for the Macintosh OS. Using an Apple computer and creating advertising became synonymous. In fact, Apple became the industry standard. I started my computer life on an IBM word processor. I used it to do all of my writing until I got my first version of Quark Express®. That program revolutionized desktop publishing and it was only made for the Mac. Creative people were being culled from the world of IBM and its clones. To be a creative force with the assistance of a computer, there was only one choice and I jumped in head first and never looked back.

Then along came the iMac. It was a terrific little machine and they made great slaves for just about every ad agency and creative suite on the planet. Less costly than their bigger, more powerful brothers, they did the heavy lifting. People with kids recognized the bulletproof design. When my son was three and a half I bought him his first iMac encased in a brilliant egg shaped plastic womb with a handle on top. I have pictures of him, standing in front of that iMac, in his diapers learning to navigate the World Wide Web.

My music collection had gone from LP’s to cassette, to CD with a brief interlude onto Sony® Minidisc and then back onto CD when the first iPod was introduced. It was a must have option to pare down my music storage which was taking over one room of our house. I squealed with delight when I bought my first iPod, bringing it home in its cube-shaped box. Almost all my music fit into a thing the size of a pack of cigarettes. The battery sucked but my music was in there someplace. Of course I bought almost every incarnation of the iPod. It all came full circle with the advent of the iPhone. Yes it did.

I didn’t stand in line (all that long) to buy my first iPhone. I arrived at the Apple store, an hour before it opened, and stood in line with three or four-hundred fellow members of my cult. I was in position one hundred or so. The iPhone had been released for over two weeks and I thought the lines would have died down, but with each new shipment to our local Apple Store, a new horde of Apple people (and some sheepish looking PC defectors) would gather to worship at the alter. We bought two iPhones. The original, brushed aluminum back, with the pretty, shiny, Apple logo and for the first time ever, I experienced multi-touch-screen-technology-nirvana. There is no cure for this. Once I began using the multi-touch screen, I would never, ever understand why anyone, would continue to use a flip phone, Razor thing-a-ma-jig. Then the 3G came out and back to the Apple store we went. Husband, me and our two kids. This time we bought four. One for each of us. My husband and I were tired of loaning our phones to the kids so they could play games and music. Besides, my son was a real devotee of Apple and didn’t every, single cult member deserve their own iPhone? I think it’s in the handbook someplace.

I skipped buying the iPhone 3G-S. I was waiting for the iPhone 4. I watched cautiously through the antenna-gate scandal. But I visited the Apple store and publicly fondled it there. Yes, in public. My kids went back to Apple Camp over the summer and I held out. My 3G was still working. But then my PC loving husband (I know, it hurts to admit it) went off the reservation, went out alone and bought one for himself, he bought the iPhone 4. How dare him. I was struck with jealousy. Horrible phone envy. I had a wonderful iPod touch. I loved every bit of it’s design. But I wanted that iPhone 4. It was like some kind of crazy heroine addiction. Must. Have. It.

Okay, so I have one now. I love my iPhone 4. It doesn’t drop calls at any greater rate than any other cell phone and it is a work of art. I have all my music on it. The battery is superb. I have at least seventy apps and I have three stars on every level of Angry Birds®. What more could any, Apple-crack-head want?

The reason I love Apple is for exactly why that guy on PC World said he would never want an Apple. I love it’s sleek design, it’s beautiful graphic interface, it’s brilliant OS and because I am a creative person. The PC people will never, ever get it. They can not conceive of the way we feel about our computing. We are passionate about everything we do. If we paint on canvas, we are passionate about it. If we cook, we are passionate about it. If we are photographers, we feel deeply about that too. It’s a creative tool and it is the best tool for the job. Period. So, when a PC person renders the same, old tired argument which is inevitable, do not fall victim to outrageous attacks. Pick up your iPhone 4 and smile knowingly.

Witchy Woman

2011-02-19T11:32:00.000-08:00

I had to stop and ask myself, “Why?” why did this woman, I barely know, hate me so much? What had I done. It isn’t as if I think everyone needs to love me. It’s just that, why would someone really, truly hate me? She is my nephews wife. I adore my nephew. He was born when I was thirteen and we have always had a certain closeness. He’s smart and good looking and has a sweet nature. He is like a big, golden retriever who bounds into the room and shakes sand and water all over you. Annoying but lovable. My children adore him too. He rolls around on the floor with them and swings them into the air so they can try to grab hold of the stars. My kids are not really little anymore but he still flies them high into the air which curls my toes in fear that he is going to drop them on their heads. Somehow, he always catches them safely.

He is a nuclear physicist. He did not inherit the math gene from our side of the family, that’s for sure. He is big and friendly, remember the golden retriever? He came back to San Diego, while living in Europe, for a visit nine or so years ago and brought his girlfriend. A girl with auburn hair and a name that sounded like the name of my favorite Mexican cocktail. They married while living in Portugal. They had a sunny flat that looked out on the Atlantic Ocean and they fell in love. She didn’t want children, which weighed heavy on my nephew. He loves kids and wanted them badly. She denied him the joy a baby often brings, but as things soured, I see it was for the best. He would have had his heart broken twice as bad, had he had to part with a son or daughter too.

His wife, the girl-woman with the cocktail name, wants a divorce now. She says she hates him. She hurls insults at him and she uses his love for me to make the wounds deeper. She tells him she hates me because I am a vicious and horrible person. She says I am insane and she is convinced I am a witch. Not a witch in the sense of being a nasty bitch, but a real, life, modern-day witch. The flying on a broom, should be hung by the neck till dead or burned at the stake kind of witch. What? The? Fuck? I would laugh except it really makes me wonder at the sanity of a person who comes up with this kind of “logic.” She didn’t only hurl insults, she hurled her wedding rings which my nephew retrieved from the floor of their apartment.

I should have known something weird was afoot when she came to visit and made me feel uncomfortable due to the amount of gushing and hugging. I like to hug as much as the next fifty-something woman but she was way over the top, really big with the compliments, oh-so-syrupy sweet to me. I knew she is a vegetarian and so I made her fish on the grille and considered the rest of her meal when I cooked. Cooking is a passion of mine and I never want anyone to feel left out. So, when I made Korean style ribs I bought her a halibut filet and served it with a buttery caper sauce. I have no clue why she hates me.

I found out my daughter has type 1 diabetes, a horrible disease, shortly after my nephew and his wife moved to San Diego. Of course, they visited her in the hospital. Then we all went to the fair together since I had promised my daughter we would go when she left the hospital. That is the last time I saw my nephews wife. I had just found out that my beautiful daughter was horribly sick and my nephews wife decided I ride a broom through the night skies. I never said a cross word to her. I never was mean to her. She simply decided that I am a bonafide witch, told her husband to move out and to file for a divorce. I wince at thinking that I may, somehow, give off “witchy woman” vibes.

So, that is my true tale of woe. I can’t make the world like me. I would think that some kind of good reason, beyond someone imagining me as a witch, is due. But then there is a fact I can not deny. My best friend, suddenly and inexplicably quit talking to me too. She gave no reason. She just quit talking to me. She promised to call me the next day and never did. I called her and left a message. I emailed her. I even posted a note on her Facebook page asking when she was coming to visit. But nothing. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Apparently I have caused her to hate me too. I wonder if, she also, believes me to be a witchy woman?

Just a Day In the Life

2011-02-03T11:30:00.000-08:00

Life can take its toll. Just making it through the day can be brutal. Take yesterday for example. On Wednesdays, I have to get my daughter to her fifth grade study group by 9 a.m.. This means I have to leave the house at 8:30 but to complicate matters, I have to get my husband to the trolley station at 7:30. So, I feed the kids at 6:45 to 7:00, my daughter is diabetic and so I have to test her blood glucose, measure out two insulins, give her an injection and fix her breakfast.

My son eats something totally different. He has Asperger’s Syndrome, he is obsessed by the number 3. He has to eat almost everything in threes. So, he gets three pieces of Cinnabon toast. It has to be Cinnabon. No other brand of cinnamon bread will do. It cannot be 4 slices. It cannot be 2. It MUST be 3.

My Aspergers kid is not capable of dressing himself. He can set up a computer network. He can figure anything technical out. He plays the piano and guitar. He can remember dates, names and places almost photographically. He can not dress himself. He knows we are leaving at 7:30 to drive his dad down to the trolley station and yet, he never, ever puts his shoes on without being instructed to do this at least 11 times. “Put on your shoes.” I walk through the room, he is not moving toward his shoes. “Ian, get some socks and shoes and put on your shoes.” I walk through again to collect my laptop, power cable and make sure my daughter’s diabetic kit is packed correctly. Ian has not moved toward his socks and shoes. Instead he stands in the middle of the room asking; “Where are my shoes? Has anybody seen my shoes?”

I am trying to get my dog to come in from the yard where she demanded to go a minute earlier. She stands, nose in the air, sniffing the animal smells in the canyon. “Tiki! Come here Tiki!” Tiki comes trotting in. She is the easy one to deal with. If Tiki wore shoes, she would have them on by now.

Somehow, I get everyone in the car. My husband gets ready all on his own. I am so proud of him. He does however think I should get him a cup of coffee to go. I do it so much better than him, he says. I drive us all to the trolley station, drop John off and head back to the house. We have 30 minutes left for me to take a shower, get dressed, put on makeup (don’t want to scare the public) and get both kids back in the car. Ian has a phone, an iPod and a laptop that he feels he must take. He waits until we are walking out the door to tell me he needs to put his laptop in its case and he can’t find his phone. I try not to scream like a maniac. I realize, he hasn’t brushed his teeth. I have to take them to the dentist to have x-rays and get their teeth cleaned later in the day. He really needs to brush his teeth. I hate being late but he needs his fucking teeth to be brushed. He cannot put toothpaste on a toothbrush without a major intervention from me or his sister. I try to let him do this himself but time is of the essence. We need to GO. I get his toothbrush prepared and he has to also have a specific type of disposable, plastic cup. It has to be clear. It MUST be the right type of cup. He has to time himself using a phone or an iPod. He breaks from tradition and always brushes his teeth for exactly 2 minutes. This is the only thing he does in twos. He has it fixed in his head that teeth are brushed for 2 minutes. He sets his timer and he brushes for two fucking minutes.

I get my own crap in the car, my laptop, wallet, pens, paper, phone, my own iPod, wipes for dirty hands and the ever-present bottle of ibuprofen. We almost make it out the door again, when I realize that Ian needs to comb his hair. If you don’t know a kid with Aspergers, you may not understand this. He has no clue how to comb his hair. He combs it with the wrong side of the comb. He holds the comb by the teeth side. It’s maddening. I get a spray bottle of water and proceed to comb his hair into some form of neatness. I have no idea how we did it but we got to school with 5 minutes to spare. We actually walk in and look like we are normal people. All of us dressed, hair done, clean teeth and all wearing shoes.

So. I am a magician. Fuck David Blaine and Fuck Criss Angel. When they have an Aspergers kid and they can get to a destination on time, then tell me about being amazing.

We get through the morning. My daughter stays on her own with her 5th grade class. I take my really nice, neat looking son to the computer lab where he settles into his bailiwick. Here he is the master of time and space. He is one with the machines. If there really were such things as Terminators, he would make friends with them. At 11:00 he takes his math benchmark test with the counselor, he does a lot of his testing one on one. It’s in his i.e.p. (Individual education program) and so he lives through the test. At noon, we set out to find some food before the dentist appointment. The kids want to try something new, let’s try vietnamese food. It’s a disaster. I wont discuss how bad it was. I had nightmares last night, starring the food we tried to eat. If Gordon Ramsey reads this, here’s your next Kitchen Nightmare.

We make it to the dentist, exactly at the time of the appointment. This was a new dentist and so we had to find the office... In one of those giant, behemoth, mother of all mothers of a medical complex. That’s when I got handed 4 pages to fill out. That’s 4 pages per kid. I was filling out papers through their whole cleaning and x-ray fun. I signed less paperwork when we bought our house. Taking kids to the dentist is akin to going through escrow. After the exam and cleaning it’s time to hear about all the shit they need to have done to their teeth. No wonder people don’t go to the dentist as often as they should. It’s absolutely no fun at all.

