So many warning signs...

The story had all the makings of a modern-day fairy tale romance. The instant attraction, the forbidden passion, the Romeo & Juliet style running-away to rendezvous, the devotion that defied ethnic barriers, continental divides and age-of-consent laws. Ah, young love.

But, it's over now. The light finally shone true for the love-stricken lass, and she was forced to decide...

Okay, enough of that. First of all, the romance started on MySpace. Let me tell you something, I have a MySpace account and I assure you, 90% of the people on there lie. Not just in the way of glossing things over, but flat-out lying their asses off. I know because I've seen my stepson's page, and my sister's page, and even my husband's page, and so there you have it. You can't believe a damn thing on there. Even people who DON'T use MySpace know it's full of liars... who hasn't heard the recent drama regarding the little girl who killed herself over a failed MySpace romance, and it turned out the "boy" involved was made up by the mom of a classmate who lived down the street?

Okay, so warning sign #1 - the thing started on MySpace. What's #2? He's Palestinian, she's American. This in and of itself is not a big deal, but the fact that at age 16 she ran away from home and was caught in a Palestinian airport on her way to see him... well, this does not bode well. Cross-ethnic relationships are one thing, but it's probably best to actually reside in the same, or at least friendly, neighboring countries, before you try the romance thing.

It is also imperative, when mixing cultures, to understand that things are just... well... different in other countries. Especially for women, especially in Middle Eastern countries. For instance:

"(Katherine) Lester told (Abdullah) Jinzawi he was possessive and swore at her. Under questioning by host Phil McGraw, Jinzawi denied being verbally abusive but said he called her names."

Possessive? Verbally abusive? Naaaah. Guys in the Mid East are nothing BUT respectful and loving to their women!!

Oh, and the whole "host Phil McGraw" thing? Well, keeping to the spirit of initiating the romance online and conducting the affair primarily over the internet, she broke up with him on television.

L'amour. Who said romance is dead??

Purple Turkeys

Have a great holiday, everyone!

Sorry, Jerm...

I think Jerm was a bit uncomfortable with the negative personal information revealed in the last post. Sorry bout that, buddy. I was just venting.

So, here: Something new to discuss.

My opinion - she ain't even pretty. Never was. Just drawing out those fifteen lil' minutes of fame into something shameful and pathetic. Playboy can make anyone look pretty with some computer-assisted retouching and creative lighting.

Just changing the subject, heh.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

Does this look like November to you?

Actually, according to one news station, that temperature on Sunday is supposed to be 80, and on Monday 82.

The "good" news is that the high on Wednesday is maybe going to happen around noon, and then temps will be steadily falling after that. They were saying that on Thanksgiving Day, the highs will only be in the 40s, and it will be rainy and windy.

Now THAT is what I call "Fall Weather." The above forecast would have been rockin', say, the last week of September. Of course, I complain now, but come March I will be dreaming of the warm days of spring... and then it will be cold and miserable. Maybe. I thought this last spring was great, personally. It rained almost every day for something like four months. I haven't been back to the desert in many years, but I grew up there, the first almost-19 years of my life, and so rain is still a novelty for me.

It's just hard to get in a holiday-type mood when it's 84 degrees outside. And when you have no money. But that's another story.

The Other Story

The spousal unit still doesn't have a job. Could it be because he's not looking? Methinks that has something to do with it. Of course, in his mind, it's really my fault because I haven't dropped off the application he picked up and filled out last week. He dropped one off, but it's up to me to get the other to the potential employer. I am more of the opinion that if he was truly serious, he'd fax it to them, mail it to them, or do whatever else it took. Possibly even... hmm... look in other places. It is the holiday season, and many places are hiring workers, and after the holiday season work will be much harder to find. Not that this makes any difference to him, because he really doesn't WANT to work.

He apparently doesn't want to have a place to live or food to eat, either.

But I can't make him get a job. The more I nag, the less he does (not that he's doing anything now). The slowly-encroaching panic I feel also seems to contribute to his total lack of motivation. The more I show that this whole situation upsets me, the more inclined he is to spend his entire day posting suggestive pictures on his MySpace, listening to music on the computer and/or watching movies while not-supervising my children.

Oh boy. This man needs to go away. Far away. Like maybe to his sister's house. That's three hours away. That would be good for a start. He could stay there for like six or eight... years? Eons? That would be even better. If he's not going to be a man and help take care of his family, he needs to move along. I've tried leaving, and I won't put my babies through that again. If he leaves, though, we could get on with things. I know my poor little boy would be happier, that's for damn sure.

Grr... blah... yech...

