Thursday, January 26, 2006

Bridget Strikes Again

My pal, Bridget Jones, has tagged me again. What are friends for, right? Love ya Bridg!


The tagged victim lists 8 different points of their perfect lover/partner, mentioning the sex of said partner.

I thought it would be fun to do 2 of these lists: The first list is from when I was young, single, and stupid. The second list is from my more mature (yeah, right), experienced mind.

MY SINGLE LIST
1) The perfect male for me would have blonde, curly hair, wide shoulders, tight butt, and minimal body hair. He would also be at least 5'8". This is weird as I only seriously dated ONE guy who was taller than I was.

2) Must love children.

3) Must love to read.

4) Must be my best friend. We will spend ALL our spare time together. Ain't love GRAND?!

5) Must love nature, camping and traveling.

6) Must have an adventurous spirit.

7) Must be financially stable. Oh boy, was this one a wrong number! When I met L he owned a guitar, clothing, and 500 books. He also owed $10,000 in back child support.

8) Must get along with my friends. I changed my mind about this one after one of my best friends tried to steal 3 of my boyfriends.

MY 2006 LIST

1) I LOVE my 5'4" man with the wide shoulders, tight ass, minimal body hair, and graying brown hair!!

2) Must love children AND pets.

3) Must love to read. This is the first thing that attracted me to L.

4) Must be my best friend, yet be different enough to make life interesting. We must trust each other enough to give our mate breathing space. Must be willing to grow old and boring with me.

5) Must love nature and camping and not be a sports freak.

6) Must be my equal partner; sharing responsibilities, chores, and child-rearing. After almost 29 years, we're still working on the division of responsibilities and chores. It tends to get one-sided at times. We're always a work in progress.

7) Must be able to put up with ME! This is no small accomplishment. He MUST be smarter than I am to stay ahead of my strong-willed nature. He must be willing to talk with me on an intellectual, spiritual, or emotional level. He must be able to work with me on home projects without getting overly discouraged or pissed off. Ideally we should both be alive(and speaking to each other) at the end of the project.

8) Must be a spiritual lover. A man who can make love to my mind, as well as my body.


At this point I'm supposed to tag 8 more people. I've noticed this on a lot of blogs and can't remember who has already done it. Sooo I'm only going to tag my lover, Scrunch. He's relatively new to blogging and hasn't been tagged yet.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Hilarious Hairry

I've been around dogs all my life. I firmly believe that pets have a therapeutic effect on our lives. I often dried my tears on my beagle's ears when I was a child. When we're feeling down, dogs tend to sidle up to us, put their head in our lap, and give us that soulful look that says: "I'm here for you".

Hairry has an entirely different approach.
Z has been extremely frustrated with himself and his disabilities lately. As soon as Z shows signs of losing it, Hairry comes running. Hairry usually brings one of his toys and proceeds to do something totally goofy with it. He keeps this up until Z starts laughing at him, then he nuzzles Z and gives him the "I'm here for you" look.

Somehow, Hairry knows that laughter is important to Z. Sympathy alone, doesn't work with Z. Hairry has the knack for defusing the situation. When I'm down, Hairry has a totally different approach. He'll crawl up on my lap, snuffle my face, and lay his head on my shoulder.

Hairry is also a practical joker.
When we play ball in the house with Hairry, he knows that he must leave the ball at our feet and wait for us to throw it, in the living room. Sometimes we don't notice that Hairry is waiting for us to throw the ball, and he'll start moaning, while sitting patiently in the living room. L and I will start looking for the ball under the kitchen table and chairs. Every once in a while, the ball isn't there. We tell Hairry: "I don't have it", and he gleefully runs to the side of the couch, where he has hidden the ball.

All dogs will do silly things that make us laugh. I've even had dogs that are embarrassed or ticked off when you laugh at them. But I've NEVER seen a dog that deliberately tries to make us laugh.

When Hairry was a puppy, he loved to lay under the dishwasher door while we were unloading it. He has since outgrown this habit.

Friday, January 20, 2006

WHAT Proofreader?


This is an actual headline from our local newspaper.
There are at least 3 headline errors in every edition of the paper. We've stopped counting the errors in the body of the articles. They insist that they employ a proofreader. What do you think?

Sunday, January 15, 2006

This and That

We've been without a computer for a couple of days. L managed to pick up a nasty Trojan via spyware from one of several sites he visited Thursday morning. Z was ecstatic that Dad did it this time. Z usually contracts these when he visits freeware sites that his Dad has told him NOT to visit.

