Oh jeez, there she goes again

Rant and rave time. Or maybe just pondering the foolishness of us mortals.
I watched part of the lifetime movie about the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. It seems as if she was simply acting like any foolish teenaged girl would away from her parents and on a lovely island with a bunch of friends. I'm sure the words she should have known better have been spoken about this. Or that she was foolish or sholdn't have been drinking but something really jumped out at me. She was on a school trip with NO BED CHECKS!!! It didn't matter that she was 18 or had graduated or was going to. If she was on a school sponsored trip and there were chaperones just what in the hell were they thinking. NO BED CHECKS???!!!! When oldest son went to London with the High School marching band in his senior year, there were activities for the whole group to do together and there was times when they went out on their own BUT they always had to check in at a certain time and all gathered for dinner together as well. Even the seniors. Really, how hard is it to pause in your fun to say I'm here and off you go again. What WERE they thinking. Everyone knows how teenagers morph into knuckleheads at times, so didn't ANYONE think, let's make sure everyone is in their rooms at such and such a time and in for the night.

I also thought that the woman who played Natalee's mom in the tv movie was belaboring the southern accent.

Ok and on the what were they thinking angle. There is a blog I read even tho it is rather infantile at times and the author was moaning that she had not achieved what she wanted out of life such as a family and her one true love. What was she thinking? She's married, just moved out of state with her husband so it's the two of them against their brave new world and she's posting for the world to see that she has never found and does not expect to find her one true love. What if her husband reads that. Can you imagine. It would probably break his heart. And yes I could stop reading the blog but I've never actually been able to follow someone about to crash and burn from the very beginning.

Hello blog are not totally annonymous and while I also love reading Dooce's blog, I wonder how safe it is to have her daughter's picture out there, especially when people in her home town recognise her from the blog. I don't even call my men by their given names, hoping to allow them to hold onto a bit of privacy. And as Rocco the Wonder Dog is an affection slut, he doesn't care who know his name.

And speaking of Rocco, he's on the bed with me, with his head stuck under a blanket because the light is in his eyes making it hard for him to sleep. He does this himself. He's still a bit lame from his run in with whatever hit him, but he doesn't even consider stepping past the boundary of the open gates. I'm sorry he had to learn his lesson about getting out of the yard the hard way, but maybe this time it will stick.

The husband and I went out to dinner tonight. At one table this girl whined over and over and over again "I want steak, I just want steak" till I was ready to rush the kitchen and grab the first steak I could find JUST TO SHUT HER UP. It would have been easier if on of the adults with her had answered that whine, but they ignored her and whine whine whine she went. Then a family with two young boys (younger than the girl) showed up and the four of them made less noise than steak eater girl did. KNow why? Because mom and dad were paying attention to them, listening to what the boys had to say and responding. I wish there was some way I could go up to a parent and tell them if they just paid some attention to their kids they might be surprised at the outcome..... but.... if they don't listen to their kid, they certainly aren't going to listen to me.

So that's it from my corner of the world, boring as it is. As much as I grew to hate the library, there was certainly always something to write about.

Evil Voodoo Woman

Warning.... I'm going to rant and rave a bit because, if I don't, my head will explode and all those thoughts will be set free to populate the earth and it ain't gonna be a pretty sight.

EVIL VOODOO WOMAN. I call her that even though I doubt she does voodoo or is really evil to anyone other than me but Evil Voodoo woman she has been christened. Why? You may ask and who IS the Evil Voodoo WOman and why should we care?

Some history.

Once upon a time the husband had an employee that actually got paid to work for him unlike moi who gets paid in kisses. Ever try to pay for something with a kiss? But I digress. So the husband had an employee who was and is... EVW... I get tired spelling out Evil Voodoo Woman. EVW did not like me from the start. Whenever I was in the office, she'd glare at me and snap at, The husband. The one time I tried to make nice, turned out to be a disaster of major proportions and something not to be contemplated again.

