Well, I bet I earn a few stray views from non-regulars with that headline, huh?
If you're here because you think Chris Christie's so-called school "reforms" are a sham and a mockery, welcome! Here's a little tidbit of evidence that New Jersey's governor, hailed nationwide for trying to wrench aging teachers out of the classroom, is costing taxpayers more money than he will save.
This week, the Board of Education of Haddonfield, New Jersey passed its school budget for 2013-14. In New Jersey, municipalities (not counties) pay for the public schools. Haddonfield is a high-rent district that receives minimal support from New Jersey state government.
The school superintendent, when explaining the inflated budget number, said that the district would have to hire a new administrator at $75,000 per year to comply with the new state evaluation system for teachers.
That's $75,000 that the residents of Haddonfield have to pony up. This figure was not in last year's budget, because the administrator was not needed until Christie's evaluation models had to be implemented.
*99 percent of all Haddonfield students go to college.
*Haddonfield students earn the highest average SAT scores in Camden County. (Last June, 1,714. Source: Haddonfield Sun)
So the taxpayers of Haddonfield have to pay an evaluator to tell them ... what? That the teachers are "proficient?"
You know who evaluates the teachers in Haddonfield constantly, relentlessly, and candidly? The parents. There's absolutely no need for a $75,000 bozo in a tie (or heels). Nevertheless, the citizens of Haddonfield must pay this person, and the person must evaluate Haddonfield's teachers the way Christie wants it -- four times a year, twice formally and twice informally.
For those of you in other states, let me just add that all New Jersey administrators must be trained in the new evaluation techniques. This training brings highly-paid consultants into the state to lead lengthy seminars that will consume the time and energy of people who already know how to judge good and bad teachers.
All of this to root out a few ineffective educators.
Haddonfield, if you vote for Chris Christie, he'll fleece you for more needless bureaucracy in your schools. You know the schools I'm talking about. The ones that are falling apart at the seams and are filthy because the janitorial staff has been cut back.
Whose money is Chris Christie saving? Not mine. I live in Haddonfield, and I just hired a new nobody instead of giving the terrific teachers a raise.
Can I make a bold, reform-based suggestion? Let's find an evaluator to look at Chris Christie four times a year. Twice formally, twice informally. Is he proficient?
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Monday, March 04, 2013
Troll, the Reformer
Once upon a time there was a little village of faeries. The vast majority of the faeries were good faeries, although they all felt they worked too hard and weren't very appreciated by the gnomes who ran the show. A tiny minority of the faeries were bad faeries who weren't afraid to be bad because they had been in the village so long they knew the gnomes could not chase them away. One of the main duties of all these faeries was being sure there were enough hardy ladybugs to keep the aphid population low.
One day a huge, enormous, really really enormous troll took over the village of the faeries. This troll decided that, no matter how long a faerie had lived in the village, that faerie should not be protected from being expelled by the gnomes. Even though the ladybugs were doing all right with the aphids, the troll thought the bad faeries should go, because the bad faeries were costing too much money in upkeep.
The troll devised a plan. All the gnomes would be carefully trained to watch and evaluate each and every faerie, good and bad.
The system of evaluation was difficult for the gnomes to learn, so the troll had to pay for training. Then the faeries said it wasn't fair that the gnomes knew how to get rid of the faeries, but the faeries didn't know enough about what to do to protect themselves. So the troll had to pay to have the faeries trained as well.
The faeries were to be judged for 88 criteria in a mere 40 minutes four times a year by a trained team of two gnomes. But each team of gnomes got assigned 40 faeries apiece. Now, that was more judging than a pie-taster at a state fair!
The gnomes told the troll that they couldn't spend 40 minutes, four times a year with 40 different faeries and expect to cover all 88 criteria. So the troll told the gnomes to make two of the visits short and just write down whatever they saw the faeries doing wrong.
Even the best of the good faeries looked at this and felt like they didn't have a chance of keeping their homes in the village.
Morale became very low among the faeries. Where they once worked together, they now competed to get the best judging scores. Whatever it took to impress the gnomes, they did ... never mind if it was in the best interest of the ladybugs.
Before the troll assigned the gnomes to this judging thing, the gnomes had other duties. They kept the village clean and made sure all the ladybugs behaved themselves. But once the gnomes got caught up in the judging, they didn't have time to mind the ladybugs' behavior. No surprise, the ladybugs ran amok, causing havoc.
The troll, seeing that the ladybugs were running amok, blamed the faeries. The troll hired more gnomes for training and judging but didn't do anything about the ladybugs.
