Of fire trucks and dreams

Clone needed black pants for her band concert this week. She hit a growth spurt RIGHT after we got her a pair for the December concert. Such is our luck, right? So, off to a second-hand store that sells kids' clothes. The store has this giant toy firetruck near the registers, with a sign on it that it's not for sale, just for fun.

Clone was in the dressing room, repeating every try-on session I've ever had. We've got ample bootie, and it poses challenges with proper fit, and my need to veto a lot of what she has tried on for putting too much cash and prize on display. She's got a long femur too, so it's a trifecta making virtually every skirt or pair of shorts too far north on her legs. I was poking around looking for cute onesies for chunk boy's summer wardrobe. He is his daddy's clone - long torso, short legs, not skinny. The kid's elbows have dimples.

Meanwhile, this little girl who may have been around age 3 or 4, was there with her mother. The little girl pointed out the fire truck to her mom, and mom promptly said "That's for boys." That little girl shrank. Not only did her mother shut her down, but then she squashed her daughter's interest in dreaming. I said something about knowing some women who are first responders that would disagree. Mama didn't seem interested in, or pleased with, what I said. Honestly, I did not care. Lord, please let this child go on a school field trip to a fire house and find at least one or more women in the line of duty. My heart breaks for that family, broken down before dreams even begin to take shape.

I heard "you can't" as a child. My mother heard it in her childhood. Some of the problem was that my parents didn't have the extra money for things. But pride got in the way. "Can't" should have been followed by "afford". The word "can't" in my childhood was translated to ability, not finances. It prompted me to be honest with my kids when things were unaffordable. "It's not in the budget" or "we don't have the extra money" is honest, and pride-piercing. But it's not dream crushing.

My dad let me tinker with his tools when I was a kid. I entered adulthood with small skills that paid dividends. I could make small repairs and saved money on replacing items or hiring someone to fix stuff. We lived in base housing when tropical storms blew through Camp Lejeune. Base housing has a list of self help items they can give residents to do things like change air filters, replace the hook and eye latches on screen doors, replace broken porch light globes etc. My screen door was ripped, and I couldn't open the door for fresh air without bugs moving in with us. I went to the self help shop at the housing office to ask for screen material. The guys looked at me like I was nuts, and said "it's not on the list of stuff we can give you."  He may have said something about my husband, but it's been so long, I forget.
I looked at him and said "Well, I have tools and a staple gun, and I can fix a screen door. Or, I can add one more piddly ticket to your list of work orders, and it'll be months before I get a screen door fixed because other people have trees in their houses." He paused a minute, sighed, and gave me enough screen for my door. I was an antithesis of the typical Marine wife, and I don't know that he'd ever experienced anyone like me before. The guys in the maintenance department appreciated that when I called for repairs, it was really worth their time, and not BS calls like someone's closet doors being off track and they didn't know how to get them back on there.

I realize it's an anomaly to see non-traditional roles in play. My sons can cook and clean, and my daughters love motorcycles. They've all played with kitchens, cars, dolls, and tool sets. Clone will say she'd rather hang with the boys because they have something interesting to say, versus girl gossip. Blur was at a party recently. There was a bounce house and the boys were being brutes. The other girls ran away, but my feisty redheaded little girl stayed put, refusing to cave to the boys' attempts to get the bounce house girl-free. A time or two, she may have done that running back block.

I want my kids to accept dreaming as a possibility. I want them to take leaps of faith and do things that interest them. I want them to not have to battle the inner bully of self-sabotage and self-defeat that I have. Logically, I know I can do things. Internally, I constantly nudge that timid child out of the corner, making her try new things, and do things she resists. It started with getting my motorcycle endorsement two years ago. It's incredibly empowering to learn to ride. It's incredibly soul-strengthening to get in the saddle over and over and build the skill and confidence to venture among the "cagers". I got sidelined a bit, but I will be getting back in the saddle in a couple years. My body still needs to rebuild, I have a new baby, and I'll need to take the endorsement course again because I have already forgotten a lot of it. In the meantime, I've found myself surrounded by a lot of awesome cheerleaders who help me stifle the inner bully, and spurn the timid child forward. I want my kids to see me go after goals, achieve things, and not defer dreams. I want them to strike out in search of their own dreams, and the best way to do that is by example.