Then we make it home. Finally. Through crazy, bad traffic. We get in the door at 4:00. 7.5 hours has elapsed since I saw my chihuahua. She wags her tail when she sees me and all is right with the world. I know I am going to grill hamburgers for the boys. My daughter, the diabetic, is a vegetarian. She hates vegetables. I know. Don’t even say it out loud. I make her some frozen waffles for dinner out of sheer desperation. Oh, and she has to have another insulin injection. And... Did I mention that at 7:00 I have to pick my husband up from the trolley? Oh, shit, he needs to come home, at least that’s what he tells me. I also realize I need to stop at the drug store and so we leave a few minutes early and I run into the store and have to wait in a line of 7 people. One cashier and 7 people in a line.

I keep thinking about the happy, little chihuahua. I know she will wag her tail again when she sees me. We pick up the father of my two kids and make our way back up the hill to our house. My house looks like I am trying to star in an upcoming episode of “Hoarders, Buried Alive.” I haven’t had time to clean my house. I have to fit that in between science experiments and art projects. I manage to pull off making dinner. I don’t bother eating. I’m still disgusted by that Vietnamese food. The food I could not eat. I do however make myself a vodka and grapefruit juice and watch everyone else eat.

But that’s not all. My daughter’s blood sugar takes a dive 2 hours after she ate those waffles. At 9:45, I am giving her apple juice and making a quickie baked potato in the microwave to get her some complex sugar (starch) into her system to bring up the blood sugar and sustain her through the night. I was up until midnight, at least, watching her and checking her until her blood sugar came up to a safe 151.

And then. Today. It’s another day. Pretty close to yesterday except instead of a dentist appointment, it’s guitar class from 2 to 3. I’ll take guitar class any day over a dentist appointment.

But when I get home at around 3:30, I know, for a fact, as sure as the sun came up this morning, my chihuahua will wag her tail when she sees me.

A California Yankee In Queen Natty’s Court

2011-01-18T00:21:00.000-08:00

(A preface is necessary here. This is a true story from my childhood and a defining moment in my life. I grew up in S. California. My mother was a real, died-in-the-wool, racist. Not a day went by without hearing the “N” word. In fact, I didn’t even realize “nigger” was a derogatory term until the day of this story.)

It was sweltering, steamy hot. Not unusual for Tallulah, Louisiana in July. It was the mid ’60’s and I was seven or eight. A skinny little thing. I wore a pastel colored, light weight, summer dress made of cotton which was the only outward indication I was female. My mother had a habit of cropping my hair so short that people couldn’t tell I was a girl, which gave the kids even more ammunition when they taunted me and made me cry. I didn’t like being mistaken for a boy. It was truly an embarrassment. I was long and tall with big feet for my age, which my sister enjoyed pointing out, on a daily basis. She said it looked like I had skis for feet. Every part of me was unruly and I was an easy target for bullies. It’s a fact that I spent most of my time, at school, avoiding other kids and finding places to hide away and read books about far away places, where I imagined, someday I would travel to and never come back.

We spent one month of every summer in Tallulah. It’s where my mother was from, but her family was scattered around the state. Her cousin, or I should say, one of her many cousins, owned the biggest hardware store in town. Buster was actually married to the real cousin but once married, you too, were considered blood. Buster was a friendly, outgoing kind of guy. He had a crew-cut and was quick to smile. People talked about how he was a war hero and his wife seemed pretty proud of that fact. He and his wife had several kids, who all seemed to think of me as somewhat exotic, since I came from California. Their youngest kid, a little boy, about four, told me that I had a “Yankee accent” and that people from California all thought they were big-shots. I tried to understand what he meant but I couldn’t get my mind around it. I never thought of myself as a big shot. I thought of myself as someone who would like to disappear.

So, on this particular hot, Louisiana day, I was hanging around the hardware store with Buster’s kids while my mom went out for the day with her cousin, Buster’s wife. They said they were going over to a town in Mississippi to have lunch and cocktails. They dressed fashionably, their shoes and their pocketbooks matched and they talked about how their hair would be a “big, flat, mess” in all that humidity. I watched as they got into the car and my mother’s cousin drove them away.

In the store were several fans with bright colored streamers blowing from them, some on stands and some table top models that were out, on display. These fans served two purposes, the first was to show, just how much cooler you could be if you owned one or two and the second was to, (as my momma put it) keep Buster from sweatin’ his balls off. Buster had strategically arranged them near the cash register where most of the time, he sat on a tall stool and pretended to read the paper.

I liked wandering the aisles of the hardware store. At the back of the store was a long aisle where bins with nails and screws, of all sizes, were sold by the piece or by weight and at the end of that aisle were door and gate hinges and doorknobs and locks. An aisle with household items was particularly fascinating. Cast iron skillets and graniteware bowls, plates, cups and coffee pots. Roasting pans and electric waffle irons and toasters. Dishtowels and hot-pads. Barbecue tools and grills to be put together after you bought them, still in the box. That aisle, was so full of stuff that I never tired of searching it. Besides, it kept me alone, away from Busters kids and their endless questions about California and my short, “pixie” hair cut.

The door to the shop had bells, that jingled whenever it opened, indicating someone was either coming or going. I heard the jingle and peered around the end of the aisle with the household items, to see who had just entered. I saw it was two little colored kids. The older one was a girl my age, who held tightly to her brothers little hand. She wore a starched cotton dress, not too different from the one I wore. It was crisp and ironed. Her brother had on some neatly creased shorts with a bright, red t-shirt. They, like all of us kids, were shoeless. That’s just the way it was, we hardly ever wore a pair of shoes, in the summer in Louisiana. The girl pulled her brother along, through the store, back to the aisle with the nails and screws, where she filled a small, brown paper bag with some small finishing nails. The little boy took advantage of the moment when she let go of his hand and danced to the music that played from the radio. He smiled and clapped his hands. He did the twist right down to the last moment when his sister grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the cash register.

The little girl timidly handed the small bag of nails up to Buster at the counter. The fans with the streamers blew toward them and the little boy turned to face the breeze, holding out his hand to touch the strips of red, white and blue paper that rode the current. “Is that going to be it?” Buster questioned. The little girl, too shy to speak just nodded. Buster weighed the nails “That’ll be fifty cents.”, the cash register made the cha-ching noise and the girl laid two quarters on the worn, green, formica counter top. I had come up close to watch them as they left. The little boy broke free when they got outside, he spun in circles with his arms outstretched and then ran after his sister as she skipped down the sidewalk holding her little, brown sack of nails.

I wished I had been able to follow them. That’s when Buster’s voice broke through the steamy, hot Louisiana air. “Damned, dirty, little niggers.” He strode to the back of the store and brought out a metal tub on wheels with a mop. The Pine Sol fumes made the air even heavier as he swabbed the deck where those two kids had just walked. Busters three kids chanted in a kids sing-song tone; “Dirty, little niggers! Dirty, little niggers!” Buster caught me staring “Them niggers could bring in all kinds of germs on their filthy feet. You don’t want to get sick and die from nigger germs do ya?” I answered “They looked clean to me.” Buster shook his head and called me a stupid yankee.

Busters kids also called me a stupid yankee. I slipped out the back door, into the alley and went in the direction of those colored kids, toward the bayou.

The Bayou was just two blocks from the hardware store and I followed the road over to the other side of the murky water into a tree lined neighborhood of little, wooden houses. Most of them painted white. Along the way, I found a long, skinny stick that I picked up and drug behind me in the dirt. The stick made long, wavy lines between my bare, foot prints leaving a long, serpentine pattern all the way back to the asphalt covered road I had turned off of. Up ahead, I heard someone using a hammer, as I got closer I heard a deep voice, woefully singing a gospel tune that I had heard my mother sing on occasion. I wove my way along the dusty, little road and came upon a big, dark man wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of worn out overalls. He sang as he repaired a gate that he had stretched across a pair of rickety sawhorses. He had a short, yellow pencil behind his ear and every once in a while he would reach into his pocket, pull out a nail and tap it into the gate with a small hammer. Behind him, in the driveway, I saw the two kids who had come into the store to buy the nails, the little one, with the red t-shirt saw me and waved. I stopped, raised my hand and waved.

The man looked up from his work and caught me watching and gave me a big, friendly grin. “I never seen you ‘round here ‘afore. Where ya’ll from?” I hesitated for a moment then answered, “Los Angeles, California.” The big man cocked his head to the side and repeated “Los Angeles, California! I do declare, how come ya’ll are here in this backwater town?” He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his brow. “Well sir, my mama, she grew up here and we come to visit every summer.” He shook his head and thought for a little bit; “You ever see any famous people, movie stars or the likes, where you come from?” I thought for a moment “Well, I watched that guy, Cal Worthington, make a commercial at his car lot once about two months ago.” The man shook his head, “I ain’t never heard of no Cal Worthington.” I looked down at my feet. “Well, he’s on the TV all the time where I come from.” The kids had come up close now and the little girl asked; “You want to jump rope with me?” I said “It’s kind of hot for rope jumping.” She hung her head, a little disappointed. “You like to fish?” I perked up; “Heck ya, I love to fish.” The man smiled and turned back to his work and singing.

The girl disappeared into the garage and came back with a tackle box and a couple of cane poles “Daddy, I’m taking this here can of worms and we’re a fixin’ to go fishin’” she motioned with her eyes at a coffee can clamped under her arm. “Here.” She held out the poles to me and I took them. “You can use one of these poles and we’ll fix that stick of yours for my brother, he don’t care.”

And so, off we went. I carried two cane poles and a long, skinny stick. That little, shy colored girl carried a small, green, metal tackle box and an old Folger’s coffee can full of worms and the little boy skipped and danced along side as we walked toward the bayou and onto a narrow path parallel to the bayou. I said “My name’s Pam” She looked back on the narrow, worn path and said “I’m Natty, that’s short for Natalie. My momma, she named me after a movie star.” I smiled “I don’t know who I’m named after, I never met another Pam.” Natty shrugged, “I never met a Pam before either.” We walked on, the bugs were buzzing and tiny flies swarmed in the shafts of sunlight between the big, old trees. I broke the silence, “What’s your brother’s name?” Natty shrugged, “Oh, heck, that’s Daniel. He’s named after a man in the Bible, the man that was trapped with the lions.” I answered; “Hmmm, ya, I know about him.”

After walking for about ten minutes along the bank of the bayou, we came to a wide spot on the trail and a place that dropped down near the bank. A big rock jutted out and created an overhang in the shady spot where Natty climbed down to. She turned back and whispered “This is a secret fishin’ spot.” She said it in such a hushed and hallowed tone that I was convinced that I was the only other person, on this planet, besides Natty who had ever been there.

(To be continued)

A little about photography

2011-01-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

Hi. Besides this blog, I have a fairly new blog dedicated to photography 2011 • A Picture A Day • A Photo Journal - It isn't meant as any kind of professional photo blog, just a journal. But, I do have some training in professional photography. Although any pictures from that part of my life were taken with a Nikon FG using numerous lenses and mostly Kodachrome film. Now, it is impossible to use that combination. Kodachrome film is not produced and no one, nowhere could develop it, even if they wanted to since the chemicals are no longer available.

Now, like everyone else, I use digital cameras. They are easy. They are cheap. They are fast and you get instant results. No more waiting to see proof sheets or going through piles of slides to pick the best of the best. Now, it's as easy as plugging a USB cable into your computer and downloading the pictures you took that day. Or if you need to, send them wirelessly from the camera to the computer.

I was never happy with the quality of the photos from my previous iPhones. I've had them all. I'm an Apple Geek. But when I got my iPhone 4 as my christmas gift this year, I saw real potential for getting some fantastic shots and I was inspired to start that new blog where I publish a picture each and every day. This means that not all of the photos are fantastic. That wasn't the point of doing the blog. The point was, to keep a record, a journal of the whole year.

To challenge myself, I used the following exercise; I would stand in one spot and make myself take photos within a 50 foot radius. I could not go outside that area. I found that there are a lot of interesting things all around us at any given time. Then I made the area smaller and smaller. I allowed only 20 feet to wander and then down to 10 feet. The exercise forced me to find something of interest to photograph. It is an excellent way to see beauty in almost anything.

