Friday randomness

A couple of things, first off, Happy Good Friday to all you Christians. Nice of you to catch up, I will never understand why your rebirth ceremony has to be so far away from the equinox. But whatever. In order to atone for their sins, Filipinos are nailing themselves to crosses today. Yeah, I kind of wish I was making that up, but frankly if I'm not going to criticize the Sun Dance, I won't criticize people nailing themselves to crosses.
Anna Paquin is Bisexual. While reading the comments for an article on this, I came across some guy saying that this proves that being gay is a choice, because she has chosen to be Bi. Yeah. Sorry dude, being Bi is something you are born with, just like being gay. However, I do wish that people would stop saying they are Bi as a stepping stone to being gay. There is a difference, when you are bi you are actually attracted to people of both sexes. It kind of cheapens the fact that it is a real thing, and makes people think that if you are Bi you are actually gay. However, good for her. I'm proud for any star who says they are gay or Bi. It's not easy to come out.
And lastly, I love the number 7, so I liked this story about how the lottery paid out $77.7 million after the number 7-7-7-7 hit.
Have a Happy Easter all...

Visiting what?

I read a wonder post over at Slacktivist today, and while reading the comments I came across something I read about a lot over there. Visiting pastors. People who's whole job is to visit people who need comfort in the parish (church? whatever, you know what I mean).
This is so strange to me. I remember when I was growing up my brother was in an accident and had to be hospitalized for months. My grandmother had the minister of our family church drive from New Jersey to sit with my mother in the hospital. Talk about a sucky job. But he did it. Not some other guy either, the minister I saw on the big holidays when we drove to Jersey (Easter and Christmas).
If some random dude had showed up Mom would have sent him back to Jersey. No offense to him. But that's just not how our church worked.
Some random dude showed up after Lil was born. I guess maybe he was a visiting pastor or something. A hospital pastor, maybe. But it's a strange concept. You have one guy who isn't the big guy who's supposed to come out and give you comfort. Most people have friends for that. With the added bonus that you actually know your friends.
Am I missing something here? Do you actually know the visiting pastor well before he shows up when you need someones shoulder to cry on? Are they better at giving comfort than the regular guy? Anyone have any ideas? Because I'm at a loss.

So yeah...

Hi. It's been a while. I know. It's not you, it's me. Things have been hectic and I haven't had the togetherness to sit down and write an entire post.
In the last month, my brother has moved to Florida (we live in the Northeast, so it's a bit of a move), my cousin has been committed twice, the whole family has been in an uproar and dealing with the aftermath of that, my car started to literally fall apart, and at some point in all that I started to flare. It's been an awesome year so far.
I have a couple of posts coming up though. Bear with me. Things are slowing getting back to normal and I'll be able to annoy more people with my random randomness. Heh.
In the meantime, read Forever in Hell, because she has been awesome. Just sayin'

Tightrope walker (aka random bitching)

Some days I feel like a tightrope walker. I walk the tightrope of being a mom, working full time, and having a chronic condition. Some days I slip, and almost fall. Those days suck. Some days I just fall off altogether and hope someone is there to help me get back up.
Today I am lowering the dosage of my pain medication. That means I hurt, alot. I am on a new medication that is helping, which is why I'm tapering off the pain meds. I am hoping I can go off them. However, that means that today I am one cranky ass bitch.
Today is also a day when a lot of other things seem to be conspiring to see how much shit can be piled on me at one time. Today was the day when I kept thinking of Airport, "I picked a bad day to stop drinking". Heh.
I am tired, and deeply sick of dealing with other people's problems. I am sick of picking up every one's messes, and most of all I am sick of being sick. Today is my no good very bad day.

Neato!!

So, while I was away celebrating the kiddo's birthday, some really neat stuff happened...

Nasa decided to bomb the moon. I freely admit I'm a geek, and I watched this live on TV. It was disappointing to watch, but Nasa declared it a success, which is enough for me. I like it when Nasa does cool stuff like this. Hopefully they will get more funding out of it.

Hawaii got a Saint. Saint Damien is the first saint from Hawaii, and they are quite proud of him. Good for them, he sounds like he did a lot of good work.

And the wingnuts, already freaking out about the Olympics, proceeded to lose their shit over the fact that our president won the bloody Nobel Peace Prize. Dear GOP far right talking heads, peace is a good thing. It's a good thing to be awarded the prize, and he was nominated for his plans to bring diplomacy to the world. Also a good thing. How on earth can anyone listen to them now and not realize these people would see our country burn to the ground rather than see Obama succeed. It's disgusting.

The light! It burns!

Sorry for the long delay, I am finally recovered from a bout of bronchitis. Stupid change in weather!
Expect a return to our regular schedualed blogging soon.

