Vanessa’s boyfriend’s parents refuse to help pay for him to go to Prom.  He just got his driver’s license last week so he’s not been able to get a job despite having been looking for one.  I’ve offered to buy the tickets and rent his tux; however, he keeps saying he didn’t want to go anyway.  I know Vanessa was freaked out about going so she’s jumping on that bandwagon despite the fact that we’ve already gotten her dress.  (They were going to have Prom really early, but decided to postpone it in order to raise more money for decorations and such.) 

Now I’m left with a dress and wondering, should I let Cody skip his Junior Prom or should I insist they go?  I don’t want either of them to miss out on any fun, but at the same time, I don’t want to force them into something they really don’t want to do.

ARGGG!  Teenagers!

Blah…ran out of steam.

I was going to discuss how people place such importance on beauty like that poll that asked people if they’d rather be beautiful or smart. Beautiful won by a landslide. I was going to discuss (and did a bit) how much blind faith people put in the media. I was going to discuss how people can justify just about anything if they believe they are following the instructions of an authority figure - as proven by the Milgram Experiment.

Instead, I gave you the short version.

…and the people rejoiced…

The other day in guild chat, I mentioned having heard that Oral Roberts said the Virginia Tech murders happened because Cho was possessed by Satan. That information was wrong. Dr. Richard (you can call him Dick) Roberts, son of Oral Roberts (Oral and Dick on the same page - I’m sure to get a lot of XXX spam from that!) and president of Oral Roberts University, said, “Cho was obviously possessed or oppressed by Satan.” I wanted to clear the air on that before moving on…lol

This is still a very entertaining thought for me, though. It’s not the impression I got from Satan in my readings. The Satan I read about wouldn’t kill people, he would want to win them over. He would do something evil like sale prescription drugs for $4 which would drive out the competing pharmacies by luring their customers away. Once there was no competition, he’d slowly begin raising the prices again and use the profits to build an army of low paid employees, invest in weapons of mass destruction or some other means of commerce in order to win over foreign countries, or simply to gain more followers by tempting them with other low priced shiny new things. Whatever the case may be, it is my belief that should Satan possess someone or even oppress someone, it would be with the intent of gaining a following. Killing his host and 32 other people without first asking them to follow him just simply does not sound Satanic to me.

The one possible Satanic element in that whole ordeal (from my point of view) would be his involving NBC. Where Cho didn’t seem to want to force people to follow him, that’s what the main stream media is all about - building the biggest audience. They don’t even bother to double check their facts a lot of the time. They call upon ‘experts in the field’ that back up their point of view rather than doing the legwork to make sure their story is valid. Obviously those experts are not impartial. Just like the ‘experts’ that lawyers hire for court cases, they have vested interests in giving an opinion. It might be political, financial, or simply sensational in order to help build a name for themselves.

I suppose I long for investigative reporters that gathers facts BEFORE creating their opinion and story. Ones that are not ready to read into a microphone anything that’s been handed to them without first checking it out and forming their own opinions rather than simply calling around to get an expert that agrees with them.

Don’t think you’re off the hook yet. There’s more to come!

I had this dream. A guy appeared on the streets of New York City. He looked like a character out of a Charles Dickens novel. Actually, that’s probably very accurate as I was watching Bleak House on PBS prior to the dream. The fellow has a brown suit and hat. He looks a bit worse for the wear, as if he’s been traveling for a long period of time and didn’t bring along a change of clothes. Despite his tattered appearance, he’s a nice gentleman; however, he tends to keep to himself, watching people and waiting for them to interact with him before attempting to talk with them.

Another of Pistachio’s kittens died. =(  She kept seperating it from the other two.  I don’t know if something was wrong with it or if she just didn’t like it; however, I do know that we woke up Sunday morning and it was dead.  That afternoon, a friend of Vanessa’s brought two kittens to us.  Her parents were tired of trying to find homes for them so they were going to kill them.  Vanessa couldn’t stand for that and told her to bring them over.  Luckily, someone adopted one of those yesterday. 

Grand total - Eight kittens to give away. 

Tuesday, Ethan got home from school and said, “Wow…Pistachio had her kittens?” I said, “Not that I know of. I’ve been here all day.” He said, “She feels like she’s had them.” …and he was right. I hadn’t thought to feel her tummy. She’s so fluffy that you couldn’t even tell.
We started looking around an found three kittens under my chest of drawers. Vanessa came in and found a fourth behind my bedroom door. There was one white kitten, one dirty white kitten (It seriously looks like it needs to be cleaned. Just kind of an off white color, one black kitten, and one black one with some gray stripes. Pistachio wasn’t even laying with them. She was too busy taking care of Luna’s kittens.

Some of you may remember a few years back a young adult took my children’s entire high school hostage in the cafeteria. He came in with a gun and gasoline which he poured down the halls and on some of the kids (including one in a wheel chair). It came to an end when the principal got the opportunity to grab the gun and two of the football boys tackled the gunman to the floor where others joined in to keep him down until the police arrived. One of the boys that did that was a good friend’s son (Cody). I cannot tell you the amount of fear I felt hearing the story. One wrong move and he could have been dead…but no move and the entire school could have exploded into flames and gunfire.

