Archive for the ‘Rant’ Category

26
Jul
2010

Getting hit by a car sucks.

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Current Mood:Sad emoticon Sad


January 7th, 2010
My husband got hit by a car yesterday. As a pedestrian. While crossing the street. While I am not at liberty to go into details of the accident, I would like to share the aftermath.

He got struck in the lower back, his head hit the windshield, he flew up and bounced on the pavement, twice. He blacked out for a moment, then got up. He was extremely disoriented. His first thought? “Call the wife, she needs to know.” So he called me and said “I just got hit by a car.” Me: “Oh no, are you okay?” Him: “I think so, I don’t know.” Me: “I’m on my way!” Then he wandered around in the street, trying to figure out how to get out of it. Thankfully one of his coworkers was there to help guide him over to the side of the street and dial 911. That’s when hubs realized his head was bleeding. The ambulance showed up and carted him away, where he blacked out a couple of times. They were asking him basic questions such as his address and phone number, but he wasn’t able to answer them because he didn’t know. While this is common with a concussion, it’s still very frightening to not know this basic information.

The hospital had called to tell me that he was there and that he seemed to be just fine, but was going to get a CT scan just to be sure. By the time I arrived to the hospital he had been sent for the CT scan, from his head down to his pelvis. I was escorted into an empty trauma room (it’s kind of spooky to be sitting next to a crash cart) while he was getting the scan. I paced around then decided to at least fold up his clothes for him… until I saw that his shirt and sweater had been cut off of him. I glanced over at the trash can and saw bloody things, and I just about freaked. They wheeled him back into the room and he was wearing a neck brace and was laying on a back board. While I knew that it’s standard procedure to put on a neck brace, it was still very disconcerting to see.

He was relieved that I was there, because he was very confused, in pain, and had been carted around in an ambulance and wheeled around and stuck into a CT scan tube, and it’s welcome to see your spouse in all the madness. I saw that his head had been bleeding, but considering that they hadn’t talked much about it, I figured it wasn’t anything too terrible.
The scan results came back that he had a concussion, a large hematoma (a “knot” on his head), and bruised lungs. Pretty lucky, considering he’d gotten hit by a car! The doctor got rid of the spinal injury equipment that was attached to him and sat him up to check out the back of his head. There was a pretty nasty laceration that needed to be stapled together. I get squeamish about things like that, so I stepped out of the room while the doc cleaned it up and put him back together.

He got released, we came home. He was in a lot of pain, so we dropped by the drug store to pick up his prescription for Percoset. After taking one of those he felt a lot better.
Last night was very bad. Every time he turned over he was in pain, his hips were really sore, he couldn’t lay on his back due to his head injury, and he had an overall bad night. The next morning he was very, very sore. His lower back where he got hit was sore, his neck and shoulders were sore from whiplash, his scalp was sore. He lazed around most of the day, but around 5pm his head started hurting very badly and he got lightheaded (while on pain meds). After a couple of very bad bouts of pain, we decided a trip to the hospital may be in order in case of possible brain bleeding or swelling. He got another CT scan, they said he was fine, and the doctor said he was okay to shower and wash his hair. So when we got home he took a shower, which made him feel much better. Do you know how icky it is to have blood matted in your hair and you can’t do anything about it? :(

So the moral of this story is: Pay attention to your driving. Being hit by a car is no fun.

And in response to the same strange repeated question: We assume the driver was sorry. It’s not like they had malicious intent. It’s not like it was someone that thought they were playing GTA or something.

Update
Due to lawsuit proceedings, I was unable to post this until today. The accident was January 6th, and we had to keep all mentions of the accidents out of the public eye until the lawsuit was paid out, which just finished. We are now at liberty to divulge details, as well.

He was walking across the street from his bus stop, on a walk light, in the crosswalk. The driver wasn’t paying attention and made a left on him. It was approximated by the police that she was going 35mph. She was turning east-bound in the morning, into the sun, and claimed that there was a glare on the windshield and she couldn’t see him. While it’s easy to shout, “She couldn’t see so she shouldn’t have turned!” the human part of everyone realizes that we’ve all been guilty of that… driving when we couldn’t see 100% clearly, either blinded by the sun, fog on the windshield, or whatever.

