Well, it's not going to kill you

The internet and me or me versus the internet

I cannot Tell you how much I hate Hughes.net my satellite internet connection. The past few days service has been erratic - nothing new there.

But the worst part is their customer service.  You call cs and end up in God only knows where India talking to people named "Dave" or "Susan" because there are so many East Indians with American names, ya right.  Besides it's demeaning to the cs techs to have to pretend they have an "American" name.

You explain your problem, get it repeated back to you in Indian English.  I don't mind Indian English at all EXCEPT when you're trying to get tech support then I want English English.  Trying to communicate can be well trying.  It makes me want to politely say "I can't understand you, can you transfer me to someone in the States".  Then it makes me want to reach through the phone and strangle the person who decided that tech support should be outsourced in the first place.

Oh Wild Blue please have an opening soon.

Thought for today

Most of us look at our ideals, say how far we are from them, and get depressed. But it is heroic simply to say, "Here are my ideals," state them before the world, and then spend your life trying to live up to them.
Keshavan Nair
New Dimensions Radio interview

 

That's how I try to live sometimes it's easy other times it's trying but none the less it's the striving that makes me a better person

I know it's bad...

But I just can't help myself from mocking Michelle Bachman the would be presidential candidate how thinks the Founding Fathers eliminated slavery.  I'm thinking she should head back to junior college for 3 quarters of American History.

 Can she really be that dumb?  And if she is that dumb what does it say for the rest of the Tea Party who seem to think that they are a separate party rather than Republicans?

The next 2 years should be highly entertaining.

Reflections

Looking at yourself reflected through some one else's eyes can be very enlightening and down right scary.  The eyes that were reflecting me were those of Dr. Sanity.  Now that I'm mostly recovered from surgery and back towards stability, always a tricky thing in my case she wants to know "who is Cathy?".  Last week I told her I hadn't the fainstest clue.  So I came home and tried to answer the question.  

What I discovered is you are mostly who is relected back at you from the person you're with.  I know I'm very, very smart.  I'm not trying to be smug or arrogant, it's just a fact of life.  When I'm well I have a very wicked sense of humor - to the point of cruelty at times I was informed.  I'm very stubborn, this got me an entire head AND eye roll along with a yep.  I know I have an inventive imagination,  too inventive for my own good sometimes but working on that along with impatience and not suffering fools gladly.  I also cannot spell my way out of a paper bag.  Thank goodness for spell check and dictionary.com or I'd be writing like a 5th grader!

There's my little snap shot for through Dr. Sanity's eyes this week.  It should be interesting to see what comes along the pike as I get well enough to get into deeper therapy.

Bullet points

It's been busy and a bit frustrating here lately, juggling tenants who don't pay their rent on time so we have to juggle who's getting paid what, when.

I unloaded Dr. Drug #1 and signed on with Dr. Drug #2 who happens to be a very peaceful and compassionate person unlike DD#1 who could be best described as a dictator.

Dr Drug #2 removed me from a drug that DD#1 had put me on and instead put me on Abilify instead.  I just started taking it Tuesday and the change is absolutely incredible.  No I am not bi-polar nor am I schizophrenic instead I'm one of these people.

Colin is still growing and has become friends with Ted the cat.  If Ted is sitting some place and Colin walks by they always exchange greetings.  Ted has made in quite clear that linking his entire face is not acceptable, ears are ok.  After Colin licks Ted's ears Ted will stand up and rub his head under Colin's chin.  Ted used to do this with Max, but Max was QUITE a bit shorter than Colin so Ted would just stand on his hind legs to reach Max's Chin.

If I hadn't broken my camera I could show you some adorable pictures.

We had a few brief days of summer, like 107 degrees, 100 degrees and 98 degrees.  I keep telling myself it's good for my tomatoes, they're 5 ft tall, loaded with blossoms bit only a very few tomatoes.  It's supposed to be in the 90's this weekend, God I hate hot weather, so that may help.

Grammar screed ( completely stolen from MFAMAMA) along with her comments I added a few of my own pet peeves, up given percentage and more.  Excuse me if it's up to a 34% it can't be more.  For free, no it's just free, as in we're giving this away free, not we're giving this away for free.  Spelling!!! Come on people we have spell check and we have dictionaries please use them.  Talking so you cannot be understood.  I hear some many mumbling athletes on ESPN I can't stand it.  For better or worse you are a role  model, behave like one.

I've read some great books but I can't remember what I listed and am too lazy to go find the link.  One of these days I'll find the list and update it.

Movies, much to my amazement the Blind Side was wonderful as was Walk the Line, The Stoning of Soyrara M., Up in the Air, Shut up and Sing and last but not least Best in Show.