Personal Memories of the DC-3

2011-01-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

A memory was jogged by this article I ran across on the anniversary of the first DC-3. I love the DC-3. Not from any aeronautical perspective but due to memories I have of being a frequent flyer on Southern Airlines. My Dad, (actually he was my step-dad. Out of boredom, Mom was forced to occasionally change husbands )...was a mechanic for American Airlines, in fact, he was their first hire on the west coast, post WWII at LAX. I came along in the '50's when air travel had style and class... which of course Southern Airlines lacked both. What they did have was oodles of humor and humor can trump style and class every time if you do it right. As a company, Southern Airlines knew not to take themselves too seriously. They knew their fleet of DC-3's had become, by modern-day-standards, somewhat comical and treated their passengers as if they were your favorite, goofy uncle, out giving rides in the back seat of his Dodge Dart. They flew so low, it felt that I could reach out and touch the treetops. So, because my mothers family was from Tallulah Louisiana, my dad would get us tickets through the airlines to fly down and spend a month every summer with her lesbian (shhhh, don't tell anyone) aunt who was a sheriff... sure, it's cliche but after all there is a whole lotta truth about how cliche's get to be cliché's.

Aunt Bobbie, circa 1935 to 1940

Those rides down to Tallulah on Southern Airlines were heart stoppers. We would fly to New Orleans on an American 727 and leave New Orleans on one of those amazing DC-3's and make the short hop over to Monroe via the fabulous, little DC-3.

If Willy Wonka designed an airplane, he would have come up with the DC-3. He would have made it all shiny with the smell of hot chocolate wafting through the cabin and it would have had big, bouncy cartoon tires but the overall look would remain the same.

It's best to be short when traveling on a DC-3, when I was a little kid, I was among those who could stand up at the seat and not hit my head. The stewardess (There was no such term as "flight attendant.") would start off her safety spiel with "Hey ya'll, welcome to Southern Airlines, where southern hospitality is a must since our planes were obviously constructed by the seven dwarves, we feel it's our duty to smile no matter how bad our backs feel." Then a joke, about how low we would be flying, would usually follow.

Once, in the '70's, while I was in college, I flew down to visit that aunt. I remember an announcement that went something like this: "To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt, hopefully you can figure it out on your own, if you can't figure it out we will be happy to come by and laugh at you." They made the experience fun. After the announcements, the little plane would rumble and race down the strip, promising to get into the air. When it first came out in 1935, the DC-3 was considered revolutionary, ahead of its time. The cabin was large and roomy for that days standards but, by the time I was a passenger of Southern Airlines, in the '60's and into the '70's, it had become passe', cramped and comical. The DC-3 was, and still is, a tremendously reliable aircraft with at least 2000 still flying today and it's still one of my favorite planes. I revere my memories of all those, short nostalgia filled flights, sweeping close to the ground, over the lush, velvety green swamps and pastures of the South. Silos on the edge of cotton or corn fields and boats moored to little wooden docks melded into some odd kind of fairy-tale collage.

I got stuck in Greenville Mississippi, a small airport with a Quonset hut looking building for a terminal on that trip home in the '70's from visiting my aunt. The connecting flight wasn't connecting and there I was, a skinny, teenage girl with a "yankee accent." I had about $30, 2 bags and no credit cards. I was "shit-out-of-luck" as the natives put it. I took the only cab in town from the bleak, little terminal. The old, black man who drove me, drove to a little coffee shop that was next to a hotel that time had defiantly forgotten about. It was just off Nelson Street. Believe it or not, Nelson Street was a happening place during mid-century 1900's but by the time I got there, it was a bit past its prime. There were still several blues joints and back then, they didn't ask for your I.D..

My Dad had wired me a hundred bucks, which in 1976, was way more than anyone needed in Greenville Mississippi. My night, stuck in that two-bit town, was spent listening to the best blues guitar and bass combo in Mississippi while sipping rum and cokes. Oddly enough, I wanted to stay an extra day or two but instead, I met my connecting flight and left Greenville Mississippi behind, never to return. The memories are keen and etched deep in my psyche. Thundering down the runway inside the cozy, little DC-3 and soaring just high enough.

(This is a cross-post from another blog of mine)

An Autopsy of One Hour of Home Schooling

2011-01-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

For anyone that has never had the pleasure of homeschooling their kids, I am going to give you an honest description of what a normal day is like.

9:00 A.M.

Me: “Have you brushed your teeth?” no answer.

Me: “I said, have you brushed your teeth?” a faint moan and then;

Ian: “I’m not going anywhere, why do I have to brush my teeth?”

Me: “Brush your teeth anyway.”

Ian: “Why brush my teeth? I’m not going anywhere.”

Me: “So, you think that if you don’t leave the house, your teeth don’t need to be brushed?”

Ian: “Yah, pretty much.”

Me: “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard today.” 

Ian: “It’s just 2 minutes after 9 in the morning, I bet, I’ll say, way more stupid stuff today.”

Me: “I can hardly wait.”

Then the other kid joins in;

Jacqui: “Yep, he’s going to say LOTS of stupider stuff. In fact, he is a total retard.”

Ian: “Mom, Jacqui called me a retard.”

Me: “Both of you stop talking.”

Both (in an eerie unison): “We should stop talking FOREVER?”

Me: “Yes. Forever.”

Ian: “That means we don’t have to do science today.”

Me: “You don’t have to talk to do science.”

Ian: “I do if you want me to take an active part in my education.”

Me: “Who said I want you to take an active part?”

Jacqui: “Ya Ian. (pause) “OUCH!” --- “Mom, Ian hit me.”

Ian: “Liar! I only tapped her, I BARELY EVEN TOUCHED HER!”

Jacqui: “You’re the liar, you hit me really, REALLY hard and right where I get my insulin shots!!!” (Playing the diabetic card.)

Me: “Ian, just go brush your teeth and stay away from your sister.”

Ian: “I thought we settled that. I’m not going anyplace...REMEMBER???”

Me: (Audible exhale.) “If you don’t brush your teeth, I’m taking your computer away.”

Ian: “NOOOOOOoooooo!”

Me: “I’m not kidding, I’ll take your computer, your phone and your iPod away, for two days.”

Ian: “Because I haven’t brushed my teeth, you’re going to take away ALL MY STUFF?”

Me: “I see you’re paying attention for once.”

Jacqui: (Eyeing her brother) “Your breath smells like cat crap.”

Me: (choking back laughter.) “Jacqui, don’t insult the cats.”

Ian: I think it’s child abuse what’s going on here. Child abuse. I didn’t even hit her, I TAPPED her. You can go to prison for child abuse ya know”

9:25 A.M.

Me: “Open your science books”

Them: “Where too?”

Me: “Where we left off last time.”

Jacqui: “But we finished that part.”

Me: “Find the part of your book where the periodic table is.”

Jacqui: “What does it look like?”

Ian: “Oh. My. God.” (Loud exhale.)

Me: “Ian, you are in the 6th grade, we studied the periodic table last year, instead of being mean to Jacqui, show her what the periodic table looks like.”

Ian: (In a sickening, sweet voice) “Well Jacqui, it doesn’t look like the table in the kitchen. It doesn’t look like the table in the den or the living room...”

Jacqui: “No duh Ian.”

Me: “Okay Ian, Hand me your iPod.”

Ian: “Okay, I’ll show her the periodic table, it’s right by Uranus.” (Laughter ensues.)

Jacqui: “That’s REAL mature.”

Me: “Ian, I do not want to hear, any mention, any reference at all, about the seventh planet from the sun, ever again. I MEAN IT.” (thumbing through the fucking science book) “Here is the periodic table Jacqui.”

Jacqui: “Holy crap! Do I have to know all of it???”

Me: “You have to understand the basic principal of it. You have to know about it. You need to know what people are talking about when they mention it”

Jacqui: Looking shocked. “People actually talk about it?”

Ian: “People are talking about it all the time. In fact, we all talk about it behind your back and then we talk about it when you are listening but since you don’t know what it is, you don’t even notice. In fact, one of the elements is named after that big, blue, gas-giant planet that is the seventh planet from the sun that I am not ever allowed to mention, ever, in my life.”

Me: “Okay... JACQUI...”(A bit angry and pontificating) “Everything in the universe is made up of atomic particles, ALL of which are included in the periodic table. Your eye lashes, skin, bones, teeth and the stuff on your teeth. EVERY GODDAMNED THING. BUT, get this, There are still things we have not yet discovered, that will be added to the periodic table once we find them. “You should know what the world around you is made of. What YOU are made of.”

Ian: “So, YOU mean, WE are going to find undiscovered atomic particles? YOU, ME and Jacqui?”

Jacqui: “Ian is made out of poop. Is poop included in the periodic table?”

Me: “Okay, shut up and don’t say anything until you’re 30.”

Jacqui: “Ya, Ian. Don’t talk until all your teeth rot out of your head, that should be about the time you turn 30. People that don’t brush their teeth lose them when they are in their 30’s, you have about 10 years left until you lose them all”

Ian: “I’m 11, in 10 years I will be 22. That means my teeth wont rot out for another 10 years. Can't you even add? Mom, Jacqui can't add”

Jacqui: I hate you. I’m never going to talk to you again as long as I live.”

Ian: “What if I die today?” short pause “I could die from a heart attack or I could choke on a piece of meat. If I die today, the last thing you said to me was that you hate me.”

Jacqui: “You are not going to die today. You are too stupid to die today. You will live just to make me miserable.”

Ian: “I love you Jacqui.”

10:00 A.M.

---- Get the picture?
One hour has passed. I’ve established that 11 year old boys like to say “Uranus,” They say it often and whenever they get the chance. I am ready to shoot myself. I look at the clock and wonder if we will learn a damned thing. I think about the fact that besides not covering any science, we have not discussed history, spelling, writing or math.

Once I get them corralled I come to my senses and make one kid go to the other end of the house while I try to get my bearings and actually impart some knowledge. I give them a writing assignment which is always a form of torture. Not for them, mind you. But torture for me.

Ice Skating in Paradise

2010-12-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the sun was brilliant. The sky crystal blue. The world seemed perfect... at least here. We took the kids to Coronado to ice skate by the Pacific Ocean.

Never Say "Never"

2010-11-09T17:12:00.000-08:00

Ever since my 2 kids came along I swore I would never, ever homeschool them. I am not the kind of person who homeschool's their kids. Don't you have to own a minivan and be willing to eat your children's afterbirth? I didn't have a midwife and I begged for, no, I demanded a spinal block during labour. I am just not up for such a task and besides, I need to get away from them once in a while.

So why do I find myself homeschooling both kids when they are 10 & 11?

Ian, my son, is an Aspergers kid. He can't stand being in a cramped, hot classroom with 34 other kids. He can't sit for more than 5 or 10 minutes and everything is a distraction. He is small for his age and putting him in the local middle school was not an option. He might as well have shown up with a target painted on his forehead and a sign on his back reading "KICK ME".

Jacqui, my beautiful daughter, was diagnosed with diabetes on June 27th of this year. Her blood sugar needs to be monitored constantly and after just 10 days of school she was already sick with the flu due to being jammed into an overcrowded, under ventilated classroom. Diabetics get twice as sick as a normal kid and if past years were any kind of indication, she would be sick with with a cold or flu 5 more times during the school year.

And so, I am the insane homeschooling mom I always said I would never be. I am an Atheist, not a evangelical, Jesus freak. I've never owned a pair of Birkenstocks and I use real chocolate, not carob, when I bake a chocolate cake.

We made it through the first quarter of the year by the skin of our teeth. School is an organizational nightmare when they were going to regular school... now it is almost laughable. But somehow we are doing it. We also seem to be having a good time despite the bumps along the way.

Imagine me... Homeschooling 2 kids. Go figure.

The Daily Grind - News From the Front

2010-05-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

It's another day. cleaning the kitchen is an endless "experience." Deciding what to make for dinner and then prepping for it, another part of the day that seems to take too much time. What movies to get for Friday night movie night and what to cook for that event. This week it's my husbands favorite, white trash tacos... but that's tomorrow. I'll be cooking the taco meat today for that plus making tonights dinner. Homemade onion & tomato bread, hot chicken wings and a Caesar salad. Guess who cleans the fridge and the bathrooms? Yep... that never seems to end either. Plus we still have all six kittens but three go to their new homes tomorrow! Yippee! They are all so cute but so very messy. They have the free run of the house but they all have been good about going out in the backyard to use their litter box. I also feed them near the back door so they sort of stick around that area. I need to take a family photo of all of them before they leave. I also have my 10 year old Asperger son home all morning until he goes to school for math and science at noon. Oh, I have to bake a cake too... almost forgot. So why am I writing this?????

