My Writing Space

I have been meaning to post photos of my first ever writing space but my time was taken up with last minute work on an event that took place on Saturday.

And then Sunday I was busy not moving and watching “Scandal”.

And then Monday was taken up with looking at the results of the event and doing some trouble shooting. One thing I learned from the event is that I am a genius at silent auction pricing. I really am so damn good at that. My live auction ideas need some work as two packages that I thought were super spiffy, were not. At least not to this crowd. Don’t you think that a private bocce party at a vineyard with your friends and food and wine would be fun? Or a guided salmon fishing trip? Nope. Those were the two packages I was thrilled about and I was wrong.

Earlier today was taken up with my dear, sweet car going into the shop. Then hearing from mechanic Goran, in his lovely Slavic accent, tell me, “there is so much” ahhhhh ahahahaha. Oh I know Goran, there is so much and I am a crappy car owner but here is a kidney, my favorite jeans, my new neon pink Sharpie pen, and my retirement savings….please let me know when I will see her again.

Finally, here is my new desk and writing/work space which is in the former sitting area of my bedroom. Don’t you all have sitting area’s in your bedrooms? A snug area where you put an armchair and some books and framed photos so you have a cozy place to pile your dirty clothes? Yeah, well the cute vintage chair that I never had reupholstered turned into a scratching post for the cat and a combo hamper/filing cabinet for me. It’s gone!

In its place is this lovely desk and chair purchased at the low low Litko discount from my sister who is moving.

There it is! I love it although it reminds me that I need new carpet/flooring in the bedroom.

Let’s look at other stuff in my room, this is going to be so much fun!

That there is my night stand with my book piles and my dad’s shillelagh which I will use to crack an intruder’s head, if need be.

Last summer I subscribed to the Friday, Saturday, Sunday package of the NY Times because the Oregonian is now the size of an Archie comic.

That is a selection of the NYT sections I haven’t read yet because three days of the NY Times’ is too much to read if I am to keep up with Scandal, Downton Abbey and start watching Better Call Saul. The cat’s tail is featured in the upper right hand corner.

I will try to write a post from my new desk and let you know when I do. I’m so used to writing at work, it will be difficult to compose in a different environment. Do any of you bloggers have that issue? I get very hung up on where I write. Anyone? No, just me? Check.

Terror in France (and All Over the Place)

In 1793-94, the Reign of Terror led by Maximilien Robespierre resulted in the execution by guillotine of thousands of “enemies of the state”, as labeled by the Committee for Public Safety. The official number of death sentences served during the Terror is 16,594 infamously including Marie Antoinette of lemony cake fame.  According to the website HistoryToday:

For the first time in history terror  became an official government policy, with the stated aim to use violence in order to achieve a higher political goal. Unlike the later meaning of ‘terrorists’ as people who use violence against a government, the terrorists of the French Revolution were the government. The Terror was legal, having been voted for by the Convention.

Ironic that the use of terror as policy started in France. Not that the French government supports terror or has in centuries, but still an interesting bit of trivia. Honestly, nothing against France at ALL, just an observation.

I spent a semester of my junior year in college in Dijon, France. In 1986, there were terrorist bombings throughout France and Europe and the U.S. was battling Libya and Iran. One lovely spring day in 1986, I was walking home from class with one of my group’s French student advisers. I looked like a typical American goof ball in my Reebok high tops, drinking a Coke (because they didn’t have Diet Coke in France then), sporting a Sony Walkman and that’s all. No, I had clothes on, just joking. Christophe and I were walking down Rue Charles de Gaulle, chatting away and we passed a couple of guys of middle-Eastern descent who made some comments. I have no idea what they said. We kept on walking and then the Middle Eastern guys started yelling and chasing us and I realized they were yelling “You Fucking American” at ME. What?! Christophe and I took off running and we kept running past the house where I was staying so these assholes wouldn’t know where the American lived. We kept running till the jerks lost interest and turned around.

I’m just an 80s chick with a bad perm, what do you want from me?!

On Wednesday 12 people were killed in Paris by terrorists angered by magazine Charlie Hebdo‘s cartoons mocking Islam and the prophet Mohammed. Charlie Hebdo satirizes all religions but this tragedy was due to their cartoons regarding Islam.

Sadly terrorism isn’t new to France and yesterday’s slaughter is the latest attack by Islamic terrorists on Western freedoms.

