watson387-brainstatic

Equality?

2010-07-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

Does it make me crazy when I say I'm tired of women being the beneficiaries of what I see as sexual bias in the justice system? I live in Texas and since Andrea Yates made national headlines back in 2001, there have been a number women who have drowned, stoned, dismembered or garotted their children to death. An alarming number of them are walking the streets today after being found "not guilty by reason of insanity". A woman in Plano, TX was free in one year after murdering her two children. Depression or mental illness is nearly always the first justification for women who commit murder.

The latest case is the Irving mom accused of murdering her two children because one was autistic and the other had health problems and she wanted "normal children". Now I'm not saying this mother or any of the others isn't mentally ill and deserving of compassion, though I find compassion in short supply when anyone murders a child, any child. What I am saying is that there is a nasty bias afoot when the general immediate consensus is that when a woman commits murder she is mentally ill. Isn't a bedrock of equality being held equally responsible for your actions? So ask yourself next time, what would you think if a man committed the same crime? Would you be as willing to reflexively say to yourself mental illness or stress or isolation or post-partum depression is to blame?

I DON'T need medication....

2008-07-14T16:14:00.002-07:00

or at least not the non-recreational kind! This rant is prompted by me being awoken two weekend mornings in a row by my sister-in-law, who lives in Europe. I've been to Europe, they have clocks and watches and most of the Europeans I've met are able to count and thus correctly calculate the time in another country. In our case, if we want to call there we count FORWARDS by eight; if they want to call here, they count BACKWARDS by eight. Sure, their counting is a wee bit tougher, being backwards and all, but they aren't fucktards. I know they can do this shit.

Nevertheless, SIL phones at 8 a.m. Saturday morning. Also, let it be known that I suffer from massive insomnia and I am as protective of my sleep as a mother hyena is of her kill. I often medicate in attempts to: a)recreate, and b) sleep. I sleep recreationally, yeah. Anyway, my choicest sleeping often occurs in the early morning hours since I don't often fall unconscious before 2 a.m. So then we have the medicated, groggy, trans-Atlantic, cross linguistic conversation wherein I try to convey to her that her brother is not home, that he is busy working like a plantation slave to keep his job and thus, I have no clue when he will be home. I also delicately point out that it is 8-fucking a.m. here and that I was sleeping as is the custom in my country. I later inform husband that sister called...early.

Flash forward to Sunday, again, a customary day for sleeping in for non-churchgoing Americans. Again the phone rings promptly at 8 a.m. I knock over the water glass on the nightstand groping blindly for the phone knowing in my dark, malignant heart that it is again my SIL cursing me from abroad. I pick up the phone and sputter "hello" at least a dozen times but no one answers. I know someone is there because I can hear what sounds like interstate rest stop traffic in the background. I know what that sounds like because we just drove from Texas to Florida and we stopped at a lot of interstate rest stops. They're noisy among other things. So I hang up and try valiantly to go back to sleep. No good; it's over. I get up, mop up the nightstand, etc. and the phone rings again. I let the machine get it because I'm pissed and not interested in the trans-Atlantic, cross linguistic cluster fuck conversation. A few minutes later when I listen to the message, again, nothing but the traffic sounds. Then I start thinking that maybe husband has tired of working like a plantation slave and has pulled over on the highway to contemplate throwing himself in front of an 18-wheeler and that maybe he's trying to phone hoping I'll give him a reason to live. Poor sap. Pharmaceuticals and recreational sleep, that's all the advice I have.

So I call him at work; he's fine. I'm telling him about these calls and my dark suspicions that they originate from his family. He says no way because he spoke to his parents that morning and let them know he wouldn't be home; that he would be out working like a plantation slave so that his lazy American wife could sleep recreationally and late. While we're on the phone, the call waiting beeps. I switch over, again, nothing but traffic sounds but, now voices that sound......Greek. Maybe, could be someone being murdered in a rest stop bathroom, I don't know. But again, whoever is originating the call isn't talking. Switch back over to hubby - now I'm kind of freaking as my mom has been having heart trouble, my niece and nephew are teenagers, (i.e., walking hormonal time bombs) dealing with their parents' nasty divorce. I'm envisioning all sorts of doomsday scenarios involving interstate rest stops, dying mothers and runaway teenagers. The call waiting beeps again. Fuuuuuck, this is really starting to piss me off. It's not even 8-fucking-thirty!!!! I click over, hello, hello, hello, at least eight friggin' times and then suddenly, humanity! It's my fucking SIL, just as I suspected!!! All good natured bonhomie because she's 3000-fucking miles away where it's 4 in the afternoon and she's had 12 hours of sleep and is just now waking up and having her cigarettes and coffee - apparently in the middle of traffic, but hey, that's Greece! I'm not ashamed to say I verbally skinned her alive. She seemed to take it well; sometimes that trans-Atlantic, cross-linguistic bullshit works in my favor.

Anyway, my point is that it's normal to get pissed when people do stupid shit to piss you off an disrupt your sleep. When I related this story to my mother, she suggested I needed Zoloft so I wouldn't get "so upset". This from the woman who complains when her customers sit outside and expect waitress service. I stuffed her body in an interstate rest stop bathroom....

Post holiday let down...

2008-07-11T09:24:00.004-07:00

Just got back from the vacay to Fla, visited the 'rents and got in some beach time, which was great. We all had a blast boogie boarding on some good sized waves and Christian really holds his own in the ocean, must be in the genes.

But then the return to real life and all the crap it offers. Hubby walked into a giant shitstorm at his work. First day back he got home at 11 p.m., second day back 8 p.m., maybe today will be more like normal but I ain't counting on it. I know I'm supposed to be glad he still has his job and I am, believe me, but I hate this lack of normality for want of a better word. I don't function well with uncertainty, probably no one does, but I don't know them, I only know me. Plus my hormones are all fucked up lately which only exacerbates my wierd mood issues.

On top on all that we had to euthanize Pookie the cat recently. She was 18, yes 18 years old! We got her way back in the spring of 1990 when we were newly married and had just moved to Birmingham, Alabama. Pookie was the epitome of a feline: aloof, remote, spiteful but loving if she wanted something from you; that's what I loved about her. She was a great cat but kind of gross in her elder years as old cats apparently can be. Her litter habits had been an issue for a while but the onset recently of hyperthyroidism only made them worse and we just had to bite the bullet and let her go. It was sad but somewhat of a relief as well. But it's like we have moved on to a new "era" or something. All our early marital pets are gone kind of closing a chapter in our lives in a wierd way. Boy, I can tell I am fucking PMSing. Next I'll be crying at some damn AT&T commercial. I can never decide if I prefer my hormonal madness in the form of anger and irritation or maudlin teariness. Geez, if I'm really lucky I get to suffer from both...

Shameless brag w/ photo

2008-04-21T16:56:00.003-07:00

A great recent photo of Christian with Lucky and Lola. Christian is 10 now and really coming into his own. He has a wicked sense of humor and is really quick to get a joke or play on words. He showed a friend a tennis ball he had found and the friend said, "oh, so you found one of your dog's balls", and of course, that immediately elicited raucous from Christian. I had been trying to stifle my giggles but just let loose. I know I shouldn't be proud that he already has a "Beevis and Butthead" sense of humor, but I am. Proud. Inordinately so.

