Distracted much?

I was so excited last night to catch up with one of my dearest, best friends in the world, who was coming to my house for dinner.  I was in such a good mood that I agreed to let the Grand Finale have 3 of their friends spend the night.  They promised to be quiet and good, and they were as good as their word.

So this morning I got up, fried a dozen eggs, made a load of toast, and told the boys to get around because I had to go grocery shopping.  Running around the house getting my list made, throwing in laundry, doing dishes, etc., etc.

I get to Wal Mart and forgot my list, which I have learned doesn't really matter anymore.  For some reason if I wrote it down and forgot the list I can still remember what was on it.  I have checked myself many times and found that I have about a 98% chance of getting everything even without the list in my hands at the time.

It worked this time to. 

VICTORY!

 Except that after I got home and the boys all helped unload the groceries I happened to catch sight of myself in the mirror as I put up the toilet paper, and realized that I had just spent at least an hour wandering around Wal Mart, talking to people the whole time, with only one hoop earring in.  I remember putting one in and not being able to find the other one, then grabbing more dirty clothes to put in the laundry and making a note to myself to find the other one where I seemed to remember laying it down.  It is important to note that I did not write that down, just thought I would remember.  This has made me laugh several times already.  If you can't laugh at yourself, your life is going to seem endless and much too long.  Whether anyone noticed or not remains a mystery, but if you hear that I'm wandering around looking like a hot mess, rest assured that it is both true and not anything serious to worry about. :)

The moral of the story is to write stuff down.  Also it is always a good idea to look at yourself in the mirror before you leave the house.  As you get older, or maybe it's only if you have kids, you quit looking at yourself in the mirror much.  Whether this is due to the fact that you just don't care anymore or it never mattered in the first place, I will let you decide, dear reader. 

Write things down, double check, and don't feel like the Lone Ranger if it happens to you, folks.  There really is nothing new under the sun.

Have a good weekend!  I'll be looking for 1 hoop earring, no telling when it will turn up, or where.

Gang rape happens, even if not reported

I hate to bring everybody down today, but as you know, I can never keep my mouth shut.

The following link is a story that has not seen much coverage.  It is a difficult topic.  But I'll be damned if I'm going to keep quiet about it.  It is graphic and true.  If you have a daughter, or are a daughter, read it.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/02/lara-logans-vicious-violent-gang-rape-medias-silencesanction.html

Still here?  How are you feeling now?  Did you know this?  Hadn't heard? 

This woman, an American citizen and reporter for CBS, was raped, by between 6 and 50 men, for up to 3 hours (reports vary) in a mob while they screamed JEW.  Oh, and a lot of it was recorded. On camera phones.  Hard as it is to believe, they simultaneously have camera phones and lack any aspect of simple human decency.

First of all, the last thing I would ever want to do is bring more pain to this woman, or any woman who has gone through this.  I cannot imagine surviving this or even trying to recover from it.  I certainly cannot imagine trying to survive it or recover from it with the whole world watching.  I don't know if we will ever hear from Ms. Logan again.  I would certainly understand if we did not.  I do not want to draw unwanted attention to her, but this needs to be addressed.

Second of all, I know she has been a reporter for years and used to work for CNN.   I remember her reporting from the Iraq war.  I assume she is very familiar with the Middle East, which is why I cannot for the life of me imagine why she would have gone out to report (about the democracy loving protester's, if CBS and other MSM are to be believed) without covering her head with at least a scarf.  But she did.  I do not think a woman "should" have to cover her head with a scarf, no American does as far as I know.  However, in Muslim countries men have the right to beat you and even kill you for this offence.  This is their law. Be prepared before you go to obey their laws, as we SHOULD be able to expect them to obey ours in America.  

When in Rome..... So there is that.  I do not know if the powers that be told her she was exempt from this, or that they could protect her, or what.  We may never know, but I certainly hope we find out.  Suffice it to say I think it was a very bad decision on her part, and I do not believe for an instant that she did not know better.  I also find it hard to believe she would have risked this because she has never seemed unintelligent to me.  So there is more to this story I think.

Third of all, if you know a young woman (or are a young woman) who thinks it is her "right" to dress any way you want to, this might serve as a cautionary tale for you.  I am not saying you do not have the right to dress any way you want.  I am saying that you need to be careful of the image you project and the company you keep, because things can get way out of hand really quick and there may not be anybody there who can, or will, help you.  In fact, there may be lots of guys standing around recording whatever happens with camera phones.  Count on it.  Ms. Logan was not dressed provocatively in any way, shape or form to an Americans eye.  I do not mean to suggest that she was.  I mean to suggest that to those men, because she was a woman, felt they had the right to treat her any way they saw fit.  Their mother's must be SO proud.

Scary stuff.

Fourth, this would be a good time to say a little prayer for Ms. Logan, and while you are at it, thank God that you live in a country where  people have rights, whether they are man, woman or child.  Hell, in America even fish, birds and trees have rights protected by lawyers (activists) paid for by the taxpayers.  Better to be safe than sorry.

The fact that this has not been reported on bothers me most of all.  I do not want to bring more attention to her now, in her condition.  In fact, if I was guarding her door, I would make everyone go away and probably shoot all the  men just for good measure.  It seems to me that this story didn't "fit in" with the crap they are trying to make us believe. So they didn't say anything, not to protect her privacy, but to protect their storyline and their asses while they are at it.  Their mother's must be SO proud.