Politics.  Apparently we're supposed to be THANKING Shrub for what he did for our country during his 8 years in office.  Um, let's see - lying, more lying and still more lying, 2 illegal wars, thousands of our troops killed and many more thousands injured which on occasion resulted in divorce because the defense department redeploying the same troops over and over again.  An energy policy drafted by big oil, Thank you very much Cheney.  I hold you personally responsible for the BP disaster in the Gulf.  Blowing a surplus to give his chums, you know those people in the top 1% who can barely hold on the their billions.  Fostered greed and corruption as a way of business.  Blew the wonderful outpouring from the world we garnered on 9/11 by being an asshole.  Driving us into a deficit with the aid of the Republican Congress who are now whining that we can't add anymore to the federal debt.  So it's ok that they did it but the Democrats can't.

Oh and how can I forget John of Orange Boehner?  He has apparently decided that the Rebups are going to reclaim the House and the Senate so he's prepping himself to be new Speaker of the House.  God help us all if some of the nutcases that have been nominated really win.  It will be a very sad day for people that can acutally use their brains for thinking rather than listening to the likes of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly.

And all politics is local.  We finally got rid of Paul Kelly who will be leaving the Board of Supervisors in January.  His replacement is a man who lives in the 21st century Mike McQuire.  Mike was on the Healdsburg City Council so he resigned.  Now we're having or I should say the people who live in the City of Healdsburg are voting on a new council.  My friend Susan Jones, formerly Chief of Police for the City of Healdsburg, is running.  As I told her I can't vote for you but I can campaign for you.

Then we have are Neighborhood Watch group which is coming together nicely.  Word had spread about the first meeing and a number of other people along the road showed up to become part of the group.  We had Community Services officers from the Sonoma Co. Sheriffs office at our last meeting.  I'm in charge of contacting CDF, California Department of Forestry, to come to our next meeting.  We all live in heavy forest on a dead end road.  We need to develop a plan of evacuation in case of fire.

My adorable niece is back at Chico State as a Sophmore, her cousin Eric is back at UNR as a junior and Christopher, well I'm not exactly sure where Christopher is.  Well I know where he is physically but not school wise.  For some reason he has developed a devotion to accounting.  This is a kid that HATES math, has been using a computer since he was 2 and at 8 was getting paid to repair other people's computers.

As for me I've decided to take the big leap and be a survivor model at Catwalk this year.

I think that's enough for now.  I got a bit long winded there : )

Beck-O-Rama

Brought to you by Glenn Beck, Dick Armey, the Koch brothers and GOD.

Well it appears that the wing nut Beck has more followers than I realized.  A truly sad state of affairs in my opinion.

Thousands showed up today for his rally that he claimed would bring "grass roots" protesters together.

Yes "grass roots" as in Dick Armey's Freedom Works, you remember him the disgraced majority leader of the House who lost his reelection bid for among other things sexual harassment.  He's now a lobbyist and raking in tons of money at our expense.

And then we have the Koch brothers.  Inheritors of Koch industries with their "grass roots" organization.

Just take a look at the brands they own.  Last time I'll ever buy Brawny paper towels.

Another highly offensive thing that the wing nut spews about is God.  Hello just because some of us don't believe that God comes and speaks directly to us telling us we MUST HATE anyone who is not a "christian ".  That does not indicate we are lesser persons or we don't believe in our version of God. Dipshits

I think God in what ever form you believe - I look out at my redwood trees and see God at her most fine thank you very much.  I hold the women of my book club, one of whom happens to be a Catholic nun as the most holy people I know.  The four of us are there for each other come hell or semi high water.  I only say semi high because the four of us life in far flung places in Sonoma Co which could prevent us from trudging through high water to get to each other.

So now that I've ranted and raved I really don't feel better I just feel more frustrated.  People like wing nut  Beck, O'Rielly, Coulter and the like are allowed to go about spewing garbage (Obama family vactions) opposed to Shrub vacations which filled most of him time in the White House.

OK I'm going to quit now because I'll just let it rip.  It's the past, it's over, we can't do anything about it except try to repair the damage they did.

Miscellany

Wow I didn't realize it had been that long since I last posted.  So in my usual roaming unrelated incident style to which you've all become accustomed I'll update the last couple of weeks.

Mental health - much, much better thank  you very much.  I dumped Dr. Drug #1 for offensives that I will describe below, I now have Dr. Drug #2 who very conveniently practices in the same building as Dr. Sanity.  Every day I bless that fact that Dr. Sanity and I met when we did.  We've made so much (painful) progress but she's always there when I need to become a clinging vine.