Stormy Weather

2008-04-21T15:59:00.003-07:00

Ok, so this post is about 2 weeks overdue, but, hey, I'm a slacker. Never pretended to be anything else. Anyway, I usually complain about how we don't get the "good" weather here. Being a weather geek, "good" to me equals "severe". I enjoy a good thunderstorm, there's something humbling about mother nature with a raging bout of PMS. Well, mama has really been on the rag around here lately. On April 10 a severe weather outbreak roared through our area around 4 a.m. It had been moving steadily our direction from the west since very early in the evening. We watched a supercell thunderstorm move from west of Abilene, TX (about 400 miles west of here) all the way to Oklahoma, throwing off tornadoes. However, when we went to bed, all was quiet around here.

Around 3:00 a.m. Lola, our fierce looking German Shepherd who is extremely afraid of thunderstorms, woke me up. Either her or my swiss cheese of a bladder, can't figure out which. Darling husband dutifully got up to go sleep on the couch with Lola while I went back to bed with Christian, who was in with us because thunderstorms were in the overnight forecast. I laid awake watching the lightning get closer and closer until it dawned on me that I was hearing this ringing sound. Thinking it was my ears, I didn't pay it much attention, but it kept on. So I got up and turned off the box fan that runs in my room as white noise year round. It was the city tornado siren! Christian was still asleep so I ran to the living room to ask Vangelis if it was really the siren - about this time the electricity starts blinking off and on rapidly and I'm starting to flash to "Twister" and wishing I had a cellar in the backyard. I quickly dressed in jeans and t-shirt - if I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die with my clothes ON! I'm a 44-year old mom; I will not suffer the indignity of being found dead in my underwear and a wife-beater tank top. I got Christian up and brought him into the living room. Like morons that I would make fun of if this were a tv show or movie, we're bouncing around trying to get the tv on to see what's going on. Word to the wise: the satellite dish doesn't work well when a) there are heavy thunderstorms, and b) the power is flashing off and on. The stupid HD box resets itself every time the power goes off and it takes about 45 seconds to cycle through and come back on. I'm running around trying to turn on my possessed computer, which takes about 10 minutes to cycle on depending on what sorts of things went wrong when it cycled off earlier in the day. While I'm waiting on the tv and/or computer, I'm walking around looking out the windows and hoping that whoooshing noise I hear is cars on the interstate. You know, folks getting a head start on the morning rush at 4 a.m. during a furious storm. Yeah, right.

The winds died down pretty quickly and the storm moved through. We went back to bed. Turned out we had an F1 tornado touch down here in our town with winds between 90-95 mph! In addition, we had straight lines winds close to 85-mph. There was a lot of minor damage: trees down, roof damage, trampolines pitched up on top of homes or into streets, fences torn down, but no serious injuries or devastation. But I can't believe we didn't take shelter in the bathtub and were just spinning around trying to figure out what was going on like idiots. The very next day I bought a weather radio so that I do not have to rely on the tv or computer for information. It got a good workout almost exactly a week later when another round of severe weather moved through. This came earlier in the evening, so we knew what was coming and the extent of it, but it was a good "dry run" for the weather radio.

By the way, our home suffered no damage. The neighbors behind and across from us both lost trees but we didn't so much as get a cheap metal lantern blown off our fence. The neighbors on the street behind us sit up a good 15-20 feet; our backyard at the rear has a 12-foot retaining wall and then the neighbor's 6-foot privacy fence on top of that. I think that provides us great protection from the winds. I'm always surprised that the trees in the creek area next to us aren't damaged. They are large and pretty old but usually only lose a few small branches. Nothing major.

Can't say the weather hasn't been good here lately!

Clearly Madonna is using a tranny for her personal appearances

2008-03-17T18:59:00.003-07:00

I mean, c'mom, look at that arm! Total dude arm! Does Justin even know? He's got a thang for gals with burly upper bodies, though that Jessica Beil is totally hot, linebacker shoulders notwithstanding.

I believe the real Madonna is in some secret chamber in a state of suspended animation while the blood of virgin children and embryonic stem cells are transfused throughout her body to give her a more youthful (and less Vegas) appearance. Kinda like what Gary Oldman went through in his transatlantic journey in Bram Stoker's Dracula (rent it!). Just my theory...

Story from the inside...

2008-03-17T10:45:00.003-07:00

You always hear everyone blame things on "The Media", and yeah, I know The Media doesn't get things 100% right, but naively I've mostly trusted that the gist, the guts of whatever story I'm reading are pretty true and accurate. Recent events involving my husband's employer,Southwest Airlines, really changed my mind about accuracy in the media. As reported by news organizations locally and eventually picked up by national news outlets, Southwest Airlines was "knowingly" operating "unsafe" planes and had flown some planes "30 months without required inspections". My husband is directly involved in this story; it is his department that is front and center of this issue. It is his career, our livelihood that is being written about and put at risk. In this case, the media got maybe 10% of the story right. Part of this is due to the complexity of the issue; airline maintenance isn't easily distilled into 30 second sound bites, 3-column inches, or pithy little editorials. As such, maybe they shouldn't be reported that way.

On blogs, in commentary to web articles and other places, Southwest has been accused of everything ranging from a lazy attitude towards safety to outright criminal activity deliberately putting the flying public in danger in order to save money. Hey, again, that's my husband you're talking about, not some faceless corporate drone. The bottom line is that some important paperwork issues were not in order but the planes were never "unsafe". They were "unairworthy". There's an important distinction. Unsafe means, well, not safe. "Unairworthy" can mean unsafe, but more often it simply means that the paperwork relating to a particular plane is not in order, i.e., "out of compliance", hence the aircraft is "unairworthy". It is similar to vehicle inspection stickers: they are required by law and if yours expires there's a hefty fine to be paid if you are caught operating the vehicle with the expired inspection sticker. However, to suggest that simply because your sticker is expired your car is now a danger to you, your passengers and other drivers on the road is simply absurd. Ditto with the airplanes in question.

And for the record, no airplane at Southwest or any other airline for that matter, goes 30 months without any inspections. Airlines have multiple, overlapping inspection programs and if an inspection mandated by this FAA document is overlooked, the same area of the plane is inspected under a different document or program belonging to the airline. So it's not as if the areas in question have not had hands, eyes, ears and tools of all stripes on them. Airplanes are in the hanger on average every SEVEN DAYS for various inspections.

But now Congressional hearings are scheduled for April 3 involving Southwest and the FAA. Nothing like grandstanding politicians in an election year trying to understand highly complex, technical material to keep you awake at night. The rest of you, the driving and flying public, know this: you are in far, far more serious danger in the car ride to the airport than you ever are once you are in the plane. And don't believe most of what you read. That's my big lesson for the month.

The Graduate

2008-02-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

So Lucky graduated from obedience school. Actually, this photo is several months old. The most recent event in Lucky's life was his neutering, which he came through with flying colores. I keep his testicles in a little jar, hanging from the rearview mirrow of my 300ZX like fuzzy dice. Right next to my husband's. Not really. But I thought about it. At 6.5 months, he is 60 pounds. I've had two vet techs tell me that they think he has mastiff in him, so maybe that's what gives him the big head, not pit bull. He does seem large for a pit bull and he has very loose skin which is not at all like a pit bull. However, his tenacity is very pit bull. Whatever. He and Lola get along great and we are lucky to have them both.