The lawsuit, as you can see by the dates, was long and a giant pain. They tried to say that he wasn’t watching where he was going (he had the right of way, and is always cautious in that crosswalk), that he was against the crossing light (even though it was stated in the police report and corroborated by two witnesses), and that “maybe he’s not that injured.”

Let’s revisit his injuries. He got 13 staples in his scalp, and a doctor wanted $70 just to get in for an appointment (we have no health insurance), so we decided to do it ourselves. Removing staples from flesh is not for the faint of heart, but doable. Look it up on the Internet like we did. He had a concussion, which made him irritable, confused, unable to concentrate, and unable to sleep. Most of that is gone away now. Above, where I talked about his sore back, it was found later by his chiropractor that he got two bulging discs in his lower back from the accident… We know he didn’t have the issue before, because he’d always been very strong, able to lift a lot without much effort. This was by far the worst of his injuries, and he will have it all of his life.

He can no longer lift anything, including his child. Twisting hurts. He can no longer mow the lawn. He can no longer spin his fire staff, which was a love of his. He can no longer play much baseball. Standing for long periods hurts. Riding the bus and hitting bumps hurts. He’s going to have to visit a chiropractor for the rest of his life.

As far as the settlement… The insurance company paid out the driver’s maximum policy, which was state minimum requirements. It covered his bills, barely. It’s not enough to cover many more trips to the chiropractor, the pain relief things that he needs now such as meds, a portable tens unit, lumbar support, etc. It’s also not going to pay for the movers that we will have to hire any time that we move. It’s not going to pay for any surgery that he may need later. And research has revealed that going after her would be useless… She’s already got multiple judgments against her.

All of this because she was in too much of a hurry to pay attention to the fact that the way was not clear before going. And, not only is he still scared, nearly seven months later, to cross at that intersection, which he does every morning, but he has drivers rush at him, honk at him, yell at him to get out of the road… because they are in a hurry. They can’t wait an extra couple of seconds for him to finish crossing the street. What if he’s got places to be? Just because he’s using public transit and crossing the street, it’s not like he is some bum out looking for a bottle of booze; he’s saving gas, commute headache, and carbon dioxide being belched into the environment. He’s on public transit for three hours a day. The last thing he wants is to deal with some jackass that is in too much of a hurry to wait a few moments while he crosses the street, because pedestrians the right-of-way.

We’ve discussed his wearing a bright orange reflective vest, carrying a crossing guard stop sign, blowing a whistle, but I still like his idea the best… carrying a crowbar and smashing the hoods of cars that do this. ;) Not that he would… I don’t think.

The point is… People need to get out of their own little worlds and pay attention to what’s around them. Others have just as much right to be where they are as you do. He’s got just as much right to be walking across the street as you have driving. Get off your phone, stop fiddling with the radio, and pay attention. There’s nothing that is so important for you to be at that you should risk the life of someone. If you’re that late… perhaps you should have left earlier. And it’s no one’s fault but your own.

For locals: He got hit on Olive Blvd, at the intersection of Tempo Dr, just west of 270. A nasty street to cross. :(

Posted in Local (St. Louis), Rant

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13
Jul
2010

Apathy

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Current Mood:Alarmed emoticon Alarmed

We, as a collective consciousness, are apathetic. We have become numb to so much. What would give our ancestors nightmares are a part of our every day life; something that we just do not think about anymore. We have become such a throw-away, wasteful, greedy society, and most people just don’t care. We have removed ourselves from nature. We have become conditioned to the horrific environmental changes happening around us, but who cares? Not my problem. We’ve all got to die of something, right?

When you buy a package of alkaline batteries, for example, consider all of the industrial processes that have happened just to create what you hold in your hand: The base metals mined, then refined. The chemicals produced for that battery, and what is produced as by-products, and the disposal of those by-products. The plastic packaging, the chemicals created and by-products produced. The cardboard packaging, the paper making process, the inks. The plastic bag the clerk put that package of batteries in. Of course we throw away the packaging, so where does it go? Into a landfill, where that plastic is going to stay for eons. Then when we have used up the battery, we toss the battery into the landfill as well, where it will break down and poison the land. But who cares? It’s just a battery, it’s served us well. It’s been put into a plastic hunk of junk toy (which will probably break after a couple of uses) that keeps our kids out of our hair while we finish up on some work that we couldn’t get finished at the office.

