The Great Divide

NOTE:  Contrary to how the first paragraph reads, this is not a post about the death penalty.

A post I made on Facebook tonight got me thinking about something.  It was basically about a man, about to be executed on Texas' death row and a dispute about whether or not some DNA evidence that was never tested, should be.  I argued that it should be, because you're dealing with a human life and taking someone's life is so final, all avenues should be exhausted to ensure you're doing the right thing.  About an hour ago, I got a private message from a good friend asking me when I'd turned into such a liberal.  She was joking, but it did get me thinking about how divided we are as a society when it comes to political beliefs.  For the record, I've always leaned towards the conservative side of things but in my old age, have turned towards Libertarianism.  What that translates into is:  I don't want to be involved in your life, and you shouldn't be involved in mine.

I make comments about Sarah Palin being a total moron and suddenly, I'm a tree-hugging hippie.  I can't stand Nancy Pelosi so I must be a right-winged bigot.  When did we turn into such a black and white society?  Can someone not have a dissenting opinion without being considered a traitor to the party they typically identify with? 

I can't help but blame TV stations like Fox News for this type of environment.  You pit one side against the other and they're usually shouting so loudly at each other, it's impossible to hear another's point of view much less, thoughtfully consider it.  I will literally kiss my own ass the day I see one of these jackass pundits stop dead in their tracks and say to the other side "Wow, you know you make a great point!  I'd never considered that!"  It will never happen. 

I don't know where I am going with this exactly.....it's just something that irks me.  Debates and arguments seem to be more and more a way of showing how loud you are and how many talking points you can memorize, and less of a way to obtain new information or learn about a different point of view.  I don't think that's good for anyone.

Wal-Mart is Stupid

(The following are the real life events that led up to me being 5 seconds away from declaring a full on Jihad against Wal-Mart.)

Mason's sleep schedule is all over the place and though he goes to sleep by himself in his bouncer, more often than not he ends up in our bed at some point in the night.  I am not about to be dealing with this for the next 5 years of his life, so we're going to end it now come hell or high water.  He'll lay there quietly if his mobile is on but it's a wind up which means it lasts for 3 minutes TOPS.  You can imagine how much it sucks trying to get him to fall asleep when you're having to haul ass into his room every 3 minutes to wind it back up. The kid practically gives birth to a donkey if it comes to a stop and then you have to start the whole calming down process all over again.  NOT. FUN.  So Andrew finds a battery operated one on WalMart.com that plays music for 20 minutes, costs $38 and ships free to the store.  Well, I want it now and it says it's in stock so I head up to the one store I hate more than anything. 

I get there and I am a woman on a mission.  There my savior is........perched in all it's 8HoursOfSleepWithoutMasonInMyBed, glory.  I pick it up but I notice the price tag says it's $47.  Maybe it's the wrong one?  I call Andrew and he confirms which mobile it is that I am looking for and says it's definitely $38.  So I head up to the front of the store and find a manager.  The following is the actual conversation that took place between her and I.......

Stacey:  I was wondering why this was priced on the internet as $9 less than it is in the store.  Is that a mistake?

Manager: No.  We have different prices than the website does.  If you want it for that price, you have to order it online.

S:  Why is the price different though?
M:  We're just a different entity so we have different prices.
S:  Hold up.  So if I call my fiance' right now and have him pay for it online, I can take it out of here for $38?
M:  No.  Once it ships we'll let you know you can pick it up.

Let me interrupt this and remind you that I am standing here holding the mobile in my hands.  It's not a picture of a mobile....the actual thing.  The very one this woman is telling me I can have shipped to the store.  I literally look down at this box and then back up at the manager in a manner which may or may not have conveyed the words "Are you shitting me?" 

S:  This mobile right here?  The one in my hands?  You're telling me that I have to go home, order it, and then wait for it to come in so that I can save $9 dollars?  You know you have 10 of them sitting on your shelf right? 
M:  Ma'am, it's a totally different inventory and they get different prices so yes.  You have to wait on it to ship.

At this point I am about to have a massive coronary.  I'm tired.  I haven't had a good nights sleep in 3 months and I want this f-cking mobile.  But I am NOT not paying $47 for it on general principle.  $9 will buy me at least one bottle of cheap wine and a pack of Unisom.  I won't do it.

