Be careful what you wish for....

I thought getting a dog would be a nice way to fill the void since my husband left and give me a reason to come home. It's true that she's fulfilled all those pedestrian concerns. What I was not prepared for was how much she would change my life. I've added more equipment to my home than I did when I had the twins. I now have a gated backyard, barriers on all my doors, a huge cage in my laundry room, and a new sub zero doghouse in the garage. I've also eliminated a garden, (dog kept digging it up), started wearing rubber boots, and am starting to accept that my car has drool on almost every window no matter how many times I clean it. A dog changes your life just as much as when you add a munchkin! A big dog changes your life in a big way. Did I mention she likes to get on the roof? Yes, the roof of my house. I'm thinking I may need to add barbed wire.

3 cats and a blog

I have 3 cats. I have 3 children. My children are as different from each other as are my cats.

I also have an adopted/abducted son. So I need a dog too just to keep the math right. :)

Memorials

I'm sitting on my front porch watching bugs, drinking wine and experiencing the first few moments of being alone after 24.5 years of marriage. This is not entirely true. I'm experiencing the first few moments of being on my own after 24.5 years of marriage. Today is Memorial Day and will forever be a notable day for me. It's a day to remember people i never met that did so much for me and a day to remember a man with whom I have built so much. I will be thankful for what was and build upon it. I am thankful for what I've had, mourn it's demise, and promise myself to move forward.

The bugs are winning. i may have to move inside now.

I'll take that with a sch-mer please.

My NRA blood transfused brother sent me this email:

This should be published nationwide

Great quote. Too bad we don't know who wrote it....

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”

-- Author Unknown

I always find these things interesting to research. A quick search is done by just copying any part of the rant and pasting it into a google search bar. Most times you'll quickly see where the post came from, how it was changed over time to suit the current GOP rant and often how it's original innocent beginnings were twisted. I copied the last line of this one and got thousands of web pages with this exact wording. Most of the hits were just this passage tagged onto some other persons page. This tagging included the NY times! What makes this rant unique is it's purity. It was copied and pasted so many times, that I was on search page 12 before I gave up. The speed with which they can circulate their propaganda is impressive and worthy of applause. They are distribution masters.

One has to wonder if this is done with a purpose? Is the idea gently pushed out into the internet stream and then watched to see if anyone picks up on it? Or is there an organized group that posts these malevolent thoughts everywhere and anywhere they find a spot to post it? Thus explaining the surprising purity of this one. It is human nature to change things to support our arguments and it can be seen in internet posts everywhere. They change with each telling like the old telephone game we played in our youth. You know, the one were you whispered a passage to the person next to you and they whispered it to the next person, and so on until the garbled product finally got back to you. But this passage has not changed, not in 12 search pages of internet sites thus indicating it is being mechanically reproduced. If not by a machine, by humans quickly copy and pasting it to as many sites as they can.

We are all slaves to our computers and anyone who can manipulate the blog process owns us.

But now a few thoughts on the content. Just what does "anonymous" mean by ".....capable of entrusting a man like him..." Do they mean a black man? A tall man? I'd like to think they mean because he smokes because that is probably the only truly nasty thing he does of which we are all aware. What has he done to warrant this kind of a smear campaign? Has he invaded an innocent country? Has he ruined the world economy? has he stopped the distribution of condoms to HIV infected people? There is nothing in this passage that says he has done anything wrong.

It is just Obama's mere existence that is distasteful to the author. No wonder he is anonymous.

Where Ya Been?

I have a wall in my living room that has random items mounted to it from places we have traveled. It's very "eclectic". I'd love to open a pub called "Where Ya Been?" and have customers bring in things from places they've traveled, to share on the wall. Everyone would own a little of the place.

I'd also like to answer the phone and say "Where ya been?" Telemarketers and political activists would be so freaked.

