elephantkarma

Snow day...but it's snot!

2005-02-24T08:38:00.000-05:00

Today I woke up, and I looked out the window. And saw a blur of white. "Snow day" I silently begged, because when you wake up at 6:00 am you have to do everything silently lest you wake up the whole house, and padded downstairs in my jammies to check the news. (On mute of course.)

Snow day? S'no. A mere 2 hour delay. OK, I'll take it. Two extra hours without students, and shortened periods all day. So I dress (In my least fancy teaching outfit since I'll be trudging thru snow), get my coffee, and head out to brush of my car.

And fall on my ass. BOOM. Down. It doesn't hurt too bad, but DAMN is it cold!! Snow butt! And wet pants to boot! Pick myself up, shake myself out, try to get the snow out of my underwear, and get in the car.

HOLY HELL, what a drive! Sliding, spinning...it's like a ballet on 4 wheels! But a lot scarier, since, you know, there are other cars on the road. And they are spinning and sliding as well. Up the hill? Eh. Didn't happen so good. But down the hill? Now that's an adventure.

When I rule the world, and all are following the laws of elephant karma, there shall be a law:
There must. Must. MUST. be at least one snow day per school year. And we won't lose the Friday before Memorial Day to make up for it. In fact, we'll even have a Spring Day, where the weather is just to NICE to go to school to make up for the day we lost being trapped inside on a crummy weather day. Elephant karma demands it so.

Nails of nastiness

2005-02-11T08:27:00.000-05:00

OK, so about a week and half ago I decided that it was time for the acrylics to come off. For one, I could see them starting to yellow, I guess because of lack of oxygen? But my real nails were also starting to seperate from them...in the front. Things were perpetually getting caught between the two layers of nail. Ew and ow.

First of all, removing them hurt!!! My hands were soaked in acetone for maybe 5 minutes on a generous timer, then Crazy Lady comes over and starts chipping away at the layer of acrylic. I was beyond grossed out when she started to use broken pieces of the acrylic AND HER OWN FINGERNAILS (!) to start prying the fakes off. I guess I complained a little too much, cuz she put my hands back in the bowl for a good 20 minutes and...left me there.

I sat in the nail salon, stinking like petroleum while she and her hubby worked on other people. They had time to do a full set while I soaked. Finally, her hubby came over, who I like much better because he smiles and is in general a much gentler nail technician. He wiped my hands with a clean soft cloth and started removing them, but this time he used the electric filer that was hanging there the whole time. Pain free, and no shards of acrylic flying off to pierce my eyeball.

But when he was done, I wanted to cry. My nails are so ugly! They are paper thin, and they have huge ridges where they had buffed down the nail to set the acrylic. Even still, they are bendy and weak, and breaking every which way. I've been taking great pains to coat them in nail strengthener and paint them so they look nice, but there is just no way to dress these suckers up. You can see the ridges through the paint, and as the nail breaks the polish chips.

What have I done to myself? Get me back to the salon, pronto!!

Ow.

2005-01-24T11:56:00.000-05:00

So, if you were watching, at least from Pittsburgh, then you know that yesterday's game just HURT. We got spanked. Royally.

But really, that last touchdown was just RUDE. I mean, ok there, showoff. We know you won. Your 10 point lead wasn't enough? You had to make it 20 pts? Because we were, you know, such a terrible threat in the last 4 minutes of that game.

We were sobbing into our Terrible Towels chez moi. We had to run them through the dryer before putting them in moth balls.

I just want one Superbowl in my lifetime. Is that too much to ask? *sigh* I don't even have a hockey season to console me. I am so robbed.

Weekend!

2005-01-21T20:13:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, everybody!

Students may think they love Fridays. But no one appreciates Fridays like the Teacher. Same with snowdays. We're supposed to get truly dumped on this weekend by the Goddess of Winter Weather. Starting tonight, it's supposed to snow, snow, snow. I know my students are ALL praying for a snow day.
But no one will be praying harder than the Teachers. We will be praying to the Matron Saint of Snow that she may bury us deep in her snowy mantle, enveloping us in a cloud of white from which we will not emerge until at least...Tuesday. Likewise, we will be beseeching the Lord on High of Snowplows and Salt Trucks, that these dastardly tools of Satan will be cast out of the Snow Goddess's favor, and may they be unable to perform their job of clearing the streets until at least...Monday night.

(Of course, let it not snow hard enough that thy loyal servants may lose power, and thus be unable to view our beloved Steeler's game on Sunday.)

Let us pray.