I feel like crap. Not physically, although I am tired. But mentally. I've been under so much stress for so long my head feels like the guy on Jerm's blog.

That has been bugging me all day, btw. Thanks a lot, Jerm. Now I'll probably have nightmares, too. Just what I need.

:)

I don't want to move. But that's like saying I don't want to breathe. It's not exactly a choice. When the guy who owns the property says get the fuck out, then sooner or later, you gotta get the fuck out. I mean, we could stay and be squatters, and force the landowner to go to court and have us evicted, but then somewhere in the Christmas timeframe, I'd be watching constables literally pitch my possesions onto the front lawn... and somehow I think I'd feel worse about that than I do about having to move.

So I get to look forward to stuffing half of what I own into an over-priced Public Storage garage, and cramming the other half (and all of us) into a little one-bedroom apartment . Happiness, I tell ya. My kids who adore playing in their small but utterly beloved backyard kingdom get to downgrade to a public playground two blocks away. My son, who simply LOVES his own decorated, personalized bedroom, gets to learn how to share a room with me and his baby sister while dad gets demoted to the couch. I could expand forever on how shitty this could be, but I'm trying to be positive. It's not... really working.

Maybe I'm just having a bad day.

Some positive things...
---I have a job. Therefore my truck is not going to be repossessed, because if I have to live in THAT, I will not miss the payment.
---My kids are relatively healthy. My son has asthma but it's under control. No developmental disabilities to cost us thousands of extra dollars, not to mention the extra emotional stress. And we have insurance if someone does get sick.
---We will have a place to live (assuming they have a unit open - I'm trying not to think of the other complexes I've looked into, the slums and ghettos, where we'll be forced to go if this one has no available units). I am still not entirely sure how I will pay the rent, utilities and truck payment while still having to feed us, pay insurance and buy things like, oh, I dunno, gasoline, diapers and clothes for growing kids... but since murdering my lazy, unemployed husband is out of the question, I guess I'll just nag him till he gets a job.
---I have a TV. In fact I have 2. I have a DVD player. Actually, I have 2 of those, also. This means when I get home from work to my itsy-bitsy little apartment and two screaming, cooped-up children, (and the aforementioned unemployed husband) I can always give the kids Benadryl and curl up to watch Firefly on DVD. Wonderful escape, I tell ya.

Kidding. About the Benadryl. Okay, maybe only half-kidding.

Well, somehow I will get through. We always do, don't we??

Kid Swap

A few weeks ago, I read about a couple of kids in some European country (I think these were Czech families) that had been accidentally switched at birth. At the age of nine months, they were going to be switched back to their biological parents. My initial thought was, how could they??! I mean, directly after giving birth to my children, I fell in love with them and spent the ensuing weeks and months bonding and cementing that love into place. At nine months of age, a baby is only just beginning to develop an individual personality and could probably be switched without long-term psychological damage, but the fact remains that in that period of time you have learned to LOVE that child. Replace that child with another baby, biological or not, and it would certainly have a profound psychological effect on ME.

Well, then today, I read about another set of families that had switched children. These boys are four years old, and they are going to swap back. This, I think, borders on completely inhumane. I have a four-year old boy, and I simply cannot fathom giving him to someone else in exchange for another strange four-year old boy. Biological or not, that little one is still a stranger to you and your entire family.

I don't know if it's because I don't have a connection with my own biological parents (though I know them, and in fact, I was raised by my bio-mother's uncle, so the adoption remained within the family) or because I've had enough kids to cherish that bond between baby and mom more than anything in this world, but from my own perspective, my first instinct would be to keep the child I have bonded with. My 4-year old is a unique individual, and regardless of biological relation, I would not be able to simply say, "Here, you take this one, and then give me that one."

People give children up for adoption every day. You live your entire life knowing there's a person out there that you are directly responsible for creating, but you never know them and they never know you. Many of those people go on to have other children in their lives, and although they probably always remember and think of the baby they gave up, I don't think that they are unable to function because they can't be with their child. I have three children that I haven't seen in over six years, and it hurts every day, but I talk to them when I can and I cope. Loving all my children the way I do, I can't imagine giving one of them up in exchange for another child, as if the non-related child never meant anything at all to me.

I guess I was lucky. I never even thought about the possibility of a switch. When my first was born, it was in an Air Force hospital and I was the only one there. By the time I left, there were two other newborns, but mine was the only girl. I knew I'd gotten the right baby when I walked out (with that cute little red birthmark over her eye). My second and third (born a mere fifteen months apart, delivered by the same doctor in the same hospital room) were birthed in a hospital where the baby stayed in the room with the mom. On the one single occasion they had to be taken out for a blood-draw or something, the nurses compared and double-checked the matching ID bracelets on mommy and baby. Babies Four and Five were each homebirths and didn't leave my side until they were, like, fourteen months old.