That’s what I think it all comes down to… Islam doesn’t like Western society’s freedoms of speech, assembly, religion and the press. They don’t like women having the right to an education or to be able to show their faces in public or to have a driver’s license.

Those of us of a certain age will remember what happened to Salman Rushdie upon the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. After a “fatwa” was issued against him, Rushdie went into hiding for 10 years. Rushdie, born to a Muslim family in India, wrote a book that Muslim clerics didn’t like and he was in fear for his life for 10 years. As a matter of fact, the fatwa was restored about a year ago but Rushdie is not going back into hiding.

The following quote is from an interview of Rushdie by the New York Times:

There have been arguments made even by liberal-minded people, which seem to me very dangerous, which are basically cultural relativist arguments: We’ve got to let them do this because it’s their culture. My view is no. Female circumcision — that’s a bad thing. Killing people because you don’t like their ideas — it’s a bad thing. We have to be able to have a sense of right and wrong which is not diluted by this kind of relativistic argument. And if we don’t we really have stopped living in a moral universe.

Read more from Rushdie here

Theo Van Gogh was murdered in 2004 by a Dutch Muslim, Mohammed Bouyeri, unhappy with Van Gogh’s film “Submission” criticizing Islam’s treatment of women. Van Gogh was shot about 10-12 times, then the killer slit his throat in an attempt to decapitate him.

It seems almost every day we hear about a journalist being kidnapped or beheaded by ISIS.

Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head three times (and lived to tell about it) for daring to blog about her life under Taliban rule and for advocating education for girls. She is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and is going to turn the ripe old age of 18 this July.

There seems to be some commonality here. Islam is at war with the West and Western ideals no matter where in the world they are espoused. And I, like you I’m sure, am getting damn tired of it.

Yesterday I read quite a bit about the savage attack in Paris. My reading included comments steeped in what I think of as historical and moral relativism. What about the Inquisition? What about slavery? What about the awful things done in the name of Christianity? What about the treatment of Native Americans? Blah. Blah. Blah.

Those things happened and they were awful but the glory of time is that it continues to move forward and civilization moves with it. Forward, better, new, improved. If the Inquisition was still going on. If Americans were still owning slaves. So on and so forth, then all of that ugliness could be compared to Islamic terror today but they’re not.

I am a practicing Catholic and I was horribly upset by the sexual abuse (rape) scandal in the Church that was going on long before I was born but really came to a head in the US in the 1990s. I never once sided with the priests or the Church hierarchy. I spoke out loudly against the abuse and the cover up. I refused to give money to the Archdiocese of Portland because I was not going to waste a penny on their legal expenses. Millions of Catholics in the U.S. and around the globe raised Holy Hell about the scandal and demanded recourse and change. It’s not over but it is glacially moving in the right direction.

Where are the millions of peaceful Muslims protesting the terrorism done in the name of their religion? Where is their Million Man March? Why are they not turning in those they know are terrorists and reporting those they suspect? Why are they not decrying the wearing of burkas by women and demanding that women everywhere deserve the same rights as men? Why are there no Islamic uprisings against stoning of women and girls? I don’t see it. I am told this is a peaceful religion and if that is true the peaceful branch must retake their religion from the savages that are causing death and chaos around the globe.

There is plenty of evil throughout the world but I ask anyone to name another group who is actively at war with modern Western civilization like these Islamic savages are.

I’ve been in trouble here before and I’m sure I will be in trouble again but this is my house and I’ll write what I want to write, just as everyone should. Ross Douthat wrote in yesterday’s New York Times, “If a large enough group of someones is willing to kill you for saying something, then it’s something that almost certainly needs to be said.”

I Am Outta Here!

I have bored myself to tears in this blog, so you all must be cried out.

So after 336 posts, racking up more than 3,000 followers (24 of whom are actual people),  and being Freshly Pressed deux fois; I’m leaving Misc. Maggie behind except for my reading list which I will update because I love lists and it was my New Year’s Resolution to track how many books I read in 2014 and people always need book reading ideas.

I have decided to start a new blog. A blog more boring than this one! A blog where I pledge to write every damn day for a year! A blog that will include the most idiotic minutiae of my life! What sort of weird face did I make in the elevator today? How often do I fart at my desk? Am I still eating and drinking too much? You bet I am and I’m going to tell you all about it!