The weather here is depressing. We've had 15 minutes of sunshine in the last 3 weeks. The forecast is the same, day after day after day..... lows in the 20s, highs in the 30s, 30% chance of light snow or freezing rain. We've had 1 below zero night, all winter. We haven't even had to plug our vehicles in yet. This is NOT winter in northern MN!!

35% of MN loggers have given up logging this winter. The ground hasn't frozen enough to prevent rut damage. The other 65% are harvesting in dry land areas, which they normally save for summer harvest. This means that the rest of the loggers will be unemployed this summer. This is a HEAVY blow to the MN economy!

Does anybody else have a problem with a group of American evangelists creating a 25 acre "Christian tourist center" in Israel? The plans for this park also include a theme park. WTF?! I don't want to think about the possible names for the rides in this theme park!! Israel has kicked Pat Robertson out of this venture. Hopefully they'll shitcan the WHOLE IDEA!

Z had a major meltdown Monday night. He gets so frustrated with his disabilities. Fortunately, we had an appointment with his psychologist on Tuesday. She feels that anti-anxiety meds may be in order. The only psychiatrist in town is booked solid for the next 5 months, so she suggested that we see our family doctor. Z is totally against ANY meds. I guess the next step is to have Z research the various anti-anxiety meds and their effectiveness and side effects. MAYBE this will convince him to give it a try.

I'm EXHAUSTED! I've had to work 18 of the last 21 days. I'm so looking forward to having next weekend off! In addition, our morning dishwasher didn't show up Monday-Thursday last week, so I had to wash dishes in addition to waittressing. I KNEW that a week with Friday the 13th AND a full moon wouldn't be a good one.

We are now working at getting more structure in our cluttered lives. Structure is a very important ingredient to Z's learning environment. The Holiday Season took it's toll on what little structure we had in place. A new year is the perfect time to re-structure ourselves and HOPEFULLY move forward.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

SME's Friends

A recent post by my friend Sadie at www.sadielouwho.blogspot.com, got me thinking of our daughter's childhood friends. Sadie's post was about a couple that left their two small children home ALONE, while they went to Vegas! This expanded into a discussion on child neglect. I don't know the statistics, but I'm positive that more children die and are injured from neglect, than from outright physical abuse.

SME had many different friends while growing up. As with all of us, many of them drifted away when they reached high school age. SME was very fortunate to have 4 steadfast friends through these difficult years. AG, AC, R, T and SME kept each other sane during the turbulent years of elementary and middle school. AC, R, and SME all came from traditional families who stayed married, worked hard, protected their children, and LOVED them like crazy. AG and T had tragically different childhoods.

AG's mother grew up in a tiny rental house, across the alley from my childhood home. Her parents were alcoholics and would leave her home alone from the age of 6, to go bar-hopping. AG's mom was 16 when she had her. By the time she was 20, she had 3 small children. AG's father came from a shiftless family and made most of his money dealing drugs. AG's parents divorced when she was 6. Mom and the 3 kids moved in with her parents. AG quickly became the parent in this household.

AG often missed school to care for her siblings while her grandparents were at work and her mother was out partying or sleeping off the effects. Her mother managed to convince the school that her absences were due to respiratory problems.

AG is exceptionally bright and managed to keep up with her schoolwork through elementary and middle school. During high school, her mom decided to marry an older man who didn't want kids around; so she abandoned her kids with her parents. AG's little sister got pregnant at 13. Her little brother turned to drugs. AG dropped out of high school and moved in with a relative in Nebraska. She is now married, with a home of her own and 2 beautiful little girls. She and SME have renewed their friendship through IM and email.

T moved here when she was in 3rd grade. Her parents had recently divorced and she and her mother moved here to live with an aunt. T's mom feels incomplete without a man, so she married the first drunk that would have her. This man made my skin crawl every time I saw him with T. My gut instinct tells me, L, SME, AND her other friends that T was being sexually molested. Unfortunately, we could never prove this. On 2 separate occassions, he pulled a gun on T's minister AND the youth group leader from her church, when they came to pick T up for church activities. One night T called SME in a panic when her stepdad was outside the house, threatening to burn it down with T and her mother inside.