Then the ladybugs found out that part of the judging of the faeries had to do with how the faeries treated the ladybugs' parents. Every ladybug who had ever had a problem with a faerie went home and told their parents to speak to the gnomes right away. Parent ladybugs swamped the village with complaints, and the gnomes took note.
Pretty soon, every faerie in the village was judged to be a bad faerie, or at very least, a mediocre faerie. The gnomes were worn to a frazzle from the judging, and the ladybugs ran the show.
The troll looked at all he had done and patted himself on the back. He would go down in history as a reformer of bad faeries. And once all the judging began, wow! Almost all the faeries turned out to be bad!
When the ladybugs' parents saw how many bad faeries were out there in the village, they petitioned the troll to find a new way to get their offspring ready to deal with the aphids. So the troll hired his best friend to build a private training center where ladybugs could go outside the village. Of course the troll's friend didn't know much about ladybugs ... but gosh, look at all those bad faeries!
It took quite a few years before the ladybug parents discovered that they had paid a lot of money to a bunch of gnomes to watch the faeries, and a lot of money to the troll's friend for a private center, and none of it made the ladybugs any better at catching aphids.
But by the time the ladybug parents got wise, the faeries had all left for a better village, one that was free of trolls, gnomes, and ladybugs.
Happy ending! Only in fairy tales.
One day a huge, enormous, really really enormous troll took over the village of the faeries. This troll decided that, no matter how long a faerie had lived in the village, that faerie should not be protected from being expelled by the gnomes. Even though the ladybugs were doing all right with the aphids, the troll thought the bad faeries should go, because the bad faeries were costing too much money in upkeep.
The troll devised a plan. All the gnomes would be carefully trained to watch and evaluate each and every faerie, good and bad.
The system of evaluation was difficult for the gnomes to learn, so the troll had to pay for training. Then the faeries said it wasn't fair that the gnomes knew how to get rid of the faeries, but the faeries didn't know enough about what to do to protect themselves. So the troll had to pay to have the faeries trained as well.
The faeries were to be judged for 88 criteria in a mere 40 minutes four times a year by a trained team of two gnomes. But each team of gnomes got assigned 40 faeries apiece. Now, that was more judging than a pie-taster at a state fair!
The gnomes told the troll that they couldn't spend 40 minutes, four times a year with 40 different faeries and expect to cover all 88 criteria. So the troll told the gnomes to make two of the visits short and just write down whatever they saw the faeries doing wrong.
Even the best of the good faeries looked at this and felt like they didn't have a chance of keeping their homes in the village.
Morale became very low among the faeries. Where they once worked together, they now competed to get the best judging scores. Whatever it took to impress the gnomes, they did ... never mind if it was in the best interest of the ladybugs.
Before the troll assigned the gnomes to this judging thing, the gnomes had other duties. They kept the village clean and made sure all the ladybugs behaved themselves. But once the gnomes got caught up in the judging, they didn't have time to mind the ladybugs' behavior. No surprise, the ladybugs ran amok, causing havoc.
The troll, seeing that the ladybugs were running amok, blamed the faeries. The troll hired more gnomes for training and judging but didn't do anything about the ladybugs.
Then the ladybugs found out that part of the judging of the faeries had to do with how the faeries treated the ladybugs' parents. Every ladybug who had ever had a problem with a faerie went home and told their parents to speak to the gnomes right away. Parent ladybugs swamped the village with complaints, and the gnomes took note.
Pretty soon, every faerie in the village was judged to be a bad faerie, or at very least, a mediocre faerie. The gnomes were worn to a frazzle from the judging, and the ladybugs ran the show.
The troll looked at all he had done and patted himself on the back. He would go down in history as a reformer of bad faeries. And once all the judging began, wow! Almost all the faeries turned out to be bad!
When the ladybugs' parents saw how many bad faeries were out there in the village, they petitioned the troll to find a new way to get their offspring ready to deal with the aphids. So the troll hired his best friend to build a private training center where ladybugs could go outside the village. Of course the troll's friend didn't know much about ladybugs ... but gosh, look at all those bad faeries!
It took quite a few years before the ladybug parents discovered that they had paid a lot of money to a bunch of gnomes to watch the faeries, and a lot of money to the troll's friend for a private center, and none of it made the ladybugs any better at catching aphids.
But by the time the ladybug parents got wise, the faeries had all left for a better village, one that was free of trolls, gnomes, and ladybugs.
Happy ending! Only in fairy tales.
Friday, March 01, 2013
Virtual Vulture Festival 2013!
From humble origins in a small train station ...
