Cleanliness is next to Godliness

It's a drive I take everyday. But last week I had one of those moments. You know when you catch some one's eye in passing and it feels like you've had a moment?

I was driving to work and my eyes landed on a lil ol lady, cleaning the windows of the funeral home. Working diligently from the inside of the entry way. She was on her tip toes, reaching with her paper towel, balancing the bottle of windex in her other hand. Trying to grip the bottle and the handle of the door for stability.

She made wide, sweeping motions and it struck me how someone has to keep the fingerprints of the living, off the doors to death.

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. ~ Maureen Dowd

Soooooo....say your paying for something aaaaaaand you don't get your moneys worth. You're promised things that don't come through. You're told it's all taken care of and nothing ever changes.

What do you do?

Let's say....you're renting a tennis court so you can play for an hour every week. Other folks use the court. You don't own it...you just rent the space once a week.

And it all starts out just fine.

Then one day when you get there, for your hour, there is another pair on there playing. They want to finish their set. So they eat into your time.

You complain to the manager of the facility. He apologizes and says he will let the boss know and this won't happen again.

OK....so what...who cares.

Then you notice the lines on the court are peeling and flaking up and you can't tell if the ball is in or out.

You complain to the manager of the facility. He apologizes and says he will let the boss know and this won't happen again.

But now you're really starting to wonder if the money that you are paying each week to be there is worth it.

Now you show up and the net is coming loose and fraying, the lines still aren't fixed and the couple before you seem to take more and more of your time.

This time, when you talk to the manager, you play a lil good cop/bad cop and try to drive the point home that you're not happy.

He apologizes and says he will let the boss know and this won't happen again.

When is enough enough and how do you get someone to care? (other than yourself, of course) Every where I look we are being taken advantage of: at the pump, in government, as a woman, in my paycheck, at my radio station.

Where do you go when your complaints fall on deaf ears? Do you go to another tennis facility and hope to get better treatment there? What are the odds they will be better? Especially in a world where customer service is dead and the client is ALWAYS wrong!

Some days...I just don't want to get out of bed in the morning. I have no more energy to fight the good fight. I use to write letters to companies that needed a good talkin' too. Now when I write, they can't be bothered to even send a form letter!

And the pang in my heart tells me that "If you don't complain, who will". All the while my head is screaming, "They just don't fuckin' care about people anymore."

My head is winning.

“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” ~ Dr. Seuss

When you move in with someone, there is the "mesh". Your stuff and their stuff has to cohabitate.

Understandable.

As time goes on, you BOTH get stuff together. Your taste changes. You evolve and hopefully improve. And then the day comes when that one item, that you have overlooked for years cuz it's just part of the environment, is an eyesore.

My overstuffed, plaid chair had reached that point.

It took up a HUGE space in the office of our house. It was comfy, don't get me wrong. It was one of the new items of furniture I bought when I moved from my folks and went out on my own. It looked fantastic in my cute lil apartment in Culver City, CA. We watched TV together. I ate my breakfast in it, every morning, while watching the Today Show. It's hugeness drew in stacks of party goers, who would cram into it, when I would have the friends over for a BBQ. I took a few naps in that chair as well. It's over-stuffed, wonderfulness, a catcher's mitt of snuggly comfort.

When it traveled the United States and ended up here in NY, it was a main part of our apartment living room. Then we moved to the house. Yes, it still held a spot in the living room. Then we decided our 1930's colonial needed a more sophisticated look. The plaid chair wasn't part of that.

Up to the office it went. And to good use! It was my video game chair. It was the "What chat doin' on the computer?" chair. It was still beloved.

Then.....things started to happen to it. Like a neighborhood that suddenly doesn't seem as nice. Like a bad element that moves in next door and the property value goes down.

The cats took it over!

My, once best friend, was now a cat napping place. Which kept you from just flopping down in it. There was always a cat in it OR enough fur in it to DIY a cat clone.

Then we started hearing it...the late night scratchings. Like the flesh being flogged from the back of a tortured soul. "RIIIIIIIIPPP! TUG TUG RIIIIIIIPPP!"

Morning would find the fabric split and the stuffing popping out like bleeding wounds. The chair injuries would drive me into a rage against the cats. But it never mattered. They didn't care. It would begin again the next night. On occasion...right in front of my very eyes. With a look on the cats face like, "What are you going to do about it?"

They were right...I was helpless to come to the aid of my old friend. Didn't matter what I sprayed on it, or covered in tin foil, or surrounded it with nip infused scratching pads with "as seen on TV" guarantees.

If that wasn't bad enough....the ultimate shame came when the hairballs flew. Nasty lil gifts of brownish hell. The liquid, long soaked into the cushion, leaving the matted stomach substance, high and dry and stuck to the fabric weave. Marks that will never quite come out. Like bruises on the fabric.

Ol' plaid had reached the end. No amount of cleaner, or trying to repair the torn fabric would ever fix it. And in the darkness the cats waited. Waited for me to fix up ol' plaid, so they could, once again, torture it.

So with a heft and a push and a roll down the front yard to the curb, I walked away. Leaving my friend outside, on the sidewalk, leaned up on telephone pole.

17 years together. My longest relationship, to date.