We have had the mildest winter since DH and I moved the family here. No Snow! While the mid atlantic states had blizzards and record snow, we had nothing. Zip. I saw green grass last week. Our winter carnival was heavily attended but the town had to peel snow up from the water treatment plant fields and spread it on the Pinnacle for sledding. Needless to say the snow sculpture contest was a bust.

Things have changed...

We've had over 20 inches at the house since yesterday and we have another 7 to 15 inches due before tomorrow night. It's wicked heavy wet snow too. If it weren't so wet, we would have had a foot more. The roads are really bad. I've never seen them so bad here. It's coming so fast and so wet, even VT plowers can't keep up. The main roads are drivable but the back roads are in tough shape and the power lines and trees are very stressed . I came home from work and found my driveway unplowed. While only 8-10 inches had fallen since I left for work this morning, I couldn't get into the driveway because the street plow had left a 3 foot berm and my Toyota Matrix may have wanted to explosively accelerate over it but I knew it was only asking for trouble. No big deal. I can get my blower and clear a manageable path for the car. I parked the car on the road at the top of my drive and hoofed it over the berm and down the drive for 300 yards to the house. Ok I was in my work clothes and quickly realized how deep the snow was as it packed into my boots. Trudge. Trudge. Trudge. Made it to the house.

I quickly changed into snow clothes and started the snow blower, while considering how much longer the driveway seems in February. It took me about 40 minutes of mostly uphill effort but I cleared the berm away. Panting I said to self; "Yes! I am strong woman but glad this challenge is over". I headed the blower back to the house. While I was heading downhill, the Gad Dern snow plow came and filled my driveway up again! Another 3 feet of snow piled at the top of the drive! I was devastated. It really whipped my butt getting it cleared the first time. (Hence the small victory dance when I finished) I was truly devastated. It was almost a classic moment as I stood there with the snow blower idling, snow swirling around me, dripping sweat and icicles while shaking my head and watching the plow refill the driveway I'd only just cleared. Oh, and it plowed my parked car in too. I think we all know that moment when we just have to suck it up and start over. I faced that moment tonight.

Then my knight in a shining yellow tractor came. My plowman showed up about 5 minutes later. I couldn't have been happier to see a man if he'd been Santa Claus carrying a life sized chocolate rabbit. Effusing apologies, he made fast work of my driveway. I couldn't offer him more. Water? Coffee? Hot Chocolate? No? Are you sure?

Life in a small town.

Adventure Pants

I am preparing for a trip to the UK where my more traveled daughter is attending the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at Pembroke. After reading one of her current blogs on an outing to the Peak Region she recently embarked on and the misfortunes that resulted there in, I decided to re-think my traveling wardrobe. I needed new pants. Something with lots and lots of pockets for water bottles and maps. Perhaps emergency rations would be a good idea. So my DH and I went to Sam's Outdoor Outfitters in search of such amazing pants.

These are my observations on buying pants. No matter how much weight you lose, women will not change pant sizes. However, if you buy men's pants, you'll drop 2 sizes. It's true. Also being a size 10 is a pain in the butt. No matter what style I choose, the 10's were all gone and an 8 is too tight and a twelve is too loose. Why don't they make womens sizes 9 and 11? People may claim that Americans are all overweight and I see quite a bit of evidence to support that but in my experience, there are more sized 10 ladies out there than any other size and they all shop before I do.

So I could not not buy overpriced adventure pants in the ladies section. I mosied over the men's where DH had an armload of goods. Now here's the nice part, men's clothes come in single unit sizes. I tried on the 32's because that's what I usually wear. Oh ho! My diet had kicked in and the 32's were too large. Success! I could go to a 31, but no; also too large. How nice that I had the option to try it on however. In men's clothes, you don't have to jump 2 sizes each increment. I found the most amazing adventure pants in a 30. Loads and loads of oversized pockets and they were cheap! Also, men's pants don't gap in the back, are made better and come in much nicer fabrics!

I am ready for the highlands and whatever Oxychap may throw at me.