"You don't know hardship!" ~ my mom

It's funny, when we look back, what was easy and what we perceived to be hard. My mom is sure she grew up in a time that was the worst. She was born during a world war, she had parents that went through the depression. She had the radical 60's and the inner city fighting of the Watts riots.

I certainly wouldn't call it easy. But she is quick to point out our 'soft lives'. How easy we have it and how simple things are. With a touch of a button or poke on Facebook. (I think it's more that we are as far liberal as she is conservative)

But with jobs in the crapper and the housing market, where my folks made their money, on a respirator, there are kids who will graduate this year that have known nothing but war and terrorist threats. More than likely there are no jobs for them when the do emerge.

I watch as the world rises up against dictators and oppression. In the streets, their life in their hands, as their own military counter acts against them.

I watch Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, pour into the streets. Their already delicate jobs, striped of rights and re-named 'budget cuts'.

All the wealth is held in only 2% of our population. Click

If things weren't bad enough, let's toss a lil McCarthy-ism in the mix. Hearing on how all Muslims are terrorists. Really? In a time when we need to fix so much, this is what we are spending our time doing? Click

Through all this, how much are folks actually seeing? Do people know that the Republicans of WI had an illegal meeting to break the unions last night? That folks stormed the capital there - again? Click

Do people know what the Republican budget would actually cut? Click
Or how bout a more clear chart. Click

Do people even know that the Democrats from WI have to give their staffers "power or attorney" so they can get their paychecks? Click Cuz if they show up. the bounty hunters the Gov. hired to catch them, just might! (who's paying for the bounty hunters anyway? Is that out of pocket or do the taxpayers get to pay that too?)

With all of this going on....what is it that people do know?

WINNING!


Arm yourself....or before you know it, there will be two classes: the rich, and whatever that other one is the 98% of us are in.

Randi Rhodes - She's rough...but so very right on everything!

Rachel Maddow - This woman knows her stuff and is one of only a couple folks the let tell the truth.

Ed Schultz - The first one on the scene in WI. Wanna cut the crap, he's the guy that does it.

....jaw dropping speechless....

"How fitting that Lara Logan was “liberated” by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the “liberation.”

Hope you’re enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise allah]." ~Debbie Schlussel (Conservative political commentator, radio talk show host, columnist, and attorney)

This after Lara Logan, reporter for CBS, was raped in the 'freedom celebration' in Egypt.

First of all...I was shocked to hear this happened. My first reaction to Ms Logan even being there? "How brave of this female reporter." But to have this horrible, horrible thing happen to here is unimaginable.

Then the sickening realization of this Ms. Schlussel was saying "You deserved it."

The feeling swirled in my abdomen, like the time my sister and I were trapped on a carnival ride. Turning in a circle in a cage that turned on its own axis. Doubling the centrifugal force that brought the vomit up to my throat.

I remember when our high school band went to Mexico to perform in our sister city's Carnival parade. We were gathered up and warned, "No girls go anywhere alone. Blonds especially. Keep them in the middle of the group. You will have a lot of attention on you. Guys...keep close to the girls."

It was my first time, in my very 'strong female' upbringing, I felt vulnerable as a girl. I was raised to hold my own, stand my ground. Any guys that had bothered me, up to this point, with taunts of my weight, or my height. I dealt with them in two ways: I danced around their hurtful words and ultimately shamed them with my verbal/comedic expertise or I knocked the shit out of them with my fists.

Scarlet O'Hara I ain't.

My second realization was a date gone wrong in college. The voice of my mother in my head, "If you could just meet a nice boy....". I tried to block my lust for the girl on the college swim team and went out with a guy in my art class. He seemed like a nice boy, till his mom left us alone in his house.

The 'date' ended with him on the ground, a foot print on the crotch of his jeans and the threat of me putting the end table lamp through his skull, very real.

He never came back to class...I gave up looking for a 'nice boy'.

Fast forward to my pro football days. One of my team mates was a female soldier. She was about to be shipped to Iraq. Things had been going on for a while there. Long tours and bad conditions we were just learning about in the states.

She came to a practice after having gone through an orientation, getting her ready for life in the Middle East. She told us they took all the female soldiers through a separate class, from the men.

What she told us was so shocking, it made my gut turn.

