Two houses on my block went into foreclosure today and one additional house has sat empty for two months and I'm thinking the family living there has left town, also. My IRA dropped $750.
I'm seriously scared about this. How is it that I'm working so hard and cutting everything out of my budget and still have no money for groceries or gas? Since the divorce, the only thing I've ever wanted is to be able to support my family by myself. I don't want handouts and I don't want help from C2 or my parents. I want to do this by myself and up until recently, was doing a fair job of it (not great, but better than before). Thankfully, my civil service job is secure and my health insurance only went up minimally. I'm luckier than most, but angry nonetheless. I apologize for ranting on this blog that is supposed to be all happy stuff about our wedding-and the wedding date is still undetermined.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
I guess, with no wedding to plan, I'm throwing all my energy into this election...
Written by Eve Ensler:
> Drill, Drill, Drill
> I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she
> was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the
> claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have
> a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness
> or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I
> have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact
> that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the
> polar bears.
>
> I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life
> trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence
> against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the
> Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people
> who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of
> Feminists.
>
> But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical
> to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving
> the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls
> options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence
> and war.
>
>
> I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous
> choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those
> candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in
> so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally
> disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the
> world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have
> seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the
> presidency with regularity.
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
> In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets
> better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The
> melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the
> pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is
> fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The
> earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves
> and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to
> be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As
> she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
> \
> Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women
> who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should
> have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or
> not.
>
> She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I
> imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many
> babies that makes.
>
> Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she
> has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense
> with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an
> environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could
> and might very well be the next president of the United States . She
> would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
>
> Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting
> rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot
> hundreds of wolves from the air.
>
> Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private
> right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when
> war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in
> his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the
> undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
>
> I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
> election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the
> future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine
> whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
> uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
> dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
> through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether
> we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
> alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It
> will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or
> whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine
> whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of
> fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
>
> If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your
> power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the
> hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of
> teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of
> destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises
> that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis,
> doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
>
> Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the
> floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between
> nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing
> we call life?
>
> Eve Ensler
> September 5, 2008
> >
> Drill, Drill, Drill
> I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she
> was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the
> claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have
> a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness
> or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I
> have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact
> that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the
> polar bears.
>
> I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life
> trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence
> against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the
> Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people
> who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of
> Feminists.
>
> But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical
> to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving
> the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls
> options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence
> and war.
>
>
> I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous
> choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those
> candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in
> so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally
> disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the
> world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have
> seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the
> presidency with regularity.
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
> In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets
> better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The
> melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the
> pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is
> fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The
> earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves
> and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to
> be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As
> she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
> \
> Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women
> who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should
> have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or
> not.
>
> She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I
> imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many
> babies that makes.
>
> Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she
> has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense
> with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an
> environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could
> and might very well be the next president of the United States . She
> would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
>
> Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting
> rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot
> hundreds of wolves from the air.
>
> Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private
> right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when
> war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in
> his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the
> undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
>
> I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
> election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the
> future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine
> whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
> uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
> dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
> through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether
> we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
> alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It
> will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or
> whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine
> whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of
> fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
>
> If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your
> power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the
> hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of
> teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of
> destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises
> that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis,
> doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
>
> Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the
> floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between
> nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing
> we call life?
>
> Eve Ensler
> September 5, 2008
> >
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
ADMIT IT-I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD HAVE A GIRL!
I told everyone from the start that the baby would be a girl. RIGHT, C2? I hate to say I told you so, but...
Monday, September 15, 2008
Against all odds
There she is, Layla Grace Avery! Who woulda thunk that there'd be a girl born to be the first great-grandchild for mom and dad. If there were Vegas odds, somebody would've broken the bank, and it wouldn't have been me. Out of mom and dad's 19 kids and grand-kids, there were a total of 3 girls. So congrats to Cheri and Jordan on getting a start on evening things up! I love you's!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
State Fair
The end of summer in Minnesota is heralded by the arrival of the State Fair. For artists, it's an honor to be included in the Fine Arts exhibit. I've been fortunate to be a part of that for the past 3 years. My entry for this year reflects the political climate that we are in. A not so subtle jab at our current fearful leader.....
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Inaccuracies At Work
Charles mentioned the truck with the pictures of 'aborted fetuses' - actually the truth is much different.
