Twas the night

Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,
Particularly my spouse.

The stockings were laying
On the chair with no care
Waiting for mom to get off her ass
And fill them (with what, air?)

Actually, while this is going to be a slim Christmas, a Christmas, it will be. We won't be seeing anyone but those in this house (the boys, mark and i) because of a huge blizzard, but we're together, and we're warm, and we have food.

Additionally, my mom is doing better every day. For those who don't follow on plurk, my mom had a mini-stroke about a month ago, and while she's taking care of herself adequately, i've had to step in in a few ways. I'm monitoring her medications, and helping with the bills, and coordinating any services for her, such as a physical therapist, and home health nurse. the hard part is she is now considered home-bound, so i have to do her grocery shopping. i'm working with my brother on getting power of attorney for both of us, so that i can take care of business on a more legal level (people give me lots of lattitude because i'm her interpreter, but i really want to be able to show a paper saying that i really CAN speak for her), and figuring things out. (the deal with both of us having POA is for his comfort level, not for necessity's sake)

today, however, was a landmark. i drove over there before the storm got too bad, and helped her set her medication up for the next week. when i got there, there was a big red bow on her door. i'd asked her 2 weeks ago if she wanted to decorate for christmas, and she had said no.
when i came in, she had all kinds of boxes pulled out of her closet, and presents and wrapping paper on her bed. i asked her if she wanted any help, and she said no, she was fine.

also, when she signed a check for a bill, her hand-writing was much more eventhan it has been for the last month.

i did do some holiday knitting this year. liam has a girlfriend who is a knitter (she gave him a scarf), so i knit a cowl in her favorite color for him to give to her (he got a big kiss out of that one). i've also made a sweater vest for sean in lion brand woolease chunky (story behind this one: we were watching tv, and he saw a commercial for oldnavy sweater vests. he turned, looked at me, and said "chicks dig sweater vests. i WANT ONE!" how could i not oblige, lol?), and a zippered cabled cardigan for liam in berocco comfort. the unfortunate part? both are GREY. next project i'm casting on is the brightest socks i can find in my stash!

and, in the inimitable words of that jolly old elf

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

Late, but still in time

Here are the pictures i've promised since last week:

This is a superwash merino/tencel blend called platinum from C*eye*ber fibers. it's 4 oz of worsted weight yumminess

This is (i think) a natural brown alpaca, sport weight, about 2 ounces (i think,once again, lol)

This is superwash merino,8 ounces of aran-bulky weight from dyeabolical.

Here's the deal. Liam is fund-raising for a band trip in March to Chicago, and they're doing a bowl-a-thon friday night. He needs to raise $100, and so far he's got $50. Here's the deal. Donate $5, and you'll get a thank-you entry into a drawing for all 3 skeins of yarn. $10? 2 entries. Leave me a comment with your email, and i'll send you my paypal address. The colors are relatively true (i had to use my scanner as my camera is borked, lol).

Please help a boy go on such a fantastic trip (they're doing a clinic, and will see the blueman group, go to a blues museum, see the sears tower, and a bunch of other fantastic things)

i owe you guys and apology

I had promised to post pictures of some of my handspun today, as i'm using them as prizes for sponsoring Liam in a bowl-a-thon for his band trip in March, but life got in the way. Think of this as a place holder, and I'll post t hem when i can (after i take t hem, of course!)

if anyone is interested in sponsoring Liam, leave me your email in the comments, and i'll get back to you.

Thanks!

whose fault?

13 months ago a boy collapsed at football practice, and died 3 days later. while the community pulled together over this tragedy, the legal system kicked into overdrive. they charged the coach with wanton endangerment and reckless homicide. the coach was acquitted in 90 minutes.

there were a few things that came out in the trial that makes me question the parents. 1)this child was on adderal AND creatine (a muscle building supplement), both of which impair the body's ability to regulate heat. 2) he had not been feeling well the night before, and probably was not fit to practice in the first place.
The laws are being changed. Coaches are now being allowed access to medical information, and parents are required to provide it to schools.