Then we start up our gas-guzzling car to buzz through a drive-through for yet another meal on the run, because who has time to cook? Fossil fuels mined from the depths of the earth, processed, then belched out into the air for the convenience of the nasty greaseball meal that gets us through a few more hours of our blissfully unaware lives. But we don’t think about that. Our evening meal is taken care of.

And while we’re on the subject of meals, let’s not think about the processes needed that will give us this fast food. We don’t want to consider the tiny living area that the animal we just ate had to live in, standing in it’s own feces for most of it’s life. We certainly don’t want to consider where that feces is disposed of, which contaminates everything that it is around. We are gladly removed from the disgusting slaughter process, where who knows what bacteria is floating around. There’s governmental bodies that make laws about things that are supposed to protect us, but honestly are only strongly enforced when an inspector is around, or a company is investigated for yet another salmonella outbreak.

We also don’t want to consider the pesticides and chemical fertilizers that were sprayed all over that tiny little bit of vegetable that we may have gotten, what cancers they can cause us, or the green deserts that growing them (as well as the food for the cattle) has created, which will become so toxic from all of the chemicals that it will eventually become barren wasteland. “Eventually” means some arbitrary time in the future, so someone else can worry about that.

We blithely consume the food, the packaging, the fuel, without a moment’s thought about what the cost is. Not to ourselves of course, because we watch our money, but to the Earth. Who cares about the Earth, though? Certainly somebody does. There’s tree-hugging hippies out there munching granola and singing Kumbaya that cares, they care a lot. They care enough for me and you and the guy next door… Heck, one of these hippies cares enough for the entire block! They can shout about recycling and reducing our carbon footprint. Let them care. You don’t have time to care.

You don’t have time to figure out how to recycle! Who knows what grade of plastic is in that bottle and where it should go? It’s all a bunch of mumb0-jumbo. The trash truck will whisk it away out of our sight, who cares where it goes? That’s provided that you have the time to even put it in the trash… Why not just toss it out the window? You won’t have to deal with any of that other nonsense then. Someone else can pick up the trash, and if not, oh well. It’ll break down in a few million years, right? Right. The Earth is your oyster, put here for you to use and abuse as you see fit. The world owes you a living.

Consider what you do.
Consider what you consume.
Consider how you use things.

When you make a thoughtful, conscious decision about what and how you will consume things, life becomes a little less superficial.
When you toss something into a recycling bin instead of the garbage, you are considering something beyond this one second of disposal. You’re considering, perhaps even subconsciously, the consequences of your actions.
When you continue to use something that may not be as perfect as it was when it was new, you are extending the life of it. Mending your clothes, reusing your boxes for storage, repairing your small appliance,  and giving away unused (even broken) things to someone else that could use it keeps trash out of landfills and saves you money on not only replacing the item, but possibly on disposal fees.
By avoiding quick trips to the store in favor of getting it the next time that you are out, you’re not only saving gas and wear and tear on your car, but you are reducing your consumption of fuels.
By avoiding excess packaging, you not only keep garbage out of the landfills, but are saving our natural resources.

Our society has become apathetic as a whole, and we easily fall into the trap of “out of sight, out of mind.” By taking a little time to actually research where things come from and where they go, you not only become a more informed person, but you are helping to keep the Earth wonderful for your children.

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Posted in Rant

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25
Jun
2010

Smart as mud.

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Current Mood:Confused emoticon Confused

Occasionally I will inherit a laptop in states of disrepair. We will refurbish them and sell them on Craigslist. I typically will include my phone number for calls or texts, along with my anonymized CL email address so people will have plenty of ways to contact me.
Up for sale at the moment is an older Dell. So here is my ad:

Dell laptop - $150 (Belleville, IL)

Date: 2010-06-25, 7:30AM CDT

Reply to: [my anonymous @craigslist.org email]

Dell Latitude D610 laptop for sale, recently refurbished. It has passed all hardware tests. Good cosmetic condition.
Intel Centrino 1.8Ghz
512mb RAM
20Gb hard drive
Windows XP Pro
Internal WiFi
14″ LCD display
Touch pad and eraser-head mouse
DVD ROM/CD writer
Has antivirus, anti-spyware, OpenOffice (open-source version of Microsoft Office), photo editing, and media players. Ready to go surf the net!
Email address above or call/text [My cell number] (area code 314 to discourage text spam bots).