First Day on the Job!

2005-01-18T15:47:00.003-05:00

A lot of people think that the first day of a new job is the most intimidating. To me, this is not so true. What is very intimidating to me is the second job. I now know what I need to do. I know my students. I know what they know, and what they need to know by the end of the year.

Tomorrow I have to go in and make them work for it. That is the scary part. Knowing that tomorrow is when it begins. All the back work needs to be checked and graded, and put in the computer. All the new stuff needs to be taught. I teach differently than the last teacher, in that I'm a big believer in writing things down. She emphasized oral skills, which I also think are important and want to give them a lot of practice in. But I've always thought that if you don't know it, you can't say it, so I do lots of little dittos and exercises. Practice. Do homework. Do classwork. Definitely have fun, and incorporate music, and culture, and games, but LEARN.
Learning is where there is almost always a breakdown in communication between students and teachers. Namely because learning involves work, for all sides. And, hey, this is America! We don't want to work! We want the easiest way around it!

Ew

2005-01-18T15:47:00.002-05:00

The air in this house is so dry. I put lotion on twice a day, and I still get white-girl ash. I drink so much water I could float away, and I'm still thirsty. And good Lord does my nose bleed. Not, like, gushing spontaneously or anything cool like that. But the capillaries inside the nostril will start to bleed, and make these huge crusty scabby buildups in my nose that start to itch and itch and itch. So when I get my hanky, it's just...ew. Big bloody bogies. Because bogies aren't gross enough when they're not bloody, I guess.

New job!

2005-01-18T15:47:00.001-05:00

Starting tomorrow, I will be a French teacher at a local middle school.
This is a good thing. For one, I won't be waiting by the phone every night, hoping I'll get a call for a substitute job in a nice building. Everyday I will know where I'm going, and hopefully, what I'm doing.
For two, I actually know French, and how to teach it. Unlike special ed, which I have been teaching a lot of lately, without any real training past a 2 credit course on Inclusion. This will definitely help in the "know what I'm doing" department.

New Year's Resolution

2005-01-18T15:47:00.000-05:00

I usually hate resolutions. I never bother making any, because when they fall through, I end up feeling bad, like I've let myself down.
But I'm going to make one. I WILL become a better blogger. I will post more regularly, and about more interesting things.

Bond. James Bond

2005-01-06T21:26:00.001-05:00

James Bond is On Demand!

Hell yeah!

Love me some James Bond. I know, I know: the scripts are full of cheap lines, the stories are predictable, and the special effects are, well, not special.

But he's so damn cool.

While I've always been a Sean Connery fan, I have to admit that Roger Moore is growing on me. He's not so much a looker, but he's definitely witty. That other guy, though, whatshisface? Screw him. Un-hot, un-cool, un-Bond.

Pierce Brosnan, in my book, doesn't even rank as a Bond, simply because he came along so much later.

Who's your favorite 007?

Happy New Year?

2005-01-06T21:26:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, I haven't posted since Christmas! Sorry!

(Though I'm not sure anyone is reading anyway...)

But anyway, Happy 2005.

Support relief efforts for the tsunami victims. If I can do it, you can too!

Bragging rights

2004-12-25T13:43:00.000-05:00

So...

What was the best gift you got for Christmas this year? (Or for Hannukah, Solstice, Kwanzaa, etc?)

Ho Ho Ho!

2004-12-25T12:43:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, if it's for you.

If it's not enjoy your day anyway!

The MC Dogs

2004-12-16T13:03:00.000-05:00

The Boy and I love animals. Dogs in particular. When his sister and her hubby went out of town the other day, they asked us to dog sit until Sunday. We readily agreed. We don't mind helping them out, and we love their dogs. But good Lord are they a lot of work.

Two bulldogs, both living on borrowed time. :) One is 11, one is 13. Some one told me the average life span of a bull dog is 8-9 years. I don't know how these dogs lasted it this long. The 11 year old is mostly blind and mostly deaf, and the 13 year old has severe arthritis in her little doggie hips. She literally cannot go down stairs. The Boy must lift her up and carry her up and down to the backyard. She tries to do this little frog hop up and down the steps, but mostly she starts to slip and gets scared.

And she's no little woman. I mean, her name is Chubbi. The other is Moose. This should tell you something about their size. They're short, and very very squat.

And they leave us presents. Big puddles, or big brown stinkies. One time I came downstairs in the dark to get a drink..read: BARE FEET. It was nasty. They had stepped in it, I stepped in it. Ew Ew EW00.