Here's where i get upset. sean is on numerous medications. if it's going in his body, i research it to a fair-thee-well. I don't let him take ANYTHING without knowing how it's going to 1)make him react and 2)interact with his meds. How did these parents not investigate something like a muscle building supplement for their 15-year old? And if they didn't know he was taking it, why the hell not? Fifteen is not so totally independent that you can't find out what's going on.

additionally, why was he allowed to go to practice if he was ill? any coach worth his salt knows that 1) it's counterproductive for an ill child to come to practice and 2) it can cause his whole team to get sick.

the parents are filing a civil suit against the coach. however, he's been shown to have followed all the rules and regulations in place at the time, and has actually been released by the schools superintendent to not only teach but to coach if he so desires, with NO STIPULATIONS. who's investigating the parents?

today

i went through my posts, and realized i haven't posted about what happened 8 years ago since 2006. it's about time, eh?

i'm going to tell you about how liam reacted to what happened. He was 9. There had been a call put out to give all the kids who lost parents in the bombing? hijacking? let's call it a tragedy, teddy bears, or some kind of stuffed animal. He had heard about it at school. He came downstairs in tears one afternoon, with his favorite teddy bear, and said "mom, i want to give them my teddy bear. i want someone to know that i love them, too." i almost lost it right then and there (and i need a tissue now!). I convinced him that it was ok to keep his teddy bear, and we'd buy a new one.

Steph? She was mad at me for making her turn the tv off that day, but i think later on she understood. i'd have to ask her n ow what she thinks about it all, as now she's older, and may have better perspective (she's 23).

Sean? He was so terribly young (7) when it happened, and i'm not sure he really knew what was going on. However, now, he'll tell you how he feels, in no uncertain terms. He thinks it was wrong, and that the perpetrators should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. As for the rest? He doesn't say much either.

While Alyse has become a bigger part of my life recently (she just stopped by this morning to drop off rent $$ and to give the boys some lego cars (she works at mcdonald's as a supervisor)), she wasn't living with me at the time, and considering it's a politically charged topic, she and i don't discuss it (she's still a JW, so we steer clear of anything like that).

I still harken back to what my dad would have thought: "those lousy sons of bitches."

it's hard

i love watching the show saving grace. i started watching it in season 2, and decided it was time to get season 1 on netflix so i could see how it all started.

i watched episode 7 tonight, called "yeehaw, geepaw." a large part of the story revolves around grace's grandfather, an arapahoe indian, who develops the early stages of alzheimer's. this one was bittersweet for me in so many ways.

in some ways, i think it's harder to lose a grandparent as an adult than as a child. you get a sense of who they are as adults, and not just as grandma or grandpa. you hear stories about your parents as they were little, and you see similarities to your own childhood. the last time i saw my grandma ruth, she told me that my mother had been left-handed, but the school she went to forced her to learn to write right-handed. it explained where sean got his left-handedness. we went out there when the girls were 14 & 13, and the boys were 7 & 5. steph was being a particular pain (she's so a city girl). and i actually got upset enough to cry. even though i outgrew my grandma years before (she was about 4'10" and 90# at that t ime), she held me and let me cry on her shoulder.

watching grace mourn the man her geepaw had been made me think so much of how hard it was to lose my grandma, and my dad.

and now, my father-in-law. he was diagnosed with the early stages of alzheimer's AND parkinson's last year (he finally admitted it was parkinson's this spring), and i watch him lose himself. he's definitely not the robust man he was when mark and i started dating 6 years ago. he shuffles when he walks, and tends to do everything left-handed, even though he's right handed, because that's the side that shakes. he has the pd mask, and often his eyes show little there. he still has his driver's license, but never drives any more (thank god). he still has good days (we were over there wednesday, and he was definitely having a good day, lots in his eyes, and the shaking was at a minimum), but mom tends to focus on the bad days, and how much work itis totake careof him.

mark keeps telling me that that is what i have to look forward to when he gets old. his family calls it 'the olson shake' because, of the 10 kids in dad's generation, half have some form of familial tremors (most of t hem aren't as advanced as dad, he's the 2nd oldest). both dad's parents had it, too (from what i understand, they were distant cousins, and didn't know it til after they'd been married for several years.) he doesn't do it often, but sometimes, i see a fine tremor when he's holding something. he thinks he'll have alzheimer's, too. his short-term memory is for shit, but he was a bad boy in his early days, (i'm not worriedabout saying it here, he'll tell anybody that asks), and it is bound to mess with you for life.