T's mother IS Mommie Dearest! T was a virtual prisoner in her home. I had to negotiate with her twisted mother for weeks to get her to let T spend the night at our house. Several times SME and her other friends went to school authorities to get help for T. NOTHING ever came of this, as T would deny everything when questioned. After T turned 18, we and a family from T's church, moved her out of her home twice. The other family took her into their home for T's senior year. We took her in for the summer, while she was in college, to get her on her feet. At the time, she was suffering from bulemia. AC shared an apartment with T for as long as she could handle it. T is NOT an easy person to live with. The quirks she acquired from her mother drive everyone over the edge. All 3 times T returned to her abusive mother. She has since cut all ties with her 4 best friends. T graduated from college with a degree in psychology, but she has no clue how to apply this knowledge to her own life.

The statistics in SME's close circle of friends appalls me! 50% of her closest friends suffered from tragic abuse and/or neglect! In addition to this, are the stories of 2 of her elementary school friends.

K was part of all of SME's grade school slumber parties. She LOVED to sit and talk with L and I. She frequently commented about how cool it was that L wasn't drunk. Comments like: "Gee, my Dad would be drunk by now." and "Dad makes us bring him beers, and he always has a BIG pile of bottle tops next to his chair." disconcerted us. K gradually drifted away from the group. We later discovered that her father had been sexually molesting both her and her older sister. She is now divorced and lost custody of her 3 children due to her abuse of them.

N is our shining success story. N's mother and stepdad are totally shiftless! Her mom has NEVER worked and her stepdad only works when he's forced to. They are both brilliant at "playing the system"! N's mom is a dog lover and has always had at least 4 dogs sharing whatever hovel they're living in. These dogs are NEVER housebroken or trained in ANY way. Mom doesn't want to abuse the dogs by properly training them. Unfortunately her softheartedness never extended to her only child. She thought nothing of frequently slapping N around. N was an outcast in school. Her only clothing was hand-me-downs from sympathetic friends and relatives. N was a tall gawky child, so her clothing rarely fit properly. She also reeked of dog urine. N also came to all of SME's slumber parties. Birthday slumber parties were heartbreaking. N would wrap up one of her few possessions to give to SME. SME and her friends always felt bad about this practice. N started working to support herself in high school. She no longer had the time to devote to her friends.

N is now happily married and the mother of 2 beautiful and well-adjusted little girls. She stops in to visit with us every time they are in town, and frequently emails us pictures and stories about her girls. She credits us and another family with showing her how "real" families function. Her fondest childhood memories are of the times she spent in our home. N makes our failures a lot easier to bear!

The moral of this post is simple....
BE THERE for the children in your lives. You never know what a difference you have made until years later. Sometimes you'll never know. Despite the heartaches, it's ALWAYS worth trying to make a difference.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SME!


New Year's Baby 1978 & Her Daddy

28 years ago, you made us a real family. 14 years later we thought your brother completed our family. Little did we know how much MORE love you would bring to us with Doug and the kids!

Dad and I will always remember how much fun we had the night you were born. BTW, 28 years ago it was -43F. Tonight it is +33F.

You have always been our gentle soul. You taught us all so much about love!
We're so proud of the beautiful woman you have become, gray hair and all!
WE LOVE YOU SWEETIE!!
Mom, Dad, Z-kid, & Hairry

Sunday, January 01, 2006

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Sorry folks, no wild, party animal news here. Once again the new year arrived without my conscious consent.

I worked yesterday morning, as I will for the next two Saturdays. Yesterday afternoon we went to a friend's home for homemade hot buttered rum. DELICIOUS! Z was coming down with a cold, so he stayed home to watch more of the DVD his sister gave him for Christmas: Puppets That Kill. He LOVES it SME, and is so proud of his sister's twisted sense of humor!

We returned home by 4:30, and began laying out our dinner of munchies: meats and cheeses, crackers, cocktail shrimp, smoked oysters, chips and dip, and cocktail smokies. I forgot pickled herring too, SME :(

During our feast we started watching the Monty Python Marathon on BBCAmerica. What a RIOT! Z has seen most of their movies, but has seen very little of the Flying Circus. After dinner, I got cozy in my recliner with my faithful fuzzy blanket. I was out cold by 8:30! I awoke at 10:30 and toddled off to bed.

The heartening news for 2006 is that our state legislature is making a TOP PRIORITY of handling the new Eminent Domain problem. Maybe this will keep them too busy to try to cram state-funded sports arenas down our throats!