I wasn't the only one on EVW *hit list. She got into a screaming fight with the guy in the next office because he slammed a door and twice the husband had to send her home because she arrived at work in a snit that grew as the day wore on. Her apartment complex threatened her with eviction because of her behavior. For some reason she slept in the living room of her one bedroom apartment and when people came home they slammed their doors and so she got up and slammed her door in response. She snarled at me one day when I 'slammed' a door only I hadn't slammed it, actually, it just closed a little harder because the air conditioner was on in the office and always sucked the door closed. Mostly I didn't like the way she talked to the husband, treating him like a nincompoop when only I am allowed to do that. I married his nincompoopness not her. And before anyone thinks my dislike of her was because I thought she and the husband were, or night have and affair, let me dispell that right now. The husband would never have an affair with her because, quite bluntly she is unattractive in that evil voodoo woman way and is stupid as a rock. I mean she married a guy who she told me was a pig and then wouldn't have sex with him because he didn't want children AND she stayed married to him for 10 years. She also lived in Hawaii and NEVER WENT TO THE BEACH ONCE and yet 15 years later is still toting around Hawaiian phone books with each move.

Sothe husband finally managed to get her out of the office and me in .... which did NOT make her like me any more... and he was ever so surprised at the way an office should be run that he is still commenting on it. He can give me every task he wants me to do in a day and doean't have to oversee my work or constantly instruct me. I've also cut our supply bill by more than half. The work gets done correctly the first time. The work gets done swiftly and I DON'T GLARE at a single person. What really floored me was that the woman used Microsoft word but didn't know about the clipboard feature, which is why I thought she was using word, or.... and this is really really hard to belive KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT CUT AND PASTE! I swear. Once a month she used to update clients records with court records gotten from an online site. Each month she'd print the whole damn thing from beginning to end and sometimes it ran pages. When I took over, I suggested to do it once a week and then asked if he needed everything or just the new stuff and he told me that it had to be everything because EVW said that was the only way to do it. Now our weekly updates run a single page each.

I'm getting to the point I promise.

So EVW left but she wasn't out of our lives. Every once and awhile, she and the husband would go to starbucks for coffee and gossip and the husband still felt responsible for her, in a way. ANd so, I was able to follow the whole EVW story . She lost three jobs in one year. They were all because she got into a fight with someone or threw one of her fits. The apartment complex told her they would not be extending her lease so she moved into another place, pulled the same crap and was told to move on. She rented a room, was asked to leave and then was fired from a job that she had held for almost a year. Again it was everyone else's fault. They were all picking on her because she was asian etc etc. Ignoring the fact that she glares at people as often as she breathes.

So she loses this last job for threatening a coworker and then her roomates throuw her out of yet another place adn she's faced with homelessness. NO I have to say that all along the husband was helping her with money to the tune of almost $2,000.00. We had the money then from a re fi on our house and it was done without my knowledge. I doubt I would have thrown a fit because I don't want to see anyone homeless either even EVW but she was only BORROWING it. (right) This last time, we had no money to offer and so with a stroke of luck she managed to rent a niche. A small hastily made 'room' of sorts next to the furnace in the house where she had once lived before, owned by a guy she had once dated but didn't like. Can you see where this is going? She got in a fight with the guy who threw her out and she ended up in a homeless shelter where SHE FOUND HERSELF A BOYFRIEND!!! I swear to god. When she described the bf to the Husband and he passed it on to me it sounded as if she found herself and imitation the husband. The boyfriend had found a job and a place to live and so she stayed at the shelter.... till... she got into a fight with someone and the shelter threw her out. She moved IN with the boyfriend, and tomorrow they are being evicted. She gets unemployment and her expenses are a third of her income and and were even less while she was in the shelter but she's let her car insurance lapse and the rent on her storage unit that holds her furniture and she's hiding her car because she hasn't made a payment in months and they are looking to repossess it.

