Take Heart Democrats

I was going to write today about the rash on my legs that I had biopsied or about the fact that I now must go get a degree in Occupational Therapy, but I couldn’t help feeling the need to take out my crystal ball and discuss some politics.

I am at times a political junkie, but then I usually get upset, irritated, start losing sleep, want to clobber some friend and realize that it is time to let it go for a while.  Due to this, I haven’t really kept up with the recent Senate Campaign for late Senator Kennedy’s seat.  Of course, I am not a Democrat (or a member of any sordid political party) and I am not from Massachusetts.  But, this was an interesting campaign to follow because this seat was to decide if the Democrats would maintain the much desired Super Majority.  This helps actually getting bills occasionally passed in Congress or keeps up a necessary and rigorous debate.  That opinion varies based on whether or not your particular party holds the coveted Super Majority.

Well, Democrats are holding their heads low and Ted Kennedy is arguing with Saint Peter about the need for him to get back down here STAT.  The Senate seat that was held by a Kennedy (synonymous with Democrat) for at least the last 60 years has been taken over by a Republican. 

I saw this coming.  The Democrat running was uninteresting, horrible with the people and…Y-A-W-N….  The GOP contender was a good-looking lawyer who did a nude spread in Cosmo and was declared as “America’s Sexiest Man”.  Oh, he also rides a pick-up truck.

I am sure that pundits on both sides have their opinions about why this happened.  Democrats want to blame their candidate and an unusually high pollen count that day.  Republicans want us to believe that it is because Massachusetts citizens have finally left their evil ways behind them and have discovered forgiveness and that it really does matter what kind of car you drive.

Truth is, neither one of these candidates are Ted Kennedy.  Like him or hate him, there is a reason why he was nick-named the Lion of the Senate.  He also, knew that he was going to have to do more for his constituents then drive a pick-up truck. 

Truth is, the problems facing this country are difficult and not so easy for one party to figure out.  Truth is, none of them have the answers and there is no way to make everyone happy.  This seat is up for grabs for quite a few years to come.  The people have spoken, and they will speak a another tune the next time around, and probably a different one yet again. 

So, I am doing this post mostly out of the need to be able to say, “I told you so” in 4 years.  Prediction, Brown will be out of that seat and a Democrat will return.  Enjoy the ride Senator Brown for unless you do more than shoot a gun and ride a pick-up truck your time in DC will be short-lived. 

Madame Schizomon has spoken.

Miracles and iPhones

I want an iPhone.  I remember the longing I felt for it the first time I laid eyes on it.  I wanted, yeah, I needed an iPhone.

Three years later, I don’t have an iPhone.  Four months ago I came so close, so close, but alas it was not to be.  My husband and I were in desperate need of new phones and I gazed and held the glorious iPhone, but we need to save money and tacking on around $30 more a month onto our cell phone bill didn’t save us money.

Today, I read an incredible story related to the Haitian earthquake, miracles and iPhones.   A missionary who was in Haiti producing a documentary on the impact of poverty on the country was trapped in a Haitian hotel for 65 hours.  Just before the earthquake he heard his colleague yell “It’s an earthquake,”  it got dark and they lunged for the ground.  The was the last he saw of his friend.  

He found an elevator shaft to await his hopeful rescue.  As he waited to be  found, dead or alive, he prayed a lot and wrote in a notebook to his wife and children.  He used his digital SLR lights to lighten- up his surroundings in his search for a way out and items to help him survive while he waited.  He had a compound leg fracture and head wound.  He used his iPhone to download a first-aide app.  It taught him how to stop the bleeding, apply a tourniquet to his leg, and take care of his head wound.  The app also told him not to go to sleep because he may go into shock.  So, he set the iPhone’s alarm to ring every 20 minutes to keep him awake.  He was found 65 hours after the earthquake.  That is 2 1/2 days later.  An incredible miracle for this father and husband.  He praises his faith and love for his family for his ability to cope with his fears and survive.

Wow.  I need an iPhone.

Blessings

225.8 lbs.
May the gods heap abundant blessings on me and on my big fat ass!

Pat Robertson is the Very Reason I Question Religion

The last couple of days, I have been away from the blog.  Trying to catch-up on sleep and realizing that I need to set aside real-time to release the demons within.  It seems that Pat Robertson would suggest that, instead of writing, the Powers that Be should teach me a lesson and make my house burn down or have some horrendous accident befall my innocent children.

In the midst of the tragic earthquake that occurred in Haiti less than 48 hours ago, Pat Robertson thinks it is his mission to spew hatred for mankind and desecrate what Christianity is truly about, Love thy neighbor and judge not.