Came the renowned and highly original
Dedicated to the most fantastic and singular bird,
The vulture!
With its kicky motto
A festival was born.
This unparalleled event not only celebrated the visitation of hundreds of vultures to a small New Jersey hamlet,
It also raised thousands of dollars for nature clubs, children's education, and otherwise sprucing up the wild spots in the town!
The festival reached its apex of popularity around 2009, with sacred vulture dances
(featuring our friend the Monkey Man, second from right...)
And a fan favorite at every festival was the peerless mascot, Buzzy!
The people attending the festival thought Buzzy was just a cute, big bird. But underneath all that paper mache and layers of old polyester was a Shaman who felt it her religious duty to don the attire of the Sacred Thunderbird.
Of course, this sense of the sacred did not detract from the fun.
Worship of the Sacred Thunderbird spans history and cultures in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. An archeological excavation 10,000 years old revealed that the Zawi Chami people of what is now Iraq dressed in vulture feathers for their rituals. In ancient Egypt, Vulture guarded the Pharaoh's children, and the bored Goddess Maat is pictured with the wings of a vulture.
In both African and Native American traditions, Vulture has interceded on behalf of the human race during times when the Gods were angry. The Goddess Oshun was said to have taken the shape of a vulture and flown toward the sun to end a famine.
But back to being silly:
It's doubtful that this raccoon will get well. What's more likely is that, before it starts stinking up the joint, a kindly and gentle vulture (or several) will dispose of it by eating it right down to the bones. Let's celebrate this wise custodianship of our planet!
I love faeries
and the Monkey Man
and those Pillsbury hot rolls with the orange icing.
I love drumming
and Polish Mountain
and cats that look like Hitler.
I love parades
and puns
and the art work of Thalia Took
But most of all, I love vultures. This is no recent thing, readers. I've loved vultures my whole life.
Whether whimsical like Floppy
Or spooky like my good friend Clem,
Vultures are the best the world has to offer.
If you see one this weekend, give it a howdy and a hearty handshake. If anyone stares, who the hell cares?
VIRTUAL VULTURE FESTIVAL WEEKEND 2013
Artwork by ancient Egyptians, unknown hillbillies, and Thalia Took; some buzzard photos by Bird Chick and Shelly Castorino.
With its kicky motto
This unparalleled event not only celebrated the visitation of hundreds of vultures to a small New Jersey hamlet,
The festival reached its apex of popularity around 2009, with sacred vulture dances
And a fan favorite at every festival was the peerless mascot, Buzzy!
Of course, this sense of the sacred did not detract from the fun.
Worship of the Sacred Thunderbird spans history and cultures in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. An archeological excavation 10,000 years old revealed that the Zawi Chami people of what is now Iraq dressed in vulture feathers for their rituals. In ancient Egypt, Vulture guarded the Pharaoh's children, and the bored Goddess Maat is pictured with the wings of a vulture.
But back to being silly:
It's doubtful that this raccoon will get well. What's more likely is that, before it starts stinking up the joint, a kindly and gentle vulture (or several) will dispose of it by eating it right down to the bones. Let's celebrate this wise custodianship of our planet!
and the Monkey Man
and those Pillsbury hot rolls with the orange icing.
I love drumming
and Polish Mountain
and cats that look like Hitler.
I love parades
and puns
and the art work of Thalia Took
Vultures are the best the world has to offer.
If you see one this weekend, give it a howdy and a hearty handshake. If anyone stares, who the hell cares?
VIRTUAL VULTURE FESTIVAL WEEKEND 2013
Artwork by ancient Egyptians, unknown hillbillies, and Thalia Took; some buzzard photos by Bird Chick and Shelly Castorino.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Alpha Blogging
I have the strongest urge to get in my car and drive to the vet, park in front of his office, get out of the car, and call Alpha. If you recall, a week ago I had to send Alpha to Freya and Bast.
It's sitting in my mind that Alpha's spirit may be hovering around the vet office, and that she might not be sure which direction to strike out in to get to my house. I live in one of the most densely-populated counties in America.
Not sure it will make me feel more settled, but I'll do this anyway. My school is on the edge of Camden, it's only a mile or so from the vet.
I've gotten many helpful comments lately from my three readers, and I thank you so much. It's a real bear getting past that captcha thingie, so I really appreciate your persistence.
Regarding rules for a boarding student: I guess I'd better ask Heir and Spare. Can't recall them breaking many rules, especially the ones that get you arrested.
It's sitting in my mind that Alpha's spirit may be hovering around the vet office, and that she might not be sure which direction to strike out in to get to my house. I live in one of the most densely-populated counties in America.