I'm Not Lazy

2008-02-06T18:13:00.001-07:00

I just need the right atmospheric conditions in which to be productive. This weekend brought temps in the 70s and low 80s, a welcome breath of spring. I accomplished many, many things this weekend. However, with the arrival of a cold front and temps falling back to more seasonal levels, I have resumed my regular winter habits of carb loading and frequent naps, awakening only to growl angrily, eat more carbs, crap and find a more comfortable sleeping postion.

See you in spring...

And the hits just keep on coming...

2007-12-11T15:01:00.001-07:00

most recently in the form of a red Chevy Silverado which ran a redlight yesterday and wounded (perhaps mortally) my 2001 BMW 530i. Motherfucker. And I was already in a grinchy state of mind due to the manufactured "shortage" of all the "hot" gadgets and stuff this year. There are food shortages, not Wii shortages, goddammit. The fucking Wii has been out for a year already, what's the problem? Anyway, I digress.

So the Beemer - with heated seats, no less, very comforting for crossing guards during the harsh Texas winters - is in the police impound lot awaiting evaluation by the insurance adjuster. The front bumper was sheared off completely, the hood nicely relocated, radiator pierced and I'm wondering if there is other engine damage because the car would not stay started long enough for the tow truck driver to drive it onto the tow truck. I will upload photos as they become available.

The driver got a citation for running a red light - multiple witnesses and an egregious running of the light. It's not like the light had just changed and WHOOPS! can't stop. I had the green light for several hundred yards as I approached the intersection. He either didn't see or didn't care that there was a red light. Did I mention he was speeding? I ended up clipping the rear end of his pickup; he almost made it through the intersection. When I clipped his rear end, it spun him into a truck sitting at the red light from the other direction, doing pretty good damage to that one also. I was left sitting stunned in the intersection while people came running out to see if I was ok.

On the other hand, it could have been worse. If I had hit him more fully or if he had T-boned me or if I had been driving one of my little "fun" cars and not The Tank, I would probably not be here blogging this boring bullshit for you. So I guess that's good. And I met some incredibly nice and helpful people that almost restored my holiday spirit. Now if someone could just score me a Wii....

Thankful...

2007-11-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

that I'm not this asshole. I don't disagree that Americans are way too fat and let's face it, mostly because we eat too much of the wrong things while sitting in front of our televisions. But I didn't realize that we had elevated belittling others to a level where we proudly boast about doing so in newspaper opinion pieces. Here I am belittling people behind their backs (the way civilized people are supposed to, I thought) and feeling somewhat ashamed about it and then this guy tells me it's my moral obligation to publicly disparage others for their own good.

I guess what pisses me off most about this guy is his assumption that every fat person is exactly the same: greedily shoving others away from the buffet table while we belly up shoveling food into our little pieholes by the fistfuls. I've yet to actually witness that behavior out of even the most obese citizen. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and add that genetics plays some role in obesity. It's not the end of the story, by any means, and if you work hard enough, you can outsmart your genetics up to a certain point. But I know that I make better food choices than my husband, eat smaller portions than my husband and actually exercise. His exercise is shuffling to the fridge for another beer. I don't drink, by the way, because it tends to make me bloat. He never bloats. Ever. He misses one meal and he loses five pounds. I don't eat for a week because of a stomach virus or grief or whatever, I might lose a pound, but the first time I eat a meal again, back on it goes. And I swear I gain weight every time I drive past the Krispy Kreme store. It's on the freeway; sometimes I HAVE to drive that way, dammit! My son has a friend whose mother is very vigilant about feeding them good, healthy foods which they actually eat. Now unless she's a total fake (which I don't think so, that's why she's still my friend) and letting the kids mainline M&Ms while they are sleeping, she's feeding those kids a much healthier diet than my kid gets. Yet one of her kids (only one, not the other) is pushing the density envelope while my kid is still blissfully average in size. Here's hoping he got daddy's metabolism in addition to daddy's laid back mental state.

What I'm saying is that some bodies are genetically predisposed to thinness and some.....aren't. I have been thin and in shape and literally able to stop traffic with my body; but I wasn't happy and I'm sure I wasn't much fun to be around. When your entire life revolves around what is or isn't going into your mouth, the numbers on the scale or how tight or loose your clothes feel, well, you are pretty fucking boring. Not to mention highly neurotic. I have to work five times harder than someone like my husband to lose weight and frankly, at this point in my life, I'm just not interested anymore. I have better things to do, like watch television. Have you SEEN Nip/Tuck this season???

Anyway, striking a blow for fat people everywhere, here is my response to the above referenced asshole. You can thank me by not boring others with carb counting and workout schedules and not openly mocking people who don't look like supermodels. And today, just eat the fucking food without worrying about it, ok?

Friday Conversation...

2007-11-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Husband (clearly exhausted from a week of high stress work and never-ending deadlines and fighting Friday rush hour): So how was your day? What did you do?

Wife (clearly under-employed): I cleaned my pores today with a Biore Pore Strip. OH, and I downloaded "Smack My Bitch Up".....

Husband (scuttling to fridge for beer): oh, uh, great...

Feeling like Cher Horowitz ("Clueless") whose big accomplishment was "breaking in her new purple clogs". If only my life had that much meaning....

Bitch-gate...

2007-11-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

If women want to be taken seriously as equals in the world then they have to stop acting like damsels in distress whenever someone gets rough or calls them a bitch. If you missed the story, recently at a fundraiser a supporter (female, by the way) asked John McCain, "how do we beat the bitch", referring, of course, to Hillary Clinton. McCain had the grace to look chagrined but ultimately took on the question without chastising the woman which led to claims of "ungentlemanly" behavior, as if he was supposed to throw down and challenge the woman to a duel in order to defend the fair maiden Clinton's honor. Was the woman's question inappropriate? Sure, probably, who cares? It wasn't McCain's job to scold the woman or rise to Hillary's defense out of some notion of chivalry. Chivalry is dead, especially in politics. God only knows what sort of criticism he'd have garnered had he chastened the woman. That's probably why he covered his face: knowing there was no graceful way out of this little quagmire because there were women involved and either way he was fucked. And not in the traditional sense. I'm no McCain supporter; I think he's the worst kind of political whore: the kind that used to have a shred of integrity but decided to give it away in exchange for the hope of votes. But give the guy a break. He has a big enough job trying to keep himself alive politically without worrying the minutiae of political correctness.

All of this comes on the heels of the last Democratic debate where Obama and Edwards got pretty critical and pointed with Hillary and Bill felt compelled to say later that they had "piled on" because she was a woman - making the debate sound like a biker gang bang. Maybe that would be more entertaining, but I digress. Her opponents didn't attack her because she's a woman; they attacked her because she's AHEAD and if they want to live to fight another day, they have to take her on. Politics is a bare-knuckle brawl; it hasn't been genteel since, well, ever. Hillary can take it; she's a tough broad and I mean that as sincerest flattery. And none of this is a criticism of her; she seems to take all the bullshit in stride as well she should. But people need to stop this double-standarding (and women are extremely guilty of this) of wanting to be considered as good as the boys but then demanding that someone rush to their defense when the going gets ugly. Defend yourselves, bitches!