So I get a text message convo:
Them: Laptop. Does the battery hold charge? Does it have the backup disc? Is it available to look at today and where ya located?
Me: The battery holds a full charge and even has an indicator on the battery itself to show battery life remaining. It doesn’t have a backup disc, but I can burn you a copy of a Dell XP Pro, and it has a legit key sticker on the laptop. I am located in Belleville, as the ad states, but I can meet you somewhere locally.
Them: Ad mentions nothing about battery. So does it have a battery and charger and a battery that holds charge?
Me: Yes, it comes with a battery that holds a charge and a power adapter. If you’re looking for laptops in states of disrepair, I have several I can sell you.
Them: I like the one for 150. I was curious about the battery and charger on it since the ad didn’t mention it.
Me: This laptop has a battery and power cord and is 100% ready to roll.
Them: So does it have a battery that holds charge and charger
Me: No, I’m sorry.
So… I could probably have turned that into a sale. But you know what? They will have my phone number. They would most likely be calling me up repeatedly for… err… “service after the sale.”
Noooo thank you. I’ll wait for the next person interested in a laptop.

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15
Apr
2010

Yes, I’m vegan. No, I’m not an activist.

5 Comments

Current Mood:Angry emoticon Angry

Hi there, I’m vegan. That means that I don’t eat meat or any animal products. I am vegan for my health. Low fat, zero cholesterol, high energy. And flavor. I never really started eating good stuff until I started cooking vegan food.

When I tell people that I am vegan, I will often see a bit of a cringe, as though I am going to start preaching at them. Did I preach at them before? No. Am I going to start protesting in front of your fridge? Nope. If you ask me about it, I’ll be glad to talk to you, but I’m not going to preach at you. It’s a sad state, however, that people automatically expect me to preach at them about killing the cute little animals just because I’m vegan; I’m more likely to preach at you about the health concerns. I don’t dig the poor treatment of animals. I get the activism. I’m in your corner, activist folks, animals should be treated humanely. Wearing fur sucks. But I’m not an activist.

I agree that more people need to know where food comes from. More people need to know what Big Ag does to produce the massive amounts of food. More people need to learn about the health risks of eating a diet high in meat and animal products. However, they are more likely to laugh at the activists that complain about irrelevant things, thus minimizing the big picture of the poor treatment of livestock, then eat another hamburger. People like that produce things like this. They think that all vegans are whiny activists that only want to complain. Oh wait, I’m complaining, now aren’t I? ;)

I recently started talking on Twitter to a teenage girl that’s learning about farming, and has some farm animals, via 4H. She likes to talk about her 4H experiences, but is repeatedly attacked by activists about factory farming. She’s not factory farming, you morons. Not every farmer stuffs their cows into tiny little stalls where they will live until they collapse and die. Some farmers actually put their cows out to pasture, feed them good stuff, and take great care of them without shooting them up with rBGH. Yes, her critters get antibiotics, it’s called responsible animal ownership. Would you deny you children antibiotics if they were ill? Honestly people, not every farmer is a “factory farmer.” You know the stories of back in the olden days when people had fields of crops and pigs rolling in the mud and chickens pecking at worms in the coop? Those farmers still exist. And they are some of the hardest working people in the world. But when I tell them that I am vegan, it’s like I’ve told them that I am a vampire and they want to hold up the sign of the cross to me.

I totally respect farmers. That’s where our food comes from!  If you, as an activist, don’t like Big Ag, go after Big Ag. Don’t go after mom and pop farmers who are just trying to make some money digging in the dirt and raising animals like people have been doing for thousands of years.

Yes, factory farms exist, and they suck. Big Ag is an unspeakable evil with their horrid, inhumane treatment. However, not every farmer is Big Ag. Not every farmer grows giant fields of GM corn and soy. Not every farmer shoves as many animals as they can into a tiny space where they will live until they die. And hey farmers, not every vegan is an activist.