He has the arrogance to believe that he has some knowledge of what God’s plans for all of us in the world are and enough hatred in his soul for the innocent, to state that the people of Haiti had this coming because they made some fabled pact with the devil years ago to rid the country of the French.  The French, who in the 19th century enslaved them as a people.  His comments show us who in the world really do carry-on conversations with evil.  He embodies hatred and arrogance for all who live on this planet.  Interestingly enough, Haitians are very religious, most of them being Catholic and most others practice different forms of Christianity.  The difficulty of their lives, sadly, is not so simple.

I have a difficult relationship with all forms of religion, a post for another time.  Pat Robertson is the very reason why I question the purpose of religion and the state of Christianity around the world.  People in supposedly high regard use the tragedy of other’s lives to control the masses and damn us all into a veil of darkness.  Pat Robertson is an old, hate-filled man who wants nothing more than to destroy what faith in God is all about and bring the world into the Dark Ages once again.

So many people strive to understand why bad things happen in this world.  In their search for answers, they sadly turn to disgusting, inhumane individuals, who claim to speak for God.  Distraught people look to these deceivers for guidance and understanding.  Sadly, too many forget that God is about goodness, not destruction.  Bad things happen.  There is no big reason or design for the occurrence of tragedy.  It is not about the event, but all about our actions after that event, that define who we are and our standing with a  Higher Power.

Self-Help Suckers

A tour around the book store left me in stitches yesterday.  I was searching for a new cookbook and being that it is January, there was dozens of books glaring at me when I walked in about diet, excercise, happiness and blah, blah, blah.  It was self-help Nirvana.  I saw a small little book peering out that was all about something that is near and dear to my heart, Don’t  Sweat the Small Stuff.  I glanced through the contents and was nodding my head in agreement, when I saw further down the shelf its companion book, “The Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff  WORKBOOK.”  WORK-book??  So, in order to teach me how NOT to sweat the small stuff you are going to have me do 100 pages of homework assignments????  Something tells me that the irony was lost on the writer and publisher.

When I returned home I had an email from Oprah.  Well, that of the newsletter kind.  The  email was about what is coming up on Oprah this year.  And of course, it starts out with ways of becoming “your best self”.  (I wonder if she has a patent on the phrase?).  The first show is of course  all about how to stick to your New Year’s Resolutions, and, of course, the only way to do that is to purchase a book, work step-by-step to rid yourself of all that negative energy, oh, and watch Oprah. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I believe in “self-help”.  I believe in the ole’ saying, “You can give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, or you can teach him how to fish and feed him for a lifetime.”  But, we as women have just gone bonkers over discovering our “best self” to the point of purchasing every book out there that someone on TV tells us has all the answers.  The reason why most of us fail in keeping our New Year’s Resolutions?  We set ourselves up by making them outrageous goals that we will never be able to keep.   There…some free advice and no workbook necessary.

Hey, I am guilty as charged.  I currently possess 5 books on diet and excercise…oh wait, let me rephrase that, NOT DIET, but discovering your “best self” under all that fat jiggling from your body.  Well, needless to say they sit on the shelf and my “best self” is still in hiding.

“So, WHY is that?” they would probably ask.  It is because your soul is just sitting there being eaten away by poison.  So, stop everything, purchase this book, “The 21 Day Consciousness Cleanse” and in 21 days those books will be coming off the shelves…oh, and yes…don’t forget to watch Oprah.

In my younger years, I sucked into all of this.  I bought book after book about all the reasons “why” and how to fix me.  (Note to self, “I still need fixing.”)  I will say that there was one book that did help me with relationships.  I was a co-dependant moronic female and there was a book that pretty much slapped me in the face and told me to stop it.  All the other books were interesting reading and gave me a few tidbits, but they  didn’t solve the  riddle that was my life.  A few years of professional therapy and some time to grow up took care of that .

A New Year’s Resolution for me this year, “Don’t be a sucker”.  Oh look, it’s time to watch Oprah.

Honey, I Used Your Razor to Shave My Gorilla Legs.

I haven’t shaved my legs in over a month. I have gorilla legs. Excuse? Tired, better things to do with my time, I have been wearing pants a lot and I have a horrible rash on my calves that is of unknown origins.
The hair was getting even too much for my devil-may-care attitude. My razor is rusted and there was my hubby’s beautiful, sharp razor staring at me on the bathroom shelf.
I think I may have broken some big unwritten couple rule. Oh well, another unwritten couple rule is that having sex with your partner usually makes them forget the infraction.