S:  Okay, let me try this another way.....You said Walmart.com is a separate entity right?  So you could technically say they're a competitor right?  You know all those commercials you're running that say you'll match a competitiors advertised price?  Well guess what.....
M:  I know what you're saying but there's nothing I can do.
S:  Is there someone else you can ask?

So she pages another manager.  I'm sitting there staring her down, about to fill her in on my plan to chew off every appendage currently attached to her body unless she gives me the damn mobile at the price I want it for.  After 5 minutes of waiting for this other manager to come (they never show), she finally either feels sorry for me or she realizes I am not playing around and takes me to a register where she promptly adjusts the price.

Mason is sound asleep in his crib.

I win.

How My Dogs Determined My New Years Resolution

I'm as guilty as anyone.  Every NYE, I come up with resolutions that are mostly forgotten by January 2nd.  Maybe sometime around April, I'll think "Oh yeah, that was a resolution of mine wasn't it?", and then I go back to whatever I was doing, quickly forgetting about it.  Lose weight, keep my house clean, read a certain book.  Pretty generic and probably the same things that everyone else comes up with and I follow it with the same focus as 95% of the world.

The other day, Andrew and I had gone somewhere and were maybe gone for 10 minutes.  We came back and both dogs were staring at us through the windows.  When we came in, they were ridiculously excited to see us.  It was as though we'd been gone for a week.  Andrew's father gave the dogs a chew toy shaped like a bone with a Union Jack on it.  It's not edible, it doesn't do anything fancy but the way Molly carries it around and sleeps with it, you'd think that it was stuffed with Milk Bones.  The dogs are excited about everything, no matter how small.  I'm envious of their attitude towards life.

I've been thinking about that for a few days.  What it must be like to be happy all the time and content with the smallest goings on and surprises.  Actually, content isn't the right word.  They celebrate everything.  If they could, they'd probably throw a party every time they pooped.

Over the last few years, I've noticed this "half birthday" trend.  I definitely think it's silly and at times it irritated me (and this is coming from someone who lives for birthdays, believe me).  I noticed that instead of a basket of candy for Easter or a heart shaped box of chocolates for Valentines, parents started giving their children gifts as though it were Christmas.  Don't get me wrong, I still don't like this over-giving and I'm afraid our children are getting entirely too materialistic, but I like the idea of making a big deal out of things.  Even something stupid like a half birthday.  Life happens once, and no matter how small or insignificant the occurrence may be, why not celebrate everything?  As a whole, life IS a big deal and we are so lucky to be here. 

So that's it.  My one resolution for 2011 is to slow down, appreciate my life and celebrate everything that happens.  I have so much to be grateful for.  

Happy New Year everyone!

"That" Girl

I was watching a marathon of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (shut up) the other night and I must have heard Camille Grammar say at least 10 times; "Women are always jealous of me and never like me!"  I thought....jealous of what?  The other women on this show are just as pretty and wealthy as you are, if not more.  What is it that you think you have that the others don't?  I can tell you that at least 2 of them have a much better personality and are definitely more sane than she is.  What would make her immediately assume that jealousy was the issue, rather than something else?  Wouldn't most normal people think "Gosh, if all women hate me, maybe I am doing something wrong?"

I've met women like this before.  We've all met her.  There you are, having what appears to be a normal conversation with a chick when she suddenly announces: "I don't really get along with women.  They're always jealous of me!"  Give her long enough and she'll tell you what a nice person she is and how she just can't understand it.  Well, Crazy Bitch Alert.......she's not a nice person.  She's an evil skank.  She'll steal your boyfriend.  She'll talk behind your back.  She'll ditch you when you have plans.  You should run away and never look back.  This is a woman who is totally incapable of believing that she's jacked up in the head.  She's totally incapable of understanding that her personality is that bad.  IT'S GOT TO BE EVERYONE ELSE WHO HAS THE PROBLEM!

Women who "never get along with other women" concern me the most.  It's not natural.  Women are meant to get along.  It's always been that way.  Women seek each other out for the support and friendship that for the most part, men cannot fulfill (this works in the opposite direction as well).  Of course, I have lots of friends who are male and I am very close to but when I want to talk about girl stuff (pregnancy, guy issues, clothes, gossip), I'm going to my girlfriends.  That's just the way it is.