“Oh my goodness, it’s naked people!”
*eye roll*

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Posted in Rant, Vegan

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12
Apr
2010

Your elected officials don’t want to represent you

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Current Mood:Angry emoticon Angry

“Contact your congressman!” “Write your senator!” These phrases have been used for many years for people to take action and to influence congressional votes and such. But… what if your elected officials responded by harassing you? That’s exactly what’s happened in Missouri.

Current bill: Deeming horse meat legal to slaughter for human consumption. Guh-ross. Okay, I’m vegan, so I’m sure the heck not going to eat a horse. And leave it to backwoods Missouri to want to allow this. But I’m not an activist, so I’m not going to go beyond stating my view that I feel that eating these graceful animals is totally barbaric. If I were a meat eater, I wouldn’t eat a horse any more than I would eat a dog. Ick. However, there are other people who are activists. And these are the people that say, “Contact your congressman!” and “Write your senator!” and that’s exactly what Brenda Shoss did. Brenda Shoss is the leader of an animal activist organization, Kinship Circle. So she rallied her people to contact Missouri lawmakers to vote against the disgusting bill. Instead of influencing the vote, the lawmakers (you know, the people that taxpayers pay to deal with these issues, to be in contact with the people, etc) thought it would be funny to harass Ms. Shoss by forwarding calls and emails to her. Yes, the people you put into office, ladies and gents. The story from Kinship Circle here. The story from the St. Louis Post Dispatch here.

Apparently the people that you elect have forgotten that you, the people, elect them, thus you, the people, have every right to contact them. There were (semi-truthful) responses of “Oh, well these people that were contacting me weren’t even from Missouri!” Well you know what? If this vote is passed in Missouri, other states will follow suit. Thus they wish to stop it before it starts. And then there’s a demographic that just might not be looking up the Missouri board of tourism for a visit. I currently live in Illinois, so I am unable to rightfully contact. And perhaps if I did contact as a Missourian, I would be met with hatred.

And the best part of the whole thing? Some of these stuffed shirts are talking about voting for the bill when they were previously against it, merely out of spite. Seriously?! “Well I don’t like what you did so I’m going to just go and do the opposite of what you want.” What kind of childish BS is that?

The people that you voted into office need to be held accountable for their actions. I thought that we elected real men and women into office, not a bunch of jerks that won’t listen.

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Posted in Local (St. Louis), Rant

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15
Mar
2010

Of snot and neti pot

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Current Mood:Sickly emoticon Sickly

I’ve got a confession: I don’t do sinus issues. I’ve had allergies ever since I could remember; as a child, I think my parents bought stock in Benadryl. Seasonal allergies are getting worse as I’m getting older, and the current season change is killing me. It may have progressed as far as a sinus infection, but I don’t think so, since my erm… mucus is clear. But I digress.

Since I’m very anti-snot, my current state of health disgusts me highly. So, as soon as hubs came  home, I made a trek to the drug store and asked the pharmacist what she recommended. She told me Zyrtec, and I told her that I’d already taken it, to no avail. So the pharmacist said “Oh, then you need an antibiotic.” Peeshaw. I don’t need an antibiotic… yet. So I picked up a box of SinuCleanse and asked the pharmacist what she thought about it. She agreed, and explained to me that the fluid goes into one nostril and comes out the other via gravity. I’ve been using lots of nose spray (I admit, it says not more than two doses in 24 hours, and I’ve been using three and still stuffed up), so I figured I could handle some saline in the sinuses. The drainage has to be better, right? So I got the neti pot and a box of decongestant and went home.

I opened the package. And lol’ed.
I said “Do I rub it and ask the genie to clear my sinuses?” Hubs replied, “I hope the spoon isn’t for digging.” After the initial giggles, I read the directions: You put lukewarm water in the pot with a packet of cleanser (baking soda and salt), stir (weren’t they thoughtful with including a spoon?), then lean your head to the side over the sink. You stuff the spout in your nostril, it comes out of your other nostril, you snort out the remains then blow your nose. Voila, clean sinuses! So I followed the directions. But I think the intended use was for people without full stoppage… I could feel the water go in, a couple of drips came out of the other side. I could feel the pressure but… no flow. So I removed the pot and snorted. Yeah, I did the snot rocket. And tried again. Now a few drops were coming out… and then no more. More snorting. More pouring. Couple more drops, and some was running down the back of my throat. Yuck! So I gave up on the dosage and blew my nose. I was clear! For… five minutes. Now, as I’m writing, I’m stopped up again.

