Catching up on my morning news fix, I ran across the most disturbing of stories. You all know generally what my views are on things like sex ed, politics, religion and the like. This story only reinforced my belief that instead of keeping teenagers in the dark about things like sex/alcohol/drugs in the hopes that filtering down to them only what you believe they should do or know will magically make them do what you think they should do as opposed to treating them like people with brains who can handle getting all the information delivered to them so that they can start to learn to make their own informed decisions about things. Trust me when they grow up the ability to look at a mass of info and then make decisions based on that is gonna come in WAY more handy than the ability to listen to a line of BS someone feeds them and take it as just the way things are.

Case in point- in my home state of Florida apparently the schools have implimented a sex education program that is abstinence-only. This is the first part of the story that makes me cringe. That my friends is not a sex ed program, there is in fact not a whole lot to learn about when your policy is just don’t do it. Guess what happens next? Kids either blindly follow you, or they start trying to figure things out for themselves. Shockingly when they did a survey among Florida teens on what they know about sex, pregnancy, disease prevention, they found that teens had just started making shit up esentially and spreading among themselves “tips and tricks” that are silly in some cases, and just plain dangerous and life threatening in others.

Among the highlights of what kids think:

Drinking a capful of bleach will prevent AIDS

A shot of Mountain Dew will stop you from getting pregnant, as will smoking pot.

I am most disturbed by that bleach thing- honestly you’d rather rush your kid to the hospital because they drank bleach to try to prevent aids, or break out a condom and a banana and show them how to actually prevent STDS?

Are you parents happy knowing that your daughters are out getting high to try to stop getting pregnant from the unprotected sex they just had?

As I’ve said before, kids are going to have sex, it’s part of being a teenager, and yes sometimes they have it too early and lots of times they have it for the wrong reasons, but when they DO do it, cause they will wouldn’t you rather they were protected from things like diseases that they will have the rest of their lives or faced with having to raise a child when they are still for the most part a child themselves?

I know for most parents the dream is that their kid will wait until they’re out of high school and in a committed relationship before they start having sex, and that their precious babies will never do a single drug, and won’t drink until they’re 21 if at all. I know all these parents were also teenagers once and if they think back real hard they’ll perhaps remember what it was like to be 16 and trying to find yourself, or just trying to fit in and be accepted by their peers. I’d rather my kids made their own informed decisions about things and when they do take part in the activites that I myself took part in at that age that they’ll use their heads about it and know better to drive or get in a car with someone high or drunk and to always always always put a friggen condom to use when they start exploring sex with someone.

Yesterday I got home and started my normal routine. Step one- let out dogs, put dogs back in give them treats change outta my work clothes and fire up the Tivo in order to watch the shows A1 doesn’t necessarily like so much (what not to wear, my crime drama’s etc).

I turn on the tv, and the screen lights up with my Tivo Welcome…. Powering up… screen. I think perhaps it’s downloaded some new update and has just rebooted itself, so I sit and wait patiently. The power up screen usually switches over to the few minutes more screen then I do the tivo dance as the little TV bops round the screen.

After about 5 minutes of it staying at the welcome screen I start to freak out. I reboot the whole setup and wait some more. I get no further than the welcome screen again, so I unplug it, and leave it for about 5 minutes while I start searching forums and praying that this is not what I think it is. When I plug it back in though, i know what’s going to happen, my hard drive has failed. It’s 5pm and I’m laying on the floor in the living room with my ear up against the tivo box listening to the click of death as I like to call it that is the hard drive spinning and spinning and getting nowhere.

At that point I really started freaking out so I promptly got on to ebay/slickdeals/amazon and every other site that may possibly sell replacement tivo’s at a deal and ebay’d myself a brand new one for half the price of getting it straight from tivo. It’s amazing how much you become dependant on such things. I never used a VCR to actually record anything, and Tivo literally changed my whole TV world. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new one, and cringing as I have to actually watch TV live with commercials *gasp* and all.

I love love love it when our state makes it into the news for something that makes us look like dumbasses and/or hicks. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of both of those here, but I like to believe that for the most part we’re not too bad.

We have a State Rep who would like to make anonymous internet posts illegal. It requires anyone who contributes to a site to register their actual name, address (both physical and email addy) on the site and then fines sites $500 for the first anonymous post, and $1000 for each one after that. Huh…

I wonder if Rep Couch really think this is the best use of his time/position/power? If he could fix anything in this glorious state of outs, this is what he would chose?