I watch cartoons after my kid goes to bed...

Yeah, I admit it, I do. Mainly I watch Phineas and Ferb on Disney, because it is funny as hell. It is one of the few kids cartoons that really is made for adults too (The Fairly Oddparents is another. It is the only current cartoon that referenced the death of Archduke Ferdinand. If you don't know why that is important go back to school). Phineas and Ferb has referenced the trend of LOL Cats, mentioned Bastille Day, makes fun of the whole super villain/secret spy genre, and is also goofy enough to keep the attention of a little kid.
Essentially I keep looking for a replacement for the Bugs Bunny cartoons, which were sharp and intelligent while also being slapstick and goofy. They were good viewing for kids and adults. Lots of the really great cartoons out there that are knows for being intelligent aren't so hot for 4 year olds to watch (i.e. The Simpsons, which remains #2 on my list of favorite cartoons, right after Bugs).
I wish they made more cartoons like Phineas and Ferb and the Fairly Oddparents. If anyone knows any other kid appropriate cartoons like them, please let me know. I'm always on the look out for something other than Spongebob, even if it does have Clancy Brown in it.

Monday randomness

First off, welcome to Rhiggs. Thank you for your input, I do feel better knowing Gaelic is that hard to learn! But I'm working my way through it.
Second, I watched A Haunting in Conneticut this weekend. For a movie based on a hoax, it was pretty good. They cut out the Warrens altogether (thank GOD), and spiced up the story quite a bit. They also went with making Matt likeable, as opposed to the raving psycho he actually was.
Third, I watched another movie this weekend (can you tell the kiddo was at her dad's?), The Hamiltons. Low budget horror flick. Took it about half an hour to get it's legs, and for the director to get the courage to just do it already, and once it did, it was really quite good. I expected a campy movie, all "serious" but really filled with Bruce Campbell acting even if the actors don't realize that's the note they are hitting. All in all, I was impressed.
Finally, Mother Nature. I live on a ridge, it's decently higher than the surrounding area. When my yard floods? That means there is too much freaking rain. So please stop it already. Please.

Friday Randomness

It's time for the return of Friday Randomness!!

A co-worker walked in on a really strange conversation I was having with a salesman the other day. We're both avid gardeners, and both dealing with the similar PA soil situation. In short, we have clay. So we were discussing effective and inexpensive ways to make the soil workable without simply carting in top soil. Apparently most people don't know about the term loam, because we did get a look. Gardening rookies.

BBC America had a sneak peak of the new Torchwood mini series. Wow, looking good guys. I love that Jack and Ianto are such a cute couple. Yeah, couple.

Michael Jackson is still in the damn news. I'm going to say it now, and hopefully never again: I. Do. Not. Care. Not at all. Not one wit. Stop talking about it. Christ.

The Daily Show's recent bit on Obama's healthcare plan and the panic surrounding it was fantastic. It was on the July 15th show, and if you get a chance go ahead and watch it.

One upon a time, when we all lived in the forest....

Possibly the only good part about me watching the craptacular movie Knowing last night was that the end got me thinking about trees.
Trees play a big part in old religions. The Norse and Celts both had the World Tree which was the backbone of the world they knew, Judaism and Christianity have the Trees of Knowledge and Life, many Native American beliefs featured trees similar to the World Tree, etc.
But why?
Well, in pre-Christian societies people were living in the last great ancient forests. And those forests featured massive trees. The biggest things some of these people would ever see were the trees around them. And something that big would eventually be revered. The Greeks put their gods on the top of their mountain, and other cultures put the world on the back of a tree.
However, only Christianity retained a literal view of that tree. In Norse religion their Tree is a symbol, and apparently stopped being a representation of a real tree long ago. It is the symbol of the world, and the cycles that the Norse saw in it. The modern druids use their Tree as a symbol of nature. It has gone from being the world to being the symbol of the world.
The tree is so enduring that it still shows up as a symbol of life, even in terrible movies. You see it and we know what it means. Living tree means continuation of life. Dying tree means the end of life.
The fact that everyone seems to understand this speaks to how much in common we all have.

Monday randomness

Instead of Friday Randomness, sorry about that folks...

This weekend I got to watch two movies, "Mirrors" and "The Devil's Rejects". I'm a late comer to both, and both were pretty good in their own ways. I liked "The Devil's Rejects" better, I have a soft spot for Rob Zombie's movies.

My brother made it out to CA safe and sound. On the way he saw snow over the high plains. I can't even imagine, snow in June. It's weird when we get snow in April. But snow this late would be too much.

I kept hearing about the Swine Flu over the weekend. Apparently PA had their first death of it over the weekend. I thought it was over. How strange. I either haven't been paying attention or they stopped talking about it. The news has such a fleeting attention span.