anyway, mark sees his dad failing. his parents signed their house over to him last year,with the t hought of avoiding any tangles if/when dad hasto go into the nursing home. except it has to be in effect for 5 years. idon't know ifdad's going to last that long.

i was spared that fate with my dad. he was in pretty good health for a 75 year old man when he had his stroke. he died 12 days later. my mom, now 81, is a real go-getter (funny thing is mark's dad is only 4 months younger than my mom, and you'd swear he was years older) despite some health issues she has (a heart-valve replacement in '86 has her on blood-thinners for the rest of herlife, and she also has congestive heart failure,which was diagnosed 2 yearsago). the doctors are all amazed at how perky and happy she is, and energetic, etc. she lives in an apartment half a floor up, and still goes into thebasement to do her laundry on mondays. i think she'll be bugging the s hit out of me for years to come.

but not dad. it's hard to watch. mom'snot doing so well, either. but she refuses any help with dad. i'm tempted to tell her a story from my childhood. my grandpa was 89 years old, and had spent a goodpart of my childhood bed-ridden (he'd broken his hip when i was 4,and never really recovered). my grandmother was 10 years younger than him (this ispaternal, the other grandmother was maternal that i spokeabout earlier). her doctor told her "ethel, you can't take care of him any more. you can put him in a nursing home, or you can plan your funeral. your choice."

while we're not tothat stage yet, mark and i both feel that maybe she needs alittle helpwith dad. if nothing else, a planned afternoon away, once a week, without worrying about how dad's doing at home while she's gone. a support group for caregivers. SOMETHING. i have a feeling tomorrow (a family get-together is planned) is going to be showdown time. sigh.

but, back to saving grace. geepaw fell off a horse, and got banged up. grace had let him ride ahead, and the horse reared and bucked geepaw off. she felt like it was her fault. i can understand. i thought i was done worrying about every bump & bruise, but now it's with my mom, and not my kids.

sunrise, sunset

i was reading stephanie's post about letting her eldest go to australia, and it got me thinking. i didn't do birthday posts for the boys this year because life's been nutty at best, but they did, indeed, get a year older. Sean is now 15, and Liam is 17.

mark and i were watching the original woodstock movie one day, while the boys were playing video games in the other room. for t hose not in t he know, it's rated R for nudity and some language. liam came in the room to tell us something, and we paused it to avoid any accidental montys. after he went back to playing, i looked at mark and said "do you realize he could walk into a movie theater right now, and watch this without our permission?" that thought, more than a nything else lately, has reinforced t hat my little boy is no longer little, nor a boy. He's definitely a young man, with his o wn ideas, thoughts, feelings, and ways.

He's even seemed to pull his head out of his ass as far as his grades. we're 2 weeks into the new year, and i've heard from 4 teachers, and he's doing well in their classes. some A's, even!

Sean has definitely shown a large amount of improvement, and maturity. He's started the school yearat level 2 of 6 levels atschool (the higher the level the greater the freedoms and the fewer "chances" to keep a level day and still misbehave.), and at the pace he's going, i expect him to hit level 3 by parent teacher conferences. we won't mentionthe fact that the little shit is now about 6' tall, and weighs about 185. haven't heard about academics, but the behavior is a huge t hing.

when did they grow?

WE DID IT!

all kinds of happy butt dancin' goin on 'round here. With some sincere efforts by many people, and anonymous donations from others, not only did we raise enough $$ to save the Florence Library, but there's enough to put the other libraries back to their normal hours, and saved 50 jobs!

i've literally been moved to tears by the support from all of you, and plurkies as well. A special, huge thank you goes out to kat of Paperandyarn fame. She donated a sock kit to the cause, which we raffled off (i'm still getting the details, kat! i'll email ya when i know more, lol).

we are florence!

A Crime

For those of you who live in omaha, you already know the crime being commited in my neighborhood, i.e. Florence. Florence was here before Omaha, and was annexed in 1917. When you hear about the problems in North Omaha, that's actually south of here. The Mormons over-wintered here in 1846. It's one of the most historic areas in the state.