No one reads my blog

2010-05-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

Why do I bother writing anything on this blog?

No one reads it.

It's sort of sad.

I use the "next blog" thing at the top of the page a lot. I visit all kinds of blogs but blogger likes to send me to the same blogs day after day. I get to see a whole lot of religious kook blogs and then a lot of sewing and knitting blogs. I have seen the right-wing political blogs - lots of them. I am sent in force to the blogs I would never want to see. It's as if Blogger knows who I will hate to visit and so they say to themselves... Hmmm, let's send her to read some real god-awfulshit.

I suspect that people who use the "next blog" button get to visit my blog too. They probably hate my blog and hate me too.

What a stupid waste of time this blogging really is.

The fastest way to get me to leave your blog

2010-05-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

Ya wanna know how to get rid of me fast? I mean as fast as I can click away from your blog? Have some kind, any kind of music or other sounds start shrieking from your blog. I don't want your sound here while I am using MY computer. I already have my own sound. You need to keep yours to yourself. Nobody wants to be bombarded by YOUR favorite tune. Oy vey. What the hell are you thinking when you go to the effort to make your blog totally and utterly unreadable because you have added a freaking soundtrack?
Ask around. NOBODY (and I mean nobody) likes this intrusion.

It's as if the blogger with the noise is screaming for attention. Just stop it already.

My Thoughts On HOA's

2010-05-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

Home owner associations SUCK. If I wanted to live in Red China, I'd explore the possibilities of moving there. It is nothing more than a bunch of uptight assholes trying to take away our Constitutional rights by forcing us to become a retirement community. My neighbors are spineless asshats who allow the S.O.B.'S to push them around. Are my husband and I the only people in this community with the balls to go to war with these maniacs? I am going to go to WalMart this weekend and buy some more pink, plastic flamingos to put in the front yard. I am also going to play the music loud in front this weekend, invite ALL the kids in the hood over while I sit in the front yard after I roll our big-assed basketball hoop onto the street and let the kids use their neon sidewalk chalk to decorate the asphalt.

Ahhhhh.

I feel better already.

My Son With Aspergers Syndrome

2010-05-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

My son Ian is the most honest person I know. He lives in his own world. He seems detached but really, he is observing closely. He began reading and writing at three and a half. when he was little he rarely made eye contact but that has changed, he engages easily and loves to be the center of attention. Loud sounds still send him running. He is ten now and in the fifth grade and unable to be in a class room for more than two or three hours at a time, so he goes to school for a couple of hours a day and then does his homework on line in the form of a blog. I noticed things were a little off when he was about four but since I had rarely been around small children I figured that I was seeing something that wasn't really there.

He was such a happy little guy, always smiling and dancing, he loved to dance (and still does.) The dancing, it turned out was another symptom of his Aspergers... These children use repetitive motion to lessen their anxiety. He was so bright! he would spend an hour at a time in the bathtub spelling words with his sponge-rubber letters. He was spelling out words way before he could say them. His first day of school was bittersweet since he had been tested and due to his advanced ability to read and write he was placed in a first grade class skipping kindergarten altogether. He was not ready for this. He needed to be in a room with crayons and paste and fish in a tank with a friendly kindergarten teacher to hold his hand, what he got was a screaming harpy who didn't like little kids very much at all. Poor kid. He lasted a couple of weeks before the school listened to me and put him in Kathy Bills kindergarten class. Here he is on that first day of school, all bright and shiny.

Ian was a really good kid. He never put weird objects in his mouth and he loved to be cuddled. He learned so fast that is was almost scary. He loved the computers in the house and figured them out quickly. He learned both PC and Apple platforms and was editing my writing by the time he was four. He just was a natural genius in spelling and punctuation. It was as if he always knew how to read. Now, at age ten, he reads on a graduate school level. Ian's gifted in all things technical but he can't tie his shoes. He will only eat and drink very specific things and he collects computers and vintage video game consoles. Ian's sister was born a year after he was and so his constant companion as always been his sister Jacqui. Here they are together back in September 2004 right before Ian went off to school on that first day. Jacqui has been Ian's best pal and confidant for as long as they both can remember. I am very lucky to have these beautiful children.

Ian struggles socially - He gets on much better with adults, it's difficult for kids to get where he is coming from. He has a best friend who lives down the street and Ian loves to play with the neighborhood kids. He loves to rollerblade and ride his bike and skateboards. He loves basketball and spaghetti. I just feel fortunate to have him in my life. I do my best to understand his world and he does his best to tolerate the rest of the planet. He likes to spend time alone writing on his blogs, he's really easy to have around because he is so happy just being alone. I used to worry that he was withdrawn but that just is not so, he genuinely just likes being in his own space because it is familiar and quiet. Here is what he looks like today. A wonderful, bright, honest, kind and cuddly little boy of ten.

Prayer of an Atheist- By Pamela Kraemer

2010-04-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

When I wake
I can not pray
The insignificant glory take
A man made god
Who is a fraud
who bends my will
and sits upon my window sill...
And what am I?
I'll ponder here
A wisp of star
No more I fear
I see no way to make it clear
We're all alone
Upon this sphere

Amen

Mmmmm, Smells Like Mom's Makin' Cock Soup Again

2010-04-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

You know how it is when you just are not inspired to cook at all? Of course you do. Wonder no longer, Just whip up a delicious pot of cock flavored soup. Your family will love you and the neighbors will invite themselves over!

Song of an Aging Aesthetic (By Pamela Kraemer)

2010-04-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

Canvas white
Sky blue
Sun spot orange
Me and hue
Bird in flight
Dark of night
Filament tethers red dragon kite
Artists tears
Stolen years
Deep regrets
Écru laments
Music hushed
An études grace
Variations of light and lace
Rhythms raunchy rock and soul
Beauty seen
A hard won goal
Wasted time
Long and still
Lemons ripen
Write my will
What to leave to who and you?
What is here?
What's left behind?
Unspoken words
Unwritten rhymes
things
things
things
Meant once for me
Not much of a legacy
Essence of what once was "I"
A lasting smile
A kiss good-by
A memory
An uttered phrase
A moments providential haze
The things that mean the most,
I can not leave you;
My childrens' touch
Their smooth embraces
A glimpse of stars
Upon their faces
To see the world
Through childrens eyes
Such innocence is for the wise.
A gift from them to me then you
To see the universe anew;
So the things I have Don't mean a lot
But take a look At what I've got.

It's Raining Cats and Cats

2010-04-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

Our cat had a litter of seven kittens just about a month ago. In a few days these little sweeties will be four weeks old. The last kitten was stillborn and so she is caring for six, hungry, little mouths. As you can see, every one of her babies is a ginger tabby but already we can see some distinctive personalities. There's DeSoto, a little boy wanderer, who although was still just crawling really, would set out to the furthest reaches of their box. There's "The Screamer" who, you guessed it, is the noisy one of the bunch and shrieks like a maniac when we pick her up. My daughter has named her favorite "Simon" - I guess she just likes the name. Dinky is the runt and shows promise of a really good, friendly boy. He always answers when I talk to them with an inaudible meow. Another is "Hissy-Spit" due to greeting everyone with a hiss and a spit. We all watched their birth on March 31st beginning at around 3:40 in the morning... Not a convenient time at all for a litter of kittens to debut. We had thought there may be five at the most since she is not a big cat. But when seven babies came along we all were amazed. Here she is just a few days prior to the big event:

Now they are beginning to play with each other and we caught one cleaning its little face two days ago. They are so much fun to watch and to cuddle. We have already found homes for most of them and we will be keeping one.

I will keep updating their progress, so check in for pictures and notes from the land of the crazy cat lady.

Spring is in the air... I guess...oh & earthquakes too

2010-04-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

Easter came early this year. Once again we survived spring vacation which always comes with the obligatory egg dying ritual. I feel like I should get some kind of a medal for doing all the stuff that has to be done to get those damned eggs dyed. Buying and boiling 54 eggs.. (the smell of sulfur really isn't something I enjoy.) setting up a table for my two kids and two of their friends to dye eggs with a dozen cups of dye in the center of our old card table set up in the backyard. The weather was warm and pleasant enough, heck, we live in San Diego, it's supposed to be "pleasant." The next day, Easter Sunday, my husband, who had prepared a 24 plastic eggs filled with golden-dollar-coins and folded bills along with chocolate, hid them in the yard and I? Well I hid 35 dyed masterpieces throughout the yard and downstairs of the house for the big Mother-of-all-Easter-day-egg-hunt-events. Our two kids acted like they were being shot out of a canon as they started the hunt... Once again Jacqui found 3 quarters of the hidden treasure and at the end of it all, I had prepared colorful bags of goodies. They counted their money and Ian gave all of his chocolate to his sister and all was right with the world... that is until...

That's when "IT" happened. The 7.2 earthquake struck at 3:40 p.m.. Our whole house shook and rolled and we ran to our nearest doorway. The water in the aquarium was sloshing and a lamp nearly fell over. The dog barked, the cat left her nest of kittens to run out the back door (more about the kittens later). The shaking lasted for about 40 seconds. I wondered if this was going to be the big one, would the earth open up and swallow us? We ran out to the front of the house and waited. We waited to see if this was the beginning of a bigger quake or the end of an already big quake. The neighbors all came out.

We survived.

Then, the next day spring break ended, the kids were back in school and everything retuned to its same, old rhythm...

Oy vey... It's been a long time since I posted

2009-11-06T17:06:00.000-08:00

What a long and strange trip it has been. I haven't posted on this blog forever. My 10 year old son keeps reminding me that I should.... So, here I am.

Obama has been in office for almost a year. Healthcare reform is being blocked by the soulless Republicans with lots of help from the Blue Dog Democrats. Joe Lieberman can kiss my ass and so can the lying sacks of crap who are blocking a public option. My best friend has no insurance. She is 51 years old and needs to see a doctor but can't. I wish she could use my insurance. Her son is in Iraq... I hope he comes home safe.

Thanksgiving is creeping up along with my daughter Jacqui's 9th birthday. What a brilliant little angel Jacqui is. I adore her.

Ian, my son, turned 10 on October 10th. My Aspergers kid is so fun and smart. He had a fun birthday party here, I grilled burgers and made popcorn and his favorite chocolate cake. He and his pals played video games - we sat in the yard and had ate delicious hot wings that I also made at Ian's request.

On Sunday, Ian and I went to see Jamie Laval and Zac Leger play in Kensington - Wow, it was so much fun. Jamie Laval is one hell of a violin player. It was magical. Of course I love music from the British Isles.... I loved the twist he puts into his music - it's more of a high falutin' kind of folk music. The Scottish music was haunting and so sad....

Anyway, I will try to write more often on this blog.

If you pray, pray for the endless wars to end.

McChickenShit On a Stick Suspends his campaign - Letterman's take

2008-09-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

So, I went to Vegas...

2008-09-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

and I lost a shit load of money at a pricy casino.

It doesn't matter that I can't pay my creditors. Fuck them. I like gambling, it's fun!

So, I decided to call my uncle. He's a swell guy, I asked him to pay off my gambling debt... The conversation went like this:

Me: Hey, Uncle Sam, I had a lot of fun in Vegas, you should really go there, it's a hoot!

Uncle Sam: I am so happy for you. It's always nice to take a vacation. Did you do any gambling?

Me: Uh, about that... I lost a lot of money.

Uncle Sam: That's too bad. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you are going to be okay.

Me: Me? Heck yes, I'm fine. I still have my 3 homes and my kids are still going to that fancy private school - My husband likes to shop and he bought a new car and flew in our private jet to our house in Maui to take a break. Life is a bit hectic but that's expected...

Uncle Sam: So glad you are doing well... I hear you're looking very good... Now why did you call?

Me: That gambling debt - I couldn't really afford to lose all that money, now that I look back, it wasn't all that smart to gamble and roulette isn't my game. I need you to pay back my creditors - I want to keep my stuff, it would suck to have to sell any of it... Please Uncle Sam, pay off my debt, okay?