Beavis...

2007-11-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

My son is a boy scout (ugh) and my husband was supposed to be the "popcorn king" of his den this year, which really means I'm the "popcorn king". So I'm sorting and delivering everyone's popcorn sales. Every time I come across a "Three-Way Tin" I get this Beavis giggle in the back of my brain.

Huh-huh-huh, I said "come" and "three way", all in one sentence...

Urgent News Flash!!!

2007-11-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

Fat girls don't get hit on as often as models!!!!! I'm truly stunned. http:/http://www.etonline.com/news/2007/11/55521/index.html Next up: ugly people have trouble finding dates and rude people are often referred to as assholes. See our important investigative news story tonight. When will ET learn that we don't want investigative journalism when we watch this show. This show is the equivalent of what I would take to the can while taking a shit, so I don't expect nor want "investigative journalism". I don't take "Newsweek" with me to the toilet because I can't finish the articles. Unless I'm REALLY sick, that is. Plus it's not "investigative" when you state what the rest of the friggin' conscious world already knows.

It was just a year or so ago that ET sent Vanessa Manillo out in a fat suit to prove the same thing. What's the fatty obsession over there at ET? Any why do they think this is "news" to anyone but them? Maybe it was the idiot models' idea. Next up, models are often stupid. Any woman that's ever been even vaguely chunky knows the world can be a cruel place. Anyway, those fat suits are way worse than the real fat would be at that size. Plus I think some of their chubby cheeks are starting to peel off which doesn't help turn the dudes on.

I'm tempted to find one of these model types, sit on her and force feed her, a la "gluttony" in the movie "Seven" and let her see what life is REALLY like when you're that fat and can't lose the weight when you go home at night....

(Stop) Bringing Out the Dead

2007-11-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, I watch Dancing With The Stars. Cheesy, guilty pleasure. But I justify it because I read the newspaper (ALL of it, not just the comics or sports); I watch the news; I watch political talk shows and keep up with current events. All of which makes my head explode so I justify DWTS and US Weekly as my earned treat for being such an informed, unhappy citizen. We all need a little brain twinkie here and there. Rationalization over.

Marie Osmond and Jane Seymour's "Duel of the Dead" must stop. The trotting out of dead relatives in hopes of sympathy votes is tacky. First Jane's mom died. Marie countered by fainting on live television; Jane countered with a home imperiled by fire. Not to be outdone, Marie brought out her thousand-year old dad. Jane hit back with food poisoning. Monday night Jane got tough again by using the dead celebrity friend dedication showing footage of "good friend" (and handily dead guy) Johnny Cash. She and her dancing partner even wore jewelry that once belonged to June and Johnny. Made me wonder if they had been out grave robbing in the previous week instead of practicing. Jane, Jane, Jane...

Marie's father passed Tuesday, or was it Monday night, and that apparently was enough to push her up and over Jane, who was eliminated on Tuesday's results show. Good. I was getting kind of worried for Donny and Jane's kids. After all, there are only so many dead relatives and friends you can use before you need fresh meat. Poor Cheetah girl Sabrina, who was by far the best dancer but was eliminated last week. If only she had some sick or dead relatives to help her out...

Lola and Lucky

2007-10-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so already we're back on the chain gang of dog ownership. I didn't think it would be so quick, but I always knew deep down that there were more dogs to come for us. I am a "dog person" and knowing that there are so many homeless, unloved dogs out there kills me. So I knew we would open our hearts again.

Lucky the puppy came to us about a month after Luke passed. If I already blogged on this skip ahead and read about Lola. Anyway, we were in a PetSmart looking for a ramp for Rumer because she was having so much difficulty getting in and out of the car for her vet appointments. While there, a man came in holding this incredibly cute puppy and as we were ooohing and ahhing over it he told us we could have it, that someone had abandoned it in the parking lot and he had found it under a bush, shaking in fear. So we figured it was destiny, kismet, fate, whatever and we took the little guy home - now that I think about it I believe I have blogged on this already. Damn middle aged brain.

About a week after Rumer passed away, we took a trip to a place in Ennis, Texas called Camp Wolfgang http://campwolfgang.org. Camp Wolfgang is semi-famous in the DFW area because it's founder, Wally Swanson, was apparently a very wealthy, hotshot Dallas lawyer and mover-shaker before he chucked it all to rescue German Shepherds in honor of his beloved Wolfgang. His Wolfgang passed away of almost the exact same thing as Luke (tumor in front of the heart) at almost the same age, 8. So I had read about Camp Wolfgang in the past and had from time to time browsed their website marveling that so many wonderful, beautiful dogs could wind up homeless. So we drove up there on a Sunday, Lucky puking in the backseat (the dog gets carsick like you wouldn't believe). There were over 200 dogs there waiting for a home. Trying to pick a dog under these circumstances is daunting to say the least. The girl who worked there, Ashley, advised us to take a female since Lucky is a male (not for much longer, I say) and she took us around and showed us females in the age range we were interested in. I didn't want to go over 3 years of age and was really looking for something in the 1-2 year range. We ended up choosing two dogs for a "meet and greet" to see how they acted with us and interacted with Lucky. The first dog was kind of hyper, which is to be expected in these circumstances, but she didn't really "grab" us. The second dog clearly wanted to eat Lucky so she was ruled out immediately. We were going to leave as we didn't come with the expectation that we'd be taking a dog home that very day. Ashley mentioned Holly, who I didn't remember. She took both my husband and I back to the kennel where Holly was housed. I had overlooked Holly because she was 4, maybe older, and that was beyond my age range. But my husband wanted to meet her so we brought her out. Amid the chaos of 60-70 dogs barking and jumping and carrying on, Holly was cool and calm. She didn't bark; she didn't lunge; she just followed us calmly to the field. She got on well with Lucky and my son was able to hug and touch her right away while she sat very calmly (and rather regally) by his side. So we brought her home and renamed her Lola. She didn't respond to Holly so I don't feel bad changing her name. And she's named after the tranny Lola of Kinks fame, not the showgirl Lola of the Manilow song. We don't do Manilow. Anyway, she's worked out great. Her only problem seems to be a blazing case of "leash aggression" directed at other dogs which we are seeing a trainer and having her evaluated for tomorrow. She was supposed to start obedience classes on Thursday, but I think she's going to need private lessons first lest she scare the shit out of the other dogs and owners in class. She is sweet as can be but can look pretty fearsome when she wants to.

Having the two of them has been a balm for our hearts. There are still days, just about every day, actually, where I miss Rumer and Luke so bad it's like a physical pain in my body. For years everything has been "RumerandLuke". It was like one word. Now it's Lola and Lucky. You can't help smiling watching the two of them, especially Lucky or the "tiny terror" as he's been nicknamed. Though he's not tiny at all. Last vet visit two weeks ago, he was nearly 30 pounds at 15 weeks. He's gonna be a bruiser. But he's a goofball with a tenacity that I don't think I've ever seen in any other dog. He's like the Terminator or something.