Normally I try to avoid the news because it raises my blood pressure, and demonstrates the moral lows of society. But this is abhorrently low. I don't care what your position on the pro-life/pro-choice conversation is, because the root of this story isn't based in that debate. I have seen this all over the web because none of the mainstream outlets are talking about it (but they'll talk ad nauseum about Vick's antics). They'd rather rail on a dog cruelty case till people get tired of hearing it and stop giving a crap about it, but we won't hear about this human-against-human cruelty at all. But this story of greed, indignity, predatory behavior, municipal failures, and murder deserves more attention than a football player who shot his own foot, or the one who committed his own egregious harm to animals. This case deserves the same kind of outrage that stemmed from the death of Treyvon Martin, minus the division of the populace. Where is Corrine Brown's wig-wearing,, horrible grammar self, lambasting the officials in Pennsylvania for not doing anything to stop this death mill? Where is Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Gloria Allred, Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin, or any freaking body else who claims to be a proponent of equality, fairness, and what's morally appropriate? They're all afraid to go near this story, because it's so horrific and inhumane, they're ashamed to admit nothing was done about it sooner.

I see jerks making judgmental comments about the women that went to this medically trained individual (he's not a doctor or a man - those 2 types will generally be of help and care). Instead of judging women for making the choices they do, start training your sons and daughters to choose mates and partners wisely, and to treat each other with respect, so they don't find themselves feeling so desperate that they have no other option but the path to this guy's office. Because there's always going to be vultures circling the vicinity of anything smelling desperate. And instead of looking down on women who land in tricky situations, reach out to them with compassion and kindness. You don't have to buy them a car, stroller, or diapers, but just give them the emotional support to get through the challenges, and stop kicking people when they're already down as it is.

I was there myself 20 years ago - feeling sticky and trapped and lost. However, I was incredibly lucky. Oh my God, how incredibly lucky I was. I'd had sex with a guy who was raised with morals, and who was not going to leave me stranded. And we got pregnant. SO many people pair up with someone who doesn't hold the same sense of obligation, and they get into trouble for the decision. Emotional, physical, and financial abuse is a small part of it. But the children suffer for it every time.

Thankfully - oh so incredibly thankfully, I did not suffer the same fate my counterparts did. I was not abandoned. I was not left to fend for myself. I was not overtly harmed. I did lose friends. I did miss out on fun. I was looked down upon by many - and yes, I could see it, hear it, feel it. All they saw was someone who looked 12 (I was 17) with a bulging middle, and they never stopped to ask me my story, or offer encouragement. They could only bother to assume unkind things about me, about my parents, about my situation. They contributed to kicking me, and breaking me down - even if only in their minds.

Why are we doing that to each other?

I had a friend whose boyfriend was pushing hard for her to have another abortion after falling pregnant when birth control failed again. I tried to convince her to keep her baby, and promised that I completely understood and grasped her fears, as I'd lived them. I volunteered to help her any way I could so that she could avoid the path she was walking toward. I didn't share with my husband that she didn't want the abortion but she felt like she had no option. He and I both wish I'd told him. He would have intervened with certainty. Later that fateful day, this girl was mourning the loss, and inconsolable. I still feel guilty that I didn't do more.

Had she been given more encouragement, instead of being berated and told she wouldn't make it, I'm certain that she would have done well despite the challenges. I knew she had it in her to get there. A few years later, she reached out to me via IM, thanking me for mentoring her and encouraging her. She finally got away from that particular guy and was living elsewhere and doing well. I do not know what ever happened to her after that, but I think of her often. I know she still carries the burdens of the choices made in her earlier days, and it will forever haunt her.