I've always felt for the bulldog. They're so friendly and sweet, but as a breed, they really got the short end of the stick. No neck, no tail, no nose, no legs. Just bulk. And a sweet disposition with an ugly face. So they're eye level with children whom they'd probably love to play with, but if I came face to face with those wrinkles and sags, I'd run screaming.

But these specimens are particularly pitiful. But not only do they have all these things to deal with, they have arthritis, vision, and hearing problems. They take more medications than my grandman (in dog years, they are probably older than her). How are they alive????

A new challenge

2004-12-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

In the continuing saga of my struggle adapting to long nails, I have been confronted by a new obstacle...

Necklaces.

Their clasps are now a complete mystery. I can't get my fingers on the clasp because my nails are in the way, and they are too small for my nails to hold in place. Remember Edward Scissorhands, when he's trying to eat his peas, but can't maneuver his hands to pick them up? Yeah. That's me. Scissorfingers Me.

It's almost time for a fill anyway; I'm definitely having these claws trimmed down.

school boards are still ridiculous

2004-12-10T17:40:00.000-05:00

Oh, and by the way...

I STILL have not been paid by the school board for that position I filled for so long. It had better be one hell of a check, and it had better come damn soon.

I have been promised that it will be in my next paycheck. One can only hope. I wonder though, if they could send me 2 seperate checks...one for the perm. position, and one for the work I've been doing.

The man is going to get a huge piece of me, otherwise...

still noisy

2004-12-04T13:03:00.000-05:00

OK, so I'm still lovin' the new look, but typing is still a slow, noisy process. I either have to hold my fingers flat against the keyboard, and then hit multiple keys to get a nice "e3i8" affect, or type with my nails themselves. This 1) hurts a little 2) chips my nail polish (i'm such a girl) and 3) my nails will slide off the key and hit the wrong one every so often.

This will make typing my essay for my job application so much fun. I have my proofreading pen all ready right next to me.

relearning how to type

2004-11-29T17:50:00.000-05:00

So I have been so tired of looking at my hands. I have small hands, with short fingers, and nails that break, crack, bend, and in general look like crap. So today, I made a monumental decision, and commitment: I went the way of the acrylic nail.

For a mere $25 I was treated to the private services of an Asian husband and wife team who buffed, filed, acryliced, and airbrushed my short little ugly nails into, well, not short little ugly nails. (I even got to watch the movie they rented...talk about timing.)

I love the new look. I didn't do any crazy airbrushing patterns, like hula girls and palm trees, but just a purple variation of a french manicure. The look is great. My hands look great. Relearning how to use my hands, however, is not so great.

Getting out my car keys, for example, was a new challenge. Picking my rings up off the edge of the sink after washing them was almost impossible. And typing is much slower, and noisier, than it used to be.

Normally I'm an ace typist. Now, however, i go much...much slower with many more visits to the delete key. If I didn't bother to visit my delete key (when I push the right one, and not the = or - key) this entry would look not be so legible. It mihgt loke womethignming liket hise. My finger take aup a lot more room now. And like I said, every push of a button is punctuated with a sharp click! of my new fingernails. I think I'll be relearning how to do a lot of things in the next few days. Hopefully, I won't pierce my eyes out (or anyone else's for that matter) or anything else so catastrophic. I'll let you know. If I can get my typing to improve, that is.

Who flung dung?

2004-11-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

I am so embarrassed...by my cat.

