PETS ARE PEOPLE TOO

I've heard that having pets can lower your blood pressure and make you a healthier, happier person. I must be doing something wrong. I have a Golden Retriever named Beau, two cats named Bob and Derek and an ever changing amount of fish with names only my two daughters know.

The amount of fish is currently dropping. We're having a problem. The whole thing is a bit complicated with bacterial blooms and messed up cycles. I'm still in the desperately-trying-to-save-them stage, but the I-give-up stage is drawing near. For some unknown reason I seem to go into the rescue mode in the late night hours. I was up until 1:00 am last night researching on the internet and doing a 25% water change in my fish tank.

Over the weekend I decided I could save some money by purchasing a $67 dog shaver and shaving my dog myself. The dog groomer would have done it for $50. I spent part of one day and all of the next torturing that poor dog. In between our little "sessions" together, he got to run around the yard in varying stages of baldness. I tend to do things like that in a haphazard way so you can imagine how he must have looked most of the time. Now he is completely bald except for his tail, his butt and his you know what! I didn't want to make any mistakes in those areas! We've labeled him cute and I'm done! People have been nice enough not to laugh.

That's the thing about dogs, if you laughed at him, he would look as if you had hurt his feelings. That really gets to me, they are so emotionally needy. At least those eyes seem to be needy. The only time he doesn't have a pleading, forlorn look is when he is eating, sleeping or pooping. Oops, I take that back, he does have some weird look when he's pooping. I actually couldn't tell you what it means, but its definitely not a happy, feeling good kind of look that you would expect during his moment of relief.

Now cats on the otherhand are totally different. They do need us humans, but they have more of an attitude that we owe them. Stop patting me and I'll hurt you! Do you want the damage done with the teeth or the claws? Or shall I just wait until later and pee on your favorite sweater? I could eat some grass and puke on your bed (that happened to me two nights ago). And when exactly is my blood pressure supposed to go down?

I do love my pets in a love-hate relationship kind of way. I really like what the pets do for my children. They really love their animals. At least they love them when the cats aren't scratching and the dog isn't farting. Now back to saving those fish!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

Enjoy your BBQ's everyone but also remember all the people who died in war! I'm a mush when it comes to being patriotic.
I once read an article about why the Star Spangled Banner was written. I'm horrible with history, but here goes. It was during the War of 1812 with Great Britain. Francis Scott Key had been detained on a British ship in the harbor off the coast from Fort McHenry (Baltimore). The British attacked the fort and Key kept watching the flag flying over the fort. He checked at the "twilights last gleaming", and he knew it was still flying through the night because of "the rockets red glare of bombs bursting in air gave truth through the night that the flag was still there". I always imagine him searching for the flag the next morning, knowing that if he saw it they hadn't surrendered. "Oh, say can you see, by the dawns early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming?" He had to sit there and wait and trust his life to all those soldiers. He must have been very joyful to see that flag flying that morning! Whenever I hear the National Anthem that's what I am thinking about and MY FREEDOM.

HOW TRUE IT IS...

Sarah's teacher (second grade) has told me that one time when Sarah was crying she asked her why she was crying and Sarah replied through her tears "sometimes I just need to cry, sniffle, sniffle". I'm beginning to see Sarah's wisdom.

JUST HANGING OUT

What ever happened to just hanging out? Does anyone do that anymore? I really miss just going to a friend's house to hang out and talk. Am I the only lazy person in the world?!! What is everyone doing? I imagine a mini whirlpool around all these people and when I get too close, I get sucked in. I've tried to jump in and swim in the opposite direction in a futile attempt at slowing the flow down but end up having to grab a branch and drag myself out again. People try to be kind and say I live a "simple" life, but really, I'm just a bum who would rather be sitting on a porch drinking lemonade than working. Don't get me wrong, work has its place, it needs to be done, but I just wish people weren't so enthusiastic about it!

This do-as-little-as-possible attitude has been my personal philosophy for quite a bit of my life, actually, ALL my life. This was no problem in highschool and college because students KNOW how to shirk responsibility! I had plenty of other procrastinators to hang with. Hopefully, in this day and age things aren't changing. Are students getting more responsible? And actually being concientious?!! It makes me shudder to even think of the possibility!

I just want all you people who like to get something accomplished to realize that you are really cramping my style. You've limited my choices in who I can hang with! Sometimes I've even resorted to being lazy all by myself! It's a crying shame!