Instead of casting knowing and judgemental glares at young women who become mothers sooner than they should, smile at them. Stop and say "You look young, and you probably feel daunted and overwhelmed, but just know you're doing the right things to raise your child. I admire you for what you're doing." If you're in a position to do something tangible, ask if they need diapers, bus fare, pants for the child, shoes for herself, a text book for college classes, a car seat that is appropriate for her child's age/stage, lunch money, or even a freaking nap and you'll watch the little for her.

Get back to being a neighbor in the old-fashioned sense of the word, and stop being the person that just lives in the same neighborhood. Be a neighbor and friend, and evil will have less chance to reach the pervasive levels that this individual reached, because people won't feel so freaking hopeless and desperate. Stop giving such a damn about what's in it for yourself, and start just being interested in what's the right thing to do for someone ELSE, without reparation to your own self.

Unspeakable Acts

Yesterday, 2 people in 2 different countries killed large groups of children.

Of course, amid speculation about the perpetrators of these evil acts, there's a bunch of screaming for gun control, better access to mental health care, you name it. People are yelling for it.

Here's a nugget for you folks out there who think there should be more or less of anything.

JUST FREAKING BE POLITE TO PEOPLE!! Stop being jerks. You being an asswipe to someone that afternoon could potentially be the last straw in their crappy day and you send them over the edge. Remember me talking about my husband's friend that killed himself? THAT is an example. If one person had chosen their words more cautiously, that sailor might not be dead, and friends mourning that horrific loss.

Let me demonstrate the opposite. I half-jokingly say all the time that I mistreat all the kids that come to my house just the same. If you're here when we're cleaning, working, doing yardwork, whatever - we are going to put you to work with us. I treat the kids' friends like I treat my own kids. Borrowed Billy practically lives here more time than at his own house. He loves being here, because he learns something new every day in our house. I never thought twice about sharing knowledge with my kids because that's what my dad always did with his 6 kids. It never occurred to me to not do that. How are they supposed to learn how to function in the world if we don't do that? Not sharing your knowledge with your kids leads to them being financially taken advantage of because they don't know something like how to tell if you need new tires, or your oil is too low, or your water heater only needs a new heating element or sacrificial annode rod versus full replacement. It leads to kids getting credit cards as soon as they turn 18 and student loans when they head off to college, then suffering the burden of being saddled with debt for the entirety of their adult lives. They get to retire into poverty because they couldn't save any cash for their old age. Borrowed Billy is an example of what happens when you're not an asswipe to someone. He's going to head into adulthood with knowledge he wouldn't have gotten at home, and be able to live his life differently than he would have if he hadn't taken up residence on my futon.

A few years ago a friend asked if his girlfriend could stay with us. She lived in what he described as a total trash-life situation. I told him I had to meet her first. If I'd had any hinky feelings, she wouldn't have lived with us. I saw a girl who felt lost and like she was always doomed to living like her family did. I didn't even know she was still 17, and legally her mother could have caused us all kinds of trouble. Thankfully she did not. Like with Borrowed Billy, I treated her pretty much the same way I treated my own. We held her to a standard appropriate for her age, and she did fabulously living with us. It was my husband's friend that mucked up things, but that's water under the bridge. Ours was the first example of a normal relationship she'd ever seen. She had always seen various abuses around her, and that's all she knew. She had new hope that she didn't have to be destined to live like the others in her family tree. We eventually parted ways, but a few years later she popped up in an IM to say hi. She thanked me for letting her live with us, and showing her that she could have a better life. She said that we gave her love and care and that nobody ever did that before. She made me cry. All I did was just help her meet her basic needs, and give her a hand when she was stuck. It as all I knew how to do, because that's how I was taught to treat people.