They were basically warned that the AMERICAN troops had been there for a while now. That the female troops were in danger from their own male counter parts. That there was a good possibility they would be sexually assaulted. They wanted to give them the proper way to combat this:

1. Issue a warning that you don't want the sexual advance by stating clearly, "NO!"
2. If they ignore this, inform them you will draw your fire arm if they do not stop their advance.
3. If he continues, draw your fire arm and shoot the male.

So you see Ms. Schlussel, in your glee to prove that Islam and Muslims are animals and don't deserve freedom, you've missed the point.

Rape isn't political.

1/3 of the women in the AMERICAN military are raped. A woman is raped in AMERICA every 2 minutes.

Rape is the worst thing that could happen to a woman. The WORST. It takes your soul, your strength, and your dignity. It steals the peace of your loving relationships and the trust of everyone around you.

Death would be a welcome and easy choice over rape. When would you EVER think dying would be a choice over anything?

Ms. Schlussel, I hope you never have to make that choice. But if you play the odds and think about the percentage of a chance....you might just end up knowing first hand.

And you'll never have to be as brave as Lara, by standing as a woman, in the middle of a revolution, in the middle of Egypt. You can stay right in America, wrapped in the flag and the constitution where every two minutes there is a new victim you can let know she "deserves it".

Movin' on up.....

I have mentioned before, our lil radio show, the Irish Power Hour. Well...they have asked us, a lil ol one hour, once a week show, to move from the all talk channel to the rock channel, here locally!

I was trying to put this in perspective, as if I was still living in CA.

It would be like having an AM midnight show that got put on, saaaaayyy KROQ fm! Folks in CA will get that analogy, of course. For those of you not in CA...It's HUGE!

With this move, we are hoping to get more advertisers and then be able to pay the bills to be on the radio in the first place.

Yes...we pay to do our lil show. Better to be broke and the master of our own destiny then to be a slave to the man, right? RIGHT?!

cricket cricket cricket.

Ya...I know. This lil venture reminds me a lot of my experiment in owning my women's pro football team. While I earned the right to say, "I played pro football", it set me back a bit of cabbage.

This time we seem to be holding our heads just above the water level, which is more than I ever did with the team. Plus the excitement of seeing web hits and attendance at event grow is at an all time high!

Plus with this venture I don't have to wear a helmet. That's a plus!

Midnight Mauling

I'm a dog person....let's just put that right out there. But when I moved here, 13 years ago, I moved into a cat house.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Now, you cat folks will relate when I tell you that the kitteh is high maintenance. YOU are the servant. You have to read minds with the feline species. And the part that really got me was "Don't touch me! Unless I allow you."

I've lived with four cats now, in my 13 years. Each, very different from the other. None overly affectionate. Which stinks in my book. I have the hair on my clothes and the scratch scars to prove that I'm a good kitteh mom.

Our youngest addition is a 3 year old tiger who we got when she was but a small handful. Doolin was raised by our dog, Roxy. (I slipped the pooch in between cat ownership after I begged and pleaded for a pet that actually showed love for me....with something other than hairballs in my shoes)


"Doolin & Roxy plan their escape."

Doolin, for the most part, acts like a dog, but once and a while, her kitty tendency come forward. She's not much of a snuggler. In fact she cuddles like Peg Bundy always sleeps with Al - at arms length.

So when she crawled on me at 2 am, a few nights ago, waking me from a dead sleep. I didn't want to push her away. I didn't want her to think she shouldn't climb up and nestle on her momma.

Then she started kneading me. But not just the kneading...she sat on my bladder to knead my stomach. Did I mention it was my full bladder? Do I have to mention that no one wants the fat of the stomach moving that much?

It was over before it began. Then she came back at 5 am. And the next night at 3:30 am....and 5 am again. In fact 4 nights in a row she woke me up to be "affectionate" and I didn't want to reject her. I mean, here she was actually sitting on me and being affectionate. Do I want to make her think that's wrong? I don't think so.

I finally broke down and asked Laura, "Do you think it would hurt Doolin's feelings if I kicked her off my bladder? I mean...I'm getting bruised in places from this "love" stuff."

Without skipping a beat, Laura said, "Boot her! She doesn't care. I use to toss Hobbes right off when he would start in. Of course he would pop his claws....and drool...and it think he thought I was more of a girlfriend then a 'mom', if you know what I mean..."

STOP! TMI!

Not all kitteh experience should be shared in full detail.