Lucky and Lola; Lola and Lucky. Has a nice ring to it...

R.I.P. Rumer (March 15, 1993-October 9, 2007)

2007-10-09T20:26:00.000-07:00

We got Rumer in April, 1993 when she was six weeks old and eight pounds. She was a mutual anniversary gift. I named her Rumer after Demi Moore's kid, yeah, shallow, but it was a unique name. I never knew another Rumer other than mine and Demi's. When she first came home to us, she wouldn't eat so my husband would sit on the floor and hand feed her. I knew then that he would make a great father, even if I didn't want children. Rumer was my child; the surrogate child for the woman who never, ever wanted kids. Turned out the future had different plans for us, but hey. When we lived in Birmingham and later Fairfax, Virginia, Rumer's best friend was our best friends' dog, Nikita. Nikita was a Siberian Husky and very beautiful and we all got a lot of joy watching the two of them play to the point of exhaustion.

Rumer was supposedly a registered German Shepherd and we paid a breeder in Jasper, Alabama $200 for her. Quite obviously, she is not 100% GSD, but she had all the traits that make the breed so popular. She was powerful, loyal, loving, defensive of her home and her people and just an all around great dog. She didn't like kids, but like I said, we weren't planning on any so that was ok, too. When we did have our kid, Rumer accepted him into the pack from the first day he came home. I have pictures of me sitting in our oversized chair, cradling my baby, with Rumer practically wrapped around my shoulders looking down at him, too. I have lots of pictures of the two of them laying nose to nose on the carpet, too. She never so much as looked at him funny. She loved him and defended him from the beginning. When Luke came along, she accepted him as well and they became best buds.

Rumer lived a great 14.5 years - that's really old for a shepherd and she had great quality of life until about the last week or so. Letting her go was the hardest thing I've ever done, even harder than Luke, I think. We had her twice as long and she was a link to the person I was before I was "mom", maybe the link to what I think of as my truest self.

The grief of losing two devoted companions in such a short time is sometimes overwhelming. It feels like being knocked over by a giant wave and pummeled at the bottom of the sea until you aren't sure you're going to come back up. But you do; you break daylight and swim like hell for shore. Some days you make it to shore and it's good. Sometimes you make it and you just lay there exhausted by the effort. Sometimes you get knocked over again right away and dragged back down to the bottom. I know it will get better with time, but right now that wave keeps coming and sometimes it's so hard it literally knocks the breath out of me. I almost had to run out of the grocery store this afternoon because of some stupid song playing on the store system. But I bulled through it.

We are starting over again. Having Lucky dropped in our laps was a good thing, I think. We knew we wanted a companion for him so we have already adopted another dog. These guys in no way replace the beloved Rumer and Luke. They are just the next generation. Two good dogs who needed good homes and love and we have both, so now they are becoming part of our family. I know Rumer and Luke approve. I know that Rumer has introduced Nikita and Luke and they are all playing and running and doing everything they love to do but couldn't do on earth anymore.

Dreamin'

2007-10-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

I dreamed last night that my 14.5-year old shepherd, Rumer, was young again. Her face wasn't white anymore and was the same orangy-tan color as the rest of her body. Her body was lean and strong and she leapt and played like she used to. She is in kidney failure refusing most food except for hot dogs and McDonald's cheeseburgers. Morgan Spurlock she isn't so she can't continue much longer on that magnificent diet. Her rear legs give out on her more and more and frequently her front legs cannot be trusted either. It will not be long before she is frolicking with Luke on that fucking rainbow bridge.

On a lighter note, we do have Lucky. Lucky was indeed one lucky pup. He was abandoned in a PetSmart parking lot on a day that we happened to be there so he got to come home with us. I really felt fate had plopped him in our lap to ease the pain of losing Luke and the inevitable loss of Rumer. There are days when I believe God himself is delivering divine punishment upon me for some long-forgotten sin I committed. But we are lucky to have Lucky and he is Lucky to get us, too.

R.I.P. Luke (Spring 1999 - July 30, 2007)

2007-08-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

Luke's "battle" with cancer was very short lived. He died just ten days after we got the diagnosis. He died on a Monday evening surrounded by all his "people" and a few kind strangers. Luke loved running, trying to fit two tennis balls in his mouth at one time, chasing squirrels and heavy petting. He came to our bedside every morning pawing at the mattress demanding his morning love. He followed me to the bathroom every single time I had to go because he knew I was a captive audience and with nothing else to distract me, I'd pet him. He snarled at the cat when she tried to get her fair share. He sat at (and on!) my feet in the evenings while I watched tv. He loved his best friends, Christian (his human friend) and Rumer (his canine companion). I think it was a blessing that he passed first as I don't think he would have been able to function without her. Frankly, he hated the cat, but like a good dog, he tolerated her because he knew we loved her.

Luke was a good dog and he is missed.

Summer from hell....

2007-07-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

And no, I'm not just talkin' about the Texas heat. At the risk of pissing of the gods or whatever and having them punish me by showing just how much worse things can be, I'm going to blog about my shitty summer thus far.

We went to Greece right after school got out. STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES!!! Everyone always rolls their eye when I bitch about going to Greece because most people don't go to Greece so they have the Travel Channel fantasy in their head and not my reality. The reality is that I have to be stuffed to the gills with xanax to even get on a fucking plane going outside the U.S. anymore. Thanks Bin Laden and Thanks Bush for making Americans ever so popular even with the non-Muslim extremists. Then it's the long ass haul over there, hours and hours crammed on the plane with no where to go, weird fucking people and always, always, always, someone's awful, awful kids. Although, the return trip is usually when we get the worst kid behavior. Must be something about how you are crossing the international date-line or some shit. Anyway, in Greece we're basically stuck in Athens because my in-laws are elderly and can't get around much and would (rightfully, I suppose) take great offense if we took off for more pleasant parts. Athens is noisy, dirty and smelly and I've seen the Parthenon and the Acropolis more times than I can count so they hold no particular thrill anymore. I am a 43-year old woman with a bad back - one degenerated disk and two bulging disks in the lower back - and I am relegated to sleeping on a twin cot with a 2 inch thick mattress for 10 days. Needless to say I pack enough drugs to land me in federal prison for 25-to-life if I was even caught with them. Actually, I have prescriptions, so I'm legal, but I'm sure they would raise questions. Anyway, we get that trip out of the way and I kiss the ground at DFW airport when I get home, looking forward to a long, lazy summer of Starbucks, community pools, playdates and Rescue Me on FX.

Within a week, I'm at the dentist with an abscess. This abscess is in a part of my mouth where I've probably laid out $10,000 since my kid was born dealing with a relentlessly screwed up tooth. Bone implants, multiple root canals, botched crowns, etc. - had I known back then that this tooth would be such an odyssey, I'd have yanked it then. Instead, I'm yanking it 10-years and probably ten grand later. Expensive lesson, but those are usually the ones that last, right? On the upside, I got some pain meds. Get tooth yanked. Only get laughing gas because shitty insurance won't pay for me to be sedated and I'm too cheap at this point to pay the extra $200 myself. It didn't hurt, but it was definitely traumatic. No matter how hard I sucked on the laughing gas, I wasn't laughing, and I couldn't rid my mind of the image of my dentist up on the chair with both feet planted on either side of me, tugging with all his might to get this friggin' tooth out of my head. There's just something horrifically disconcerting about that. Then he had to pull the roots out one by one. Fucking tooth. Upside: more pain meds, haha.