And we're being robbed. The City of Omaha is short $12 million for 2009, and they've asked all departments to trim where they can. The Omaha Public Library Board, in their infinite (and, might I add, unregulated) wisdom, decided, rather than cutting hours and staff across all of Omaha (to include the new branch they JUST opened on Monday in west Omaha (where all the $$ is)), they're going to close our branch. In 3 weeks. They say it's temporary, and that they'll open back up in 2010, and that there's even $$ budgeted for renovations (it's bond $$, and can't be used for operations, by law) in 2010 (if it reopens).

Here's my major problems with this, in case you haven'tnoticed.

1) they opened a n ew branch in a higher priced neighborhood, with an annual budget of $730K while the Florence branch is only short $90K to finish out the year.
2) the library board is autonomous to the point that, once they're nominated by the mayor (they were actually nominated by the previous mayor, not the one who is in office now, although i have problems with him, as well), they can do anything they want with the funds allocated to the library system. they answer to no one.
3) they're nominated, not elected.
4)the library board says that absolutely, there will be renovation funds for the library. if it reopens. they won't guarantee that.
5) only one board member lives close enough to our branch to count (she lives about 1/2 mile away). the rest live in west omaha.

the closest branch from our branch is in "north omaha." it's only open 5 hours aday (and not after 5pm) because it's in a bad neighborhood. one of our local daycares decided to check it out, as an alternative to take her kids if our branch closes, and she wasn't even comfortable pulling into the lot, because of the "riffraff" in the lot.

there's been plans to "renovate" our area for years, and yet they never happen. everything that's happened here h as been because we, as Florence residents, have pushed for it, and made it happen. The big wigs downtown ignore us, and belittle us, and push us aside. Not this time, gang, not this time.

Oh, andby the way, the week after the U.S. Post Office announced that our Post Office was up for "consolidation," (which, btw, was revoked; we get to keep our post office) they announced the florence library closure. Yeah, right, we matter. uh huh. watch howmuch we matter.

oh, btw?

Friday, August 28th, at 7 pm, is a rally at the Florence Library. Be there, and be square.

getting stuff off my chest

well, it had to happen sometime, and it did in may. i went back to work full time.

it's not working out very well right now. the job is fine. the benefits are fantastic, and i like everybody i work with, and my manager is fantastic. however, i work from 1030 to 7. in the old days, mark would go to bed around 730. now, with my commute, i'm not getting home til 730, so we often don't eat dinner until 8 or 830, unless mark cooks, then we MIGHT eat at 730. i would say about 1/3 of the time, he cooks, 1/3 of the t ime, i finish up or completely cook, and 1/3 of the time we order out. however, if mark doesn't get to bed by 730, he's incredibly grumpy. so, there's been al ot of fighting lately, because i'm tired when i get home from work, and have a lot less tolerance for bullshit.

and now there's band camp. when i volunteered to be the main band uniform mom last year, i wasn't working. now, i'mh aving to coordinate everything either in the morning before i go to work, after mark goes to bed, and on my days off. tonight was a bitch. mark decided tonight was an eat-out night, but didn't tell metil almost 8. i had to go get liam at 815, and ended up not getting the food until 825. so i had to go pickliam up, and talked to the band teachers while i was there, because there was information i needed in order to get things ready (band camp is in 2 weeks. sigh).

so he gets mad because the food was cold by the time i got home. i feel like i can't win for losing with this one.

add to that the stress of having a major asshole on the phone today, who refused to acknowledge that maybe the reason why his credit card keeps getting shut off is because he's not following the rules that his bank put in place to PROTECT HIM. add to that the fact that the aforementioned bank has the habit of dumping customers on us without any prior notification, and he came to me pissed (without any warning to me), and that i got screamed at for a full 3 minutes because he didn't authorize ### bank to give us the verification information (which, i'm sure, was in the paperwork he signed when he created the account, or was given that information when the bank changed their policies) and wouldn't let me explain that it's HIS bank that determines what is going to be verified, NOT US. he even choked, he was so apoplectic. i had enough and hung up on him (he was also swearing, and i don't care WHAT company policy is, i WILL NOT put up with that crap). my luck, 10 minutes later, i get the same bank sending him back to me. at least this time the bank rep stayed on the line and toldme who the customer was. i informed him of this customer's disgusting behavior, and asked if he would mind if i spoke to my supervisor. she ok'ed me to transfer them both to a different agent, because i was literally edging into a migraine from the stress of this asshole. i warned her ahead of time what was going on, then emailed my manager with all the details, in case they decided to review the call.