My new blog is called “Dear Judy, Letters to Tanzania”. One of my besties is going to Tanzania for a year to make it a better place (my words, not hers…she is far too humble about this undertaking, in my opinion). The new blog will be my daily writings to Judy so that she has something from home everyday. I will also post a link to her blog on my home page so you can read about what she is doing in Dodomo, Tanzania.

Dodomo.

Duh Doh Moh

DUH doh MOH

So head on over to Dear Judy and follow me so you don’t miss anything. The first post will be tomorrow but you might want to go now to avoid the line.

And if I haven’t said it before, I’m saying it now. Thank you, all of you who have become my friends through fat and fatter. I had a wonderful time and learned so much. I will see you on the other  side blog.

xoxo

maggie

 

There’s Something About My Parenting Post

I have been a shitty blogger for months now but somehow people still keep following and reading my blog and that makes me happy and then I feel guilty for not writing. Then I think of ideas and don’t write them. I have a system.

courtesy comedyireland.ie

I have been Freshly Pressed a couple of times and written a couple of controversial posts. Those blogs got a ton of comments. I also wrote a post on menopause which occasionally brings in new comments. It’s kind of cool that it shows up when someone runs the Google on Murder and Menopause.

All that being said, I have a post that was brief and gave a bit of background on my parenting strategeries. Not a particularly popular post but it is still being read and I can tell from the comments that I finally wrote something with some staying power, some gravitas and wisdom. If a monkey sits at a keyboard long enough….

I wrote the blog I am referring to back in April. It got a couple of comments but I didn’t think it was my best work. Go ahead and read it, you might agree. It wasn’t a month later that I realized I could have been wrong. I woke on May 9 to read this little gem from “Tests de Logique MathA@matiques & de Calcul Savoir-Faire Astuces Tage-Mage Tage 2 Score Iae Message.pdf”

Please let me know if you’re looking for a author for your weblog. You have some really great posts and I believe I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d absolutely love to write some articles for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine. Please blast me an e-mail if interested. Cheers!

They weren’t just saying that. They meant it. They would let me take some load off. And they weren’t the only ones who were still reading that post. Two weeks later, who do I hear from but “strawberry Smoothie”.

You have no idea what strawberry Smoothie had to say. Sit down for this one.

graham cracker crust.

Graham. Cracker. Crust.

I bet no one ever wrote “graham cracker crust” in your comments section! Did they? No, I didn’t think so.

Not to be outdone just a couple of days later, stereomood.com gave me, “hoodia men“. I feel a little awkward about that comment and don’t want to delve too deeply. I don’t think hoodia men is a parenting method. Nevermind. I looked it up, it’s a weight loss pill. So that obviously piggy backs on the whole graham cracker crust discussion.

Things settled down for awhile and then June hit and we were off again. support.ardyss.net brought up the salient point of, “calories in grey goose vodka”. Not salient to me as I only drink white wine and I don’t think it has calories but salient to those who follow the grey goose vodka parenting program. Not for everyone but I think it is gluten-free.

Here (Here is the commenter’s name, I guess it’s like Cher or Madonna) went a bit more in depth:

Are there any campers which use alternative causes of energy for fuel (solar panel technology, chargeable battery, etc. With no Agitator, it is possible to wash bulkier items like sleeping bag, pillows etc. However, you can find specially made machines which have low flow rates and reasonably high output pressure. They find greater used in motors, bearings, and seals that suffer axial play over anything else.

There’s not much I can add to that. Here nailed it.

Last week, Transe-formations ; Programmation Neuro-Lingistique et techniques d’hypnose ericksonienne.pdf wrote what we all have been thinking:

It’s remarkable to go to see this web page and reading the views of all mates on the topic of this article, while I am also eager of getting know-how.

Remarkable. Yep, I couldn’t have said it better myself. It is remarkable to go to see this web page.

I had another comment this morning. These comments all come in the middle of the night like Santa Claus. It’s Blog Christmas everyday here at Misc. Maggie.

Melisa let me know this morning:

I am regular reader, how are you everybody? This piece of writing posted at this web page is truly fastidious.

Now, now Melisa — few people who actually know me would call me fastidious but if you insist! Truly, thank you.  And thank you everyone who still hangs out at this blog. I will try to be better.