Uncle Sam: Oh my, this is terrible! You should never gamble with money you can't afford to lose. But, since you didn't mean any harm I'll take all this money that I was supposed to use for other stuff and pay off your debt and then I'll just take more money from the people who live in your town, if they don't give it to me, I'll just foreclose on their houses, take their stuff and that will pay for YOUR stuff! How's that?

Me: That sounds great. It's also really fair and equitable. I think it's Jimmy Carters' fault that I went to Vegas in the first place. I hate the Democrats for making me gamble like that.
Now, I'm going to go sit by my pool and have a margarita... Buh-bye....

Sarah Palin's Religion = INSANITY - It's the religious Taliban!

2008-09-18T11:13:00.001-07:00

Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo.

Sarah Palin & Hillary Address the U.S. - SNL Style

2008-09-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

I Will Kill Myself If McCain is Elected..... Straight Talk Express?

2008-04-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

Just a Thought Before You Go

2008-04-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

Ciao, bye, adios, good-bye, see ya wouldn't wanna be ya, hasta-la-bye-bye, keep moving nothin' to see here, adieu, farewell, au revoir, bon voyage, buh-bye, cheerio, shove-off, later, keep it real, hasta la vista, toodle-oo, so long, sayonara and peace out.

That's right, I am formally saying it. Good day sir. You have embarrassed The USA with your childish behavior. You are a liar and a murderer. You were AWOL during Vietnam and a failure when you went into business for yourself. Had you not been born with that silver spoon, you would have been just another comma in the book of life. Instead, with the help of your friends and brother Jeb, you stole two elections and have written a whole chapter in that book, one of destruction and pain. You used the events of 9-11 to further your PNAC agenda. You used the bodies of 2,974 9/11 victims to parade your ego and lie us into a phony war against a country who had nothing to do with the events of that terrible day. You and your cabinet and supporters are solely responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 American service people and at least a million Iraqis. You and your cabinet and supporters are solely responsible for the Americans returning home brain damaged, maimed and emotionally ruined. You and your cabinet and supporters are solely responsible for the millions of Iraqis who are left without drinkable water, electricity, an education, homes, hospitals and who are living a disastrous existence. You and your cabinet and supporters are solely responsible for the way the rest of the world sees all of us. You sir have made all of us look like war-mongering, thoughtless, drooling, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. Your phony war on terror is just more hormone-induced posturing by a self centered egomaniac.

If your record concerning the occupation of Iraq had not been enough, you and your cabinet and supporters are solely responsible for the economic crisis all of us working Americans face day in and day out. It costs me about $60 to fill up my small, 6 cylinder SUV. Our living expenses have sky rocketed and there is no end in sight. My young children and their children and their children will be paying for your phony war on terror. Americans for generations will bear the weight of your 8 long years in office. You and your rich friends will all be getting fatter and richer while the people who make up this country and keep it moving with their sweat and hard work will starve and go broke. You and your cabinet and supporters are solely responsible for the wreckage you have left in your disastrous wake. Your cavalier, let them eat cake, attitude was more than obvious in the days and weeks following Hurricane Katrina.

And so, good-bye Mr. President. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. I have cried so many tears that I could have filled an ocean. I have never felt such an emptiness as when I look back over what has become of this country. You have taken away so much and left so little. You are a bully and a spineless monster. You and your cabinet and supporters are solely responsible for the destruction of the Constitution. There are no words for how I feel about you and your ilk. You are no better than a serial killer who has run amok. And finally, may that God of yours, the one you say speaks to you, remind you that you have left a terrible, deep, suppurating, ugly and open sore on the soul of America.

4,000 DEAD - How Many More?

2008-03-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

4,000 Dead - I remember when the death toll hit 2,000. I have a black t-shirt with 2000 DEAD in big, bold faced white letters. That was at the end of October, 2005. Three years later what have we, as a nation, learned? Have we collectively learned anything? I feel numb and for the life of me, can't think of a single thing. I can't remember not knowing what I know now. That this is not a war, it is an occupation of a country who the United States invaded under the guise of several big lies. The first lie was, that hidden someplace in Iraq, were weapons of mass destruction. The second big lie was that our country was liberating the Iraqi people and delivering our form of democracy to them. The third lie was that somehow Iraq had something to do with 9/11. All of these lies were hoisted upon the world.

Just who is the enemy in this "war?" Ask one of the "troops" we are all supposed to be supporting. The enemy is anyone and anything. It is the lady who voted and stained her thumb purple, she used to run a corner store but now she can't leave her house without being covered head to toe in yards of fabric, she no longer is allowed to work.

It is the 11 year old boy who is missing his left arm and is partially blind. He used to play soccer across the street from his school. The school isn't there now and the soccer field isn't green because there is no water.

The enemy is the old man whose family is all dead. He is alone now. He can't go to worship at the mosque because he is too afraid to leave his house. The people who we went to liberate are the enemy. The 14 year old girl who watches as her family is killed because they live in the same neighborhood as an insurgent. The dogs who scavenge for scraps must be the enemy too, they are being killed by our soldiers. The family trying to get to the hospital in the middle of the night because their baby is sick, they are killed because they fail to stop when a frightened teenage American yells in a language the Iraqi driver can't understand. This is worse than a nightmare. It is real and it is happening right now. It will keep happening until we stop this madness and bring our soldiers home.

Snow In San Diego --- WTF?

2008-02-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

I hear the jingly bells and can smell the hot buttered rum wafting from Stacy Taylor's kitchen.. I imagine him turning on the gas logs and flipping through his copy of Ladies Home Journal - um... make that 1,000 Ways To Better Employment Monthly, while sitting in his Ernest Hemmingway, worn in all the right places, leather armchair in front of his special, super-duper Window Factory® double paned, cosmic windows while a thin veil of --- get ready, cue drumroll - SNOW covers the drought tolerant junipers outside. The weather Gods, Captain Mike Ambrose with John I don't believe in global warming Coleman as his copilot heave heavy sighs while passing overhead in their heavenly weather chopper, all the while causing extreme weather conditions to plague us gentle, soft Southern Californians. It is snowing in Alpine, which is, after all, in San Diego and only on the most lowest slope of the Laguna Range. Hell officially has frozen over. On the local morning news our happy Hispanic weatherman, James Quinones, safe within the confines of the Channel 10 studios stands in front of a map of San Diego and in almost sacred tones describes the latest and greatest unusual weather , meanwhile a live uplink feed of a blonde woman, cloaked in a heavy coat stands near Highway 8 and talks about the ice and snow behind her - the image, framed by cold cameras and produced by a half awake news crew lacks imagination but it manages to drive the point home... it is cold and frozen in San Diego.

Just days ago we wore shorts and sweated with temperatures that hit the 80 degree mark. Last night when I opened the slider to the canyon in back to call the cat, an icy block of cold air slammed into me and slapped me into a cruel reality... It is actually freezing cold here in my overpriced suburbia! The cat failed to come so I wished him well as I shut out the cold and crawled back under my warm, fuzzy throw to watch a murder mystery unfold on the TV.
Now, I suppose, more bubble-headed idiots will site this weird weather phenomena as evidence that there is no global warming and it is just a crazy bunch of propaganda dreamt up by aging hippies with too much retirement time on their marijuana stained hands.

Meanwhile The George Bush built Rome burns... and todays San Diego forecast? Sunny and climbing to 60º

Am I Free Yet? - I created this on my MacBook Pro using iMovie

2007-11-16T08:19:00.000-08:00

Heroes of America

2007-11-11T21:27:00.000-08:00

It's Time To Sing Along With John

2007-11-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

John Ashcroft Sings!

Posted Mar 01, 2002

John Ashcroft is way off his rocker as he warbles at the press in this waaay off-Broadway performance of "Let the Eagle Soar."

Drive By Projecting

2007-10-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

The Goldberg Variations, Glenn Gould and Me.

2007-09-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

Johann Sebastian Bach

My favorite collection of classical music is The Goldberg Variations. Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and published in 1741 is a collection of 30 variations specific to the harpsichord - The Variations are named after harpsichord virtuoso Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. I listen to this music when I want to relax and be creative - It's soothing, it's exciting, it's beautiuful. Unarguablly, the most well known performance and recording of The Goldberg Variations are by Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould. I have Glenn Gould's 1981 recording as well as his 1955 recording - they are as different as night and day - Gould made his original mark on the world stage by first recording these 30 pieces of music in a NY City recording studio. Gould, died of a stroke at the age of 50, a couple of months after recording his second take on the Variations. It is believed that Glenn Gould suffered from Asperger's Syndrome - a form of high functioning autism. This probably explains Gould's bizarre humming during performances - Sound engineers were driven mad by Gould's inability to stop the humming while recording. If you listen closely, you can hear him methodically humming along as he plays.

Glenn Gould, Rehersal, Toronto - 1974

Science -V- Intelligent Design Is Going French

2007-09-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

Council of Europe to vote on creationism next week
Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:47pm EDT
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - Europe's main human rights body will vote next week on a resolution opposing the teaching of creationist and intelligent design views in school science classes.

The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly will debate a resolution saying attacks on the theory of evolution were rooted "in forms of religious extremism" and amounted to a dangerous assault on science and human rights.

The resolution, on the agenda for October 4, says European schools should "resist presentation of creationist ideas in any discipline other than religion." It describes the "intelligent design" argument as an updated version of creationism.

Anne Brasseur, an Assembly member from Luxembourg who updated an earlier draft resolution, said the vote was due in June but was postponed because some members felt the original text amounted to an attack on religious belief.

Only minor changes have been made to the initial draft.

"There are different views of the creation of the world and we respect that," she told Reuters. "The message we wanted to send was to avoid creationism passing itself off as science and being taught as science. That's where the danger lies."

The Council, based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, oversees human rights standards in member states and enforces decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

If passed, the resolution would not be binding on its 47 member states but would reflect widespread opposition among politicians to teaching creationism in science class.

NATURAL SELECTION DROPPED

Creationism says God made the world in six days as depicted in the Bible. Intelligent design argues some life forms are too complex to have evolved according to Charles Darwin's theory and needed an unnamed higher intelligence to develop as they have.

Some conservatives in the United States, both religious and secular, have long opposed the teaching of evolution in public schools but U.S. courts have regularly barred them from teaching what they describe as religious views of creation.

Pressure to teach creationism is weaker in Europe, but has been mounting. An Assembly committee took up the issue because a shadowy Turkish Muslim publishing group has been sending an Islamic creationist book to schools in several countries.

Supporters of intelligent design want it taught in science class alongside evolution. A U.S. court ruled this out in a landmark decision in 2005, dismissing it as "neo-creationism."

"The aim of this report is not to question or to fight a belief," Brasseur wrote in a memorandum added to the new resolution. "It is not a matter of opposing belief and science, but it is necessary to prevent belief from opposing science."

She said the resolution also shortened references in the resolution to "evolution by natural selection" to "evolution" because some members had misunderstood the reference to natural selection to be an attack on their religious beliefs.

Inventive Suicide? or just trying to get "a head?"

2007-09-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

Okay... Now this is creative. It also is real, real creepy.

Man Builds Guillotine to Kill Himself

ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP) — The body of a 41-year-old man was found in a wooded area next to a guillotine he built and used to kill himself, police said. The man, from the Detroit suburb of Melvindale, was discovered Monday by workers from a shopping center near his home.

Allen Park Deputy Police Chief Dale Covert said the roughly six-foot tall guillotine was bolted to a tree and included a swing arm. Covert said police also found several store receipts detailing the materials used to assemble the device.

"I can't even tell you how long it must have taken him to construct," he said. "This man obviously was very determined to end his life."

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

2007-09-05T15:48:00.001-07:00

In-N-Outrage! The Jesus Parade Is Just A Drive-Thru Away!

2007-09-04T09:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after some last minute back to school shopping, I drove through In-N-Out Burger to pick up some dinner. I had just finished my Double-Double and was slurping on my chocolate shake when my son informed me that there were Bible scripture references on the bottom of the drink cups ---- Sure enough, there they were -

The shake had one, the drink cup had a different one and then we noticed that the burger wrappers had them too. We were being proselytized to in some weird sub-concious way. Jesus was watching me drink that chocolate shake. I was put off. Then, it was brought to my attention today, that Alaska Airlines includes scriptures with the crappy airline food. Not a prayer that says "Jesus, I hope this food tastes better than it looks" but real annoying Bible verses, just like my Mommy spit out right after I got the switch on the back of my legs.