Of course we expect great political actions from a man who’s Bio includes highlights like graduating from Hazard Community College, being a member of the Ky Grocers Association, the NRA and the National Wild Turkey Federation (which probably means actual turkeys and not the booze). He even freely admits that enforcing the bill if it became law would be a “challenge”. You think? Mr Couch, I suggest you do some research on things that might actuall benefit your state, I assure you we have larger issues than anonymous internet posts.

You know, there are just times when I run across a random news story and it first exasperates me, and then it really starts to piss me off. This is one of those times.

Who didn’t read Dr Seuss books as a kid, or even an adult? Dr Seuss is one of those things that ties people together, one of the commonalities of childhood that I think everyone came into contact with no matter where you lived whether it was in school or at home as a bedtime story.

When I saw they were releasing a film version of Horton Hears a Who I was actually a little excited. This particular story was one of my favorites as a kid, and even now honestly.

“A person is a person, no matter how small” is a line from both the book and the movie. Well some of those lovely pro-lifers decided to work their way into the Hollywood Premiere of said movie so they could take that line and turn it into a pro life chanting fest post the screening.

This is a CHILDRENS movie, the audience was filled with kids who just got a nice taste of how out of line these people can be. I’ve not read exactly what they were chanting, all I’ve seen was it was “anti-abortion slogans”. I have seen our particulat brand of prolifers locally out chanting and sign holding in front of our local clinic, and they don’t say/show/do a whole lot that I would want my own or any children exposed to.

It really pisses me off that people like this will take any chance they can sorta kinda tie into their “cause” to go out and make a scene. It pisses me off even more that they chose to do this at a premier like this and that parents of these kids just had to go home and explain to them WTF that was all about. I don’t agree with their tactics or their message, but regardless I am an adult and know to deal with these things.

Perhaps a group of prochoicers, neonazi’s or hell even those crazy westboro baptist church morons should crash some of their kids schools or fieldtrips or playgrounds and start a little chanting and rallying. I’m sure they’d LOVE that and wouldn’t think it was innapropriate or out of line at all. Do unto others right?

Last night A1 and I were watching a tivo’d Frasier when one of those catchy little Dunkin’ Donuts coffee commercials came on. Normally we just fast forward thru commercials but for some reason we were letting these go. I happened to glance up while this commercial is running and I catch something that looks odd in the two second pan of the fake menu for the fake fancy coffee place where all the singing dunkin donuts people are who just want their normal black coffee.

I had to stop the tivo, rewind and go in slow motion to get that menu back on screen, and sure enough in the middle of fancy coffee place menu right between the Limon Au Deau and the half caf cap is the Himan Plu Cento. Plu Cento was the part I caught the first time thru, so that’s what made me rewind and pause. Noticing they’d stuck Himan in front of it made me giggle all the more. Sneaky Dunkin Donuts ad people.

For the third time in as many weeks we have wonderful winter weather predicted for today and tomorrow. I’ve noticed a trend with our fine area. The first winter storm we had this year which was actually one of the worst little snow storms we’ve had in a while was not even a blip to our weather people. The general thought was, yeah it’s going to snow, it may be a few inches, but oh well.

That turned into about 4 inches, it took A-1 hours and hours to get home, people wrecked everywhere salt trucks couldn’t keep up and we lost power. It was generally a big ole mess.

The next week they were predicting an ice storm. You would have thought the world was going to end. They were letting schools go at 10am, the mayor was asking all businesses to dismiss non essential employees. A-1 and I were both home by 1pm. We got not much of anything and were sorely dissapointed since we were expecting to be covered in sheets of ice for days and days.

Today there’s supposed to be another snow storm starting at about noon and we’re to get snow showers all thru today/tonight/tomorrow. No one is making much of a fuss about it (perhaps because they are embarassed by the insane overreation last week). I think given our fine track record that this means we are likely to get two feet of snow and be snowed in for days upon days. We’ll see how it goes. The very first very big snow that I ever saw was the “big storm” as we call it in the 90’s. The weather men said flurries, we got 24 inches overnight. I’m hoping for a repeat.