i was so upset, i ended up getting off the phone, and walking the halls for a few minutes, to calm down.

why are some people so damned hateful and vicious?

that was my week.

how was yours?

10 signs you're getting older

This was prompted by Claudia posting the same thing today.

1. I took my mom to the bank, and heard Knights in White Satin. Not only can I remember when this song came out, I can remember when no self-respecting bank would play anything NEAR its style/genre.

2. I took a short nap the other day, and happened to look in the mirror right after I got up. The marks on my face weren't pillow creases, they were WRINKLES.

3. While getting up at 6 is still hard, staying up til 6 is impossible.

4. Mom's chin. Nuff said.

5. This is the first year i haven't gotten carded for buying beer at christmas time (i wear a santa hat that covers my grey).

6. Justin Timberlake? I have kids older than him. Sean Connery? now THERE'S a man!

7. I broke my finger when I was 14, and from then on, I had a weather finger (and yes, it's THAT finger. i like giving crazy aunt marge (the fill-in for mother nature) the finger). It would ache within 24 hours of an approaching storm/major weather change. Now? It never stops hurting, it just hurts MORE when those weather changes happen.

8. They're not hot flashes, they're power surges.

9. I can carry pencils around without using my hands.

10. More tolerance for teens. Yes, you're reading that right, i said MORE. was terribly impatient with the girls' and their friends. The boys? not so much.

And, just as an aside? I just turned 43 a couple of weeks back. At this age, my mother had a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and a 2 month old baby. How the HELL did she do it? And thinking of trying to deal with teens (and me and my baby brother were both incredibly strong-willed) from the age of 51 to 61? Unthinkable. she's 81 now, and i can only hope i'm half as tough as she is/was.

coming home

I've been noodling around on Youtube, as I'm wont to do when I stay up way too late, and ran across a whole slew of military tribute videos/slide shows.

One that hit home was Ozzie Osbourne, and Coming Home.

My baby brother was in the first Iraqi war, Desert Storm. He left in September, 1990, after having only been in the Army for 6 months (total, including basic & AIT). He left a 19 year old boy. It changed him. He came home older, wiser, and sadder.

I'm not the praying type (even when I "had" religion, i didn't do it much), but in the months that he was gone, until he came back to the States in mid-April, I prayed every night that he'd come home. I put up yellow ribbons wherever I was (i ended up moving 3 times in that time period. it REALLY sucked). all i asked was "please let him come home."

He doesn't talk much about his time there (and I've found that a lot of them won't). He came back with some bad habits (he started smoking there, if only to relieve the boredom), and some new insights, and some health issues (don't let them kid you, Gulf Syndrome is real. he has small bits of neuropathy, foot fungus issues (still! and it's been 19 years!), and generally weird stuff).

He told me, when he got back to Ft. Bragg, and got in his car to drive home, on his first leave, that the last song that played as he drove down highway 75 to my parents' home was Ozzie and Coming Home. I think, at that point, he really was home, and it really was over. (apparently bloggers embedding feature is broke, so click the link)

Bob played his cards right. He stayed in the military for just over 8 years. Long enough to gain a small disability check (his knees will never be right), and long enough to get out of that inactive duty that has dragged so many people back into the military, who thought they'd gotten shut of it (i'm thinking of the woman who reported for duty with her kids with her, since there was no one else to take care of them), and not so long that he was obliged due to retirement (they nabbed my SIL on that one, but because she's developed some major health issues since she'd left, they couldn't send her overseas, so they put her on immigration control as a federal marshall (which she'd done before. the woman has had more military and military-type jobs than icare to thinkabout! (imagine a drill instructor with the last name of Payne. oy!)))

