ME

ME
ME

Check out SparkPeople

SparkPeople.com: Get a Free Online Diet

Share the Spark!

Site Meter

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

One Word, Survey Says!

TYPE ONLY 1 WORD... IT'S HARDER THAN YOU THINK!

1. Where is your cell phone? desk
2. Your significant other? JULES!
3. Your job? steady
4. Shoes you're wearing? comfy
5. Your father? alive!
6. Your favorite thing? reading
7. Your dream last night? dunno
8. Your favorite drink? water
9. Your dream/goal? security
10. The room you're in? cold
11. Your fear? pain
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? employed
13. Where were you last night? chair
14. What you're not? happy
15. Muffins? yumm
16. One of your wish list items? happy
17. Where did you grow up? sacramento
18. The last thing you did? this
19. What are you wearing? clothing
20. Your TV? occassionally
21. Your pet? JULES!
22. Your computer? dead
23. Your life? stressed
24. Your mood? depressed
25. Missing someone? yep
26. Your car? nonexistent
27. Something you're not wearing? make-up
28. Favorite Store? michaels
29. Your summer? hot-hot-hot
30. Your favorite color? green
31. Last time you laughed? yesterday
32. Last time you cried? yesterday
33. Who will/would re-post this? unknown

34. FOUR PLACES I GO OVER AND OVER: AGAIN TYPE ONLY ONE WORD:
A) Panera!
B) Michaels!
C) bed
D) fridge

35. FOUR PEOPLE WHO E-MAIL ME:

A) Sharon
B) Melodie
C) Jamie
D) Nexflix!

36. FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:

A) Chinese
B) Pizza
C) Panera
D) mexican

37. FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW?

A) home
B) bed
C) retreat
D) Disneyland

Monday, December 29, 2008

"People on the bus go blah blah blah, blah blah blah"

I am getting very tired of riding the bus. It is not the bus ride, nor the amount of time it takes to get from point A to point B.

I am having trouble dealing with the people who are:
a) inconsiderate,
b) rude,
c) vile,
d) obnoxious,
e) smelly,
f) drunk,
g) loud,
.....and/or.....
h) all of the above.



Yesterday I got a contact high from the youngsters at the back of the bus. I got to hear about the friend of the wife of one man, who is institutionalized because of her psychotic behavior. I got to hear EMINEM blasting from a young man's ear-drum busting headphones. And I can handle EMINEM, I just feel there is a time and place for everything and on a busy bus is not that time/place.


But, on Saturday was the SMILING, racist bigot. This woman was smiling as she spouted her hatred to everyone on the bus, peppering her dialogue with "Biblical" quotes. I quoted the word Biblical because they were clearly her own interpretation of the Bible.


When I first got on the bus I went to the first available seat, which happened to be just behind this woman. She was turned in her seat and talking to a man across the aisle. I thought they may be friends. She was asking him about the ring that he was wearing and he told her that his girlfriend bought it for him for Christmas. She said it was a beautiful thing, and told him that in the Bible the women are always the one who bought jewels for their men, so it was nice to see that tradition continuing.

Then this Asian woman got up and went to the back doors of the bus, getting ready to get off at the next stop. The racist started commenting on "oh that's a nice coat you have on honey, so glad that we could buy that for you.. what happened to the car that we gave you dear? oh.. well, sayonara dear, yeah bye bye"...

The Asian woman turned around like "are you talking to me".... confused look on her face, she looked at me and I just shook my head like "let it go, she is CRAZY" ... then she got off the bus.

The racist woman turned and was talking to no one in particular "yeah we let them come into this country with amnesty... they are rapists, killers, sodomites, adulterers... we let them in and expunge their records, give them everything and we let them go on do commit more rapes, more murders... take our jobs and our money.... "

Everyone was silent. Even me. I had a hard time not saying any thing but didn't want to feed into her ranting. The strange thing is that while she was spouting all this vileness she was smiling the whole time. She glanced around to see if she was getting any reactions and her eyes met mine. I just stared into her eyes, mine were silently daring her to say something directly to me.

I was getting off the bus at the next exit anyways. I was waiting for the barbs to come my way but she was silent as I exited. I guess I am white enough for her. I want to think that the woman has a mental issue, rather than just being naturally horrid on purpose.

Because we are all
In Jesus Loving Arms...

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Keeping it Real Christmas

I am trying to “keep it real” this Christmas. I mean: I am trying to limit myself and keep to a budget. I don’t use credit cards anymore. I am trying to buy gifts only for my immediate family. My dad, Charlie, my brother and his girlfriend, and my step-mom; these are the people shopped for (online to boot). I bought all but my step-mom the same thing. Electric throws. From Wal-Mart. Delivered with their “site to store” option and I just picked them up.

These are a necessity for my dad, brother and girlfriend… as they live in the country where the fog sets in, their homes don’t heat properly, and it costs way too much to heat even if it did. So these are actually GOOD gifts that I hope will get put to use.

Of course I thought the same thing about the electric teapot that I bought for Dad last year, only to find he never uses it. He likes using the old copper teapot on the stove top.

Oh well, can’t win them all.

For Charlie I am buying a couple of other things. One “gift” was registration costs for the Winter Young Adult retreat that he wants to go to. That’s a little more than $100. I also got him a couple other things that I am not listing as he may actually read this. He knows about the items that I have listed.