I know in my heart that love is more than genetic. I wouldn't trade my parents for my bio-units in a million years. They have their faults, but they love me and raised me well, while my DNA-donors couldn't have cared less about me or even the kids they kept. I also know that if someone tried to take my two-year old Tootsie Pop away from me today, for any reason, I would kill them with my bare hands. I know she's mine, but if it came to light that she wasn't genetically mine, while some other two-year old was, I'd have to say okay, let's keep in touch - but you can't have the one I've raised.

I don't know how people do it, just switch like that... as if having the child of your loins is more important than having the child of your heart. I guess for some people it is. I only know it wouldn't be for me.

Thanks, Sneff

Cyclefreak clarified for me that the post below was not actually written by Jay Leno. I'd actually wondered about that, but I was in a seriously bad mood that day so I posted my reply anyway.

I don't mind if anything I say gets debunked by someone who recognizes it as urban legend. Hell, I want you to tell me if I have it wrong, to prevent me from looking like a jackass. I'll do the same for you, trust me.

But at the end of it all, someone wrote that email. Some big-headed, stupid-ass who wanted to feel important, very likely. They pissed me off, whoever they are. And I know for a fact that there are actually wealthy or privileged people out there who have those exact sentiments, which makes me wanna scratch their eyes out. None of my reply contained falsity or exaggeration, regardless of the authenticity of the instigating article.

On a Lighter Note...

Do you know where peacocks come from? My son asked me where they come from. I told him I thought they came from China. He made an exasperated noise and informed me that, NOOOO, they come from the ocean. I must have looked very puzzled because he quickly assured me that they don't sleep in the ocean. They sleep in the subway. And they eat weeds. Grover said so.

Thank you, Sesame Street. You've done wonders for my child's imagination.

Speaking of influences, my two-year old daughter was sitting on the couch next to me the other day, and a brightly-colored Christmas-themed commercial came on the TV, advertising what wonders of the season you could find at some over-priced retailer. Before I could say a word, my daughter popped her juice cup out of her mouth and shouted, "Holy shit!" just as clear as day. It was hard not to laugh as I told her that was a bad word.

Shocking as that may seem, it was nowhere near as stunning as later that evening when I was running her bathwater. She was demanding bubbles. I told her twice that it was too late for bubbles, we were just taking a quick bath and going to bed. After the third shriek for bubbles, I said, "NO, Gabbi, no bubbles!" So she shouted "FUCK!" and threw her plastic boat across the bathroom.

For that, I thank her father. No way she got THAT from Grover or Big Bird.

See what you have to look forward to, future Cheney parents?

Friday 55

Idea courtesy of James Goodman, awesome horror writer extraordinaire, here's a creative nugget from my cluttered imagination, in 55 words exactly:
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My baby told me there was a monster. I didn’t believe her until I saw the blood, then I had to kill the monster although my baby was already ruined. They put me in cuffs, and asked me why. They don’t believe in monsters, either, anymore than I could believe that I had married one.

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Click on "Goody's Place" to the right to see his! (Trust me, he rocks.)

Fuck you, Jay Leno

The first part of this horrifically long post is the forwarded email I got from a relative, with something Jay Leno wrote. The second part is the response I bravely fired off to every single person on the distribution list. Comments welcome.

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Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....

"The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true, given the source, right?

The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed, and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President. In essence, 2/3's of the citizenry just isn't happy and want a change.

So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, ''What are we so unhappy about?''

Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day,7 days a week?

Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?

Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?

Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at anytime, and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?

Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?

I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough.

Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all, and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top-notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family and your belongings.

Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler or intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.

This, all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?

Maybe that is what has 67 percent of you folks unhappy. Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

I know, I know. What about the President who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The President who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same President who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The President that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The Commander-In Chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me? Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad?

Think about it... are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the "Media" told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day?

Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an ''other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.

So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans? Say what you want, but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds, it leads; and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by "justifying" them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about "how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way"...Insane!

Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media. Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth, and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.

With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, "Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

Jay Leno 2007 Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people that need to read this and grasp the truth of it all.

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Oh yeah. This is great. Especially coming from a guy who will never ever have to worry about that "24-hours-a-day power and water" getting cut off because he had to choose between paying the bill or feeding his kids... America is absolutely tits-and-ass for the 10% of the population that possesses 90% of the money. The rest of us watch oil prices reaching record highs and stay awake at night wondering how we will buy gas for our financed vehicles to get us to the pitifully low-paying jobs that 80% of us are forced to take.