Common sense and human decency are two lost arts, to the point that they are now superpowers because so few people have and use those tools in their interactions. So when people are acting out evil atrocities such as happened in 2 places yesterday, everyone gets mad and starts muppet-flailing about how things need to change and rules need to be more stringent. How about holding your kids accountable for their actions from a young age instead of telling the teacher "not my child", or "My baby wouldn't do that!" or "why didn't you give my child a passing grade?". What you should have said was "I'm sorry my child did that, and I will discipline him/her at home" (and then DO IT, holding yourself to the discipline too), or asking "what was my child doing, who else was my child with, what else were the other kids doing, and who was supervising them?" and sort out the facts of the situation before calling "not it". It just might have been your kid doing the misdeeds after all. And your child didn't get a passing grade because your child didn't study for that test or do that project themselves. Teachers are NOT stupid. They know when you do the project for your child. If I were a teacher and got the idea a parent did the work, I'd be inclined to giving a failing grade, just because it's not the STUDENT'S OWN WORK. Aren't you lucky I'm not your child's teacher. Only once in Evil Genius' entire school career, did I side with him. ONCE. He knew I was going to side with the teacher because I was always teaching him that the teacher gets my vote initially. I met with her and gave her the benefit of the doubt, till I learned that she ascribes to the teaching method of "no straggler left behind", disallowing the accelerated students in aiding the stragglers to catch up with the other end of the spectrum. She did the entire class a major disservice. It was in the middle of that conference my vote moved and I sided with my son, because that teacher really didn't deserve my support after that.

And then I'm seeing in my crackbook feed the things like "why would someone have three guns in their house if they knew their adult son was mentally ill?"

To that, I say this:
The second amendment does not, and should not, specify that you have to be deemed mentally fit to safely own and operate a weapon. Nor should it stipulate restrictions if you have any form of disability or mental health challenges in anyone in your household. Just because you have a family member that has any of that, it does not mean that they are unable to grasp the gravity of handling a weapon, or the consequences of its use. Mentally and emotionally handicapped people CAN LEARN. When people stop making asinine generalizations and having overreaching kneejerk reactions, and wait a minute till we get all the facts in situations like this, then and only then can appropriate steps be taken to mitigate the atrocities.
I suppose if we use all that same line of logic, then knives sharper than a rounded butter knife should be made illegal too since the loon in another country stabbed a bunch of kids too.

Stop being a ninny and hold yourself, your friends, your children, your coworkers and your leaders accountable for their poor choices. The government can't babysit everybody, nor have they demonstrated that they can successfully handle what they already have. Why the hell would we want them nosing into how many boogers are in your collective noses?

Just be civil to each other, help without expecting anything in return, hold yourself and your kids accountable for actions and choices, and share your knowledge without fear of other people knowing what's in your head. You can't change the collective world till you change your own self, and inspire others to change their own selves. When you have enough people that do things differently on their own, you will start seeing a shift in how society behaves in general.

Can I borrow your fork?