Frankly, people, we are not that stupid.  It scares me for our young people to go around believing what they see on TV.  They might believe that you can go around the world and not have to worry because you are an American.  They might not have noticed that we are combating Anti-American hate from more and more directions all the time, some of them WITHIN OUR OWN COUNTRY.  We have a pretty good life here.  It's not perfect and never will be.  We have our problems, but we can work them out if we are all on the same side.  I want to believe we are all on the same side, but it gets harder every day.

Someone started a facebook page entitled "We raped Lara Logan and enjoyed".  This hit me like a train.  I reported it and asked everyone I knew to report it also.  I suppose it was a "right" to start a page like that in America.  It's our right to report it also.  I'll be interested to see how long it stays up.  But I was so sad thinking that anyone would do that at all.  It is beyond cruel, beyond tasteless, and beyond reason to me.  If they did it just to upset people it is the most pathetic thing I've ever imagined.

Like the college students who boo'd the vet at Columbia college, it sickened me and I wondered what this world was coming to.  Is it some kind of joke to them?  What is this attitude????  Who is encouraging our young people to think, let alone act, this way?  What kind of environment nurtures this kind of behavior?
I do not know.  But I will not politely lower my eyes and keep quiet.  EVER.  Because it is wrong.

Funny how with all our technology gang rape still ranks number one as the preferred method of war, isn't it?  Isn't that just hilarious? 
I hope you know that is sarcasm.  (We SO need a font for that, tone cannot translate in the written word).

The only advice I can offer is be aware.  Of where you are, who you are around, and the tone you are projecting.  Do not assume other people are good, or even decent.  Some people have no idea what it is to live in a civilised society.  A LOT of people, and we have more here every day.

The only hope I can offer you tonight is the hope that those animals will be blown off the map and left to pick up rocks for the next 75 years.  I wish I could say it was a valid hope, but I am sorry to say I don't think it's going to happen.

We'll see.

I pray for Lara Logan to find her strength, and not so she can cover for her network, either.  Shame.

Time to hit it again......or not

It is that time of year when, if you live in the Midwest, you start to think the weather is going to get warmer.  I say you think the weather is going to start to get warmer because the sun is out longer and the breezes are no longer Arctic winds.  Most of the time.  The fact of the matter is that Mother Nature is teasing us.  She knows we are tired of the cold and the dark.  She also knows we are desperate enough to believe it will change pretty quick despite years of evidence to the contrary.

If I had a dime for every time I've torn the plastic off the insides of the windows at the first sign of the weather warming up, only to be fighting an Arctic blast a few weeks later, I would be sitting pretty.  Have you ever tried to figure out how to get a quilt to stay over windows to keep out a draft?  If you live in a city and think a "quilt" is something you order out of a catalog and weighs less than 25 pounds, you should know that your education in this area had been sorely neglected.  I know they are pretty!  I know they are expensive!!  But that does not make them a real quilt, my dear.  The only way you can get a real quilt to stay over windows would be to nail it, and that would be sacrilege with a real quilt.

It's that time of year when I know I should start spring cleaning, but I would much rather sit in my warm bed and pop bubble wrap instead. 

What?

You don't pop bubble wrap in bed instead of facing bleak realities?

You should try it.  You will like it.  You will want the smaller bubble wrap, trust me on this.  It is much, much cheaper than therapy, assuming you even live in an area where that is geographically possible, which I do not.

This time of year I am lost in the purgatory of not being able to see the end of the tunnel or a justifiable reason to look very hard for it.  I am reluctant to change my winter routine of staying warm and going to bed early. 

Especially if I have bubble wrap on hand. 

Methodically popping bubble wrap while mulling over situations in your life results in more logical thinking and calmer heart rhythm.

No, I don't have any science (!) to back that up but if you try it you will see for yourself.

  It also leaves plenty of time to notice how many cobwebs have accumulated over the past several months and make a plan of attack, once you decide to hit it again.

Or not.

It will come. 

I will know by the bright sunshine that will illuminate the cobwebs in the corners and the marks on the walls.  It's been a long winter, and somewhere along the way the Grand Finale decided to put some nails in the walls. They also had some wild swings which resulted in two (2) perfectly hammer shaped holes in two (2) different rooms.  That I did not ask about the details says a lot about the state of my mental health this winter.  Actually, it says a lot about how mothering tends to wear one down, but I'll save that for another post.

It's not all bad.  I used to get really upset and cry about stupid stuff like that.

Which actually makes me laugh real laughter now.

Live and learn!

For now, let's concentrate on the fact that it is spring, almost.  Despite the temperature, look what I found poking their little heads up today:

These are surprise lilies, naked ladies, whatever you want to call them.  I used to get excited every year when this part came up.  Because I forgot that this is just the green part and means nothing except at some point there will be very fast growing flowers with NO LEAVES, and whenever that point happens, it will be a surprise.  That they will probably by buried under 2 inches of snow by Saturday will affect their progress not at all.

Also,

These will be jonquils and will not let us down.  They will have pretty yellow flowers soooon, very soon.

And here is a shot that I took of the full moon last week that made SHADOWS as long as it was out.  How clear and beautiful were the nights that this moon lit!  I certainly hope you took the time to notice and appreciate it.  I know I did.

Hold on.  Just a little bit longer.