And so here we are, she on the phone with the husband during working hours pissing and moaning about her lot in life and then she and the boyfriend on the cell phon e pissing and moaning to the husband once the work day was done and we were on our way to run a few errands before heading home. pisspiss moan moan.

I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!

Back when she was living in the niche the husband was so worried about her being homeless that he was actually losing sleep and then some health issues cropped up and he told her she couldn't keep running to him with her problems. He's on meds now but still we have our own worries to keep us occupied. And as much as we feel guilty about not offering to take her and her boyfriend who I refer to as Poor Dumb Sap in, we have to cut the cord. Yes D-E you told me to do that some time ago. This time, the Husband has said it and has said that her friendship is too expensive and too one sided. I suggest that he call and tell her that but he says he's going to let it fade away but he's said that before and here we are dealing with this crap.

I don't know what they are going to do and while I feel sorry for Poor Dumb sap anything we do for him we'll be doing for her and I can't have that any more.


So there is all is. If this were fiction it would be rejected as too implausible. I wonder if there is such a thing as an Evil voodoo Woman repellant. I'll need a barrel of it.

Hippity Hoppity

No dyes eggs for us, or big choclate bunnies. The sons are grown and I need choclate like I need a hole in the head. Neither are their fancy dress up clothes. I can remember once upon a life, visiting a dozen stores or so to find just the right purse to match just the right shoes I had found to go with just the right easter dress. HA! Now, when I find a purse and yes it is a A purse, i carry it until it falls apart and am stunned when it actually goes with something I am wearing. When my mother died she had 75 pairs of shoes (74 of them pinched her feet) and a purse to match each color. I have six pairs of shoes but mainly because I got some great end of season sales and walked away with red velvet flats for $1.25. Oh and I guess we really can't count the shoes I used to wear when I worked with the pigs and only save because of the smell. No euwwws please, they mostly smell like hay and sunshine. god I miss those pigs.
Speaking of pigs.... the oldest son made they easter meal and we ate like pigs. he grilled steaks, made his new favorite fried rice/w curry dish and did some magic to a plain bag of frozen green beans. I don't like green beans but I had two helpings. Oldest son had also cooked last weekend and made his rice, pork chops and the green beans. His friend and my third unoffical son, Chris had a plate and then his seven year old daughter wanted a plate and then her friend wanted one and there sat the little girls chowing down despite the fact that they HATE green beans and rice. I wonder why it is that anything the oldest son tries turns out wonderfully. The same for the second son. This is only the start of his second year with the company he works for and he got the largest raise of all the workers. Wasn't much of a raise but it was the largest. Some day, he'll discover what it is that he really wants to do and then look out world.
Rocco the Wonder Dog is almost his old self after his run in with a car and a mightily bruised butt. He still walks about with that spread legged gait babies with full diapers adopt, but he is getting better.
Business is picking up and I am overwhelmed with trying to get my mailings out, while tyiping up new contracts, faxing letters, answering phones and all the rest while listening to the husband piss and moan about what he has to do. I am becoming very good at ignoring the pissing and moaning. I don't have the time to listen. Still I guess it is better than working at the library but not nearly the fun of working with pigs.
I made the mistake of looking at some artsy blogs and depressed myself. Why can't I do stuff like that. I must have a niche somewhere if I only knew where.
Anybody got a niche going spare?So back to easter.... I enjoyed it so much... definitely much better than those family go to buffet things we had to endure when the boys were young. My sister never could control her sons and it was downright embarrassing to be seated at the same table with them. Once, the room actaully applauded as we all left and another time youngest son wanted to know why he and his brother had to behave when my nephew did not. I simply told him that he and his brother were my sons and I expected better from them. I've been thinking a lot about my sister lately and I have finallycome to the realization that she 'done me worng' with this whole mother's death, funeral thing and the crap she pulled later. but no... I'll have to save that for another time, when I'm not too tired to come up with a full head of steam and really let it rip. Stay tuned.