So the morning of my big 30th birthday I got up and promplty went to the mirror and stared at myself for a good while. i was analyzing everything. It was like I was making a full catalog of my face looking for wrinkles, lines, whatever was there that might have indicated that I’d crossed another decade line. I half expected or feared really seeing major changes, that I’d wake up and somehow LOOK 30 and 30 would be totally different than 29. I am happy to report that no such major changes took place, I still pretty much look the same as I have. This did not however stop me from going out and buying a whole new set of face crap with special don’t look old ingredients.

A1 is out in Sunny CA for a few days so the puppies and I are riding solo. This am I took my pre work shower and was dryin my hair while the oldest of the puppies laid at my feet chewin on one of her bones. I hear her start to cough and hack like she’s gotten a piece stuck in her throat so I lean down to make sure she’s ok. That’s when she throws up directly into my lap. Now I am fresh from showering so I am only wearing a robe, which opened up around my legs when I crouched down. Yes my bare legs are now coated in dog vomit.

So I do what any person in that position would probably do, I throw up on myself and the dog. Needless to say we both got to take showers, my second of the morning her first. I still managed to be only an hour late for work today which I think is fantastic, but I do have to fully disenfect and hose down the bathroom when I get home.

From the sick and twisted dept this morning I read about a man in Pa who claims to have “accidentally” sexually assaulted a 5 year old girl. The sicko was taking care of the poor little girl for the weekend and he says that while he was sleeping in bed with her he must have started dreaming and accidentally raped her. Really? Really this man expects us to believe that?

I hate people

So this is the big year. I turn 30 in a little over a month. I am not sure what I think about this yet, but I’ve not yet completely freaked the hell out. It’s more just bizzarre to think about. Most of my oldest friends I’ve known now for at least 10 years, my one remaining friend from the teen years has known me for 17 years now. I still remember BEING 17, to think that now someone has known me that long is just hard to get my head around.

I do believe I wrote down back in high school the list of things I wanted by 30… I think I’ll have to try to track that down and see how different where I am is from where I thought I’d be. I know I missed that whole “be a doctor” target I had back then.

Confirming all my thoughts about “Dr. Phil” being a complete waste of human space who lucked into becoming famous simply by talking a good game, he has now come out to say that he thinks the mother of train wrecks Britney and Lynne Spears is doing a great job of parenting. Um what? Seriously? He thinks the mother of those girls has ANY kind of decent parenting skills?

If I’d done even an eight of the things the lovely older sister had done my mom would have promptly kicked my ass back into shape. Now the one last hope coming out of that family who should have learned from her sisters mistakes and who’s the star of a kids network show is pregnant at 16. Apparently their fantastic mother is turning to prayer to get thru this and she’s asked Dr Phil to pray for them. I wonder what those prayers sound like..

A1 and I are looking to get rid of his old eliptical machine (it pretty much just sits in one of the rooms at the house cause neither of us really care for it) and pick up a treadmill as this is something I think I’ll actually use. We’ll see how that goes, but I’m pretty sure if I can set it up in front of the big screen and walk while I watch I’ll be more inclined to actually use the damn thing and it won’t hurt my already bad knees as much as that damn eliptical does.

I was on my dear old friend Amazon pricing out and looking at treadmill reviews when I ran across the most interesting product. It’s name is actually Lube-N-Walk, which is clearly displayed on the outside box and the lube tube, and it’s a sort of wax I think that helps keep your treadmill nice and lubed up. As if that wasn’t funny enough when I started reading the reviews on the product my dirty little mind just went haywire.

I may buy a tube and just place it somewhere randomly at work to see who finds it first and what happens when they do.

I am a big huge fan of Christmas, always have been and hopefully always will be. I like putting up lights on the house and marveling at the fantastic redneck decor my neighbors bring out this time of year. I like putting up a tree and decorating it, I like in fact for the tree to be HUGE and impossible to navigate around as you try to get to the couch. I LOVE giving presents, I don’t so much like the shopping for presents as I hate people, but I have gone almost 100% online with my holiday shopping. It’s easier and I can always find exactly what I want without wandering thru the dreaded malls. A1 says I’m horrible at the gift giving cause once I find that special something for that special someone I want to give it to them right away. I am so excited to give them something they really like, want or need that I can’t wait until the designated day. I am notorious for attempting to sneak presents in to people early.