Last night I was prepared for her. I was going to gently remove her from my tenderized areas and hope she wouldn't take my name out of the "mother of the year" contest.

Alas....No Doolin.

Now I find myself awake, wondering if she's going to hop up. Once again, I'm just a big, pink puppet in the grand scheme of the all mighty kitteh.

"It's been a long, a long time coming but I know, A change gon' come oh yes it will" ~ Sam Cooke

Did you hear the president speak last night?

I was takin' a-back when folks cheered. More like a pep rally then a memorial.

But then, something hit me. We, the American people, are sick of it. These people died because politicians want to appease lobbyists over their constituents. They want to get re-elected over doing their jobs.

Last night was about remembering what was wonderful about those people, senselessly slain in the streets, and bonding together to say, "We won't stand for it anymore!"

A bulk of our society came together last night. We are over "business as usual." And like those individuals that tackle shooters, hit them with purses or keep them from flying planes into buildings, we won't have our government hijacking our country for their own greed.

If you stop...and listen...through the chatter of the talking heads. You can hear it. It's faint. And we haven't heard it since the 60's.

Change.

We, the people, are ready for it....finally.

"Dreams are answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask." ~X-Files

I just got back from a week at home with my mom and sisters. I stayed in my folks house. I have to say, I didn't feel the presence of my father once. If you're just tuning in, he passed suddenly last April.

I've said before, I come from folks that are, shall we say, "sensitive" to certain "other-worldly" things. So, while I have been resistant in opening myself up to a visit from my dad, I thought being home for a week would loosen the doors a bit.

Nothing.

I cussed him out a bit when I was trying to help my mom and none of his power tools would start. "Really? You can't help me help her a lil?" was what I said to a passing cloud overhead.

My dreams have been void of him. Other than a reflection or a passing hint that he was present. Last night was much like that, but different.

Dreams are like bowel movements.

Everyone has them. No one wants to hear about yours.

Well...this is my blog...so suck it!

I was in a country 'kitch' kind of restaurant. Perhaps something like the Apple Farm, which is a favorite place to eat for my folks. We ate there, in fact, while I was visiting.

I seemed to be cashing out at a counter near an open door where I saw a number of my high school classmates coming from a house outside. They were lining up and walking past the restaurants open, daisy covered arched doorway. They were their current age, and chatting and walking in a line, as if they were leaving a show at a theater. Some of them saw me and waved and said hello. Others didn't look up.

I noticed, the place they were coming from was a house, with a porch that had a double gate on it that created a holding pen of sorts. In it were two dogs. One was the family dog from my youth, a mixed Vizla breed named Socks, who I loved dearly and considered "my dog". The other was a big headed, smokey grey pitbull looking beast. They just sat and looked my direction, from their holding pen.

"Is that.....Socks? Is that Socks?" I remembered saying, as I walked under the archway and towards the porch. One of my class mates said, "Yep..that's her!" and kept walking. I stood in the middle of a dust covered front yard. The only other thing was a slapped together shack, made of dark, wide, wood planks.

I noticed a door with warm amber light coming from the front door. I could suddenly sense that my dad was living here. Someone else was on the porch and they let the dogs go. The were suddenly untamed and aggressive, the pitbull the most aggressive. Socks became another dog that hung back in the shadows.

My dad stepped out on the porch. Jeans and white tee, his motorcycle boots making a clunking sound on the wood plank porch. He leaned against a post and said, "I'm training them." My dad had more of a "tough love" method of training than most folks would.

"Oh...I think they just need a lil attention!" says I.

"I think they need a good kick in the ass!", my dad said and reached down off the porch to give the pit a good slap on it's hindquarters as it paced back and forth in the dust in front of the porch. The pit tucked and yelped to put distance between my dad and itself.

I disagreed and in an effort to make nice with a dog that was causing my anxiety to rise, I knelt to his level. The pit immediately ran at me, rose up on it's hind legs, dropped his massive front paws on my shoulders and brought his muzzle too quickly to my face.

It was going to tear my face off!

His weight on me was substantial enough that I couldn't move more than an arm to keep his muzzle from contacting with my head.

It's mouth never opened, but his aggressive stance was anything but playful. Was it going to eat me alive? I couldn't tell, but I was starting to sweat with the panic. Feeling his dog breath on my face wasn't helping things.

My dad yelled at the dog and he released me and ran toward the porch. By the time I looked up and towards the porch, my dad had turned for the front door.