Then the worst so far. My 8-year old shepherd mix, Luke, was coughing and not eating well and just generally not his spastic self. He's never been sick a day in his life so I blithely figured he had a small piece of tennis ball caught in his throat. His main thrill in life is tennis balls but he sometimes takes them apart. So I take him in thinking this will be a quick and simple thing. Twenty-four hours later we have a fatal cancer diagnosis. He has a malignant tumor in his chest, just in front of his heart that started bleeding into his chest causing the coughing and lethargy. The vet stabilized him and we were sent home with orders to keep him comfortable and to love and spoil him until the "time" comes, which could be days or weeks or two hours from now. That was last Thursday.

Friday morning my kid gets up and within five minutes comes running to me sobbing, saying that he's sure he's got fluid in HIS chest, he can't breathe, what's going to happen to him, etc.? He definitely had something respiratory going on but I think mostly he had a panic attack related to what's going on with the dog. But instead of making him wait and worry until we can get an appointment with his pediatrician, I take him to the "doc-in-a-box" around the corner where I have them see me too, since I seem to have a lot of respiratory crap going on too. I get a steroid shot in the ass, he gets some antibiotics and off we go. Saturday I felt great enough to go for a walk, all the sobbing over the dog has left me about 11 pounds lighter and dehydrated. Sunday, I crash bigtime. Monday manage to drag myself to the doctor and find out I have the fucking flu again! Probably my kid had it too, he just got over it a little faster. Another shot in the ass, another round of tamiflu, which makes me want to puke for some reason, and here we are on Wednesday.

Today is a good day, though. I took Luke back to the vet because I was afraid he was having trouble breathing. If the tumor begins bleeding into his chest again, it will put pressure on his lungs and he will have trouble breathing. Being that I never particularly paid attention to how he breathed before all this got started, I didn't have a basis of comparison, so I was worried that he seemed to be laboring. The good news is he's fine, lungs sound good. He's no paler or anemic than he was last week. How do you tell a dog is pale? Their gums - should be a nice healthy pinky, coral color. At his worst last week, Luke's were off-white. So maybe my summer is taking an upswing....

Dear DFW Driver,

2007-01-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

When you keep ten cars from getting through the light because you sat running your mouth on your cell phone while traffic passed you on the right and left, I reserve the right to shove said cell phone so far up your ass that your teeth play "My Humps" the next time you get a call. Deal?

And since we're on the subject, on the freeway, the left lane is reserved for passing; it isn't reserved for YOU. Use it, leave it, use it again, but don't hog it like it belongs to you and you alone. Usually you are talking on the phone (see above) but that's no excuse. Move the fuck over. I recently drove all the way from New Orleans to Dallas and didn't encounter one, not one, left lane hogger until I crossed the Texas state line. And there they were: the SUV hoggers, the massive pick-up truck hoggers, all just hoggin' that lane because apparently it had been reserved for them and them alone. You are not the pace car and this isn't the Indy 500. Get outta the way! I reserve the right to mount dual RPGs on the front of my car to move you out of the way if necessary (I'm in the process of importing an Iraqi explosives specialist as we speak). I also reserve the right to drag you from your car and beat you senseless because it's the only way to stop future generations of left lane hogs as I'm pretty sure it's a genetic defect.

Oh, and one more thing: those blinky things on the sides of your car, on the front and back? They are called "signal lights" and are used to "signal", i.e. "communicate" to other drivers what your intentions are. Therefore, please use them. And don't use your left turn signal to signal a right-hand turn. It may be "opposite day" in your world, but the rest of us are on real time. Kapish?

Bushisms...

2007-01-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

I was just reading in the paper that the continued uptick in violence in Iraq is probably due to the insurgents attempting to embarrass Emperor, er, President Bush before his State of the Union Address. Surely Al-Quada has access to the five or so editions of "Bushisms" already in print. They would know that the Prez needs no help in embarrassing himself. In fact, self-embarrassment is one of the few things he is actually competent at. Every time he opens his mouth it's embarrassing. Maybe we should get together and send the jihadists copies of the "Bushism" books and they will see that they can stop the violence if all they are attempting is embarrassment for the President. He's doing a "heckuva job" of that one all by himself.

The long, slow plod to spring...

2007-01-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying I am NOT a winter person. Not at all. I was born and raised in Florida and my blood and my body just are not adapted to the cold. Anything below 75 degrees has me reaching for the carbs and the sweats. The two years I spent living in the D.C. area - one of those years marked by a "100-year snowstorm event" that completely buried my Miata for a full week - still wake me from my dreams with the shivers. Now I live in Texas and I have solemnly vowed never to move any farther north. All subsequent moves must be in the southern direction. Note: I reserve the right to change my mind and begin trekking northward should this global warming trend continue. By my calculations Montreal will be a beach resort by 2069.

But even here, in moderately temperate Texas, it does get cold and we've been in the midst of an unusual cold and wet spell. Again, here in Texas even if it does get cold (like 32 degrees) it doesn't last long. Usually within two days or so, you are back in the 70s and taking the top down on the Miata, basking in the glory of your sensible decision to live in a sensible climate. But not this year. It's been cold, cold and relentlessly grey. The only upside is a "snow day" we got last week when the roads iced over. It's endlessly amusing to sit home all day watching the local media frenzy at the impending doom of the "ice storm".

What makes all this even worse is that I am a school employee and I am Pavlovian-ly (this is a reference to behaviorism and slobbering dogs) attached to the school schedule. We are conditioned to begin school by counting down to the Labor Day holiday which is usually only a few weeks away. Then there's a longish uninterrupted stretch until "Fall Break" in early October. "Longish" being only four weeks in "real" time but more like four months in "public education" time. Then the real fun begins. Another four weeks until Thanksgiving break and then another three-and-a-half weeks to the granddaddy of all school breaks: Christmas. Or "Winter Break" in public education-speak. Then after that long, lovely stretch of free time, we are back in January with only MLK Day to look forward to. And now the long, slow plod to spring break, made more difficult by the intractable cold - and my friends to the north can just shut up. I know in Northern terms 30s and 40s isn't "cold"; it's sandal weather. But I'm a Floridian and we remain proudly candy-assed when it comes to the cold. So I drag through the days, never warm no matter how tropically high the thermostat is set. My winter energy use is probably responsible for that big chunk of ice that fell off Canada not too long ago. I make no apologies. I'm thinking on this cold, gray January day that maybe global warming can be a good thing. Imagine a swimming pool with an infinity edge at the top of Mt. Everest. Of course, I'd never go there; I'm afraid of heights.

Crafty or crazy?