I can’t really say that it worked, or that it didn’t. But it was an amusing situation nonetheless.

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Posted in Rant

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25
Feb
2010

Yes, parents, your bad kid is YOUR fault

2 Comments

Current Mood:Angry emoticon Angry

You give birth to the most beautiful child in the world. You give your child everything they could ever desire. You let them explore their surroundings. You stand up for them when you feel they have been wrongly accused. YOUR little beast angel wouldn’t do such a thing!

Wrong. Ever wonder why people stare at your kid while they are “exploring”? Because your kid is running around, getting into everything, bothering others, and generally being a little hellion. And because you choose to ignore it, they will only get worse. Perhaps if you’d unplug your cell phone from your head and pay attention to them they would be better behaved. Perhaps if you didn’t stuff them full of sodium-laden fast food and sugar-laden soda and sweets they would be better behaved. Whaaaa? Yeah. Click those links. They were pretty easy to search, just plug a few key terms  into your favorite search engine. Go on, try it.

Now before you get your panties in a wad, yes, I will acknowledge that there are a lot of behavioral problems that children have. I have a super duper ADHD kid myself. To the point of it being a disability, thanks for asking. But you know what? He’s pretty well-behaved in public. You know why? Because we don’t allow him to run amok, talk loudly, and generally cause a scene, as he would do if we didn’t constantly monitor him and correct him as the warning signs of an episode arise. Yes, children have behavioral problems. Yes, they act out when they aren’t monitored, such as at school. I’m saying in general.

Let me share a story to illustrate: We were at a restaurant (a rare treat out for us), and there was a child climbing all over the back of a booth. It was one of those round corner booths with the triangular shape on the back. He’d climb on it and jump off onto siblings, climb under the table and run around, and was just being a generally rotten kid. As most people were studiously ignoring, I stared with disbelief. Not so much at the kid, but at the parents who were allowing this behavior. The family was ignoring it almost as much as the other patrons. Seriously? Do you think this is appropriate behavior? You are free tell your 8 year old, “Sit down and eat your food. If you are finished, you are welcome to color, but we do not act out in public.” As they were leaving, the woman hissed at me “My son is autistic!” That was all it took. She was using his diagnosis as a cure-all for his poor behavior. Don’t get me wrong, autism is difficult to deal with, both as an parent and as a child. But as a parent, it is our responsibility to teach our children how to be normal human beings functioning members of society; even moreso with having such a diagnosis. Instead, this child was given the green light to do as he pleased because he was tagged with autism. I have a dear friend who has a son with autism. He’s a very good kid, and well behaved in public. Not because his autism is any better than the kid who was going wild, but because she taught her son how to act, and how to handle his impulses. I told her about this kid and she just shook her head at the ignorance of the parents. I could speak volumes on it, but I’m done.

So, because you’re so busy with your own life your career, you don’t have time to make a nutritious meal for your kid, so you hit the drive thru. Yet another greasy meal in your kid’s stomach, paired with a sugary soda. I linked above to the health hazards of this crap you’re feeding to your children. Not only is this incredibly unhealthy for your child, not to mention an expensive habit, it also teaches your child to rely on external sources for food, and that it’s okay to be too lazy to cook. It also teaches them that instant gratification is cool, which I feel is a huge part of today’s children’s behavioral problems.
I’m not saying that fast food is bad. Hey, we do fast food. However, fast food is only served on rare occasion; maybe twice a month. And then it is served when we are truly on the go, hence “fast” food. We also let it be known that we are having fast food because it suits the situation, versus “Meh, I don’t want to make supper tonight.” If we are just going to be out for the day, we will pack lunches. $15-20 in fast food can translate to an incredible picnic lunch! This carries over into daily life too… Everyone takes their lunch to work or school. It’s cheaper and healthier than any slop that you can get when you’re away from home.