But that time will never leave him. He bears the scars inside and out. But he came home, which is so much more than some have done. And I'm grateful.

amazing

so, apparently, someone is reading my blog from YEARS ago. apparently, even now, this person can't let go. won't go into all of it, but get a life, please?

it's done

i keep coming back to my dad. you all know how much i miss him, every day, even though it's been almost 8 years since he died.

it was brought back to me again, tonight.

i'm watching the oscars, and they did they're usual "in memoriam" thing, and the last name to come up was Paul Newman. Paul Newman was my dad's age, almost exactly. I always connected the two. Somehow, as long as he was out there, kicking it, it was ok. But Paul Newman's gone, now. And, so, too, is my dad.

too funny

this is TOO funny not to share. it's NSFW, but oh my god. i about peed myself.

going batty

the phone rang about 45 minutes ago. considering it was almost 9, i knew it had to be steph.

here's a little back story on steph. she can't STAND creepy-crawlie things. they had a mouse problem for a while, and one got caught in a trap by just its tail and one leg. her solution? put a paper box top with an iron on top to keep it contained until her sister got home to deal with it. not quite sure how she's my child, since creepy crawlies don't bother me in the slightest, except for the bite factor (i don't handle snakes because my hands are tender enough without throwing bites into it).

so, i answer the phone, and she's SQUEALING. not in a good way. "THERE'S A BAT IN MY BEDROOM!" "where are you?" "UNDER THE COVERS!" "well, dummy, get out!"

she hadn't been feeling good, and had been in bed since she'd gotten home from work. she was calling me from under the covers. she had been lightly dozing when she heard what she thought was a mouse, so she thumped on the floor to scare it away. instead she heard wings!

i finally talked her into getting out of the room, amidst much squealing, giggling, and half-crying (yes, she's that scared). i called the humane society/animal control, and the lady told me that steph was going to have to keep a visual on the bat until they got there. i told her that wasn't going to happen, because she'd practically had a panic attack while calling me. finally, i told the lady i'd go over and keep an eye on the bat until they got there. she told me that since this was considered an emergency, we would be next. however, the officers were already out on a call.

i called steph up and told her to tell me how much she loved me, because i was going to come over and keep an eye on the durned thing. i went over there, and discovered she'd turned the light off. "how am i supposed to watch the bat if the light's off?!?" i turned the light on, and she screamed "don't let it out!" "would you s hut up! that's why it's flying around, you've got it all worked up!"

i got her to shut up, and it actually decided to land on the window sill at the top, and there it stayed until the officers showed up. i decided i could watch it by opening the door every few seconds, and that worked. i honestly think the poor little thing had gotten worn out, and since the nuttiness had died down, it needed a nap, lol.

So, the officers show up. They're both GIRLS, and both around steph's age. she was thoroughly disgusted, lol. I opened the door enough for them to go in and get the poor little guy, and steph fled to the kitchen.

We had to sign paperwork waiving rabies testing, but steph is positive it never touched her, so the officers didn't seem concerned.

The whole thing took about 45 minutes, from her call to the little guy being deposited in the container (which was a commercial-sized sour cream container with holes cut in the top, and what looked to be a paper towel sticking through the lid).

i'm still just struck over how much of a puss steph was over the whole thing, lol.

amazing

i was unable to watch the inauguration today. i had to take my mother to the dermatologist to get a small thing on her forehead removed. (no biggie, i think it took longer for them to numb her forehead than it took to remove it). i tried to find a tv. walmart had theirs focused on their own internal network (big surprise there), and burger king just down the way didn't have one (some do, some don't).

so i sat in the car, and i listened. and i cried. not tears of sorrow. i don't know if i would call them tears of joy. tears of hope. such overwhelming emotion. bigger than me. bigger than all of us as individuals.

today is a milestone. not just for democrats. not just for african-americans. for all americans. "all men are created equal." indeed.

outrage

i know, i seem to be pissed alot lately, but this one is justified.

sometimes political action groups have a place. however, the ones who 1) target seniors and 2) fear-monger are #1 on my shit-0-meter.

here's the story. my dad was a big one for small donations to these political action groups. when he died, my mom continued to receive requests. she donated in the small quantities that my dad had. did this for years. i know this. it's her money, and it wasn't hurting her to do so.

until recently. i got a call from the bank today, saying that her check to the IRS (she pays quarterly) was going to bounce because she only had $19 in her checking account, and there wasn't enough in her savings to cover it.