2007-01-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

So I'm watching The View (a guilty pleasure) and they have this "crafty mom" who does a segment on cooking for/with kids. But she makes all the foods into toys or faces, like apple slices with marshmallow teeth. Every friggin' thing is just so cute and cuddly. Am I the only one that feels like she's bordering on cannibalism here? Then she mentions something about how all this crafty cooking shit makes kids "self-sufficient" and flash forward twenty years to this geek named Skippy who's cooking for his girlfriend and serves her up food with cute little faces and carrot ears. Skippy ain't getting laid anytime soon.

And a segment on GMA (really, I'm on auto-pilot at this time of the morning) and they are talking to twenty-something girls (sorry but none qualified as "woman") who feel all this pressure when they read about other girls their age that have achieved so much and are making so much money and how they feel inadequate. Ok, you want inadequate? Watch one of those specials about some 12-year old who raised a million bucks for Afghan refugees while your biggest accomplishment to date (as a 43-year old) is getting out of bed and getting dressed. Now THAT's inadequacy. On the other hand, that 12-year old has nowhere to go but down. Me on the other hand, could still peak. If I could only get out of bed. And no, I'm not depressed. Bed is the sane option when faced with another day. There is no war in bed, no one to piss you off, no one to ask you questions that really aren't any of their business and then you have the endless internal debate on whether to slap them down politely (which means they'll be back) or to slap them down permanently (which means they'll never speak to you again and their kid will be shitty to your kid until one of you moves away). Sigh. So many questions. Frankly, it's a sign of mental illness to bound OUT of bed every morning. The only thing luring me out is coffee and the urgent need to pee...

Teenage Wasteland

2006-12-22T17:13:00.000-07:00

Seems like an odd title for someone staring 43 in the face. And yet as "Baba O'Reilly" blasts through the speakers it's like I'm 13 all over again, under the covers covertly listening to WDIZ out of Orlando dreaming of bigger and better things than this rural trailer park and the tiny little life I'm stuck in. Parents drinking and fighting, fucking telling me what to do. That's the amazing power of music; it's like a time machine at your fingertips. Just plug in the tune and there you are all over again at whatever age and stage of misery or joy you were at when that particular song got embedded in your brain. I'm finding a lot of comfort these days listening to my "oldies". My "oldies" consisting not only of The Who and The Stones, but Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Fear, Stiff Little Fingers (gotta love SLF) - all of the great punk bands of the 80s. Although I admit to being painfully startled when I dusted off the Circle Jerk's "Live Fast, Die Young" and realized I had aged past two chorus' of the friggin' song. But hey, better that than actually dead I guess. The other weird thing is that the world has turned on it's edge again and all the shit these bands screamed about back in the day are happening all over again. Just different countries, different names, but the shit is all the same. Power mongers, corporate greed, manufactured wars, scary fuckin' presidents. Fuck, it's like 1981 all over again.

No point to this I guess except some sort of inarticulate ode to the power of music and its continuing role in my life. It seems like most people my age have kind of left music behind or graduated to "grown-up" music. We were at dinner at someone's house and I swear the hostess put on friggin' smooth jazz lite or something - completely took my appetite away. (note to self: investigate smooth lite jazz as diet aid). But I'm thinking, is this really what my people listen to now? I mean, I know I'm old and shit, but I still drive around with the music blasting so loud the side mirrors shake and I'm screaming along to the music. Just like when I was 12, 15, 17, 21, 35 etc. I hope I NEVER get too old (or deaf) for that.

No eulogies at my funeral, please. Just turn that shit up loud, especially "Gotta Get Away", by SLF. What a send-off...

Dear Britney:

2006-12-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

I know you're "country", but Victoria's Secret has been making underwear for a VERY long time. Please buy some. Or if you do choose to go commando, just:

A. Wear a longer skirt, or
B. Learn how to keep your legs closed.

I vote for B as the best choice for mankind in general. There are too many mini-K-Feds running around as it is.

Sincerely,

The World

you know it's time to quit your job when....

2006-09-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

you work in elementary education (I'm not a teacher) and all you want to say is "if you don't shut your mouth NOW, I'm going to cut out your tongue and staple it to your desk". And that's the highly edited version of my thoughts.

I don't like kids. Never have. In fact, it's not hyperbole to say that I loathe kids. Ok, ok, I used to loathe kids, now I just dislike them. My kid is fine; I've raised him to be tolerable. A small number of his friends are fine in small doses. But by and large I'm not one of those women who "just looooves" kids. I think anyone who "just looooves" kids is either medicated, a pedophile or clinically insane. Seriously. So how the HELL did I end up working with kids? It plagues me, this question. The simple answer is schedule. Nothing beats being off when your kid is off so you don't have to worry if your daycare provider "just looovvees" kids in all the wrong ways, if you get my drift. So, I work around children in a school setting. To say I self medicate regularly is putting it lightly. I call it my "pretty box": I get paid pretty good for part-time work that's not, let's face it, terribly hard. I get holidays off, two weeks at Christmas, summers. And my day is over by 3:30 p.m. So in that sense, it's perfect. However, there could be no other profession more poorly matched for my personality than working with kids. Butcher, maybe.

Honestly, most days are ok, but there are those like today where I feel like I've been run over by a train and I only work with these kids two hours a day. They are "LD": learning disabled, which mostly means ADD/ADHD/dyslexia and many of them have learned a set of unattractive behaviors or have learned to use their diagnoses as their fallback excuse for not being able to..... whatever it is you are asking them to do. And I'm sure their disabilities play a role. I'm just not sure that's the complete picture. I think a lot of them learned to manipulate their world and get everyone around them to absolve them of personal responsibility because of their "problem". One child in our class is particularly manipulative. You can tell just by how she changes gears/tactics when you put the screws to her regarding her behavior.

I've worked in a school setting for nearly three years now in various capacities. Frankly, I want to go back to criminal law. At least criminals were polite and treated me with a modicum of respect and dignity. I never wanted to shoot myself in the head after spending time with one of our clients/defendants. Which is more than I can say for many a child and parent these days....

Five Years....

2006-09-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

I remember thinking on that day, five years ago, wondering what this would feel like in one year? Five years? Ten? What would things be like? Would we be under siege the way it felt like we were on that day? Or would we somehow find peace?

Everyone has a story about where they were and what they were doing when this all began. I always feel ashamed talking about my story. After all, I was safe in Texas, far from the epicenters; I knew no one who died that day. I've never even been to New York. But I think a little something in all of us died that day. Innocence, maybe. Even for those of us who didn't think we had any innocence left in us. We discovered that we did and that moment of discovery was followed immediately by it's merciless death. Even now, five years later, the idea that four airplanes could be hijacked simultaneously and crashed into buildings still has an air of the surreal. Surely that didn't really happen. But it did, as I witnessed again this morning as I watched real-time replays of that day's events.