“When I have kids, I’m going to give them everything I didn’t have.”  Common phrase, and a noble one. It often shows a potential parent’s determination to provide well for their child, which is very good, indeed. However, this sometimes translates into giving into a child’s every whim and desire. As they grow up, they are catered to like little princes and princesses. And that’s just what they are going to act like… Little royalty that expect everyone to give everything to them, just because they demand it. This, coupled with the fast food, I believe is one of the major reasons that we have so many obese children, along with… inactivity. Kids don’t play outside. They don’t ride bikes. Part of this is due to our society’s paranoia over the crazies in the world, but mostly it’s due to parental laziness of not wanting to tend to their child while they are participating in an outdoor activity. Thus we get lazy little video game zombies.

Again, video games have their place. They are great amusement and downtime for children. They attain goals and develop fine motor coordination, as well as problem solving. Some even teach them to socialize. So I’m not putting down the video game, but too much of a good thing isn’t necessarily good.

So, to get to the root of it all: I honestly believe that we, as parents, spend entirely too much time providing things to our children that they may not necessarily need, and work way too many hours to go above and beyond what is needed. Yep, I said it. Take some time off. If your family can afford to lose some income, do it. Pull your kid out of the societal machine that’s raising them and be a parent to them. Get the phone out of your ear, tell the bosses that when you’re off work you aren’t working (what a concept!), and spend time with your kid. Play a game. Go to the park. Learn to cook something. Your children need you. Raise  your kids to be a respectable member of society, not horrid little cretins.

And if you’re interested in the word count: 1188.

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Posted in Rant

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03
Feb
2010

A bit of springtime in my window

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Current Mood:Esctatic emoticon Esctatic


What a wonderful way to wake up. This is what I see in the morning when I get out of bed and wander out of the hallway and into the kitchen: Beautiful flowers. It almost feels like springtime here, and it makes me happy. Those are paperwhite narcissus that I bought on clearance from Kmart, they were in Christmas clearance items. So I popped the bulbs in the dirt, watered them, and behold, beautiful spring flowers in the winter! :) You also see some basil growing there. Yum. And some other viney kind of plant that I have yet to identify.

The flowers only bloom once per season, but that’s alright. Right now is the perfect time for those flowers to bloom.

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28
Jan
2010

To the person glaring at me (an open letter)

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Current Mood:Angry emoticon Angry

To the person glaring at me:

Yes, I notice you over there, glaring at me disapprovingly as I am parenting my child. While I appreciate your concern for my child’s well-being, let me assure you that he is very well cared for. Yes, my parenting techniques may seem rude or overly strict, but that is because I am trying to teach my son how to behave in public, unlike too many parents these days that feel their children should be allowed to roam and explore freely in public, or are too lazy, or too busy, to pay attention.

You see, my son is overly hyperactive. His hyperactivity is at the very top of every chart that has been made for his behavior. He is in a special class and rides a special bus with restraints because of his inability to control his impulses. If I did not keep a very tight control of his behavior, he would be running amok, talking to (and probably hugging) every stranger that pays any attention to him. He would mess with your belongings if they were anywhere besides in your hands. He would be talking very loudly, saying nonsensical things, making obnoxious sounds, and probably getting any other child within a ten foot radius also excited (and likely to get in trouble with their parents). If we are in a store he will nose in your cart, go wandering off, hide in clothing racks, find something he wants and beg and plead for it. He’s been doing these things since he has been able to walk unassisted.

Perhaps you have seen me grab his arm roughly to restrain or to get him to move. This isn’t to be mean to him. On the contrary, I truly detest having to occasionally be rough with my son. However, he will slip into his own little world and lose focus on the task at hand, and the sudden, firm movements bring him back to reality. Sometimes he doesn’t want to cooperate and go where we need to, so I may have to practically drag him.

Most likely you will see me chiding him while he appears to be fidgeting as any normal child would. And yes, I do allow him to fidget. But bear in mind, I have been with him the entire day and I know what state his mind is in. Depending on how his track record has been the rest of the day, it’s most likely that his impatient behavior is the outward sign of his being able to barely contain himself. Thus, I am trying to help him keep control of his impulsiveness.