The radio was playing a clip from a fellow in one of the classes from the VA shootings. The gunman burst into his classroom and began shooting people. He left for some reason and this fellow, another guy, and a girl barred the door to keep him from coming back into the room. The gunman tried the door again and when he couldn’t get in, began firing into the door. He then left and went to another room.

There were reports from a fellow that walked by the building as all this was happening. He had his iPod going and didn’t hear anything that was happening. He walked right on by.

A DJ this morning was taking about how we as a society have become less socialized. We don’t take the time to get to know our neighbors or bother to make friends with those around us. We’re more concerned with how things effect us and we’re almost afraid to become involved with others. You know, you see a car wreck and want to look, but don’t stop to help. You see a fight and don’t bother to try to stop it. You just want to get away from it.

I don’t really have a point or a moral. It’s just this feeling of do I make enough effort to get to know those around me and do I care enough to get involved. Would I have tried to stop the guy or just stood there trying to become invisible so I wouldn’t get hurt?

A while back when I was still working in layaway, this man was screaming at his girlfriend. She was backed into a corner and slipped into the family restroom. The guy was mad. Hit the door and walked off. When she finally came out, I asked her if everything was okay and if there was anything I could do to help. She looked at me as if I were nuts and said everything was fine. Her boyfriend came back and they walked off like nothing ever happened.

Should I have yelled at the guy when he was screaming? Should I have called for security? Should I have gotten more involved? I felt like I should have done something to make a difference, but I didn’t know how and quite frankly, I was afraid of the guy. Was I more worried about my safety and making a scene than caring about someone and helping them out of a bad situation? If I’d have stepped up, would it have given her a bit of courage to stand up for herself? Granted it’s a little different because it’s a domestic thing, but I was still left feeling like I feel now. Maybe I need to be more involved.

As I was playing WoW tonight, I got a text message on my phone, “Y dont u transfer 2 here and move in with me and get married?”  I of course texted back, “Okay.  How’s next week?”  The reply game, “I was hoping for tomorrow.”  I replied again, “Rats.  I can’t.  I have to work tomorrow. =(”

 *sigh* Another failed marriage.  This time before it even happened!

WM is making us go to uniforms by June 1st.  Everyone will wear tan pants and dark blue shirts.  There will be no more smocks!!!  While that is a good thing, the bad thing is, no pockets for pens and no place for a name tag.  I’ve been looking for a lanyard to wear.  For those of you that may not know, a lanyard is the little necklace that holds your badge or in this case, name tag.  I haven’t found anything that suits me yet.  Right now, I have a sleep aid one.  It’s a pretty blue, but not really me.  I can’t seem to find any gaming ones though.  I did find a Winnie the Pooh one, but it was $15.  /boggle

If you all have lanyards you want to get rid of, send them my way!  If I can’t find one I like, then I’ll just wear 50 different ones…lol

When I got divorced, I only asked for one thing. I didn’t ask for the house, a vehicle, and not even the children. I asked that child support be garnished from the ex’s wages. I had an awful attorney though. Not only did that not happen, but he also did not include all his income for child support. The ex gets big quarterly bonus checks that should have been considered income, but weren’t. As a result, my child support has been two to three weeks late continually and less than it should have been.

At the end of last year, I called the ex asking about child support. It was three weeks late and I wanted to know when I could expect it. The ex blew a gasket. “I’m tired of you calling about this! If you don’t make enough money to pay your bills without it, then there’s no excuse. You’re not doing your job.” This was the final straw for me. I filed online with the State Attorney General’s office to have child support reviewed. I wanted custody on Rebecca changed and his wages garnished. I explained that Rebecca had been living there and that child support had been adjusted, but I wanted to make it official now.

I didn’t hear anything until last month when I got a notice in the mail stating that they were going after him for back child support and garnishing his wages. They showed he owed 18K in back child support for the four years Rebecca has been living with him. I called them to explain that there was an error. He didn’t owe that back support. I only wanted things fixed for going forward. I was told that I couldn’t fix it. The court had ordered it and therefore he owed it. They also took away his passport.

He was not very pleased about this. I got several lovely voice mails with colorful language explaining how he wasn’t very pleased. Finally, I’d had enough and told him, “I told you ahead of time what I was going to do and why. If you’d have changed custody years ago and paid on time, we’d not be in this fix. I told you that I’ll work with you to get it fixed. If you want my help, you’d better be nice to me because it‘ll be a hard fight for you if I decide not to help.”

After lots and lots of phone calls and arguing that they could fix what they messed up, the Attorney General’s office finally told us both to come into their offices to straighten things out. We did and the lady we worked with asked me many times if I was sure I wanted to do that. After reviewing the case and our incomes, she announced that it could all be fixed, but it had to go before a judge and the child support amount would be raised according to his income. She said it would take about four months to get a court date.

I agreed to refund the overages each month to the ex. I said from the start, I don’t want anything that’s not mine. The ex responded with, “But I need that money right away. You can’t get it to me as quickly as I need it! It‘ll take time for you to get the check and mail me a new one.” I had to giggle at this and tell him, “Welcome to my world…only I‘m only sending you about a tenth of what you were sending me. If you can‘t pay your bills without it, then there‘s no excuse.”

Man it feels nice to have the shoe on the other foot.