APPARENTLY PEOPLE ARE LISTENING

I've discovered that people ARE listening to me. And analyzing me. Oh how happy that makes me. Makes me feel good to lay myself out there and be truthful with my "friends" in order that they can later analyze my personality and then when the timing is right, shoot it right back at me. Yeah! I love to know my downfalls. Especially the ones that can make YOU feel better about yourself! Glad to be of service! Maybe people could start to get inventive, tell me something that I don't know about myself. Tell me something that I do that's just horrible that no one else does! I would feel so unique! But alas, making me feel good is not the intention is it? I forgot, making everyone else feel superior, that's the real game. I didn't want to play the competing parents game and I don't want to play this one...

Its been a long week. And I'm a grump. You can save that one to send back to me later...

RUDE PEOPLE ARE RAMPANT

Tonight I went to my daughters orchestra concert. I have never seen a more rude audience. They were so loud that when one girl had a solo on the violin, I could not even hear it. People were walking around. People were talking as if a concert was not even going on. In the back of the gymnasium where no chairs were set up, people were letting their kids run wild. I am very patient when it comes to an active toddler or a crying baby, but this was totally uncontrolled. No one was even trying to be quiet. This time the grown-ups were as bad as the little kids. I'm telling you, it was UNBELIEVABLE. You know how people can be talking loudly before a performance starts, well, they just continued at that level. I know all the music teachers and said that I hoped that they would make an announcement before the chorus sang. Well, when the music teacher said into a microphone, "may I have your attention please", there was not even a tiny drop in the noise level. He finally said, "I will not start the performance until I have your attention". He told them to be respectful and quiet. It helped a little. If you can believe, there was still a lot of talking. I was SO disappointed and angry. Its so frustrating, because if these people do not know that what they did was wrong, how could you ever tell them? How can it get better? I've noticed more and more talking at all the performances that I go to but this time it was just over the top. Is this how its going to be? Is the only solution to not have concerts? Is this going on in other schools? Does anyone have a solution? I'm just so frustrated....

IS ANYBODY LISTENING!!?

I think I have been having a problem communicating with people. Suppose I'm talking with a friend and suppose I tell them that I got into an accident while driving my minivan. I was hurt and ended up in the hospital. The wound on my leg got infected, gangrene set in and they had to amputate my leg. Lately I've noticed that their comment to my story would be something like "I didn't know you had a minivan, I thought you didn't like them". HELLO! Is anyone even listening to me? I find no matter how exciting and interesting my story is, they seem to focus on some insignificant detail. So, that, coupled with the fact that I've had people fall asleep when I'm talking to them, has made me come to the sad conclusion that I am.....boring. So, I've found my perfect niche, the blogosphere!! The place that I can pretend that people are listening to me. Sheer bliss. If I knew how to add sound, I'd provide an alarm to wake all of you readers up, I mean the two of you. That would be my husband and my daughter. My other two kids don't even read this.

COMPETING PARENTS WITH THE KIDS AS THE PAWNS

Revised.

RULES OF THE GAME:
Player one thinks their child is better than your child. Player one makes their move by stating a marvelous fact about their child. Player two tries to come up with a more wonderful fact about their child. Now player one tries to come up with an even more wonderful fact about their child and so the game goes back and forth. Player one always loses, player two can only win by not making any moves. It doesn't matter which child is more wonderful. Any child present automatically loses.

Oh how I battle the urge to be sucked into this game. I have to remember when someone else makes a move, I don't lose if I refuse to make my move. Actually, I win. I can only lose when I make a move. Today I won a game. Someone made their move. I almost made my move, then I didn't. I WIN! Sorry, if I tell the whole story, that's my move and I lose.
Note: No children were present during the playing of this game.

MY BROWN THUMB

My father was the greatest gardener ever. After I was an adult, my cousin informed me that my father had actually taken some courses in growning a garden. Does that explain why his vegetables were always so beautiful? Not only could he grow just about anything, they really were beautiful. No blemishes, no weird shapes, no bugs. The size of his perfectly formed berries was enormous. His vegetable garden was huge. I never saw him water it, never saw him purchase bags and bags of compost and manure. I'm sure he weeded it although I never saw him do it. He seemed to have the golden touch. I have considered the possibility that he would wait by the light of the moon for little aliens to come down and sprinkle special alien dust on his garden. This might explain his unreal talent for producing massive quantities of exceptional produce. Did he get his green thumb from a green alien? Hmmm.

Unfortunately, he kept his green thumb to himself. I do not have a green thumb, I appear to have a brown thumb, possibly a black thumb. Black as in the black plague of gardening. You may be expecting me to say that everything just shrivels up and dies, but that would be indicating that things had actually grown. I try, but somehow everything seems to just NOT grow. When I do end up with a vegetable, it is usually tiny and deformed. I don't have a lot of room so when I end up with my tiny and deformed vegetables, there's usually not enough for one meal. I guess I should look on the bright side, no matter how ugly they sometimes look, they taste delicious! Many of the things don't even make it to the table because the kids just love raw vegetables. I guess there's nothing more fun than popping open a pea pod and chowing down right then and there. At least I KNOW that my vegetables don't have any weird, lingering alien dust on them!