Watching

The husband and I went to one of those buffet places for lunch the other day and while he was getting his second or third helping I was free to let my eyes and my thoughts roam.

Seated within my line of vision were two mentally challenged men and their care givers. And while the en were men they were both seated in wheelchairs with a sort of tray attached and each wore a bib. The one man caught my eye because he would break into a big grin, laugh, rock a bit in his seat and then start it all over again. He wasn't disruptive, he wasn't loud. He was better behaved than some adults. Each man had a caregiver with him but the caregivers were too busy chatting or talking on the phone or anything else to give either man any attention. They weren't neglected, they were ignored.

Now I'm not pointing a finger at the caregivers. It's got to be a heartbreaking job and so I think they are entitled to a break whenever they can get it. The men had their food and were content just being.

Then the caregiver for Happy guy put a slice of cake in front of him. He did his best to use his fork. He tried and tried but the cake wouldn't give him an inch. If I had been with them, I would have cut the cake into chunks but maybe he needed the challenge, maybe he enjoyed it. He concentrated hard but kept failing only getting a few crumbs, then he picked up his cake with his left hand and put it on his fork, where it promptly fell off. Still without a sign of impatience or frustration, he picked up the cake with his free hand and ate it that way... all the while holding onto that fork.

When the husband got back I had tears in my eyes. I so wanted to go up to happy guy and give him a hug and tell him good job but I knew I wouldn't. I was a stranger and may have frightened him. That I didn't want to do. I just wanted to acknowledge his tenacity and so I suppose I am doing that here and now.

Once I wanted to work with challenged children only then they were called retarded. My mother put a stop to that saying I didn't have the strength for that. She may have been right but who knows. So I have had an affinity for the challanged and even if I only give them a smle or say hello, I hope that maybe it would have helped just a bit. We had challenged adult men working as dishwashers at the coffee shop where I worked in High School. Bobby and Vinnie. Bobby was round and cute a bubbly and told the waitresses everyday that he loved them. MOst ignored him. I would tell him that I loved him back and he would laugh, tell me he loved me and then scurry back into the kitchen. Bobby had downs syndrome.

Vinnie was a cranky type, intent on doing his job and not flirting with the waitresses. He rarely spoke or smiled but did his job well. It was easy to interact with Bobby but not so Vinnie but I made certain I always said hello, mentioned the weather or something mundane and moved on without expecting anything in reponse. Occasionally, just occasionally, I would see a smile start to creep up on Vinnie but I said nothing and just chalked that up as a win for me.

However what I hold the closest to myheart happened when I was a teenager. I was shopping when I grown girl came flying at me, arms opened and outstretched. It was clear that she wanted a hug and so I gave her one. Oh lord I have never been hugged like that again. She had her whole heart and soul in that hug and in the middle of it, she told me she loved me and so I told her I loved her back. About that time he mother came rushing up and the look on her face was heartbreaking. I saw fear, pure outright fear which I guessed was caused by her anticipating the worst kind of reaction from me. It took her a moment to register what was going on and the disbelief on her face has stayed with me ever since. It seemed her daughter was always doing that, rushing up to people for a hug. Not all people and mom never knew when it would happen but and I'm only guessing here, not everyone was receptive to hugs from a stranger.

I may sound like I'm bragging, that I'm mother Theresa or something. Lord knows I'm not. I just like to think that maybe in my small way I helped a bit. Maybe this is my way of going up to happy guy, throwing my arms around him and telling him he did a good job. After all. Isn't that what we all need?

Vinnie

aaaaaaggggghhhhhhhhhh

Pigs a Poppim by sharongraff on Polyvore.com

now I just have to remember how I managed to do this. A computer genius I am not.

try 3

let's see if I can get this from polyvore

second try

Let's see if it works this time

Just trying

to see if I've actually gotten the hang of this posting a picture thing. Could it be this easy?