Dr. Drug #1 is something of a dictator.  She pronounces, you obey no questions asked.  Certainly a far cry from Amy and Dr. Sanity who explain what they'd like me to do, why they'd like me to do it and open the floor to questions.  On my last visit with #1 she declared it was my allergy and all  the Advil I was taking that kept the drug she gave me from working.  Suddenly I'm being told that I need to bathe the cats once a week, change the sheets on the bed every other day, close all the doors and windows and run the air conditioner, um certainly do you have the $40 to $50K it would take to totally revamp our house so it would be effective??? and this is where I lost it...  get rid of all our rugs.  I started to say I have 2 oriental rugs (that I spent a solid year on ebay to find). As she headed toward the door, she turned and looked at me over her shoulder and a wave of her hand said "some one else will enjoy them"  Thus ended my relationship with #1

The tenant from hell - GONE WITH NO PROBLEMS!!! Never expected that to happen in a million years.  Place already rented new tenants move in tomorrow.

Met a friend for a glass of wine last week after my appt with Dr. Sanity.  I ordered, she ordered the same thing which will remain unnamed.  I smelled it before my first sip.  It was corked, spoiled, esp. by a tainted cork, so I told my friend not to drink it and called the bartender over.  I handed back my glass of wine and said it's corked.  The reply was "really", the wine was sniffed and declared corked indeed.  Excuse me you twenty something snot I've lived in the wine country for longer than you've probably been alive I know a corked wine when I smell it - I thought it but didn't say it.  Dr. Sanity frequently calls me out on my sense of entitlement.  It's on the list of issues I'm working on along with humility, patience and gratitude, i.e. thinking about the effect on other person before I open my mouth.

Neighborhood news - one of our neighbors died under very suspicious circumstances a few weeks ago.  He was found dead in his truck that had been set fire to on his driveway.  The fire was so hot the truck literally melted, tires, glass, everything.  They only realized there was a body once the fire was extinguished.  I had smelled smoke the night before when we went to bed but didn't call CDF because I couldn't see anything.  I later found out that I should have called as I could have told them how far up the road we live and it would have given them a starting point.  Our tenants heard gunshots as well as one of our neighbors.  As you can imagine we're all a bit freaked.  We live in a VERY RURAL area.  In some cases our houses are a mile or farther off the road.   That means lots of us don't know each other.   A neighbor and I decided we needed to start a neighborhood watch group.  So far we've had 2 meetings.  At the meeting on Wed night we had invited the Sheriff's dept community services officers to meet with us.  Next we need to have CDF come and help us develop an evacuation plan in case of fire.  Mill Creek is a dead end road - 1 way in, the same way out.  So we're still freaked but a least we're organizing to meet, greet and care for each other.  It's extremely sad that we had to loose one of our neighbors to get us going but at least it means that his death was not in vain.

Colin - still growing.  I was sitting in my chair reading the other day I looked up and feet on the floor he was staring me right in the face.  He is now tall enough that he can with a little effort see the the top of the kitchen counters, fortunately only the front.  He usually come stands next to me as a prepare dinner.  I'm sure he's thinking "um, just a couple of more inches".

Books - a must read.  Dragon House by John Shors, the best compliment I can give a book.  When I finished I was ready to go to the first page and start over again.

Also Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl who played with Fire by Steig Larsson , The Help by Kathryn Stockett, The Spirit Catches you and you fall down by Anne Fadiman (non fiction).  I think I'll leave it for that at the moment.  A nice substantial list of wonderful literature.  Am I the only person in the world who has not yet read Eat, Drink, Love?  It's in one of my bookcases... somewhere.

Family - my lovely little sister Jan took a day off work to bring our beloved neice Marissa up for a few hours (2 plus hours each way) so we could see her before she headed back to Chico State this week.  Did I mention that she is a Civil Engineering major and made Dean's List both semesters.  Of course it doesn't surprise me in the least given her genetic inheritance from both Mom and Dad.   We also talked WEDDING, YEAH!!! Jan and Mason, whom we all worship and adore, especially Marissa,  She's already declared that when she gets married Mason is walking her down the aisle) This means I MUST walk Colin more because taking him to the dog park while wonderful for him gets me no exercise.

Friends - many FWF's with terrific food and Greg's birthday celebration, book club which consists of the 4 most unusual women each one a gem in her own rights.  Our book clubs generally run a minimum of 4 hours.  Dr. Sanity says she's never heard of a book club like ours.  Well of course we are very special, the annual Monte Rio Variety show put on by the members or rather invited guest performers of the Bohemian Club annual "retreat" and I use the word retreat in the loosest sense of the word.  This year the headliner was Zac Brown and if you haven't heard him hit your itunes store or were ever you download your music.   His Wiki description says he's a country musician but he's closer to a folk musician in my unasked opinion.  Yes the rich and famous MEN who are members of the Bohemian Club "grace" our county once a year and do who the hell knows what in their camps among the redwoods.