Experiencing “Salvage the Bones” by Jesmyn Ward

I finished Salvage the Bones this morning because I couldn’t stay up for the last 60 pages last night. I am keeping a list of every book I read in 2014 and this is #11. I seldom read out of my comfort zone and this book is most definitely NOT in my typical reading wheelhouse. It’s also the 2011 National Book Award Winner and I tend to not care for National Book Award Winners. However, Salvage the Bones showed up on enough “you really should read this” lists that I gave in and read it.

Quick synopsis:

The narrator, Esch, is a 15-year-old girl whose mother died in childbirth when Esch was 8. She has two older brothers: one who has a fighting pit bull and the other hoping to make a name for himself in basketball. The youngest brother is only 7 and has some developmental disabilities. Their father, who clearly loved their mother very much, has checked into a bottle since she died. The Batiste kids are  pretty much on their own at the Pit, which is what they call their homestead in the fictional Gulf Coast town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The book covers 12 days in their lives in 2005. Esch realizes she is pregnant. The fighting pit bull has had a litter. Basketball scouts are coming. Their Daddy is worried about a hurricane out in the Gulf. The hurricane is named Katrina.

One doesn’t read this book as much as feel it. This book’s sense of foreboding is heart racing. The stricken reader knows what’s coming and knows it’s not good. Surprisingly, Salvage isn’t depressing. It is full to the point that it seems robust and stuffed like a pillow. The story is swollen so that the characters become pieces of each other, of the land and of the past. Salvage the Bones is crowded with fear, love, violence, poverty, profound sadness, and excitement.

I recommend it highly.

All that being said, I am also ashamed of myself.

This is what I imagined the Batiste family’s house looked like.

I remember Katrina. Of course I do, it will only be nine years this summer. I remember watching the news in disbelief, thinking “I’m never going to see what New Orleans was really like”. I donated money to the Red Cross and the Humane Society. I was annoyed with those foolish people who didn’t evacuate. Duh, get the hell out of there!

Why didn’t they just leave?

And there is my shame. I have never been to the deep south. I don’t know what the communities are like there…rich or poor. Mostly though, I have no experience with extreme poverty. Why didn’t they just leave? Why were they so stupidly stubborn? It is my shame to realize they had no where to go. They had no food, no gas, no cable, no 24-hour news telling them what to do, no luggage — they had nothing to start with and less than that when the storm ended. How ignorant of me.

This book taught me about hurricanes: what the sky looks like and the heaviness of the air, the suffocating heat, and the terrifying water. It taught me about a population segment of the U.S. that I don’t see because I don’t have to. And now this book has me thinking some very uncomfortable thoughts about myself and the socioeconomic structure of this country. I’m not going to write a political post here and if people want to discuss the politics of then and now, I can; but that is not what I’m thinking about right now.

I am 49 years old. I read a short book (just 258 pages) and I have  been deeply moved and educated. I can keep on reading. Therein lies  the magic of books. Anything a reader wants can be found.

Katrina.French cooking.Space travel.Aliens.Dragons.Libraries.Murders.Jewel heists.Fantasy.Reality.Humor.Memoirs.Fairy tales.The Revolutionary War (U.S., French, Spanish, you choose).The presidency (of 4th grade, Russia, some imaginary university, you choose)

Read! Learn! Even if I think I won’t like a book or that a topic might upset me, I will keep reading just to see. And the book is always better than the movie; except for The Bridges of Madison County….the movie was way better.

 

 

Dear Katie,

For my readers who don’t know Katie’s story, please refer back here and here. Katie has been home for a few months and returns to school today. She is still working so hard and has come so far and her reward is a touch of normalcy, she gets to go to school half time for the rest of the year! Go Katie, Go Katie!!!

 

Dear Katie,

What a huge day for you after so many months of struggling and fighting! Congratulations on your return to ol’ LOHS!

I think about you and your family everyday and I am not the only one. Can you believe there are 2083 followers of your Facebook page? And I know the number of people who know and care about your story is much larger. I have friends around the country who know about you and ask me how you are doing and pray for you. There are THOUSANDS of people around the country and around the world who think about you and pray for you and are cheering for you. Isn’t that something? Why do you suppose that is?

Well, yeah there’s the whole interwebs thing, but bigger than that. Why are there literally thousands of people, many of them strangers (unless you know waaaayyy more people than anyone else I know) who know your story?

I have some ideas.