I have 2 cats, one of them a big partly Mainecoon who is prone to hairballs because of his long hair. He's been having constipation problems in the past few days, which I usually treat with Laxatone. But today just before dinner, he let out a big sad, "Rrrrrowar," that I translated immediately as, "Oh God I have to go but I just CAN'T!" He circled the room a few times, mauling the carpet in certain places as he searched for his "place." He ran under the side table and squatted...and instead, squirted. This weird combo of mucus/blood sprayed from his bum...and I got to clean it up! Hooray! Since dinner was just about ready, I put him in the basement and called the vet, who was concerned that he was actually having difficulty urinating, not poo-ing. And promptly scheduled me for 7:30.
I couldn't eat a bite. The sound of his big sad crying pathetic meow haunted me, as did the sight of him trying so hard to go under the table (and this is a cat who LOVES his box. Loves to kick and dig in the sand.) I could not wait for 7:30.
Now, I'm sure to my vet I look like the worst pet owner in the world. I'm continually behind on vaccinations...he was last in the office almost a year ago! But I figure, they're indoor cats with no exposure to other animals at all. How at risk for things like rabies could they be? But I'm not a bad pet owner. I'm really not! I feed them regularly, give them lots of fresh water, and clean their box more than regularly. I brush them, bathe them, and give them lots of affection in a clean home with lots of toys and good places to sleep. These cats are loved.
As soon as my Big Stank, which is not his real name but is an appropriate nickname for a cat who, because of his recent gastrointestinal issues does have a Big Stank in the butt, is out of his carrier, he turns to the vet and hisses. Hisses!! My cat never hisses. He barely ever makes a sound, other than a very contented purr. Enter the vet tech with the huge orange prison gloves. (Really, they said, "Warden" up and down each arm.) And B.S. growls. And hisses. And tries to escape, but is held firm in a huge orange death grip.
What is the diagnosis for my fluffalove's buttaches? FLEAS. I couldn't believe it. He's an indoor cat for God's sake! And the issue is with his ASS!! How are the two related? It seems that with his fleas (how he got them, no one knows) he's been grooming himself more, thus swallowing more hair, thus creating hairballs, thus causing blockage, thus causing him outrageous pain. So doc treats him with a wonderful topical cream, and gives, oh wait, no he sells me more to give the other cat, L'il Poot, as well as a spray with which to coat everything cloth in my house.
Then he looks at Big Stank's butt, which, as I mentioned before, is nowhere near it's cleanest. He proposes shaving his butt hair to prevent matting and further stankiness. I agree, though dubiously, because I mean, the cat has objected quite vocally to just being in this man's presence. Does he really think that he'll let him shave his ass hair? But I forgot the orange grip of death.
Big Stank is, as I predicted, completely unhappy about the prospect of having his butt shorn. He's a rather skittish cat to begin with when it comes to noise, I can only imagine what he thought of those clippers. He began to twitch. Then flip. And hiss, and growl. But doc persisted. He could really handle those clippers. But Big Stank's growl grows into a howl, which becomes a scream. A bonafide, bloodcurdling, oh my lord I'm being murdered scream. He jumps up, defying the nuclear colored strangle hold in which he has become imprisoned, and in a wonderfully executed escape, sprays urine across the room. An inch to the left and he'd have given the vet an eyeful.
Vet drops the clippers, and orange death grip subsides. Big Stank is across the room like he was shot out of a cannon. "Wow!" Mr. Orange "Warden" Glove exclaims, "He shot pee across the room!"
Vet laughs, though shakily. I guess I'd be shaky if I almost took a urine shot to the face, too. He then explained to me that Big Stank almost electrocuted himself, because the liquid almost hit the outlet into which the clippers were plugged. Since kitty was grounded, he could very well have been fried. (Apparently this is a kind of urban legend in the vet world?) "At least there would be no more fleas?" I always try to be optimistic.
Vet outdid me, though. "And at least we've answered the major questioning of whether his kidneys are functioning."
$125 in vet bills and many apologies for my cat's behavior later, here I sit.

I am so embarrassed. And this is just a cat! Imagine the mortification my children will one day cause!

grocery shopping on a sunday afternoon

2004-11-15T17:16:00.000-05:00

It sucks. It really sucks. There are few things worse than grocery shopping on a Sunday. For one, I'm usually hung over. Today, however, I lucked out. No headachy nausea pukey grumpiness for me.

But it is always crowded. And for some reason, my grocery store is always crowded with world's grumpiest people. Which is usually offset by the fact that they come straight from church. So there's a crowd of people dressed to the nines with the worst attitudes and manners. And of course, they all bring their kids, who are just so excited to be stuck in the grocery store with a million other people. I mean come on, you just made your kid sit through a hour long (or more) church service where they had to sit still and make no noise. And now you think they'll behave in a damn grocery store? Puh-lease. If you think so, you really shouldn't be a parent. (But then, I think most people who are parents shouldn't be one.)

So to recap, there's always a crowd of rude, grumpy well-dressed people in uncomfortable shoes with no sense of space who think they can just STOP and they won't be run into by the other 500 people trying to get down that aisle. Oh, yeah, with kids. Because grocery shopping is such a fun family outing.

And they scream. They scream at their kids for not stopping when they stop, or for whining because they're bored (duh, numbnuts!), or running around because they have energy to burn. They scream at other people in the store: That was my parking place! Hey, watch where you're going! Hey, get out of my way! And, the worst thing, they scream at people who work in the store.