I'm very excited about my newest book buys, a biography of Anne Boleyn and one of Henry the VIII. Yay! I loved being able to buy used books online, And while I was there I pre-ordered Lost's Season 5. Also Yay!!

Friday Randomness

They found the remains of a body near the home of Stacy Peterson. Of course Stacy is the missing wife of Drew Peterson, the man who has run through 4 wives to date, two missing, one dead of suspicious causes. He has been charges with the death of that one. There is a chance that this body is Stacy, and if it is I hope they charge him with her murder too. Man is freaky.

I'm going to finally get to see Star Trek this weekend. All I keep hearing is how awesome it is, and damn it I want to see it! While I don't like Star Trek the way other people do (I'm a Star Wars geek, thank you) I do find it entertaining and I like J.J. Abrams as a director.

Sarah Palin has picked a co-author for her upcoming book. Lynn Vincent has written a number of ultra-conservative books, so this ought to be an awesome book! I really hope that Palin has some kind of hand in writing this, because if she does it will be the bestest book evar!!11!!

A quick hello to all my lurkers! I have changed my comments to allow all posters, so if you want to comment on something, or point out where I screwed up, and don't want to sign into blogger, feel free. Comments will be moderated now, however. As long as you don't get out of hand I'll publish pretty much anything.

Friday Randomness

Randomness time...

I may be a good Irish woman, but I really hate Danny Boy. With a passion. Though occassionally I'll give it a pass, if John Lithgow is singing it.

So, if on Lost, Jacob hasn't used the cabin in a long time, does that mean that Christian was actually Jacob's buddy? That makes a lot more sense. And is Eloise working for him, or simply working off her son's journal?

People, if it's foggy, turn on your damn headlights. And maintain a safe following distance. Come on now.

I really don't care if the John and Kate Gosselin are having affairs. And I don't understand why anyone else cares outside of John and Kate. Though, having watched the show, I have to say she seems awful.

That is all...

There is something wrong with Roger Simon

I'm not kidding. If you haven't had the pleasure of reading this man, here is the link to the article I read today that has just blown my mind.
Not only does he call Ahmadinejad Teh Evil, but he compares himself to Daniel Pearl, and spells Pearl's name wrong. Yes, in this stunning peice of crap, Richard Simon states that the Iranians want to behead him. I'm not even kidding you. This guy is a craptacular washed up screen writer, and he actually thinks that what he says matters one wit to the president of another country.
Of course Simon also doesn't understand that Ahmadinejad is the figurehead for the theocracy that actually rules Iran. He apparently also doesn't understand that talking to the Iranians is the best way to go about things. You know, instead of bombing them into the stone age.
Now, is Ahmadinejad evil? Oh I don't know, do you think I've met the guy? He seems to be insane. I don't like to call people evil, it's way too strong a word. However the fact that Simon thinks he's Teh Evil has converted him to Christianity. Or something. I'm honestly not sure, because the guy is writing like he's still high on Ambien.
What's kind of freaky is that there are people out there who think this guy makes perfect sense.

Tuesday Randomness

Allergy season sucks to begin with. During a pandemic? Yeah, let's talk about how crazy people can get. Especially if you have Fibro with allergies, which means that, like me, you are achy, tired, have trouble breathing, run fevers, and in general are flu-like. Heh.
I've been watching Lost from the second season on, and something struck me about Ben. He doesn't change. As a character, he literally never changes. The others change. Ben's motives become more clear as we learn more of his back story, but he never changes. In terms of writing that was a good choice for your villian, because if he's perfect from the get-go, dear god don't mess with him. Jack, also has not changed, he's a massive tool through the whole series.
It has been irritating me recently that fundies use the "creation proves the creator" argument to try to prove God. Come on now. The world is wonderous, but it's not proof of any god. It's proof of science.

I wish

Yesterday my brother informed me he wanted to kill Glen Beck.
Don't I wish.

My brother is given to blurting random peices of info out at odd times. Like how he declares, "Sometimes I like a good potato."