We left for dinner and, upon our return, low and behold, ol' plaid was GONE! A new home? A new family? A new life? Who knows where adventure will take that chair. It was good to know that it would live on, in some form.

Goodbye ol friend. May you find a house, free of cats.

There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror. ~Orson Welles

I've got a third: anger.

Travel is SOOOOO overrated these days. Maybe it's because I've done so much of it. Mind you, not as much as frequent flayers with millions of miles that they can't even use. But at least twice a year, enough to see the changes in air travel.

I mean, think about this; you carefully pack your bag, only to have some stranger rifle through it. You submit to having your purse overturned and pawed by some surly TSA agent. Don't get me started about body scans! I was accused at one point of the possibility of my tin, punch out ornament, a gift for my mom, could slit some one's throat.

Merry Christmas - kiss my mistletoe, you over paid, under educated, mall cop!

There's another descriptive word for the above: a MUGGING! But not in an airport. Oh no! You pay WAY too much for THIS kid of treatment. On average a ticket out of Syracuse costs me $400. I'm lucky if I can get anything less than that. And that's not a "gas hike" problem. Oh no...it's been that way for years! Now I get to add a $25 charge for my bag. What....$400 wasn't enough for my bag AND my ass? Cuz I know when I use to give you $400 you use to take my bag, feed me some sort of food, mind you it was Barbie sized. But it was actual food. Now they offer a "snack box". I did that once and it won't happen again. My wife and I had to run to our connected flight, not getting a chance to eat. We opted for the $12 Cheese box. That worked out to a $1 per square of cheese and the 6 crackers were free. And no lie....4 grapes. F-O-U-R!

And while the airline version of a "pillow and blanket" were more like a Stayfree pad and a dyer sheet - at least you got them!

They use to have free movies and charge you a couple bucks for the headphones (that you had to leave on the plane, cuz the jack on them never fit in anything else.) Now they give you FREE headphones, that have a normal plug to be used again. Fantastic, right? No, cuz you have to swipe your credit card if you want to actually WATCH a movie that could cost you from $6 - $10. That's not happening

When they said they were doing away with all that...I thought, "Great! I'll be flying for like....$200 now!" mmmmmmmNOPE! I pay for my butt, my bag and a female TSA agent to feel me up cuz my jeans are baggy.

Buying a hooker, for that last part, would actually SAVE me money.

Let's talk about the planes for a minute. Cuz it use to be that you could luck out once and a while and actually get an open seat. Not no more! Over booked by 10....every flight. I transport myself right back to math class when they announce, "The flight is overbooked and we are looking for passengers to go on a later flight." It's like Mr. Hern in algebra asking for someone to do the equation on the board. I slump down in my seat, turn my iPod up and bury my face in the book.

I just gave you $425, was strip searched, and my LL Bean leatherman confiscated and probably re-gifted to that TSA agents father in law, so you could tell me that I don't even get the flight I paid for?

Momma doesn't think so!

That's a LOT of strikes against the airline industry. So you can understand how shocked I was, when my wife and I got on our last flight, recently, and a WHOLE ROW of seats were missing! When I made the reservations, I picked two seats on the left side of the plane. When we got on....there was ONE row on the left side.

A WHOLE ROW WAS GONE! We had to sit across the isle from each other. CUZ A WHOLE ROW WAS GONE! They actually downgraded our plane and didn't bother to tell anyone. Including the 10 or so other passengers that have their tickets out, scratching their heads, cuz their ROW OF SEATS WERE MISSING!!

There are so many things in life now, that we have NO control over and somehow, we always have our wallets out, paying for the stiff beating we are taking. When did things get so out of hand?

The TSA is a farce. Set up to cause fear in travelers. I mean...how many terrorist have they caught? None!

State Governors seem to be able to pass laws without rules.

And we are held captive over gas price speculators that have NOTHING to do with the gas business and everything to do with gouging the American public.

As one of the "little guys" getting squished in this "land of milk and honey" it's frustrating not to have a cord to pull on a run-away train.

Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy. ~Sigmund Freud

As the date comes closer, my dreams get crazier. The 10th will be the first anniversary of my father's death.

It's an anniversary I hope doesn't stick with me.

I'm still trying to figure out how he is gone. The world didn't stop. It should have. People didn't stop moving around me. They should have, out of respect. The seasons are changing outside my window, right this very minute. Impossible.

How can someone be missing from the earth and the planet doesn't notice? Doesn't the weight shift enough that she seems a bit lopsided in her whirling dance around the sun?

Like when you lose a pound and your pants aren't quite a snug. Or your ring slips off your finger. Or your watch travels around your wrist with no problem at all.

I know when my dad left this earth it changed everything in my life. I could feel his absence every day. Time stopped for me. The silence in my mind filled with questions of "why?".

If I lost a pound, it wouldn't effect the button on my pants, the ring on my finger or the watch on my wrist.

It would be the gaping hole in my heart, that throws off my steps every day. Causes me to stumble with a thought. Makes me grab for a rail that isn't there with a memory. Like an emotional blind man, in a unfamiliar place, screaming for answers.

Even if no one else notices.

In pace requiescat!

"I forget your arms."

"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel."

"And the motto?"

"Nemo me impune lacessit."

"Good!" he said.

~Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado"

"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.