My son was three-years old at the time, almost four. He had begun preschool in August and Tuesday was a "school day" for him. His day started as always, with Clifford the Big Red Dog on PBS. I couldn't help but notice all the networks were tuned to the same story so I went to the second television to watch and see what the news was. At that time, everyone was still speculating - we were still innocent. Perhaps a private plane had strayed; perhaps the pilot had collapsed with a heart attack. All speculation centered on a tragic accident. In another 18 minutes, when the second plane crashed right there before our eyes, innocence died and we knew there was no accident. I was shaken and called my husband at work. He was difficult to find because he works for an airline. Not one that was involved on that day, but still, they were going crazy. I think they were a little ahead of the general public in terms of knowing that there were hijackings going on and that all those planes in the air were potential weapons searching out targets. My husband told me to take our son to school as usual. On the drive over, I heard about the Pentagon. My God, the Pentagon. I feared we were truly at war - not with terrorists, but another country. I took my son to school, kissed him goodbye and stopped in the school lobby to watch televion coverage with the other parents. The first tower fell. I went home and spent the rest of the day watching helplessly.

I didn't cry until about midnight that night. Watching the crawl under the news program and it mentioned how many children were on board one of the planes. And I thought of the sheer terror those children and their parents must have felt. What do you tell a child when you know and they know that death is imminent? How do you comfort anyone in those circumstances? I wept and continued weeping off and on for weeks. I thought my tears would never end. I cannot imagine the pain felt by those who actually lost friends and family. Who lived through that terror of not knowing up close. I wept everytime I saw the scar on the New York City skyline. Those two buildings, a testament to what greatness humans can achieve, brought down in a few hours. Gone forever. A scar, an amputation on the world's greatest city.

So every year, I bear witness so I won't forget that day, those feelings. I watch the news coverage; I watch my DVDs and cable documentaries. I look back and remember what it was to feel "American" for the first time. I've always taken my country for granted and never gave much thought to my national identity. I did then and I do now. But I was so proud (oddly) in those days following. We were all Americans; we exemplified, at least for a moment, what this country is really supposed to be. But that's gone now, too. Vaguely remembered like the New York skyline before 9/11.

Attack of the massive mammaries...

2006-08-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

I'm no prude, really. I watch Real Sex on HBO and porn with the spouse from time to time. If I weren't so cheap I'd order Skin-a-Max just for the daily soft-core porn. I don't believe that a woman's sexuality ends at a certain age or with the arrival of motherhood. And believe me, I giggled mightily while consulting the thesaurus for synonyms for "breast" and "boob". But I have to say the way women dress when attending elementary school functions baffles me. Why, oh, why must third-graders be subjected to your massive (fake) chest? Your cavernous cleavage? I realize you spent a lot of money on them - well, your future next-ex did anyway -and so you want to show 'em off, take 'em out for a spin. I get it. But aren't there other places better suited than a second grade party to take the girls out for a ride? Who is the target audience, exactly? The teacher? The dads? Erections are wildly inappropriate at grade school functions and could lead to erroneous incarceration and felony charges. So let's cut the dads a break, huh? If the other mothers are your intended quarry then perhaps you could arrange a private showing for those that might be interested. As for me, I don't want to see your titty-crack, ok? It's distracting. At the third-grade ice cream party the stripper, er, mom who was serving had such a spectactular set on display that I didn't know whether to thank her or stuff a fiver down her cleavage. Hell, I could have swiped my credit card through there. Furthermore, I'm certain it confuses the children. The breastfed ones begin to regress and want to nurse again; the bottle-fed ones recall the scent of silicone and begin calling out longingly for their "binkie". It's too much!

It's also demoralizing. One would hope that the post-feminist, 40-something woman would have a definition of sexy that didn't look like amateur pole night at Scores. One would hope that with age came at least a little wisdom and a realization that beauty isn't so narrowly defined as blonde, busty and bronze. Yeah, strippers are universally the three b's; but real women shouldn't have to be. What's worse and that so many of these woman are mothers.....to DAUGHTERS. I can only wonder what sort of sick role modeling is going on there. Hell, even for the sons. The idea that a young boy's idea of womanhood is being molded by his mother this way is depressing. Isn't that what Playboy is for? I mean isn't a mother's job to set the bar high and then watch while the culture slowly chips away at it? These moms seem to concede from the outset that, yes, women are merely hair, tits and a vagina.

Don't get me started on the moms with the low riders so low that I can read the washing instructions on their thong....

It's the MWPs, stupid

2006-06-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

Forget WMDs, that's soo 2003. Out here in suburbia I'm always on the lookout for MWPs. And they always seem to be looking for me. Why? I'm a slacker. I was a slacker before the word "slacker" came along to describe me. And I'm still slacking now that the term has become passe'. Slacking is not allowed in the modern 'burbs. No. No way, no how. "Productive" and "competitive", those are the buzzwords of the modern suburbanite. Especially the modern suburban mom. Double especially the modern suburban mom who doesn't work (except at the gym and on her tan) and has made child-rearing her "job". I used to think that was a good thing, the "job" approach, that is. But everything in moderation. "Moderation" being another profanity in the land of tract housing. Mothering these days, especially in certain socio-economic strata, has become a competitive sport. No one wins, mind you, most especially the children of the competitors. But that's irrelevant. What matters is the competition.

So what exactly is a MWP you ask? It is a Mother With Plans and there is no other demon in heaven or hell that I avoid more assiduously. In fact, my diligent avoidance of said species is almost strenuous enough to strip me of my slacker creds. But they are out there, even in summer. Maybe most especially in summer. These are women who are not practiced in the art of spending downtime with their kids. "Downtime" being another sacrilege out here. Downtime with the kids being downright unthinkable. How will I tan? How will I work out? How will I get my mani/pedi/massage? My ME time? So they make plans. With you. They want to schedule. They want commitments. They want activities, destinations, itineraries, recreation, PLANS, something to count on. All things I DON'T want, ever, most especially during my summer. MY downtime; my reprieve. All I want to do is pull the drapes and watch "Trainspotting" over and over.

See, I work in a school so I'm around their kids for the entire school year. I sympathize with the mom who doesn't want to spend time with their kid; frankly, if some of those kids were mine, I wouldn't want to spend time with them either. I don't want to spend time with them now. But those kids couldn't be mine because they would never have been allowed to live being as obnoxious as they are. I have an extremely low tolerance for obnoxious children (and their parents, the two being quite closely related) which means I can't be around 98% of the population under the age of 18. How I ended up working at a school is another post - not to mention six months of therapy sessions.

So the MWPs. I've been reduced to hiding, scanning phone messages, not returning calls. We just returned from 11 days of vacation, which was great. But we just got back late yesterday evening after traveling all day long via plane. All that stripping and re-dressing at the security checkpoints is exhausting! I just figure normal people need at least one day to recover from travel. I need 5-10. Especially when I return from places as beautiful and culturally rich as Hawai'i and Seattle, WA. I mean, I'm returning to DALLAS, TX, fer crissakes. Ain't shit here; I need a little time to ease back into the vapidity of life here. To accept that I'll never live in Waikiki. But there it was, at precisely 11 a.m. this morning (I had barely been up, being that I crossed several time zones in the past few days) the Mother of all MWPs calling me up to "welcome" me home. Thank god I didn't answer the friggin' phone. I'm pretty sure she had some "plans" to discuss with me.

So they are looking for me and I'm avoiding them. Such is my life. Can't tell them to fuck off completely because my kid does need a social life. I just wish his social life didn't involve me. At all. One day. He's young yet. But that means more years with the MWPs. At least until I go back to full time work. The MWPs don't usually socialize with the "others". "Others" being those with a LIFE.....