Let It Be

Late spring/early summer is a really hard time for me, because both my grandparents died a few years ago in the late spring/early summer.
The details of it, of course, are mundane. People die every day. She had cancer and he died of a broken heart. Just like a million other couples who have been married forever. It was the second marriage for both of them, and they were truely in love until the day she died.
I was heart-broken. However, I weas living with my mother at the time, and if I took it badly, Mom took it 1000 times worse. Of course, they were her parents, and she had many unresolved issues there. They died before she could address them, I think. So instead of properly dealing with my own crap, I simply tried as hard as I could to help her, and continue to keep a normal household going for the kid.
So about a year later I was driving home from taking the kid to see her dad. I was tired and stressed out, seeing the ex was always stressful. At about this point he was starting to see his current chicka, though I didn't know that then. I had sued him for child support, which was a huge act of courage for me, he had told me that he would disappear if I tried to get child support through the courts. Things were strained to a breaking point, though they wouldn't break for another year and a half.
I was in the car, driving my hour and a half drive back home, skipping tracks on my Beatles CD, when I hit the song Let It Be.
I had never really liked Let It Be. Kind of mawkish, and used as a Christian song, so I rarely listened to it. Occassionally I try to remember what I felt when I sat through the song that evening. I know I thought of my grandmother, who once had asked me to forgive my mother for her inattention while I was growing up, telling me, "Brady's always love their boys more, the girls just have to be stronger." I remembered my grandfather, the only man in my world who have unconditional love. I also remember stopping the car to cry for the first time since the funerals.
I still listen to the song sometimes, when I'm tired and upset and want to feel close to them. For whatever reason that song is the song that makes that happen. I don't know why my brain decided to associate my grandparents with one of the few Beatles song i didn't like, but there you go. It did.
This weekend, on the way home from picking up the kid from visiting her father, after almost hitting a vulture which was really bizarre, I popped in a Beatles CD and played Let It Be. After the song was over the kid told me, "Mommy, I like that song."
And for the first time I said, "I like it too."

Self indulgent crap...

Please excuse this small rant, but man, I really would love to get this off my chest...

The week before the ex has the kid is really kind of hard for me. I worry about my little one.
You see, the ex spent most of the time that we were together telling me about how he was bi-polar, had depression, had this problem, that problem, anger problems (and one hell of an attitude problem which seems to be the one actual problem he has). I worry that something will happen to her. Not that he'll hurt her on purpose, but that he'll just stop watching her. Every time he has her I wait all day for the phone call where he tells me she's been hit by a car, or ate soy, or had some kind of accident through inattention, and she's in the hospital or dead. Every time he drops her off he complains to me how tired he is from keeping up with her, how hard it is. She's four! Of course t's hard. If only I had her energy.
Maybe he's having second thoughts now that he's expected to watch her himself. Maybe he's realized that when I brought her down before I watched her and he socialized and played dad when it suited him. I don't know.
All I know is I dread Saturdays. And when he starts taking her overnight I may have some kind of real breakdown.

Right, done now. Move along...

Friday Randomness

End of the week! First Day of Spring! For those of you out there who are celebrating it, Happy Ostara! I learned today is Atheist Pride Day! So happy Atheist Pride Day!
I also learned that being responsible is eating the lunch you brought to work no matter how much you want Burger King. And I so did want Burger King.
My lettuce is growing quite well. I keep moving it back indoors so it doesn't die in the cold overnight. It started sprouting much earlier than I thought it would.
Still waiting on that damn orchid to bloom. Hurry up already!!
I just watched "The Man Behind the Curtain" (Lost season 3) for the second time yesterday and realized that Richard is really kind of a sarcastic bastard (no worries though, it came and went, but dude, you're talking to a 12 year old kid who is crying. Tone it down, huh?) and Michael Emerson really does get robbed each year he doesn't get an Emmy. Holy shit he is an amazing actor (for those of you who don't watch Lost, Richard's actor Nestor Carbonell plays the mayor in The Dark Knight, the guy who looks like he's wearing eyeliner. Michael Emerson plays the guy who takes Cary Elwes' family hostage in Saw. Emerson's performance was really really good, especially for a guy with as few lines as he had. Just an FYI for you geeks out there).
That is all...

Friday Randomness

It's Friday Randomness time!
First up is poor Bristol Palin, who is in the news because she got dumped. Call it what you will, but the guy spazzed out and dumped her. Bristol honey, been there done that. It sucks, but you're better off. Call me. We'll talk. Then file for custody and child support before he flakes any further.
Also on the Bristol Palin front is... Mommy dearest? You released a statement about this through your PAC? Really? Do you even know how that looks? It looks like you're getting bold about exploiting your daughter's heartache for your own political ambition. For that? Fuck you. It's bad enough you give all working mother's a bad name, you're also are a manipulative bitch to keep dragging your kid into the spotlight.
Unrelated to any of that is Irish Potatoes. You've seen them in the store. Those coconut things rolled in Cinnamon. Ummm, what now? Potatoes are indeed a staple of the Irish diet, along with lamb/mutton and fish. But Ireland is not noted for it's coconuts. I have never gotten where this candy came from. It's just totally bizarre. However on Saint Patty's Day I will treat you all (what all two readers?) to the story of why Irish people plant a potato on March 17th. We're a strange people.
I can not freaking wait for Lost next week. Seriously.