The Religious freak show has set up its tent and it's even closer than I thought...

Reincarnation Not Allowed!

2007-08-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Philips
Newsweek
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. "It will be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it's quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others."

So where in the world will the next Dalai Lama be born? Harrison and other Buddhism scholars agree that it will likely be from within the 130,000 Tibetan exiles spread throughout India, Europe and North America. With an estimated 8,000 Tibetans living in the United States, could the next Dalai Lama be American-born? "You'll have to ask him," says Harrison. If so, he'll likely be welcomed into a culture that has increasingly embraced reincarnation over the years. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view. A non-Tibetan Dalai Lama, experts say, is probably out of the question.

Beautiful San Diego - Photos of Balboa Park

2007-08-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

I live in one of the worlds most beautiful cities. Sure, we have our faults - it's getting damned crowded. It's very expensive to live here. The median price for a house here is over half a million. I took these photos over the summer - I can hardly wait until all the tourists go home and we can have a little space again.

Hypocrite - Larry Craig Has Issues

2007-08-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

Larry Craig - Republican Senator from Idaho is just another self loathing gay. How completely ridiculous is this? He is strongly against gay marriage - Here are some of his stances: Voted no on embryonic stem cell research. Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. Voted NO on repealing tax subsidy for companies which move US jobs offshore.

Larry Craig has the most anti environment voting record in Congress. If it is clean and safe he hates it.

Police report: Senator signaled desire for 'lewd conduct

(CNN) -- Sen. Larry Craig peered through a crack in a restroom stall door for two minutes and made gestures suggesting he wanted to engage in "lewd conduct," according to the police officer who arrested him.
The Idaho Republican said the officer misinterpreted his actions.
But the senator pleaded guilty earlier this month to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge in the incident, according to Minnesota criminal records.
In a statement released Monday evening, Craig denied any inappropriate conduct and said he now regrets his guilty plea, which he entered without having an attorney present.
Craig paid a $500 fine when he entered his guilty plea on August 8 in Hennepin County Municipal Court in Bloomington, Minnesota, according to state criminal records.
Last fall, Craig's office publicly denied assertions by Internet blogger Mike Rogers that the senator is gay.

Sweet Home Alabama - No Joy Toys but Guns are OKAY!

2007-08-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

11th Circuit Nixes Sex Toys, Sex Rights

Jonathan Ringel
Fulton County Daily Report
07-29-2004

Americans do not have a fundamental right to sexual privacy, a 2-1 decision of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Wednesday.

The split panel upheld an Alabama law -- nearly identical to one in Georgia -- that made the sale of sex toys a crime punishable by up to a year in prison.

The decision extends an emerging division in the court over sexual rights, with Judges Stanley F. Birch Jr. and Rosemary Barkett leading opposing factions.

Birch maintains that although the U.S. Supreme Court last year struck down a Texas law criminalizing homosexual sodomy, the justices have not decided fully that sexual privacy is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution.

Barkett claims that the court is refusing to apply the sodomy decision to laws that violate people's right "to be left alone in the privacy of their bedrooms."

Last week, the full 11th Circuit split 6-6 in denying reconsideration of a decision that upheld a Florida law prohibiting homosexuals from adopting children. Birch wrote that while he thought the law was "misguided," since there was no "constitutional liberty interest in private sexual intimacy," the court must uphold Florida lawmakers' right to exclude gays and lesbians from adopting.

Barkett wrote that the Florida law violated equal protection guarantees in the 14th Amendment and "substantive due process" rights to sexual privacy established in last year's sodomy case, Lawrence v. Texas, 123 S.Ct. 2472.

Two judges agreed with Barkett that Florida was violating homosexuals' equal protection rights; three other judges said the case was important enough to deserve another look.

This week Birch and Barkett faced off again, with Senior Judge James C. Hill providing Birch the swing vote in favor of Alabama's right to prohibit the distribution of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs ... ."

The result read like a highly charged repeat of last week's decision, with Birch echoing his earlier analysis and Barkett calling the majority's ruling "demeaning and dismissive."

This Day In History - August 21, 1959

2007-08-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

August 21, 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state but only after decades of American Imperialism - WWII pretty much determined that at some future date, Hawaii would join the United States.

My Email Group & The Republican Who Got Away

2007-08-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

I belong to an email group. Yes I do. We call ourselves "The Bushwhacker's." We are currently 13 strong. A bakers dozen. Unlucky 13. I don't think that 13 is unlucky but every Friday the 13th the stock market tanks and millions call into work sick because they are afraid to commute. You wont have any trouble booking a flight on that day either since those suffering from triskadecaphobia never fly on Friday the 13th... Anyway - The Bushwhacker's live clumped in 2 places - Clump 1 is in Michigan. The 2nd clump is in S California - mostly San Diego with one in Pomona. I am in clump 2 -- Karen, who lives in Cheboygan Michigan, files me under the category of "shocking" --- I like to say that I am brutally honest with a twist of bitter sarcasm but shocking will work too.

In our email group, we used to have our very own brainwashed member of the GOP who was okay until he hit himself in the head with a hammer and went off the deep end and went evangelical on us... It was like watching a really scary movie and you're yelling; "Get the HELL OUT OF THAT HOUSE!" But instead, they answer the phone and find GOD. I mean it was some bad juju. He took his little friend Jim with him when he went and they now worship at a S. Baptist Church somewhere in Michigan and are planning a summer trip to Jesus Camp together after they stop at Graceland and pray at the alter of Elvis. We all opened his emails with a cringing sort of shudder - hoping against hope that he would sort of snap out of it -- but then his wife, who reads all of his emails for him, decided that I (Yes me) am SATAN and that I was having an evil influence on HIM (yes him???) and she got all weirdly jealous (!!!!!) thinking that the two of us would somehow meet and form a giant clump of cosmic monkey poo which would turn into a living breathing thing - or something like that. She told him in no uncertain terms that he was not ALLOWED (He is really a grown up, I swear he is) to ever write to me or read anything I wrote and if he did, she would make him stand on his flat, little Republican head and stack BB's with his eyelashes while reciting John:16 but replacing the word God with "My Wife who I pledge to give both of my balls to every morning". I swear that this is all true! (Okay, so I editorialized a little.)

Feasting On Asphalt 2 River Run - Must See TV

2007-08-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

There is a hell of a good program on The Food Network called Feasting on Asphalt. This season, Alton Brown, the shows somewhat enigmatic host, travels via his BMW motorcycle from the southernmost tip of Louisiana right up the Mississippi to its origin in Minnesota - He takes the side trips that most of us remember and would like to have the time to take again. He and his fun loving crew stop at out of the way eateries and talk to the locals and eat the food that each little area is noted for. From crawfish, alligator, donuts and tamales to fried chicken and everything in between. He includes his whole crew from the sound guy to the camera guys in tasting their way from south to north. This show is a must see for anyone who has been on a road trip and longingly remembers those little towns with the hole in the wall diner that made the best damned ribs on the planet. Alton Brown and his crew have created a true gem. Feasting On Asphalt is what we would all be doing if only we could.

Kaptain Karl Rove -Pick A Pack of Lies

2007-08-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

Matt Cooper ------>

Gregory: Matt Cooper, let’s pick up on an aspect of the interview with, with Karl Rove having to do with the leak case, the CIA leak case, that you were part of as well. And something’s that’s very interesting, he, he went out of his way to say, “I would not have been a confirming source on this kind of information” and taking issue with, with Novak’s testimony in his column that he knew who Valerie Plame was. He said he would never confirm that information. That’s different from your experience with him.

Cooper: Yeah, I, I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11th, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD. I mean, to imply that he didn’t know about it or that this was all the leak…

Gregory: Or that he had heard it from somebody else…

Cooper: …by someone else, or he heard it as some rumor out in the hallway is, is nonsense.

Gregory: But he makes no apologies to Valerie Plame.

Cooper: Karl Rove never apologizes. That’s not what he does..

Good Bye Turd Blossom

2007-08-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

Turd Blossom, AKA Kaptain Karl reporting for duty Rove leaves WH 'cause he loves his family. Uh-hu, sure, that's it. He is suddenly a devoted family guy - He isn't just another rat jumping from the sinking ship. If only he would have left 5 years ago and taken his tumorous growth, W, with him.

Today In History - August 10, 1981

2007-08-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

August 10, 1981 : Child found decapitated
The severed head of six-year-old Adam Walsh, who disappeared from a shopping mall two weeks earlier, is found in a canal in Vera Beach, Florida. Two years later, serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole confessed--and then recanted--their involvement in the crime. Authorities believe that they were the killers.
Lucas and Toole met at a soup kitchen in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1978. Lucas had already spent most of his adult life in prison for the murder of his mother and for an attempted abduction. Drifting across the country, the couple killed at random, both together and separately. Lucas was arrested in Texas in June 1983. He pleaded guilty to one murder and confessed to hundreds of others, naming Toole as his most frequent accomplice. Although authorities believe that Lucas and Toole have exaggerated their crimes, they may well have been responsible for nearly 100 deaths.
In the wake of Adam Walsh's kidnapping and murder, Congress passed the Missing Children's Act, giving the FBI greater authority to track the disappearance of children. A television movie about the case, Adam, aired a week before Toole confessed to the crime.
John Walsh, Adam's father, became a national spokesman against crime. He went on to host America's Most Wanted, a television show that profiles fugitives whose capture is sought by the FBI. Since it debuted in 1988, nearly 1,000 criminals have been caught as a result of viewer tips.

Today in History - August 9, 2007

2007-08-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

August 9, 1969 -
This day in history:
The Manson Family struck. They found Roman Polanski’s Benedict Canyon home, killing Polanski’s pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate and 4 other people - Among them, coffee heiress Abigail Folger. The others murdered were Roman Polanski’s life long friend, Wojiciech Frykowski, Steven Parent and Tate’s former fiance’ John Thomas “Jay” Seabring. Written on the walls in blood, “Death to Pigs!” Two days later The Manson Family struck again, this time they killed Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. The murders were all horrendous - The Manson Family are all still where they belong, in prison.

Making Goo-Goo Eyes With Gonzo

2007-08-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

If this isn't the look of total sycophantic adoration I don't know what is...

Bush: "I'll never, ever ask you to resign... No matter what."

Gonzo: "Okay Daddy.... Can we play "hide the salami tonight?"

I mean, come on... Doesn't Gonzo look like he's maybe 11 years old and he has a crush on his gym teacher?????

I'll stop.... but I am going to have some nightmares tonight.

Yep, People Really Are This Damned Stupid

2007-08-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

Play Video

Child Tied Up in Hot Car While Parents Eat

Associated Press - (APTN)

Jun. 13, 2007. 11:04 AM EST

So, you think there may be hope for the human race? Not so fast Goober. A six-year-old boy is tied up in a hot car outside a Cracker Barrel restaurant while his mother and her boyfriend eat inside. They are now facing child cruelty charges. (June 13)

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow

2007-08-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

2007-08-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

Study: Iraqis May Experience Sadness When Friends, Relatives Die

Bumper Stickers I like Best

2007-08-01T09:04:00.001-07:00

Where's The Constitution Anyway? by Pamela Kraemer

2007-07-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

Pass the tequila and damn the torpedos. Full speed ahead! The Constitution is officially the red headed step child of the Bush-Cheney Administration. I awoke, as I seem to do a lot lately, with a head full of dark thoughts about what is happening to this country of mine. Where has old lady Liberty gone? Certainly she has packed her bags and bought a ticket on the first jet, ocean liner, tramp steamer or the space shuttle out of here? I confess, I picture Lady Liberty to be a Xerox copy of the Statue of Liberty, green patina and all, walking in a clunky, copper-clad, monster-like motion, her long robes flowing behind as she paces the floor holding book in hand and dragging a suitcase, somewhere she has dropped her torch and needed that hand to pack with.