"I hate to be an 'I told ya so'....but.....", he said, as he walked back into the shack, leaving me kneeling in the dirt.

I never saw my dad's face.

Happy Holidays...where ever you are.

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us." ~A Chirstmas Carol

May the new year bring the love and understanding that mankind needs to repair its long suffering seperation from kindness.

Blog ya in 2011.

Cookie Porn

Yes...you read that right.

I snatched up a copy of Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookie mag. Now I'm not a 'foodie' by any means, unless you mean EATING food. I love that part of it. The one thing I do love, is baking.

And when the holidays roll around, I dedicate a day to it.

Martha spoke to me, as I waited in line at the Wegman's. I took her home, found a spot on the couch, hugged my xmas mug of mocha and wrapped up the entire magazine with two words: cookie porn.

I will admit, being a graphic artist, it was almost more exciting to see the containers and the way she packaged these gifts of goodness. Brown paper and silver ribbon tubes with small, medallion cookies. Recycled card boxes with ink and stamp names announcing the tasty treasure inside. Wax paper, cut to fold like giant sunflowers, over oddities like "cracked pepper scones".

I needed a candy cigarette after reading it!

While I have my stable of annual cookies that I must bake, for sentimental reasons, if nothing else, I like to add a new one here and there. This mag was going to make it hard to pick just one, so I picked 3.

After completing them, on my ditch day of cookie production, I turned to a three ring binder of sugary love my mom gave my sisters and I a few years back. She index tabbed and clip-arted her way to creating a keepsake I hold near and dear. In its pages are my grandmother's pumpkin pie recipe, my mom's peanut brittle and even one from my mom's childhood that HER grandmother would make: floating island pudding.

As I hunted through to select the old favorites, I came across one that caught my breath and stopped me short.

My dad's Russian Teacakes.

A family favorite. If not for the crumbly, sugary cookie itself, but for the production that my father would put on while making them. Once baked, you have to roll the cookies in powder sugar. Always in a rush, he would "HEE!" and "HOO!" and "HOTSA! the fresh out of the oven dough balls, off the hot cookie sheet and into the bowl of fluffy, powdered sugar. His elbows flying up in an "exit stage left" motion. His fingers, covered in sugar, wiggling to cool off.

It would throw my sisters and I into girlish fits of giggles!

I closed the book, thinking I have enough. I'm going to try and knock out 6 cookies in 8 hours and I still have to go to the grocery store in 2 feet of snow. "Next year." I rationalized, choking down the lump in the throat and leaning my head back, hoping the tears would drain back into the ducts that let them loose, for the millionth time, since last April.

I got the cookies done. They were displayed with pride at our semi-annual Xmas party. But I still felt like I had forgotten something.

A few days later, my phone jumped alive with its chirpy text sound. There on my phone was a picture of a pile of Russian Teacakes!

My baby sister, on top of rising to the occasion of running my parents 'kingdom' in my father's absence, and keeping my mother sane, had found the 'gumption' I was missing to made them.

"I thought I would make them so when mom got back, they would all be done," the type accompanying the picture stated.

"Save some for when I get there!" I responded

Maybe this holiday, so changed forever, might go better with some teacakes and a glass of milk to wash it down.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

The 9th Commandment: thou shalt not lie

Pretty straight forward.

I've blogged before about the 122 abominations in the bible. The one everybody seems to be stuck on is "thou shalt not be gay". They overlook all the others. (women can't wear pants, you can't cut your hair, eat shrimp or crab, blah blah blah)

So I found it very interesting to listen to OutQ news this morning on XM. Don't Ask Don't Tell was, of course, in the news. It seems that a survey of military chaplains shows there will be a mass exodus of the religious if they repeal DADT.

Fascinating.

So you would rather, as holy men and guardians of the 9th commandment, that gay folks in the military LIE?

They should lie about who they are?
They should lie about who they are married too?
They should lie about the family they leave behind during their mission?
They should lie about who they love?

There should be a big lie when they parish in war and their lover can't be at the ceremony or receive the flag that draped over their coffin, when it returns home?

So lying is OK.

It's better.

It's better than that soldier, being stressed that someone is going to find out they are gay, will lose their job. Their families livelihood. It's better that, in the midst of combat, they are thinking about if someone saw the encrypted letter their lover sent them, rather than concentrate on the enemy gunfire overhead. It's better that they have to make up a heterosexual spouse and kids they don't have for a 'cover story', so that no one will rat them out.