I saw a woman (in a really ugly hat and terrible shoes) curse one lady up one side and back down the other because *gasp* her free samples of pizza weren't ready. "You should have put some more in while you still had some! Why aren't they ready now, goddammit, now I have to come back to this damn aisle to get my pizza!" Oh, good Lord, lady!

For one, the people who work in these stores are here, on their feet, for over 8 hours. For shit pay. And having to take shit from people all day. They have to explain over and over again to the same people that no, they can't get cigarettes with food stamps. No, you can't use a coupon for Green Giant veggies when you're buying Food Club veggies. And they have to get hollered at, over and over again, by stupid people who can't understand that, in all things, they must play by a set of rules.

And come on. It's a piece of pizza. If you really need to feed your fat face with it, is it that much trouble to come back in 2 minutes? Or wait and chat with the lady who has burns all over her hands because she's been making free pizza all day with the equivalent of an Easy Bake Oven, that keeps shorting out and shooting sparks at her? For CRAP PAY??

And see, this is where I start to really have issues with the concept of free. Not just free samples, though they could be brought into this. But free even and especially as it applies to wealth of social services that are provided to those in need...only to be taken advantage of by people who aren't in so much need. Or who have been raised on these social services and don't see them as a leg up to help yourself improve, but as a right to which they have been born.

You give one person one thing one time...and suddenly it must be given to all people for all time. There's no such thing as a free lunch...unless you and your eight kids all with different daddies who never stuck around long enough to see their faces qualify with the government (which you have the audacity to bitch about!) for free everything. I work damn hard for my money. I've held a variety of SHIT jobs to earn my money. Why can't they? Why can't they go flip burgers, or make people free pizza like I have? Because they don't want to deal with the shit from other people that they'll have to take?

Oh, this double edged sword has such a sharp point. To help, or to enable? And how do we stop it?

School Boards are Ridiculous

2004-11-15T11:28:00.000-05:00

So I have a problem with my paycheck. In that there isn't enough money as there should be. So, being the moneygrubber that I am (hey, I want what I work for, people!) I call down to payroll to see when I can expect the difference.
"Oh, we can't help you. You need to call Substitute Services."
Call to Substitute Services: answering machine. Call back to payroll.
"Well, try the Call Center. No, we can't transfer you. No, we don't have the number."
Hunt around on the website. Find the damn number.
Call the Call Center. Answered by automated man giving me options of buttons to push. Does not give me a button to push if I actually want to TALK to someone. Push buttons until a barely intelligble person answers, "Hullopssbrgpblcacenr."
Report the problem. Greeted by...silence.

"Hello?"
"Yes, I'm here." Silence. Followed by silence. Followed by silence. Not even breathing. I mean, come on guys. At least repeat the problem back to me so I know you're trying. But no, instead I get, "Here's your reference number. Someone from payroll will get back to you."

"But I just called payroll! They told me to call you!"
"Payroll won't handle anything without a reference number."

What?!? In order to get my money that I've already earned, I have to chase my tail around the fucking Call Center so they can tell payroll about the problem I've already told payroll about? Not to mention that the person who took the call, who is probably earning upwards of $15 an hour, said all of two words and was as helpful as a sack of turds in actually fixing it?
Please justify this middle man shit. Please justify her paycheck. Because I can't. I really can't. I mean, the machine could have given me the damn reference number for all the work she did. No wonder this school board is broke. We're paying people who do nothing!

No more candles!!!

2004-11-12T20:33:00.000-05:00

So, yeah, I sell candles. I have my first Candleselling home show on Sunday. I've been getting ready all week. I just spent 3 HOURS designing sticky labels for my catalogs with contact info on them.

The flyer can wait until tomorrow.

I am so candled out today.

a useless weekend

2004-11-08T12:59:00.000-05:00

This weekend was my first useless weekend in over a year.

For the past year, you see, I have worked as a nameless faceless employee of a huge company that I shall call here the CheeseE.Company. My family thought it was so cool that I worked here, and for a while it was. I got to play with kids and work with great people. But like most jobs, it started to suck. Then it REALLY started to suck.

The people got bitchier and bitchier. Management got nuttier and nuttier. The paychecks got less and less worth it. And let's face it, I got damn tired of climbing into a costume that smelled of a weird combination of Lysol, pizza, and sweat, only to have children come climb on me and pull my nose. The last straw came when they traded the manager I REALLY liked for a facsimile of Hitler (only she didn't have the mustache.)