I picture the lady waiving a pistol while she takes a long slug off of a bottle of Jack. She winces and slams her fist down like a character from a Tennessee Williams Play decrying the woes of her country. I see the poor thing hunched in a brothels dark corner, disgusted with herself for being sold to the Federalist Society's highest bidder. Liberty is so ashamed of what has become of her. She used to stand in NY Harbor welcoming the homeless-tempest-tossed and now she has been forced at gun point to become a whore who's deeds are seen around the world as detestable. She shrinks in confusion as she reads that torture is okay if it's okayed by Dick-The-Penguin-Cheney. She runs for the toilet to vomit when she sees what her military is doing in her name and how the coffins come back in secret to mothers who want to make sense out of the death of their beloved children. Poor old thing, she takes another swallow and wipes her chin with her sleeve. She rubs her eyes in disbelief as she sees that The-Hit-Man-Scooter-Libbey gets a hall pass out of the whitewashed sanitized, good-old-boys-Club-Fed so he can wait out the time left in Bush's last year so he can get that gold-standard-pardon the day before Dubya flies down to South America to party it up with the worlds scoundrels who have found a great little hidey-hole.

Lady Liberty is beside herself, she's downright pissed off. She screams at the moon and cries at the stars. She wonders aloud about the children in her America whose education is third-rate and their health care comes somewhere below 35th place in the world. She slams her head down on the table and pulls at her coppery green hair as she watches the network news while they paint it all up pretty, tie a ribbon 'round it and put some lipstick on that old sow and let it pass for fair and balanced coverage of world events. She wonders where Walter Cronkites News went? She flips on her radio and hears someone talking about God and country and how her America is a Christian-principled-faith-based society when she knows that the revolutionary war was fought so no one could force a label of religion on its people. She shivers in fear when she sees the once distinct line between religion and government now blurry and nonexistent in places.

Poor Old Lady... She used to be proud of her role as she held her lamp up high beside the golden door. Now she hangs her head in shame. She has a little shred of hope as she looks at her watch and taps her giant foot, waiting for the House of Representatives to introduce articles of impeachment and get a majority to sign on. She heaves a heavy sigh as she stares out across middle America and sees "support the troops" ribbons on the bumpers of the gas guzzlers and wonders to herself about such insanity - the troops, she muses, are dying for the oil that fuels that SUV you're driving. She shrugs and curls up in a fetal position and pulls a blanket over her head and she waits for it all to end.

The Christian Taliban. or WTF is Wrong With Them?

2007-01-19T05:50:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, right after Bush used some "test tube babies" for a photo op, he called them "Snowflake Babies," to further his anti-science agenda regarding the use of stem cells to find cures for deadly and debilitating diseases, I wrote an article which was published. For some reason, this little article, which maybe takes three minutes to read, has caused a lot of angst among the Christian Taliban. Here is the article:

May 29, 2005

Bush and the Blastocysts

Or How to Cure the Snowflake Baby Propaganda

By Pamela A. Kraemer

Did you get to hear or read any of the comments our President is parading around the "snowflake" baby? It's like a carnival midway freak show. Well, I have some questions of my own:

1) Where did the President get the term Snowflake Baby? (Is Frank Luntz, the GOP propagandist-in-residence behind it?)

2) Does the President know the stages of cellular and fetal development?

3) Since he thinks that all frozen "embryos" (actually in this case they should be called blastocysts), should be brought to life, where is he going to find all these women who will be willing to carry, give birth to and then support a child that has no relation to them? That would roughly be in the neighborhood of 330,000 wombs. What about all of the already born, unwanted babies out there? Shouldn't they get a crack at a family first?

4) Has Mr. Bush thought about the following probabilities: These "Snowflake babies" will probably have several brothers and or sisters wandering around. Also, the legal parent(s) will be responsible for any unknown genetic problems arising from the unknown sperm and egg donors. Who will foot the medical bills when those problems arise? (Those very medical problems could possibly be cured if stem cell research was promoted and not a false religious "ethical" question.)

5) What about those unknown donors? Do they want their genetic offspring brought to birth without their permission and then raised by people of unknown background, origin, religious beliefs etc? Do Jewish donors want their genetic material to be brought to life and raised by members of the KKK?

6) Has the President, who, as far as I know, has a very limited background in medical research, given any thought to what the political and ethical backlash that his offensive statements regarding these groups of 60 cells will be?

7) Since Mr. Bush believes that using blastocysts for medical research is akin to murder, what about the thousands of implanted blastocysts that are rejected by the mother? Should her womb be brought up on charges for murder?To presume that all of these groups of cells should be brought to birth in some draconian manner is absurd. Around 30,000 blastocysts are frozen annually. That's nowhere near the number that are used for actual fertilization. Where do they go? Most of them end up, after several years in storage, being tossed out. And they're tossed out with no funeral! The cost of keeping a petrie dish of blastocysts in frozen storage is about $50 each month they are kept in limbo. So once a couple conceives once or twice, the remaining cells are left in cold storage until space has run out and there is no more room in the cylinder. To argue that these frozen cells should not be used for medical research is reasoning from the Dark Ages. To deny medical professionals laboring to discover cures for numerous diseases in which stem cell research is an important part, is limiting their ability, as scientists, to relieve the suffering of the living and their families. The president's position is logically unsane for it is based upon ignorance and ultimately a latent but real hatred of those living sentient humans who are suffering from diseases that stem cell research may cure. Mr. Bush has taken an anti-Christian position again. He wages war on real life while pretending he serves life by adopting a culture of petrie dish preservation! Mr. Bush is not pro-life at all--he's pro-birth and then he's anti-life after that! That is not a Christian position.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Yesterday, I checked my email, only to find a nasty, little email from a pro-Bush, anti-science (probably a creationist) named Kathy Webster in which she tells me off, here is her letter:

My goodness, I just came across what you wrote about Bush and Blastocytes. It is obvious that you know nothing about human development or Snowflake babies. The name came from an organization that arranges embryo adoptions. There are thousands upon thousands of couples suffering from infertility problems that would be interested in adopting these embryos. I could go on and on, but let me cut to the chase. Your whole articles was cold and void of any positive feelings. While it is absurd to state that our president hates human beings suffering from diseases, it is apparent that you must hate anybody with a differing opinion than you. Why are you so cold and hateful? You might want to think about that and then maybe consider adopting one of these snowflake babies. I think after you hold her in your arms you may have a change of heart. I pray that you find joy in the blessing of new life.

Kathy

My response wasn't very nice, I wasn't in the mood for such crap... Here is my response:

You are a dumbass. Take your medication and pray for yourself.

UPDATE!!!! KATHY HAS WRITTEN BACK:
Pamela,

Again, why the cold hateful attitude?

Have you ever held a newborn baby in your arms?

Actually, I do pray for myself and many others everyday. I will add you to the list.

Kathy

My reply is a little more thoughtful this time:

Kathy -

You can't begin to grasp the content of the article because you didn't understand any of it. I don't have anything against you or all of your friends having implanted blastocysts and having babies. The point of the article is that your boneheaded president believes that stem cell research is somehow immoral but doesn't give a shit about the under funding of programs like No Child Left Behind and is responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi LIVING people and over 3,000 American service people. Please... I know this is difficult for you but try to get it through your head that curing diseases while using a clump of 60 to 80 fetal cells is NOT murder. But using depleted uranium and white phosphorus on innocent Iraqi civilians is a criminal act. Do your own Google search and re-read what I wrote before you fire off an ill-conceived email that makes no sense.

I have 2 children who are beautiful people. Please, get off your Bible-thumping high-horse and try to understand that medical science is trying to cure people of astronomically terrible diseases and that there is REAL suffering going on that has zero to do with you.

Pamela

The Day The Carpet Died

2007-01-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

I did something bold this weekend. Bold and what some might say, brash... or maybe stupid. I purchased a puppy. A tiny Chihuahua (pronounced: Chi-who-ah-who-ah) I've been sort of muling over the idea of getting a dog for some time but I know what happens with puppies. They are cute and cuddly and full of energy and they chew on everything. They also poop and pee wherever they are when the force is with them. I usually don't have too much trouble housebreaking a dog but this dog is so tiny and it is so cold outside that I can't stand going outside in my bare feet because the temperature of the concrete is somewhere around the same temperature it is on Saturn. It is damned cold here in sunny California... This makes it hard on both me and the Chi-who-ah-who-ah when it comes to the house breaking ritual. I am now thinking seriously about paper training her. I wouldn't want to paper train a hulking St. Bernard but the Chi-who-ah-who-ah's poops are about the size of a cigarette butt and it's bladder holds about a thimble and a half of dog urine. I chose a small dog for several reasons.. Among them; we have a very small backyard and I don't like kenneling my dogs when we travel. This dog will fit in a small dog-carry-bag making it easy to tote her along with us and our backyard seems like acreage to her. I also don't mind picking up the cigarette butts and dabbing up the thimble-sized urine "mistakes" nearly as much as I would mind cleaning up after a Dog the size of a pony. She is so darned adorable I can't express it...
The down side of having a dog this itsy-bitsy? We are terrified that one of us will step on her.

Please, Will Someone Make It Stop!

2007-01-12T21:26:00.000-08:00

I am talking about web sites and Blogs that have an audio file that goes on when you surf on in! WTF is up with that shit? I mean, come on... It takes forever for the page to load -- and I have high speed cable access... It stalls every single time and then the hellish sound of whatever it is just starts playing and my speakers are up because I just listened to Jethro Tull and I had to play THAT loud... So I am stunned into a state of absolute horror by the sound of what someone in Michigan, who's hobby is knitting and playing with her cats has stuck on her f-ing blog! Ahhhh! Today I was blog surfing -- it's a habit, okay? And I dropped in on a page that stalled my computer and I waited... and I waited...and I waited only to have (once the page loaded...) the incredible sound of BAG-FUCKING-PIPES screaming out the Scottish national anthem! I just about fell out of my chair. I tell ya' it was a cruel and disturbing, pig-scream-fest of bag pipe, wear yer kilt around the room while eating haggis, that I ever heard. I have zero idea what the blog was about (I'm guessing it had something to do with Scotland...) because I hit the NEXT BLOG button so fast that my computer almost flew off my desk.

So please... If you are reading this and are thinking to yourself -- "Hmmm I wonder how you put an audio file on the old blog...."

STOP IT! IT IS ULTRA ANNOYING AND RETARDED!

Trial Bike

2007-01-12T12:33:00.001-08:00

Trial Bike Rider performs some amazing stunts -- Here is the official website: http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/media.php I've been trying to figure out who the rider is.

Update I contacted Dave @ Tarty Bikes - here is the info he sent:

Hey Pam,

Glad you like the video! We've had quite a bit of interest in this video from a few TV companies all around the world. His name is Danny McAskil. He's from Edinburgh in Scotland. He's improved quite a bit since these videos. He really is a crazy fool, but he's got some awesome skills to boot.

Have a good weekend!

Dave

Truth In Advertising

2007-01-12T10:58:00.001-08:00


Spoof of the world of marketing - From Cannes Film Festival 2001 - Directed by Tim Hamilton

About that speech last night

2007-01-11T04:01:00.000-08:00

Cannibalism is alive and well in America. We eat our young here. We "sacrifice" our children for the whims of the stupidest sociopath ever to run this nation, and running it he is, right into the ditch. W has clearly lost whatever scant thread of humanity that he may have once had. He is delusional and should not be allowed to continue on this path of wanton destruction. Democrats in Congress, maybe some Republican's too, should call out the guys in the white coats who carry the butterfly nets and tell them to execute a bloodless coup. Order them to chase down the little varmint, hog tie him and slap on the funny, long-sleeved coat with the buckles up the back. In laymen's terms, George should be removed from the Oval Office posthaste. In his last-ditch, dream world effort, Bush has elected to reveal his lame-duck plan for "staying the course." To allow a lunatic to "sacrifice" even one more life, American or Iraqi, is unconscionable. Wake up America. The emperor has no clothes. He is a sorry excuse for a human being much less leadership material. He wants to redeploy soldiers whose hard-luck tales cut to the quick as it is. He wants to dig deeper into the barrel and squeeze blood from that turnip. We have sacrificed and we have had enough. You go to Iraq Mr. President, take your twin daughters with you. Pack a bag for Cheney and Rove while you're at it. Take that Mother of yours and get on a plane, a tramp steamer, a row boat, hot air balloon, anything and go to that bloody mess you and your PNAC poker buddies have created and YOU do some sacrificing. YOU drive around Iraq in a un-armored Humvee with no clear marching orders. YOU try to figure out who the enemy is in a country with no army or organized militia. YOU sleep on the ground in the freezing cold and the boiling heat. YOU go without a hot meal and a shower for a week at a time. YOU walk into buildings without knowing what or whom you may encounter. Yes, Mr President, YOU. You talk about sacrifice like you have actually experienced it. Not once in your pathetic life have you sacrificed anything. Try walking the walk. I am sickened by this talk, talk, talk. Sickened and ashamed to have such a lying, anti-American as our leader. I am justifiably horrified

Jesus Sighting in a bathroom...