Then as the absolute topper - last night.  OMG we ate like we were ancient Romans!  Bev and Chase's wonderful daughter Traci, her equally wonderful husband David and their absolutely adorable 15 mo Olivia were here from Boston for a visit.  Larry and I are blessed to be the people that David and Traci always want to spend time with when they're here.  All 4 of them are STUNNING  cooks but David REALLY gets into it.  They always present us with a meal that takes hours of work to prepare and lays us flat out on the floor.  Last night it was food from Georgia, the Country not the State.  OMG barely covers it.  A wonderful pastry filled with cheese and baked, dumplings similar to Dim-Sum but definitely NOT ASIAN.  And the killer of the evening, fried chicken married to a sauce of garlic and walnuts.  We swooned.  We also met our first 15 mo foodie.  Olivia will eat anything which should not have surprised us given her parents wide and varied food loves.  She was sitting on Traci's lap while we were eating the dumplings - this after she had finished her own dinner.  I was sitting next to them.  Olivia was literally diving into the dumplings  and making sure with her little fingers that she got all the filling.  A most wonderful time was had by all.

As we were driving home Larry said this is the first time I've been so close to the family of our friends.  We both are thrilled when David and Traci arrive but I think it's really special to Larry, and now we have the third generation in the presence of Little Ms. O

Wow a lot has happened in the last few weeks, most of it good.  As Dr. Sanity says "this is life".

And for the finale my beloved just presented me with dinner.  To think I almost passed him by because I thought "cute but too old" God I love that man.

One important thing I totally forgot!  I got to meet Jean Hegland author of Into The Forest at the neighborhood watch meeting!!!!!!  I knew she lived close by but never in my life did I expect to cross paths with her.  I was up on the stage talking and scanning the crowd I noticed someone with the name tag Jean H spaces ND.  She happened to turn just right so I could see her entire tag.  JEAN HEGLAND PEOPLE!!!  I almost lost it.  I finished what I had to talk about and went flying off the podium to her side.  Can you say starstruck??  I told her I worshipped her book.  I had been lucky enough to get one of her self published books which has a different cover than the mass produced book.  I told her as luck would have it I lent that copy out and it circulated among the friends of friends and I never got it back.  However I was lucky enough to find an original copy that is now guarded with my life.  It also turns out we have a famous documentary film maker living on Mill Creek, along with Chef Charlie Palmer and I think Larry Ellison of Oracle fame has a place on the road as well.  And MC Carolyn the sculptress.

Small world indeed...

No not dead

Just dealing with a change it meds that is making life hell.  Apparently it will remain this way until Dr. Drug hits the right dose.  So not dead just passing temporarily through hell.

But now I feel really safe.  The Supremes do it again.  Now every gun nut in the country will feel free to purchase an AK-47 to go deer hunting or round up wild horses and shoot them or use a helicopter to chance down a wolf to kill it for sport.  That one's for you Sarah.

Now you see why I haven't been posting much - to much anger and snark.  Been leaving that for my facebook page.

Another one of those it's not going to kill me, but it will make me crazy

Aaargh.  And the corporations wonder why we hate them so.

Banks, Insurance Companies, Financial institutions look at us, their fellow citizens and laugh.

The finest example to date the oil and gas industry, liars to a fault.

What Katrina started do to destroy the gulf coast,  BP and TransOcean are now doing their best to finish all the while telling up it's not a big problem.

Now I will be the very first to admit I am a bleeding heart liberal and am willing to bend over backwards to give everyone the benefit of the doubt but I'm getting really, really angry over the fact that big business has more say in how our country is governed that we do.  Thank you Shrub and the John Roberts Supreme Court.

What kind of idiot mother

Yes people I'm ranting again.  It keeps me from the depths of frustration.  

Here's a story I just came across on CNN.  I am not nor will I ever be a parent, but I'm an aunt to my 2 nephews and my niece, almost an aunt to my cousin's children as our mothers are twins and an auntie to countless children of friends.  I would do anything for any of these children.

Do you realize the process that parents who want to adopt have to complete?  Home studies, psychological reviews, financial reviews and it goes on and on.  These people want a child so badly they're willing to put up with all the shit required to adopt.

Yet any idiot who is too stupid to wear a condom or take the pill can be a parent.