New Reality Show with Kate Gosselin and Richard Heene

No not really.  But there you go.  Would that give television producers the ratings they yearn for?  I wonder what we have come to as a society when people have no talent and we make them into a celebrity. 

I am not saying that people don’t have interesting stories. But we all do.  We all have a story to tell.  That doesn’t mean I want you to host a talk show or do some reality show. 

The Heene’s do not even have an interesting story and yet as I see Richard Heene making the interview rounds and know that as soon as he gets out of jail we will see him return and the press will give him his 15 minutes +.  The funny thing is that they will end up doing an interview and then have some segment on people doing anything for celebrity.  You know, if you don’t give them the air time to begin with, then it is not an issue.  I wish that Larry King or these morning talk shows would just say no.

Kate Gosselin had an interesting story and that story has run its course.  She also is a celebrity because she had 8 kids.  I just don’t get it.  I love  America’s Got Talent judge, Piers Morgan’s perspective–if I put her up on that stage she wouldn’t last 5 minutes.  She has nothing to bring to the table and yet she is still around.  He wonders, like I, Why???

Brit Hume’s Advice to Tiger Woods

Admittedly, I caught this one a little late.  I have recently banned myself from watching the Sunday news shows because it makes my blood pressure rise.  Then I discovered this little tid bit and thought, “Really?”  Brit Hume offered up advice to Tiger Woods?  Really??  His advice:  become a Christian and all is forgiven.  REALLY??

Ok, set aside the fact that he is a news man on a news show and should keep such personal beliefs aside.  Where is Walter Cronkite when you need him?

Set aside my complete disdain that people have enough arrogance to think that  you just have to get on your knees and say you are sorry.  Whatever happened to being judged by your deeds.

Then, set aside the fact that it was insulting to billions of people who are not Christian.  Some thing tells me that the 4 billion plus non-Christians believe that there are other ways for Tiger to discover redemption.

And finally lets set aside that Brit Hume obviously knows nothing about Buddhism and has no academic knowledge of what he is talking about.  He was on a news show.

It is simple, Tiger is a hound dog, always sniffing around.  It seems that Tiger does not really adhere to his Buddhist beliefs anyway.  He has seem to have forgotten the Second Noble Truth, “The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging.”  I guess Tiger missed that day.

My advice to Tiger is to take a seat and learn about  one of life’s great noble truths, watching your wife show you the true meaning of redemption, “Cha-Ching!”

Quote of the Day 1/6/2010

“What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good.”–Melvin Udall in “As Good As It Gets”

A Little Ingenuity and a Few Cheez-its

People often ask me how I do it?  How do I get through the day with two boys who have autism? 

Well, besides the periodic dreams of  me and Sir Paul McCartney having an illicit affair and blaring the Violent Femmes as I race down the highway, it is all  about patience.  A LOT of patience AND not sweating the small shit.

The funny thing is that my two boys are much like a lot of siblings.  Big Brother trying to quiet down Little Brother with a hug or grabbing him by the hood of his sweatshirt to provoke him to move faster.  I have the same issues that many parents face…just MAGNIFIED, a bit. 

As we were returning from therapy yesterday, little Jake had reached his limit.  He has a long day of school and therapy that starts at 7:30am and ends at 4pm.  The incident came about with no warning and the question was, “What is a mother to do?”

Mom was attempting to hunt down dinner at the local Taco Bell, while the person in the car ahead was ordering the entire menu and “Ding, Ding, Ding”…the alarm rang and Jake’s time was up.  Mom  made her way past the drive thru lane and headed home, but sadly not quick enough. 

 Then it began.  The younger brother cried and then the older brother cried and when one cries, the other cries and then the other cries more and then the other cries more, and then, well you get the picture.

Mom just looked back at them and laughed as they both stared at each other in tears, covering their ears to block out the sound of the other brother.  (A camera really needs to be installed in this car,lol.).

So, Mom tried calming Big Brother by reciting their mantra, “Breathe Deep and blow out the candles”…wasn’t going to work tonight. 

Then Mom attempted to crank up Van Halen.  Uh, that wasn’t going to do it either. 

Then mom remembered…”I have Cheez-its~”  She first sent the bag to the backseat only to have the cries increase because no one wanted to share, but luckily they have a small car and mom has freakishly long arms (“Left turn Clyde”). 

As Mom searched for the quickest route home, she quickly handed crackers one-at-a-time to each brother then suddenly the cries subsided, children were happy and they arrived home.

See, it is all about patience, not sweating the small shit, oh and we mustn’t forget a mother’s ingenuity and stash of Cheez-its.