2007-01-07T22:43:00.000-08:00

I know you can see Jesus. He's peeking around the back of an old, moldy bathtub... He's winking at YOU through the caulking for GOD'S sake!

He used rust to his advantage. He's sporting a jaunty seashell on his head... (why did Jesus make a seashell appear on his rusty head?)

This piece of wall was sold on Ebay. I didn't even bother to find out how much the religious icon went for...

That darned Jesus is a real, fucking goof-ball.

And Now, A Word (or two) From Bob Koehler

2007-01-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

CELEBRITY CARNAGE

By Robert C. Koehler
Tribune Media Services

"He spent the rest of the day working to pull the dead bodies of his family from the rubble of his home, finally reaching his dead son at 4:00 p.m."

- Human Rights Watch, in a 2003 report on the U.S. air war in Iraq and the campaign to execute Baathist leadership with high explosives

Saddam's execution last week was, for the war's apologists, a merciful respite from the chaos and humiliation of this catastrophe and a chance for one last swig of moral clarity - the Butcher is dead! the Butcher is dead! - which, in the Bush era, costs about a trillion dollars a shot.

Few in the mainstream media were willing to be party poopers and point this out, of course, or mention anything, in their pseudo-serious coverage of Saddam's career, about his long, complex involvement with the U.S. foreign-policy establishment going back to the Reagan administration, as both ally and extremely useful enemy.

The Washington Post, for instance, as it told readers about the man "whose fall unleashed a turbulent era for his nation and the world," even seems to have forgotten that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, precipitating this fall. Oh well, that was almost four years ago.

But the craven delicacy of such reportage makes it difficult for me to have any reaction at all to Saddam's hanging. Why shoehorn his brutality into a false perspective? He was a monster. He "gassed his own people," as we were reminded repeatedly in the run-up to the invasion. He invaded Iran. Yet ultimately the murder of several hundred thousand Kurds in the late 1980s, or the mind-numbing death toll in Iran, didn't even figure into the trial.

"Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls?" Robert Fisk wrote in the UK's Independent. "And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbade any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him."

Well, this taints the moral clarity. Stripped of context, what we're left with is a gaudy bit of celebrity carnage that no doubt succeeded in making Saddam a martyr among his supporters - 68 Shiites died in a series of revenge bombings within hours of the execution - but beyond that changed nothing.

It was a triumph of barbarism, a.k.a., victors' justice, hastily carried out on the eve of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice and holy day of forgiveness. The legal charade that preceded it, under the control of the occupying coalition, had no international legitimacy.

At least Saddam's execution itself resulted in only one death. Back in the spring of '03, when the invasion was in its cakewalk phase, when the maw of moral relativism - this is war, freedom isn't free - was wide open and we had a lot of civilian deaths we could spend before subjecting ourselves to any second-guessing, we sacrificed innocent Iraqis to the cause of eliminating Saddam with horrific impunity.

Our willy-nilly attempts to "decapitate" Saddam's regime with bunker busters was only a small part of the shock-and-awe bombing campaign that sowed death and depleted-uranium dust (a cancer-causing, DNA-altering time bomb) throughout Iraq. But in the wake of Saddam's execution, I can't help but meditate on these earlier attempts to kill him and the hypocrisy of our rectitude about finally succeeding.

"The United States used an unsound targeting methodology largely reliant on imprecise coordinates obtained from satellite phones," the Human Rights Watch report (available at www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.htm) informed us, describing our clumsy obsession with bringing about Saddam's death or capture no matter who was in the way.

"Of the 50 aerial strikes against Iraqi leaders," the report said, "not one resulted in the death of the intended target. Yet in four strikes researched by Human Rights Watch, 42 civilians were killed and dozens more were injured."

The dead, of course, included many children and infants, as well as women and elderly. I would ask those of you who still support this war and believe we should "stay the course" - and who are gloating over Saddam's execution - to judge our own slaughter of innocents by the same standards we used against the poster boy of evil, who was convicted of killing 148 people.

We may not be worse, but we're no better. When do we take our turn in the dock?

- - -
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.

Conversations With God, The Saga of Pat Robertson, by Pam Kraemer

2007-01-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

This week Robertson claims that when God spoke to him, God said that sometime after September this year, we will be attacked by terrorists. He added that millions will be effected by what may or may not be, a nuclear attack. The latest quote from Pat Robertson, issuing from his TV Show, The 700 Club, made me recall some of his other Greatest Hits from past conversations with the Almighty.

Robertson says that God talks to him directly. So does President Bush. God has chosen to speak to these two above all the other people on the planet. If this isn't the best argument to become an atheist I don't know what is.

From Robertson's past collection of hits, in January, 2006, when Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke, he said that it was God's way of getting even for Sharon's obvious anti-Israel stance when he gave over some land to the Palestinians. God moves in mysterious ways.

When Hurricane Katrina destroyed the gulf and FEMA left the new homeless to die, Robertson said that the disaster happened due to our nations sins, linking it to our country's policy of legalized abortion. Robertson is a walking crystal ball.

Now let's get behind the wheel of our time machine and travel back a couple of years to January, 2005, Robertson said that God told him he was going to remove judges from the Supreme Court "quickly" then President Bush could stack the court with judges, who, like them, would overturn Roe V Wade. In that same direct talk with God, Robertson said that Social Security reforms will pass and Muslims will accept Jesus Christ. Robertson, had on his website, a page called OPERATION SUPREME COURT FREEDOM... within that section, Robertson asked his supporters to pray for liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justices to retire: "Would you join with me and many others in crying out to our Lord to change the Court? ... One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer, and another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire? With their retirement and the appointment of conservative judges, a massive change in federal jurisprudence can take place."

In 1988, Robertson told the world that The Lord told him to run for the presidency and that God assured him that he would be the next president of the United States... That God sure is a practical joker! In '82, one of his earlier hits, Robertson said that Russia was going to invade Israel. In 1985 Robertson predicted a total global economic collapse. In his 1991 book, The New World Order, Robertson predicted that Senator Jay Rockefeller would be elected president in 1996.

In 2005, about George W. Bush: "Well, the Lord has some very encouraging news for George Bush ... What I heard is that Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory and that his second term is going to be one of triumph, which is pretty strong stuff. ... He'll have Social Security reform passed. He'll have tax reform passed. He'll have conservative judges on the courts. And that basically he is positioned for a series of dramatic victories which I hope will hearten him and his advisers. They don't have to be timid in this matter because the wind is blowing at his back, and he can move forward boldly and get results."

I love this guy. I'm jealous. I too want to be able to chat ad nauseam with God and I'd like to give that big blue guy in the sky a piece of my mind... I want God's feedback but I have to tell you, I hate practical jokes... They are boorish and mean, so God, if I get through and you answer me, save the pranks for someone else, say, like Pat Robertson.

Song of an Aging Aesthetic (By Pamela Kraemer)

2007-01-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

Canvas white
Sky blue
Sun spot orange
Me and hue
Bird in flight
Dark of night
Filament tethers red dragon kite
Artists tears
Stolen years
Deep regrets
Écru laments
Music hushed
An études grace
Variations of light and lace
Rhythms raunchy rock and soul
Beauty seen
A hard won goal
Wasted time
Long and still
Lemons ripen
Write my will
What to leave to who and you?
What is here?
What's left behind?
Unspoken words
Unwritten rhymes
things
things
things
Meant once for me
Not much of a legacy
Essence of what once was "I"
A lasting smile a kiss good-by
A memory
An uttered phrase
A moments providential haze
The things that mean the most,
I can not leave you;
My childrens' touch
Their smooth embraces
A glimpse of stars
Upon their faces
To see the world
Through childrens eyes
Such innocence is for the wise.
A gift from them to me then you
To see the universe anew;
So the things I have
Don't mean a lot
But take a look
At what
I've got.

BEST DAMNED RIB ROAST YOU EVER ATE

2007-01-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

For roast
1- 5 to 6 pound rib roast (sometimes called standing rib roast; 2 or 3 ribs) Leave out on counter to achieve room temperature - about 2 to 4 hours
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
1 tablespoon kosher salt
3 to 4 garlic cloves (the more the merrier!) minced or mashed into a paste
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, stripped from stem
1 sprig chopped fresh rosemary (about 4 or 5 inches long)
3 tablespoons olive oil

In a spice grinder (I use an electric coffee grinder which I use only for herbs) grind all the dry herbs together. In a bowl combine the dry herbs with the fresh, finely minced fresh herbs along with the olive oil. stir together. place roast, ribs down in a shallow roasting pan lined with aluminum foil. Using a sharp knife, score the fat in an X pattern on the roast. Rub the whole roast, all sides with the herb mixture - LET STAND FOR AN HOUR OR MORE... this can be done the day ahead and refrigerated. Just remember to allow the meat to come to room temp before roasting.

Preheat oven to 425º
place roast in center of oven for 20 minutes then reduce temp to 350º - Continue cooking until roast reaches about 115º (about 60 to 70 minutes) remove from oven, cover loosely with foil and allow to rest for at least 15 minutes prior to carving.

To carve: Use a sharp, serrated bread knife and remove ribs first by cutting along the rib bones. Slice into 1/2 inch slices. Serve with horseradish sauce and your favorite Au Jus (which is a herb flavored beef broth... I use rosemary and garlic in mine)

Son Ian and the legend of the Laptop

2007-01-02T11:36:00.000-08:00

When I got my new Macbook Pro, my 7 year old son, Ian had been following the FedEx delivery schedule, on-line, for 2 days. He saw it was "On the truck for delivery" and he sat by the door, waiting for the FedEx guy all morning. Finally, after several hours, he gave up all hope and went into my office to use my computer... It was then that the delivery guy rang the doorbell (a watched pot...)-- Ian shot off like a greyhound, through the family room, dining room and living room to the door. Ian stood behind John, my husband, as he signed for the package. Finally, the big moment was here... The new laptop that I had wanted... all wrapped up and new... Not a scratch was making its grand entrance. Ian was more excited than anyone. He waited as I slid it out of it's packaging and opened it and pushed the power button. Like magic, it powered on. I checked every pixel on its 15" screen. It was perfect. Ian knew way more about this new laptop than I did. He was full of information. He knew what software was loaded and what it was for. He knew how to operate the iPodish remote control and he understood Photobooth and walked me through Front Row... I wondered, "How does he know this crap?" He sat down and started taking pictures of himself with the iSight camera. He was making podcasts and posing for the camera. He sang to the laptop and recorded himself talking about everything Macintosh. He recorded himself dancing and he made an idvd.

We were able to get Airport to pick up our network signal from upstairs and "POOF!" like magic... it worked.

We are now mobile....

Mac Book Pro 15, Intel 2 Core Duo

2007-01-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

Here I am, out in the Blog-o-sphere... Why? I guess it just seemed like the thing to do. I wonder, will anyone even drop my tiny corner of Cyberspace and add their 2 cents?

For Christmas, I received a Mac Book Pro 15, Intel 2 Core Duo laptop. It wasn't a surprise, I had gone online and built in the minor change or two that I wanted from the factory model. I emailed the information to my husband along with a note that said I would understand if he didn't want to spend that much money for a Christmas present... I don't think I included any musings about... "If I die, I want to have owned a Mac Book Pro 15, Intel 2 Core Duo, then my life will have been complete..."

Apple did not disappoint me. Nor did my husband. I love this sleek, little computer. It is shiny and silver and it makes my heart sing.