I have a pretty large group of girlfriends.  They're hilarious, smart, educated, have jobs, their own money and will knock your socks off in the looks department and yet, they all seem to get along with other females.  I never hear them say that other women are jealous of them or that they can't seem to make friends with other women.  Because they're NORMAL.

What's my point?  If these words have ever come out of your mouth, if you can single out an entire segment of the population and say "I cannot get along with these people as a whole", you're the crazy skank.  Plain and simple.

Ugh.....

I've got so much to say but I worry every time I start to type something that it's too personal, not funny, uninteresting etc.

I'm having a rough week.  These hormones are killing me.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

So I've started a journal for the baby.  It sounds weird but I keep thinking of things I know I'll want to remember, or I'll want to tell her.  I've got about 5 entries so far but I liked today's.  I had a little bit of a revelation.

Dear Baby:

So.  I've been talking and singing to you lately.  Supposedly, you can hear me now!  But the song I've been singing to you has been a strange choice....

For a while now, I've had "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by the Beatles stuck in my head.  Why this as a lullaby for you?  I wasn't sure why until today.....until I thought about the story of how George Harrison wrote it. 

At the time the song was written, Harrison was studying the I Ching.  It's an Eastern Philosophy book that says there are no coincidences in this world.  There are no mistakes.  No accidents.  The smallest occurrence has a purpose and a major effect on the world.  After reading this, to prove a point he decided to take a book, open it randomly and whatever word or phrase he landed on, he would write a song about it.  The phrase he landed on was "gently weeps".  The song became one of his most famous and most celebrated of his career.

The lyrics don't exactly make sense as far as why you would sing it to a baby, but the meaning behind it does.  Your dad and I certainly weren't expecting you, but you were meant to be.  You have a purpose.  You are wanted and you are loved.  Never forget that.

You are my random find in a book, but you'll be my most celebrated accomplishment.

I love you,
Mom

Tiger Pee?

For those who don't know the story, I'll tell it here.

When I was a kid, around 5 or so, my Mom and her friend Teresa took all of us kids to the Fort Worth Zoo.  I have a vague memory of this "incident" but mostly, I retell it based on what my Mom says happened.  There we are, enjoying our day when we come upon the tiger exhibit.  Now, I use the term "exhibit" loosely, but it was there that I was assaulted.  This was the early 80's, and the tigers were literally in cages....no fancy jungle habitats.  If you were a lucky tiger, they might throw you a bone and give you a house plant, but if I remember correctly it was mostly concrete and bars.  I'd be pissed off if I were a tiger, I'll tell you that much.  Anyway, I digress.  There was a bar in front of the cage to keep the curious and the stupid a safe distance away, but it was only 4 or 5 feet.  So there we are, happy, typical Americans out enjoying our day and checking out The Suspect in his concrete jungle.  For some reason, the zookeeper decides he needs to get into the cage and turns the hose on the tiger to back him away from the door.  This does the trick but I now have The Suspect's ass pointed straight at my grill.  It was then that the tiger turns on his own hose and PEES ON ME.  Technically I think I was "sprayed" but who really gives a shit.......I HAD TIGER PEE ALL OVER ME!  I smelled so badly, my mom stripped me down and made me ride home naked.  Poor Teresa had to drive the 5 other kids home in her car because no one would get within 10 feet of me.

I have spent many years being laughed at by my parents and my sisters for this, but I like to think of The Suspect as a mini, hairy, jerk of a Buddha just letting me know a big life lesson.  That lesson was "Hey Little Buddy, smarten up.  Because just when you're out enjoying a lovely day, when you least suspect it and you're having a good time.....someone's gonna come right up and point their giant, tiger ass towards you and ruin it.  So you better figure out now whether you're going to laugh about it or cry like a bitch." 

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it and the tiger took a page from R. Kelly and liked to pee on underage girls but whatevs.

So that's what this blog is going to be about.....the tiger pee in my life.  Before you get the wrong idea, it's not that I intend to only write about the bad things.  Bad shit or good shit; there's almost always something hilarious about it if you look hard enough. 

You may or may not find it interesting, but it's my world.  Welcome to it.

PS - No Mom, I will not watch my language.