I have known this child for seven years. I know his cues, I can read his mood. I know how likely he is to, depending on his mood, go running off. What you see is seven years of a child learning to keep control of himself in a way that is inherent in most people. When he was younger we could not take him in public at all.

So while it may be easy for you to sit there and judge me for what you believe is poor parenting, because I have seen that look before, I’d like to let you know that being a parent to this child is more than a full time job, and I know what I’m doing. Whatever mental picture you have in your head about “what that child’s home life must be like” is entirely false. Perhaps you should consider that maybe your pre-conceived notions of how a child should be a little lamb, gracefully following along holding his mother’s hand is merely a daydream that every parent wishes for. What you see is the reality of severe hyperactivity and my attempt at keeping him from annoying you… In which case you’d probably be giving me an even angrier glare.

Signed,
Tired parent

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22
Jan
2010

The joy of manias

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Current Mood:Alarmed emoticon Alarmed

ma·ni·a (mā’nē-ə, mān’yə)  
n.

  1. An excessively intense enthusiasm, interest, or desire; a craze: a mania for neatness.
  2. Psychiatry A manifestation of bipolar disorder, characterized by profuse and rapidly changing ideas, exaggerated sexuality, gaiety, or irritability, and decreased sleep.
  3. Violent abnormal behavior. See Synonyms at insanity.

[Middle English, madness, from Late Latin, from Greek maniā; seemen-1 in Indo-European roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved
All my life I have grown up with manias. Not only do I have my own, but my mother has them too. Some manias I remember my mother having while growing up:
  • Crochet (she made almost an entire afghan, ran out of yarn, never bothered to go get the rest)
  • Camping (we went every weekend)
  • Angels and cherubs (That one made for easy gift-giving)
  • Car and plane sales (oi, don’t ask)
  • Cross stitch

The list can go on and on and on. I’ve had several manias of my own:

  • Secondlife
  • Machinima
  • Knitting
  • Web design
  • Scrap booking
  • Camping

My list can go on, too.

While people view manias as bad things (the word “mania” tends to bring up negative ideas), they can have good results. Often people who experience manias want to do something that they don’t know very much about, so they learn it… voraciously. We read everything we can, we ask people in the know. Generally our manias produce something, so there is a tangible end result. This gives us a feeling of accomplishment. Unfortunately, we also end up abandoning projects before they are finished, much to the frustration of not only people around us, but also to ourselves. We just get burned out and lose interest. Sometimes we will return to the mania, but usually not.

Manias also tend to cost money. We have to buy the supplies that go with the mania. Knitting needs yarn and needles, scrapbooking needs paper and stickers, camping needs tents and bedding. Some of these hobbies can get pretty expensive. Anyone that has gotten involved in these projects will understand what I mean.

The reason I bring up this insanity at all is because my mother is currently in a mania. She’s buying vintage costume jewelry by the buckets. No, really. Daily she receives boxes and boxes of the stuff in the mail. And she wants me to make a website to sell them. Of course I will get a % of the profit, but I’ve been having a terrible time trying to put together enough time to make the site with a lot of household shenanigans continually going on. And she pesters me repeatedly about it. “Is the website done? When will we have a website? Have you been taking pictures?” And it drives me nuts. I love my mother, I really do. I understand her mania. However, I can’t join her mania, it’s not like it’s a light switch that I can just switch on. It could be because she has the fun of picking out the stuff, researching it, buying it (what girl doesn’t like shopping for jewelry?), getting packages in, going through all of the pretties… I get the work of taking pictures, editing pictures, building the website, processing the orders, shipping them. While these things are not unenjoyable, it is something that I have to have quiet time for. And solid amounts of it. An hour here, a couple of hours there… That’s not enough to get things done. Once the infrastructure is built then it should be a piece of cake to add new things. I hope.

On a good note, with my delay in building the site, she has run out of “mania money” to buy more stuff. However, she can afford a lot more “mania money” than me. She’s spent thousands on this. Yes, multiple thousands. So she does have a lot of investment into this, which I do respect, and I know she wants to earn the money back… and heck, I want money! So someday hopefully soon, you will see the unveiling of our new business. All built around her mania. :)

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