I am also horribly bad about being in the same room with presents that I know are for me. I think they are sitting under the tree taunting me. When I was young I mastered being able to unwrap and rewrap a present so that I could know what it was and no one knew I’d been in it. Yeah I know it ruins the surprise but I don’t care. I am proud of myself as this year as much as I’ve wanted to I”ve left the presents alone. A1 knows this about me, and I”m sure any and all of the presents he’s got under there are boobytrapped anyway.

The things that I hate about this special time year… the damn traffic. People lose what little sense they have this time of year and just drive like dumbasses. They cut you off, decide they need to get off the highway now from three lanes over, and have lost all track of proper use or turn signals, stop signs and red lights. Yesterday afternoon 4 cars in front of me ran the same red light for no apparent reason than they couldn’t wait the extra 2 minutes for the light to cycle again to get into the Meijers.

When I do have to enter a mall or retail store I keep my guard up, as the same thing that forces people to drive like idiots makes them assholes when you’re trapped in say Best Buy with them. So far this holiday season I’ve been stepped on, someone hit me with their cart, someone just kinda jumped in line in front of me, I’ve been bumped out of someones way in an aisle because they thought I might possibly be going for the last one of some game on the shelf. Lord knows as well that I am huge and they could in now way easily pass around me without actually touching me. I do believe that the bump was just something they threw in to slow me down in case I was going for the same thing as they were. Word to the wise, I don’t like strangers all up in my personal space. Think of it like the scene in dirty dancing, this is my space, and this is yours.

All of these things also seem to be things that ONLY happen in this magical time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is why I have gone almost exclusively to the online shopping mode, I know one day I’m just going to snap on one of these rude bastards and be arrested for jumping on their back and trying to beat them down with my purse/shopping bag/first thing I can grab off a shelf next to me. Although I do think there would be no better story than being thrown in jail for beating a man with a can of green beans/stuffed bear/display stand.

To end on a positive note, the things I really do love the most though are the times spent with family and friends and being excited when I can give someone I love something they will enjoy until at least next Christmas rolls around.

Last night A1 and I had to make the journey across the river to go to a visitation for one of his former co-workers wives who passed away on Friday. If it’s not already hard enough to lose a loved one this time of year, it’s even harder to lose your mother. My heart wept for her husband, but even more for her children. Granted her boys are older (17 and 14 respectively), so on the good side they are old enough to have stockpiled memories of their mother, and they are old enough to use each other for support, but it is never ever an easy thing to lose a parent, especially not as quickly as she progressed from fine to not fine. From diagnosis to this point it was literally only a month at best. Cancer though has a tendency to do such things.

It gave me flashbacks to when I was close to their age and dealing with MiniMommies own cancer diagnosis. SisterDear and I were 16 and 14 when her diagnosis was given. I still can clearly see her laying in that hospital bed post surgery, extenuating circumstances prevented her from having any of the normal methods of treatment like chemo or radiation so the only option left was surgical. That was the first time I was ever really afraid of anything, and I was terrified. Against all odds she survived, she is after all a fighter, and has lived now 14 years cancer free, but there’s always that fear that it will come back. As her oncologist said it may be a year, it may be decades but cancer always comes back. This was the third time it had reappeared for A1’s coworkers wife.

This Tuesday I will have those kids with me in my thoughts, as I get to celebrate one more Christmas with my own mother who has managed to beat the odds. My heart does break for them though, and it’s yet another reminder that at best life is fleeting so it’s so very important to cherish those that you love.

Climbing off my soapbox now

Here in the glorious state of Ky we have those beautiful highway signs that are programmable allowing whomever runs them to let commuters know fun things about traffic, road work and “estimated arrival times”. Usually this time of year our highway dept uses these signs to show everyone the road death rates for the previous year vs the current like we’re in some race with last years dumbasses to match or better the count (which I’m sure some people think when they see it).

This year however we apparently have someone running the signs that believes themselves to have a great sense of humor, they’re trying to be witty and teach you a lesson all at once. Yesterday the sign I drive under every morning said “Buckle up, save a life down the road”. I’m not sure how exactly MY buckling up is going to save any life other than my own down the road, but whatever. My absolute favorite message this holiday season on the signs though was the one that read “hug your kids at home, belt them in the car”. Isn’t that fantastic? Esp for the people just passing thru our glorious state.