1. You’re a good kid. By all accounts, from my daughter, Annie’s, first encounter with you freshman year — to all the stories I have read in the past six months. You are regarded to be as nice, as kind, and as enthusiastic as your reputation would have us believe. The real deal! When nice people get hurt, other nice people and even not-so-nice people, wish them well and pray to whatever god they believe in for healing. You are young. People want young people to have long, happy lives. I haven’t met you but I can see there is a vibrancy to you that the world needs.

From left: Katie, sister Annie, and mom Trina (although I am just guessing that’s Trina because she doesn’t look much older than her girls.)

2. Moms. I know there are dads following your progress and praying for you but I am a mom and I will speak to the Mom part of this equation.

Katie’s dad, Dave, the day in December when though in a coma, Katie signed “I love you”. Dad’s rock.

From the moment a mother knows her baby is on the way, she is protecting it. Taking folic acid and eating right and exercising (unless you’re me and then you eat tater tots and ice cream and grow to the size of an NFL lineman). We read to our babies inside us. We plan rooms and buy the right cribs, buy darling little outfits and blankets and little hats to keep the little baby head warm. We make sure the car seat is installed correctly and the baby faces backwards for a year. Katie, moms make sure the house is baby-proofed, that our little people wear bike helmets, and walk on the sidewalk, we practice letters and numbers with our tiny scholars, and make lunches and beds, and apply sunscreen.

Mothers do every single thing we can think of to keep our children safe from bruised knees, broken arms, broken hearts. Unfortunately we can’t control everything and we aren’t meant to. The goal of all this tending to our children is so that they will eventually grow up and take care of themselves. Slowly, children gain more and more independence, from putting their shoes on by themselves, to making their own toast, to walking to school, reading alone, the list goes on and on. We have to let you go out into the world and roll the dice.

And sometimes when you go out into the world horrible things happen.

Katie, this is why there are so many people praying for you and thinking about you daily. Because you are all of our children. There isn’t a mother worth her weight in varicose veins, who doesn’t realize it could have been our child in the accident. You have become a daughter to all of us. Especially to us moms who have teenage daughters, you are the beautiful girl that owns our hearts, who we have to set free.

And your mom is all of us.  We have all cried for your mother, not knowing anything else to do. We know the fear that goes with injury to one of our cubs. Moms can make all the casseroles in the world but that can’t fix an injured child or replace the ferocious love we have for our children. We all feel for your mother and we all thank God everyday that we don’t have to be as strong as she is. And we all know the strength it takes to keep all the balls in the air, the hospital, the house, the doctors, on and on. And there is your sister and your dad, and the mom has to take care of everyone she loves. It’s a big job and we are all so proud of Trina.

3. Renewal. Life is rough. There is so much bad news every damn day. Plane crashes and tornadoes, politics and business, it can all be so overwhelming.  In the midst of the 24-hour news cycle madness, life can still get through to us. At the most unexpected times, in the most unexpected ways, life brings renewal and hope and awareness of a much larger picture. The spiritual journey that we have traveled with you through a Facebook page has been uplifting and uniting. I’m Catholic and have a deep faith but as a Catholic, I’m not much of a bible reader. If I need to know it, it’s probably in the missal 🙂 I have read some beautiful passages from the Bible on your Facebook page, most I have never read before. Those passages have lifted my spirit, as I hope they have lifted yours.

Your life these past almost six months has inspired thousands to remember what is really important during our time in this world, that can all too often be much too short. You, Miss Katie, are a miracle. Not just for being on this planet today and walking (!) into school today but because you have shown thousands of people what true character and might look like. You have reminded us to love our children and our parents.

I hope to meet you and your family soon. You have all had a great impact on me, on my parenting and on my faith.

In advance, please excuse me if I completely fall apart when I finally lay eyes on you. I’m like that.

Happy Friday Miss Katie!

xoxox

Maggie

 

Shame on you Paw My Gosh

Do you follow Paw My Gosh on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or Tumblr or whatever the hell other place there is for following things? Paw My Gosh is one of those websites with cute dog pictures and stories and videos about darling animals and the wonderful things they do. Up until last week, I followed Paw My Gosh on Facebook so I could enjoy pictures of puppies and bunnies. Unfortunately, Paw My Gosh posted something which I found absolutely despicable and I had to unfollow them.

The title of the offending post, which you can see here, read: “A Hero and a Coward”. The story took place in rural Argentina. A 14-year-old girl (that is all the detail given regarding the girl, she is 14) abandoned her newborn baby. A dog, who had a litter of her own, dragged the baby back into her little hideout, where the baby was eventually found by someone who heard his crying. The dog is the hero. The 14-year-old girl is the coward.