I actually went to the store yesterday to try and find something, anything, so that I could give more to Charlie.

I don’t know what to get my step-mom. She is in her 70’s and has “everything” she could want or need. So, her gifts are a little standard. Someone at work was selling homemade soap, so go her that. I am going to go thru my stash of handmade crochet items to see if there is anything in there that she may like.

My trouble is that I WANT TO BUY MORE. More, more, more. The advertising says “buy this” … “buy that” …

I want to buy something for my pastor, my choir director, the church accompanist, my supervisor, my former supervisors, and friends at work. I have given or will be giving small handmade items to some of them, but I feel like it is not enough, or is inadequate for some reason. I want to give pricey objects, but those objects would not mean much anyways, so why do I want to???

ARGH and Merry Christmas to All…

In His Loving Arms…

Monday, December 15, 2008

Einstein quote

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.- Albert Einstein, physicist

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

It’s s a nice simple word. Why is it so difficult to achieve these days? I know there have been rebels throughout history. But really people, when you are in public, just show a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

There was an “incident” on Sunday afternoon. Charlie and I were on the way home from church. We had taken the first leg of our journey… the light-rail from 39th street to 29th street. There we have to transfer to a bus that will take us the next leg, then to another home…

We get to the light-rail station and rush to the bus stop a few yards away because the bus is at the light just before the stop already, and if we don’t hurry we will miss it and have to wait.

There was already a group of four young adults waiting for the bus. Being obnoxious, loud and generally normal. I would have been able to ignore them for the most part except….

The bus pulled up and one of the “kids” said something about the bus driver being a dyke. He said it loudly enough that the driver was able to hear it thru the door of the bus while it was closed. She was angry at the tone/manner in which the disrespect was delivered and so commented on it. “I heard what you said and I just want you to know that I don’t appreciate it. Yeah, you… “ She was getting off the bus, and the relief driver was getting on at this time, so she was pretty much face to face with the group of teens. She continued “I would not let you on my bus and I am going to remember your face and in the future you will not be allowed on my bus.” She then turned and left.

The kids were loudly taunting her as she walked away. The male bus driver who was waiting inside the bus, of course did not say anything. No one on the packed bus said anything. The kids walked to the back of the bus, full of bravado. Still talking about that “dyke bus driver” and how she needs to “get a REAL job”… etc. A man who got to the bus stop after the original incident said “man, that last bus driver got off the bus yelling at the kids..”

I turned to him and said “yeah because they called her a dyke as she was pulling the bus to the stop.” He said “oh, I see, well…”

The kids were still loud and obnoxious in the back of the bus. I got fed up. Why is no one telling these kids that they were in the wrong. Why are they now holding the entire bus hostage with their hate and vileness? Even the bus driver was trying to ignore them.

I turned in my seat and said “Can you guys just shut up. There is an entire bus full of people and we don’t want to listen to your attitude.” One of the girls said “shut up lady or I am gonna have my mom come and beat you back to Oregon… hahahaha” The others laughed also. I responded “You guys just need to shut the heck up. (I wanted to say a word other than HECK! but held back) You are 4 children… and you are acting like children and you just need to SHUT UP.”

The girl whose mom was gonna beat me piped up “I am not a child. I am grown.” Another one of the four said “we just out trying to have good day.”

* I guess having a good day is being successful in RUINING other peoples days???? *

About this time a man sitting in front of the kids, held his hand up in the universal “stop” motion (towards me!) and said to me “Lady, sit down… I will take care of this.” So, I sat and turned around. The kids did shut up after that. Just a burst here and there but I was not able to hear what they were saying, but was feeling the knife stares in the back of my head. BUT THEY WERE QUIET.

Charlie, meanwhile, was sitting there, ready to jump if need be. He was waiting. I texted to him “sorry about that”… then after he read that text and nodded to me I texted him again “well… they did shut up” he nodded again.

I think it is horrible the way kids control situations, because people are afraid of retaliation. I was sitting there on the bus thinking to myself… “damn, I have to get off the bus, at the same time as they will be getting off the bus.. wonder what will happen?” Sure… now I regret my actions. I also possess road rage issues which is one good reason for me to never get a car again.

I texted to Charlie again… “I won’t say anything to them, even if they say something to me, when we get off the bus… I hope!” He nodded again.

So, we get off the bus, and I went to stand by the bus shelter. I kept my back to the kids, but Charlie was watching my back. The kids walked by and didn’t say anything to me, as far as I could tell, either directly or indirectly. They did glance in my direction though. But no further confrontation.

The thing that struck me about the whole situation was this. They, the “kids,” felt that it was okay to say something disrespectful to another person. But, they got all bent out of shape when that person had the audacity to confront THEIR RUDENESS. Listen people… it is not hard. If you are rude to someone, expect them to be rude back. AND also expect others to call you on the carpet for your action. It is something YOUR MOTHER AND/OR FATHER AND/OR grandparents/aunts/uncles SHOULD HAVE DONE ALREADY. Come on people. Get real. Get nice. Get real nice. It is not that hard and will make life much more pleasant all the way around.


Sigh.. Anyways…
I remain always
In HIS loving arms.