This weekend was my first weekend free from this job. My dad was kind of disappointed that I quit, but couldn't say much since I'm working 5 days a week elsewhere. He just liked having a kid who dressed up in a smelly costume. But I thought I'd get a lot done. I had PLANS. I was going to clean out my car, rearrange my CandlesellingStuff, deposit my paychecks, etc.

How much of this did I get done? Nothing. I sat on my butt with my On Demand. I escaped into Oz (and I DO NOT mean the type with scarecrows), Red Dragon, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (This was the first movie that had me so scared that I was in my boyfriend's lap). I did manage to find time for a massage and Thai food, and even did some laundry, but really the most productive thing I did was make coffee. Lots of coffee.

I mean really. Who gets so lazy they don't even deposit their paycheck????

A funny kinda title, isn't it?

2004-11-04T15:05:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking.

Elephant karma? What in the world is that?

Well, it's a title, to begin with. Blogger demanded that I have a title, and I thought about it for a while, and this is what I came up with. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. Like I said previously, there's tons of blogs out there to look at. If you're still curious, however, read on. :)

I've always loved elephants. Loved them with big fat hearts, cupids, and all kinds of romance. Maybe it's because the first stuffed toy I ever had was an elephant, maybe that's where it comes from. But I honestly don't know. I do know, however, that I love them because they are so close to human but yet so much...better.

Elephants adopt. You gotta love that. There's no lonely baby elephants out there being shuffled from foster family to foster family, or being lost in the "system" of CYS. If a baby loses mom, then there's a whole family of 'phants right there to love it just as much as mom ever would.

Elephants are family creatures. They move as a family. If an elephant is born, the whole herd is there to welcome it into the world. When an elephant dies, the family is right there to comfort the dying and each other. There's a website I love that shows a lot of pictures of elephants, including a series where one is dying. I won't lie...I cried like a baby at the sight of this helpless elephant stuck on the ground with a huge ugly gash marring its skin. But all the fellow 'phants were right there, standing in a huddle around their fallen friend, not leaving until long after the poor creature had passed on out of its misery. They stroked the body with their trunks, and sources report they practically cry. In the wild, if the herd passes a spot where a family member died, they'll stop there, and if there's bones, they'll explore them with their trunks. They hold their own sort of memorial services.

And I thought, and still do think, that that's just so...nice. Never having been in a situation where I'm facing my own demise, I can't speak from experience. But I do know that I would love to have my whole family around me in my time of greatest need. And who wouldn't want to be remembered, and mourned, and missed after their gone?

Oh, and don't forget (which an elephant never does!) that theirs is a matriarchal society. You gotta love that.

I've always kind of believed in reincarnation. I mean, energy is never lost, right? It converts into different forms, but it's never gone. We don't lose matter. I think that applies to us. As humans, as much as some of us may fight to deny it, we are a part of this earth and have a place within its cycles. The body decomposes, but the spirit...who can say?

I like to think that if I'm good in this life, and I'm kind to others and be the best person I can possibly be, that in a future life, I will get a chance at living as one of these gentle giants. (Drunken rampages in India aside.) Do I see them as better than us? Possibly, in some ways. IMHO, this is really no farther fetched than a heaven with choirs of angels in white robes and halos flitting around a celestial sea of godliness.

I was explaining all this one day to a woman I met at a second hand shop in Bedford. She looked at me and said, "So this is your idea of karma?"
"Yes," I replied. "Elephant karma."

A blog is born.

the election

2004-11-04T14:04:00.000-05:00

I'd feel a little wrong not posting something about the recent elections.

Um...it's not what I wanted? Yeah, that covers it. Of course, I didn't really want either of them to win. So sue me, I'm a third party girl. Maybe it comes from having been in Europe, where there are more political parties than we can shake a stick at. (Try and name all of Ireland's. Just try!) But I mean, come on. There are how many millions of people in this country? And two parties to choose from? No way. We are too diverse a population to be able to divide ourselves along one line. This country needs options, options that cannot be provided by a choice of one or the other. We need to examine our options in other parties. There's many, they just don't have the clout and resources of the big two.

I mean, look at it this way. Chocolate ice cream is the bomb. Vanilla ice cream also fills a need. But let's face it. We're gonna get sick of those two flavors eventually. We need some variety!

Nothing's going to really change until we get someone completely different from anyone we've ever had in office.

A New Blog

2004-11-04T10:32:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog!

I'm feeling a little funny about this. There are millions of blogs out there...and here's another. I almost feel like I'm littering. Especially in the face of some of the fabulous blogs that I frequent. I'm a little intimidated...can I hold a candle to what these others have to say? I guess we'll find out...