Don't get me wrong, I salute the volunteer forces fighting the foreign war - none of the economic crisis is actually their fault. They're doing what's right and they deserve to be called heroes, but excuse me, they should have never been placed in the position of HAVING to volunteer. Are we all just forgetting, or are we choosing to overlook, that George Bush made up an excuse to invade Iraq ("The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." --George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003, making a claim that administration officials knew at the time to be false) and how many innocent Iraqi children and non-combantant civilians have died right alongside our valiant soldiers because of it?

Bush was great right after 9/11. All the politicians and leaders were great. I give them full credit for leading the nation through terror and crisis. But after the furor died down, their decisions regarding the response of the military and the search for the terrorist groups behind the attacks was downright irresponsible, completely motivated by greed and political gain. Some of us refuse to see that. There are others that are sick of being blinded, however.

I can support the troops without supporting the war. I can honor the soldiers, and feel pride and fear for them, without honoring their Commander-in-Chief.

We live in the greatest, richest and most willfully-blind nation in the world. We won't let ourselves see what's actually happening outside of our own sheltered little lives. It's not paradise revisited for everyone. All of the amenities are there for those who can afford it, but it gets rubbed in the face of the powerless working-poor who cannot. The media IS behind much of the selfish, greedy attitude of much of the nation - I ask you, however, who Jay Leno works for, and who has made him the coddled multi-millionaire that he is. NBC. One of the greatest drama-queen networks in existence. So who is he to talk?

I love America. Nowhere else would I be able to rant like this. But I hate the politicians who smile and tell us everything is peachy while reaching behind us and either stealing our wallets or just flat-out shafting us. ("You work three jobs? ... Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." --George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005 ) So I vote, which is all I can do to try and change things. And I work, and watch my family fall farther and farther behind. Inside, I burn with helpless rage as the people around me spend frivolous amounts of money on stupid things I will never be able to afford, like those flat-screen TVs Leno mentioned, or those big SUVs that suck down all the gas I likewise can't afford. All I want is winter clothes for my kids. Screw TVs and new computers and cell phones and iPods. I want the basics - I work my ass off and have to choose between the power bill and a coat for my son, the car insurance or food for a week.

Jay Leno can go bugger himself. After he spends months working his ass off in an average, low-level office job only to discover he's going to be evicted right after Thanksgiving because he can't pay the rent; only after he has to stand back and look at those expensive restaurants, fancy hotels, and bountiful stores brimming with holiday treats and realize that all of that is for the elite, living a life called the "American Dream" but which will never be more than just that for your family; only then will I listen to what he has to say about America being a bunch of spoiled brats. Who is he to talk about GOD in the Pledge of Allegiance? He who has dozens of vehicles worth millions of dollars that he just prances around and looks at?? Yeah, God's been great to him.

I don't want hand-outs - I want it to stop being so god-damned one-sided. And I want the rich to stop telling us all how thankful we should be, when they've never had to skip a meal so their kids would have enough to eat the next day. Don't tell me how wrong it is to be ungrateful when all those men and women are over there dying for our freedom. They're not - they're dying for a political agenda not even THEY understand, in the name of IRAQ'S freedom, which the Iraqis never even asked for. War has never been as black-and-white as "take down Bad Guy A, Liberate Country B, go home victorious." No one wins a war - least of all the innocents who shed their blood and die and watch their children die in the name of someone else's idea of freedom.

If all Americans rejoiced in their freedom and danced around praising one God for all of our blessings, even the homeless children and imprisoned convicts, guess what - the soldiers would STILL be over in Iraq, fighting, dying, being forced to kill, and dreaming of home. They aren't fighting to protect our freedom - because Iraq was never threatening our freedom. The Taliban, and al-Qaeda, located in Afghanistan and headed by the likes of Osama bin Laden, were threatening the freedom of the world. Bush went after Saddam. He got him. But he destroyed Iraq's infrastructure in the meantime, and now we're stuck there in a country that is much worse off than it was before we even arrived.

Go ahead and argue with me - there's always going to be disagreement. Another great thing about America, we're each entitled to our own opinions, and I'm voicing mine, though I am not trying to change anyone's mind. We can all believe what we will. I personally encourage that.

Just remember, George W. Bush is the very one who said, "There ought to be limits to freedom," encouraging his staff's attempt to shut down a politically-biased comedy website (The Onion, to be specific - look it up). How long before the government actually has that power? To limit our freedoms? Think about that next time you're singing the praises of a President who believes this country would run great under a dictatorship... so long as he was the dictator. ("If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." --Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000)