This was from a post on lifeandlibertyforwomen.com:
Misrepresentation
A considerable number of anti-abortion visuals feature an almost fully developed fetus. Abortions preformed at this stage via hysterotomy or D&X abortions are rare. Only about 1.5% of abortions are performed at 21-weeks or older, according to according to a 2000 study conducted by the Nation Center for Chronic Disease (CDC). A July 1992 LIFE magazine article, The Great Divide, reported that Reverend Robert Schenk, member of anti-choice coalition Operation rescue, attended a demonstration outside an abortion clinic in Buffalo, NY, with "Baby Tia", a 7-inch, gray-tinted and formaldehyde-soaked dead fetus. In the escalating madness of the crowd, the fetus was dropped onto the sneaker-trodden street. Authorities arrested Schenk and confiscated the fetus, which was taken to a coroner, only to be identified as an approximately 20-week-old stillborn. The article reads, "Many pro-choice supporters in Buffalo are angry about the distance between their reality-what they see in the clinics-and the images the anti-abortionists present as fact. 'What they are showing to the public is a lie,' says Joni Ladowski, a nurse at a nearby clinic, as she unfolds a length of gauze. In the center lies what appears to be a clot the size of a peanut. It is a fetus, nine weeks old. 'This is an abortion,' she says."
These anti-choice people will use lies and language ("infanticide") to get their point across. Republicans seem to enjoy scaring people into action as opposed to informing them. IMHO.
This was from a post on lifeandlibertyforwomen.com:
Misrepresentation
A considerable number of anti-abortion visuals feature an almost fully developed fetus. Abortions preformed at this stage via hysterotomy or D&X abortions are rare. Only about 1.5% of abortions are performed at 21-weeks or older, according to according to a 2000 study conducted by the Nation Center for Chronic Disease (CDC). A July 1992 LIFE magazine article, The Great Divide, reported that Reverend Robert Schenk, member of anti-choice coalition Operation rescue, attended a demonstration outside an abortion clinic in Buffalo, NY, with "Baby Tia", a 7-inch, gray-tinted and formaldehyde-soaked dead fetus. In the escalating madness of the crowd, the fetus was dropped onto the sneaker-trodden street. Authorities arrested Schenk and confiscated the fetus, which was taken to a coroner, only to be identified as an approximately 20-week-old stillborn. The article reads, "Many pro-choice supporters in Buffalo are angry about the distance between their reality-what they see in the clinics-and the images the anti-abortionists present as fact. 'What they are showing to the public is a lie,' says Joni Ladowski, a nurse at a nearby clinic, as she unfolds a length of gauze. In the center lies what appears to be a clot the size of a peanut. It is a fetus, nine weeks old. 'This is an abortion,' she says."
These anti-choice people will use lies and language ("infanticide") to get their point across. Republicans seem to enjoy scaring people into action as opposed to informing them. IMHO.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
A day
Well, we are done posting those excruciating posts about remodeling frustration. Now it's time to enjoy life and deal with the nagging anxiety of finding The Buyers. So Cindy and I have been taking the time to enjoy life's little pleasures: washing the cars on a Saturday afternoon, working our way through the Beatles anthology DVD's (again), taking a bike ride and enjoying the NY Times on the weekends.
We had another treat today, as we (Cindy, her friend Amy and I) drove to St. Paul to witness some of the craziness that is the Republican National Convention and to see a Live! taping of the Daily Show with your host, John Stewart. The show is taped in the heart of St. Paul, just about a mile away from the convention. The deal with getting into the show is that you have to wait in line for 2 - 3 hours before they start letting people in. So while we waited in line we listened to a few bands playing on the lawn behind us and watched the parade of Police vehicles of all types, big shiny cars with mysterious occupants and upright citizen republicans mixing with the outside edges of society. The most unfortunate part, though, was watching a couple trucks making the circles around downtown plastered with their dogma. One was a large delivery van that had one giant picture on each side and the back of aborted fetuses. The pictures had to be 4 feet by 6 feet. The other was much more creative in a folk art kind of way. It appeared to be an old Datsun pickup retrofitted with a camper like back end that was hand lettered with biblical verse, something about Truth, Not Tolerance, two large flags on top (one of which seemed to be either a christian or a KKK flag) and of course, the requisite abortion photo on the back. The crowd was having fun with it, tho. Every time they would drive by, they would receive a mocking applause. Quite the scene.
Seeing the trucks going round and round with their in your face messages got me to thinking about some messaging that wasn't allowed to happen in this town while the convention is in progress. A photographer named Suzanne Opton has been taking a series of portraits of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have returned from war. She has been displaying them on billboards in cities like Syracuse and Buffalo. She had a contract to put some up in St. Paul but the powers that be decided at the last minute that they would be "too disturbing". A picture of one of them is at the top of this post. So I'm just thinking about who decides what information and imagery is proper for us fools to be privy to and what free speech actually means. Thank you Republicans!
But, then we got into the Daily Show (locked into it, actually) and all was in balance again. I gotta say, John Stewart is not only smart and hilarious, but he is sharp as a tack. As a double bonus, we were sitting next to his honor, the Mayor of St. Paul and his wife and her giddy girlfriend. We had the row all to ourselves! I didn't have the heart to ask Mayor Coleman how the Security Zone was doing in the face of the unrelenting assault by the Anarkists. Next time.
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