I understand that you are probably thinking, wait, didn't she just say that she can't get anything to grow? Well, I will tell you my trick, I go on vacation and my lovely neighbor comes and waters my garden. Voila! Another persons touch is all that is needed to give my plants that boost in order to produce those deformed fruits of my labor. I suppose then, that makes them the fruits of my neighbor's labor, but heck who's keeping track.

So keep an eye on my garden, if you ever notice that its looking unusually lush, you can be sure that my secret is my time spent waiting by the light of the moon!

NOT EVERYTHING IS FUNNY

I have wanted my blog to mostly be funny but I don't want to give the impression that I think that everything is funny. I do have a serious side, one that cringes, one that cries. Here are some of the things that I think are not at all funny.

Female circumcision.
Hitler. Millions of people being tortured, starved to death, killed by his regime.
Child molesters.
Women in so many parts of the world being ill treated in so many ways, just because they are women.
Watching the collapse of the World Trade Center on my television.
Realizing that some people are capable of horrible, evil acts.

I hear many sad tales from people in my everyday life but that's not what I'm talking about. The things I have just written are not in the same category as the everyday sad. These things make me feel physically ill. I'm not sure why I've decided to write about them today, but I will say that I think about them often. How lucky I feel that I have the life that I do, and that my children have the life that they do. We are so lucky. I often whine of all the problems that I have, how fortunate that I have the right and voice to whine as much and as loud as I like! For everyone that has had to listen to me, I do know how minute my problems are. I do think of those things I've written above. I will continue to use my rights by whining, it serves a purpose. The purpose being that by exercising our freedoms we will keep them in shape. BUT, I am aware how lucky we all are, VERY aware.

ROSIE, SHE'S JUST A PERSON

I found Rosie O'Donnell's blog and have been reading through it. Yes, I will admit that she has some okay posts but what really struck me as interesting was the hundreds of positive comments!! She seems to have tons of "stranger friends", as she calls them, while I'm just left with STRANGE friends! How could this many people LOVE Rosie O'Donnell? Why don't I have that many people loving me? Maybe I have sour grapes because I have only three comments on my blog...one of which is MY response to the one person who actually commented. The last comment doesn't count because it was "anonymously" written by my husband. The give away was how he wrote that I must have a wonderful family and husband!! LOL! By the way, since he seems to be the only one reading my blog I just have to mention - he IS wonderful!!

Anyway, back to Rosie. It struck me how easy it is for people to love her and pretend that she is their friend. Much easier than say, a REAL friend who can be annoying at times. It would be nice if those people who love Rosie could love the real people in there life as much. I betcha Rosie can be VERY annoying.....in real life. A blog my friends, is not real life.

I have to point out here that many people who comment on Rosie's blog say how "real" she is in her posts. Real people slurp when they eat, real people say nasty hurtful things to you that they don't really mean, real people say nasty hurtful things to you that they do mean, real people sometimes smell bad, real people make mistakes that they are sorry for, real people make mistakes that they DON'T say sorry for, in general real people can be annoying! The challenge is to love them anyways. Do you? When a friend does something that bothers you, do you forgive them? I know way too many people who hold grudges, sometimes for years.

If you met Rosie O'Donnell would you forgive her if she said something nasty to you? What would you do if she had B.O? What if she had food spraying out of her mouth because she talks and eats at the same time? I know people like this and I still talk to them, I just keep my distance when they are eating. Chances are, in the real world Rosie O'Donnell is just as annoying as the rest of us but some how she has tons of "stranger friends".

I would not change places with Rosie....ever. I would feel too much pressure having all those people love me. What if I smelled? What if I was in a bad mood and said something mean? What if I said something stupid? I'm well known for accidently saying the WRONG thing, like above, when I said my friends are strange, my friends know I mean that in the best way! Yes folks, I may be able to count my friends using just the fingers on my two hands, but I like it that way. The few friends that I have accept me for who I am. They know me face to face, smell to smell, stupid comment to stupid comment and they still keep coming back for more. There is a possibility that they are just masochistic and love to torture themselves but somehow I believe that they actually like me even with all my irritating characteristics.

That's the wonderful thing about the real world, even though we get on each other's nerves, the real world is where you get real love, real hugs, real happiness and REAL friends.