Because really, somebody stick a fork in me. I'm done. I did not wake up this morning with the goal of being a stark raving lunatic yitch. By 6 PM, I'd worked a few hours of the phone job, been tortured by the 15 year old asking to use the computer (nevermind that he went well over his allotted time last night), annoyed by the 14 year old talking in such a way that was only grating my nerves because his brother strummed the last patient chord I had, and heard "Mommy" from my 6 year old so many times I asked if she realized Daddy was even home, awake and could be found to lend assistance too. While there are glaring exceptions to my next statement.... a penis does not always mean total incompetence. Really, he helped spawn the spawn, and he's capable of being a parent-type, even if he's grumpy. Poor man, he stayed out of my way, but failed to inform the kids. He said it took him 16 years to learn this, and the kids would have to learn the hard way like he did. I had my fill of annoyances by 5:30 when I went outside to seek quiet and discovered half my trash was still sitting BESIDE my trash can, yet the collection trucks had come and gone already. Oh and lovely holiday week that it is, the city one-call line is closed. I just want Waste Management (with their green trucks and 'nifty' WM logo to come back and pick up the trash they seemingly left on purpose. They're not city employees, they're contracted company employees. And one more whiny request begging to use the computer and a "mommy" from the clone for good measure, I grabbed my keys and left with the clone to get away from the chaos. Except, I was JUST as annoyed by the crazy people on the road with their freaking out "omigod-it's-almost-Christmas-Eve-and-I-HAVE-to-go-shopping-NOW-on-my-way-home-from-work" mentality. Road rage plus teen torment equals really mean me.
I forgot to mention Devildog is coming down with the same stuff again that he had at Thanksgiving and didn't want to do anything at all today on his day off, which is part of why he's grouchy. He said we could decorate the tree when he's at work tomorrow. The boys brought the tree out of the attic, so at least it's available now. But seriously, the man fails to realize that if he'd given the kids permission to set up the tree (Charlie Brown model that it is), that they would have been entertained for a while and wouldn't have been strumming those chords with me. I MAY have been less irritated in general and wouldn't feel like a Christmas grinch right now. I still have a tension headache, and the oldest tension-causer is STILL awake and occasionally trying to join the cranky adults to seek entertainment.
Of course, some of the headache is from my eyeglasses breaking last month and the optical place giving me a run-around. So, me being me, I emailed the vendor for clarification because I absolutely KNOW that in March when I ordered them, the guy at the optical place told me they had a one year warranty. When I remove the glasses from my face and the nosepad stays on my nose...seems a little warranty related to me. So I've been a month without full use of my glasses and I miss them terribly. I haven't had time coincide with location so I can go seek a replacement frame for my glasses. We get new insurance at the first of the year. I may be able to get a new pair then, and if so, I'll make sure I find a frame that has a different style nose pad that can be replaced with replacement parts.
I'm just a barrel of monkeys when I'm this kind of compounded cranky huh?

Gravity returns and I have fodder

I have been busy, and distracted with other things. I'm also making feeble attempts at productivity and cleaning something daily in my house. It's a failure at worst, progress at best.
I've stopped for the night basically and was gabbing with my gang in the chat room where I frequent. Someone mentioned another stimulus package in the works up in DC. I wouldn't know, since I do not watch the news that is full of doom, depressing information, and sadness. I can talk to a human being and get that kind of stuff, I don't need it fed to me. Plus with the lovely world of internet I can find it, or have it sent to me directly to read at my leisure when there aren't forty other things needing my attention at that VERY moment the news airs. Since there are forty things needing my attention 24/7, and there is news running on some channel 24/7...the attempt at forty other things wins. I didn't even know there were TWO tropical storms brewing out in the ocean. I'm kind of living at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy at the moment and governmental crap isnt 100% top priority for me right this very second. In any case, I commented that any SAHM can balance a budget since it has to be done all the time on a small scale. It doesn't take a degree from an "Ivy League" university to run stuff effectively. Dave Thomas dropped out of high school, and there are plenty of Wendy's restaurants slinging food out windows daily. Apparently all those big schools of snobbery just teach their students how to make stuff all FUBAR.
Which if you really want it FUBAR, call the ordinance guys in the Marine Corps. They can FUBAR for ya.

My head hurts

and it's from all the politicality. I want to run from the scene screaming "STFU!!!!!!!" to everyone. Local elections teeming with BS, underhanded comments, backbiting. Just quit already. Tell me what you're going to work on in office and I'll tell you to do the job or go away. And I cringe at our presidental offerings. I'd rather eat something my 6 year old concocts.

What we really need is a stay at home mother with enterprising ideas to run for president (or any other office for that matter). Because, Lord knows if anyone can balance a craptastical budget, referee fights and get resourceful, it's a MOTHER.

Perfect site for nuclear testing, I tell ya...

I was trawling around blog-land and found this one
http://mostcertainlynot.typepad.com/most_certainly_not/2008/02/is-it-a-full-mo.html
I personally am offended by the story because my husband was in the Marine Corps and I'm very glad I do not live in Berkley California. In my opinion, the citizens and officials of that city are just a bunch of wackos. I am not even going to launch into a long post about my two pennies on this. I live in a city chock full of military presence and come from a family of military affiliations, then married into a family with military affiliations. This ordinance wouldn't happen where I live, mostly because it's a rather backwoods city, but still...it wouldn't happen here.