WHAT THE HELL??????

my mom is comfortable. she can buy what she wants when she needs it. she's loaned money to me and my kids and my brother, and not been bothered by the amount.

so i told them we'd be in as soon as i could pick her up. i called her, told her to get out her duplicate checkbooks (thank god for those, it helped me figure out what was going on), and i'd be right over.

i looked at them as she was finishing putting her coat on, and realized that the "small" donations she'd made in the last month were more than my car payments! i'm not going to give figures, but it made me very, very angry. i asked her what she was thinking, and she couldn't tell me. she got angry with me, until i told her that this was causing problems with her bank, and that this point, i wasn't even sure if she had enough $$ to go grocery shopping! that made her pause.

we went to the bank, and after going through all kinds of paperwork, we were able to place a series of stop payments, to at least stop the hemmorage of $$ from her account. we were able to cover the IRS check, and leave her with $$ to live on until her next checks came. we did eventually end up going to the grocerystore.

when we got back, she grabbed some letters that she had set out for the mailman totake (he hadn't been yet) and brought them back in with her. she said to tear them up and throw them away. i looked at them first. the "small" donations they used to ask for were,apparently, a thing of the past. the smallest "minimum" donation they were asking for was $100! this was with 3 different committees! kind of explained a few things.

one was asking for money because sure as shooting, Obama and Ted Kennedy were not going to protect her social security and medicare rights, and try to socialize health care, etc, etc, etc. (my mom's a republican, can you tell?) i'm not sure my mom would be able to make it if it weren't for medicare (she has numerous health issues that have her at the doctor's on a regular basis).

FEAR MONGERING! run, be scared, give us money so we can scare the shit out of you! that's what i read.

Traditional Values Committee
National Committee for the Preservation of Senior Rights
American Seniors Rights Committee

that was the 3 i saw today. these people were terrifying my mother, and as tiny and old as she is (she's 4'8" and will be 81 on the 30th), the only thing she thought she could do is give them $$.

i think i've found a new cause.

my mom has promised not tosend $$ to these people any more (and i have things in place to monitor this more closely than before).

but she's going to still get the mail for them. i've asked her to save them for me, and i'm going to do some investigating. finding out who is legit, and who isn't. and i'm going to act. contact my congressmen. my governor. my attorney general. i'm going to stop these fuckers. stop 'em hard.

i'm done.

i can't believe this

Ok, gang, we all know that charity crafting is near and dear to my heart. However, there's a movement going on that i just became aware of, that may put it in jeopardy for me.

This legislation will prohibit the sale of children's products without costly, intensive testing. This just might be the the straw that breaks the camel's back for so many people. All those WAHMs who do small things to help supplement their income making simple things for children from safe products who can't afford this kind of testing.

i know i'm being kind of incoherent, but this pisses me off so much i can't stand it!

why not have the suppliers of the materials (who usually do this in massive quantities) sustain the costs of the testing, rather than making each individual do it, and drive them out of business. Admittedly, it will drive up the cost of the materials, and maybe cause these companies to cut back on some of their inventories, but i'm sure most of the people buying for their own businesses could increase their prices as well, and still be able to be IN business. one $500 test for a material that the company sells 10,000 pieces for breaks down to FIVE CENTS per item.

FIVE CENTS, people. where as Judy's Baby Binkies (hypothetical here, folks) may only make $500 a month on her blankets.

i know, this act is in response to the toy recalls of the last few years, but those were from toys manufactured OUTSIDE THIS COUNTRY. (lookin' at you, China!). What this legislation will do is drive the toy-makers (and other kids' items crafters) who people turned to when all those toys were recalled out of business. Which turns us BACK to those SOB's who weren't using safe practices with our children in the first place!

Anyway, go. check the link out. follow some of the suggestions made. I'm definitely going to write to my congressmen.