No back story. The 14-year-old child in the Argentinian countryside is a coward.

Was she raped?

Is she developmentally disabled?

Where are her parents? Where are any adults?

No story, she’s just a coward.

I was disgusted that Paw My Gosh called a child in this situation a “coward” and I posted as much in the comments. I also said I was unfollowing them because of it. I know, like they care but still, it’s a matter of principle.

I unfollowed Paw My Gosh, however I continued to receive notifications of responses to my comment. It soon became clear that people thought I was calling the girl a coward, which I would NEVER do. You may ask, “Maggie, why would they think you were calling the girl a coward?” I’ll tell you why, because Paw My Gosh changed the title to the post after I, and many others, wrote that we were appalled at the use of the word “coward” to describe a 14-year-old giving birth out in the countryside in Argentina and abandoning the baby. (I’m not saying that is a good thing to do, but clearly there is more to the story.) Anyway, people were confused because they couldn’t see the original title “A Hero and a Coward” so they attributed the name calling to me.

I was sickened by the number of comments cheering the dog for being so “humane” and condemning the 14-year-old girl. The dog acted on instinct, that’s what dogs do. I’m a big fan of dogs. I have rescue dogs (and cats). You know what I love more than dogs? Children. Human children. Commenters were flipping out about who was caring for the dog, what about the dog, help the dog!!! What about the child who had a baby? Is anyone concerned about what the hell is going on there? Is anyone trying to help that kid who is clearly in desperate need of assistance and as I mentioned, is a human being? I don’t know the answer to that because Paw My Gosh did not see fit to provide any information other than a 14-year-old Coward abandoned her baby.

I also noticed that a post which had had more than 100 comments, suddenly had about half that many.  Comments are missing, including my initial comment which ended with Unfollow.

Paw My Gosh labeled a child in distress a “coward”. Then, when there was justifiable push back from their audience, they removed the word and deleted all the critical comments.

Paw My Gosh, please explain this. Please clarify who is the COWARD? The frightened 14-year-old child, living in a Catholic, 2nd world country (at best), who abandoned her baby? Or your staff who didn’t even have the balls to apologize but instead quietly took down the offensive word and deleted the comments calling them out for an egregious lack of human compassion?  We have no idea why the girl did what she did or that she even realized the consequences of her actions. For God’s sake, she gave birth to a baby alone outside!

As has been seen on this blog, I have had to take the backlash for what I have written. I didn’t go back and edit the contents of the original post. I didn’t delete comments critical of me and my writing. I owned it and that isn’t always easy. It’s not as hard as being a child, alone in a field giving birth and abandoning the baby but it’s mildly unpleasant.

I wouldn’t be as furious as I am, if Paw My Gosh had just taken the heat and left the post and the comments alone. But they didn’t.

So Paw My Gosh, why don’t you grow a pair and own what you wrote?

Cowards.

My 5×5

Thanks to Carrie Rubin for posting her list and for Benzeknees for having the idea.  I don’t have blogger’s block, I’m just a lazy blogger. I’m always writing blogs in my head but can’t be bothered to actually type them out. HOWEVER, I cannot resist a good list opportunity. Here is my 5×5 list blog.

5 Things I am Passionate About

• Good manners (Spaldinggetyourfootofftheboat)
• Good grammar (or should I say well grammar?)
• Fundraising
• Food (Please see list of Things I Say A Lot below)
• My shows

5 Things I Would Like to Do Before I Die

• Meet my grandchildren (I need to live for a few more decades because there is no way I want any now)
• See Annie in a movie. (My daughter, I have seen the movie Annie)
• Go to Italy with Derwood
• Live in Gearhart
• Go to Ireland with anyone who wants to go

5 Things I Say A Lot

• I’m fat
• Fuck
• Fuck, I’m fat
• Drive up!
• Will you get some wine while you’re at the store?

5 Books or Magazines I Have Read Lately (More details on my reading list page)

• March
• Wiseguy
• Andersonville
• Cooking Light (no, I’m not)
• Colgate Scene

5 Favorite Movies

• Parent Trap (the original although the second one is okay but not a favorite)
• Lost in Translation
• Dallas Buyer’s Club (Oscar post is tomorrow!)
• Philadelphia Story
• Gone with the Wind (duh)

What do you think? If you want to do this, and of course you do, be sure to include a link to Benzeknees original post!