You think that's better?

The longer I live, the more I realize religion is the biggest pile of stinking crap! It's thrust upon you as a fear control.

"Don't do that...some one's watching!"

It's good to know that the religious types that are there for comfort and counseling in the armed forces feel the need to put aside their religious duty to judge and discriminate.

If Jesus was a chaplin in the military...you bet your ass he would embrace every soldier equally. If you're going to preach about Jesus...maybe you ought to remind yourself to BE like Jesus.

After all....Jesus himself, had two dads.

“If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.” ~John Tyner

No one looks forward to traveling for the holidays. I'm in that group. But when you're 3,000 miles from your family, it's what you do.

This year, being the first Xmas since my father passed unexpectedly, I felt it was even more important to try and get home for the holidays. I was very excited that my job was giving us the week off between Xmas and New Year's Eve, as I had not one vacation day left after exhausting them around the funeral.

I wouldn't think twice about the crowds, the traffic, the hustle and bustle of holiday travel.

Been there...done that.

Then they started touching people. But only if you choose to not be radiated with low level xrays, first.

I'm not sure WHERE I gave up my rights to not have my naked body end up on youtube. I'm pretty sure when I buy a ticket to fly, I didn't give up my rights. I don't have to show my naked body when I buy a ticket to a concert. I don't have to have someone, in a room somewhere, inspect my fat rolls when I buy a ticket to a movie.

And if I DON'T want radiation and xray porn...I have to have a pat down, which includes, someone putting their hands in my bra, in my pant waistband, and in my crotch.

I'm pretty sure the last time I saw a pat down like that it was a MSNBC show called "Lock Up". Now I know....THEY don't have any rights.

A USAToday/Gallup Poll conducted in January found that 78% of the American public were in favor of these new measures, expressing a strong sentiment that so-called "invasions of privacy" are a small price to pay for greater security aboard passenger airplanes. 84% of the persons polled felt that the machines would prevent terrorists from entering planes with explosives.

WTF?!?!

How many folks have been stopped at the gate so far? None. So I'm going to assume that our need for more than a metal detector...not really needed.

You know where they get stopped? In the plane. By other passengers who rat them out. Not even the TSA agents that are supposedly hidden on the flights have caught anyone.

Hey...84%! Let me tell you WHY you have these scanners. It's not for your SAFETY. Hoooooo noooooo. Please. Do you think the big ol corporations that slap these things together, never testing the level of radiation they are pumping, care about your safety?!?!

Remember Michael Chertoff? He was Mr. Bush's Homeland Security Czar. As of January, his consulting agency, the Chertoff Group, counted among its clients one of the machines' manufacturers.

"There is no evidence these new body scanners make us more secure. But there is evidence that former Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff made money hawking these full body scanners," Rep. Ted Poe (Texas) said from a speech from the House floor.

Anyone heard of the 4th amendment?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Wake up America! You're letting them take away our rights on the basis of fear from the boogie man!

If I don't see you for the holidays....you can see ALL of me on youtube as "fatladypassengerTSA.wvm"

I think I've written about the family cabin, my folks mindlessly tossed on the market and sold out from under us kids.

It's an open-wound....still.

And I think I've mentioned that I've had problems dreaming about my dad, since his death. I can admit I'm still not ready to open myself up completely to him 'visiting' me in some dream world. I've 'visited' with other relatives after they have passed, but this...this is still so fresh and raw.

The closest I've come to having him in a dream was seeing him in reflections while everyone else saw him clear as day.

I don't need my dream analysis book to figure that one out.

Last night I dreamt my folks and I were setting fire to our family cabin to get rid of it. My dad telling me where to put wood and paper to spread the fire that would burn the place to the ground.

My waking moment came when I tried to write on an exposed beam, "Poppa, don't be mad." Cuz you see...he built it. My grandfather, so the story goes, "Carried the main beam on his shoulder while Nan read a book on 'how to build a house' to him."

This is the same cabin my folks decided to sell and never bothered to ask us if we were even interested in keeping it in the family.

As I tried to finish my dream note on the pine beam, under the stairs, the ink ran out of the marker before i could finish the message.

I woke to tears and wondering if my parents asked for my grandfather's forgiveness before the heartlessly sold our cabin.

I know they sure didn't ask it from us kids.