Quick Misc. with Mini Marshmallows

I don’t even like marshmallows except kinda sorta on smores but remember that commercial “Swiss Miss with Mini Marshmallows!” You don’t? Just me? Just me and TV in 1974?

That’s me with mini-marshmallows

Sheesh, this job is really taking its toll. Now I have work to do which means I don’t have time to blog or play Friends with Words, or work on my event which is coming up on the 15th of February.

Here’s the latest:

1. Really good meeting with my auctioneer pal Kelly Russell (for all your non-profit auction needs). We are going to work on bringing me in on her team as an auction planning consultant. My goal for 2014 is to get my office hours down to 24 a week which allows me to keep my benefits and lets me out of here. My ego is starting to take a hit.  I’m not an egotistical person but when someone comes into the office for a meeting and they are thinking I’m just a 50 year old woman who can answer phones it makes me want to scream. Especially when I’m highly skilled in non-profit fundraising and should be doing it full time!

2. I finished reading my third book of 2014. White Oleander will be listed on my reading page. I love lists.

3. My kids’ school was 2 hours late on Monday due to a BOMB THREAT. What the holy hell is wrong with people? What happened to pulling the fire alarm and running away? (Thanks Mol). This is the third in as many weeks. Two at the junior high, one at the high school. I don’t know if the dickshine who’s harrassing the schools realizes that once s/he decides to make this move, s/he has committed a federal offense and the FBI is going to be looking for his/her ass. Maybe they  should have just gone to history and shut up.

4. I’m cheering for the Denver Broncos for the SuperBowl because the Sherman guy on the Seahawks pulled a dick move and should get benched for at least a quarter of the big game by his asshole coach, Pete Carroll, but he won’t. And I don’t care about the interviews after the game where he was just bizarre. He made a choking gesture to an opposing player and that is poor sportsmanship and if he’s a professional, he needs to act like a professional and not be a douche.

Better luck next year Tommy boy.

5. Annie and I are starting a cleanse on Monday which means we drink a lot of smoothies. I’d like to do a fondue cleanse. She’s going to tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Fine.

6. Annie takes her driver’s license test on the 4th! Fingers crossed around the nation that she gets it so I can stop driving my children around. Please, for the mother, let her pass.

I will return to blogging soon. When people stop asking me to work around here.  And no, doing engineering proposals doesn’t help. Rerouting alluvial fans is not exciting to me. Although in the proposal I’m working on there is a project for Willy Dick Creek in Yakima, Washington. Willy. Dick. That’s funny.

Misc. Happiness

Here are things that have recently resulted in happiness for me.

1. I have read two books and put them on my 2014 Reading List page which means 16 days into the New Year and I am keeping one of my revolutions.

2. Blogging. Yesterday was a big blog day for a few people and in the process, I found some new blogs. Go check out Erin at Slightly North of Home. She is a new blogger and I like giving newbies some attention. I was blessed to have a few bloggers get me going, I’m looking at you Harper Faulkner (who has disappeared from WP, which is a loss for all of us) and Sweet Mother, and one of the joys of WP is passing on the love. Erin writes a miscellaneous blog which includes posts on travel and cooking. She even made beef tongue look appetizing. I mean eventually, the early photos not so much.

3. Psych. Do you watch Psych? It is such a silly, funny show. The writing and delivery are sharp and fast so you have to be paying attention. My girls love the show too, so finally something we can agree on!

4. Watching Psych with my 14-year-old daughter snuggled with me on the couch. I can’t describe how happy I was last night watching a show with Brigid and stroking her hair. She was always a snuggler as a baby. It’s funny how holding a 14-year-old in my arms can take me right back to her napping on me when she was 4 months old.

5. Going to the beach this weekend and Gearhart is my happiest place on earth.

Look at these photos taken by Photographer Jeff TerHar yesterday.  A herd of elk moved into town!

This is the main village intersection.

The elk are 100 feet away from the house we stay in during the summer.

Elk obey crossing rules.

Five is a good amount of happy things. Did you see the Oscar nominations are out? I have seen Dallas Buyer’s Club, American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Wolf of Wall Street, August: Osage County so I still need to catch up on some Oscar movie viewing before the big day on March 2. I will post my movie wisdom soon.

Thank you as always for reading and supporting this li’l blog o’ mine. I hope you find something to make you happy today.