Not sure it will make me feel more settled, but I'll do this anyway. My school is on the edge of Camden, it's only a mile or so from the vet.
I've gotten many helpful comments lately from my three readers, and I thank you so much. It's a real bear getting past that captcha thingie, so I really appreciate your persistence.
Regarding rules for a boarding student: I guess I'd better ask Heir and Spare. Can't recall them breaking many rules, especially the ones that get you arrested.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
O Brave New World!
When Mr. J left his job, we sat around wondering how we could keep our shack in Snobville. The property taxes are in five figures every year. And yet it is our home. We live on the poor side of town (yes! even with five figure taxes!), and there are wonderful, huge old trees and a pond nearby.
So I suggested we take in a boarder.
Little did I know how quick it would happen.
One of my colleagues has a sister who is involved with Chinese exchange students. One of the students in her program isn't happy where she's placed right now. So, on Saturday, East Coast Vulture Day, this potential boarder is coming for an overnight. She is a sophomore in high school, and if she likes us she will get the Spare's bedroom, because it's the only other private bedroom with a closet.
I'll have more to say about this later, but candidly, I am going to make ECVD a go, visitor or no visitor. If this tot is going to move in with us, it's not for party time 24/7. She will have to understand that Mrs. J needs some time at the computer.
Boy, I sure hope I have more energy on Saturday than I do right this minute!
Anyone have happy or horror stories about exchange students? I know my sister went through Hell and beyond with hers.
So I suggested we take in a boarder.
Little did I know how quick it would happen.
One of my colleagues has a sister who is involved with Chinese exchange students. One of the students in her program isn't happy where she's placed right now. So, on Saturday, East Coast Vulture Day, this potential boarder is coming for an overnight. She is a sophomore in high school, and if she likes us she will get the Spare's bedroom, because it's the only other private bedroom with a closet.
I'll have more to say about this later, but candidly, I am going to make ECVD a go, visitor or no visitor. If this tot is going to move in with us, it's not for party time 24/7. She will have to understand that Mrs. J needs some time at the computer.
Boy, I sure hope I have more energy on Saturday than I do right this minute!
Anyone have happy or horror stories about exchange students? I know my sister went through Hell and beyond with hers.
Monday, February 25, 2013
The Local Moron
Hello, friends, and thanks for stopping by! My name is Anne Johnson, and this site is dedicated to Gods and Goddesses who are lost to time ... forgotten, discarded, overrun ... but still able to make a damned great sunset.
I want to thank all of you who posted kind remaks about the passing of Alpha Johnson. Some of those were so beautiful they made me cry! Blessed be to all of you. I was very comforted.
Well then. On to today's sermon.
My favorite local moron is a high school teacher in Snobville who directs all the school plays. This moron teacher came to the school when Heir was there, and the first thing the guy did was cast his own daughter in the leading role of every play until she graduated. Then there came to the school a family with a whopping six daughters, some of whom had bit parts in various little movies and professional stage plays. Since Daughter #1 became a freshman, no one but the siblings of D#1 has gotten the lead in the school play. Now Daughter #6 is a sophomore (I think), and she has the lead in this year's musical. Her older sister is the second lead.
I suppose Local Moron Teacher felt the need to offer a mea culpa about this constant casting of the same young women, year after year. He told our puffy local paper that these girls are "professionals" and he expects professionalism in his productions.
Since my daughter The Spare was one of the many casualties of Local Moron's slavish devotion to his professional daughter and subsequent sibling juggernaut, I've been wondering about the intentions of a high school play, the level of professionalism, and bald possibility that Local Moron is just out-and-out casting teacher's pets.
I'd like your opinion on this. Should all school clubs work like athletics? In other words, professional athletes are not allowed to play for their high school teams. Shouldn't this perhaps work the same way for dramatics? One would think that a big family of sibling thespians who have a theatrical agent could get paying gigs elsewhere, leaving the school stage open to the kids who don't star in cereal commercials.
Honestly, I felt sorry for The Spare. Possibly she wouldn't have gotten a big role in anything, anyway, because the competition at Snobville High is fierce. But she felt like she never had a chance. She auditioned for every musical and was optioned to the chorus. Unwilling to be hollered at by Local Moron during practices, Spare wound up doing costumes, a thankless job that she did with great "professionalism."
What do you think? If you were a high school director, would you go with the kid who has paying gigs, a voice coach, and a stage mom who cooks you dinner once a month, or would you cast the second-best kid, who is admittedly amateur but willing to work hard and wanting so badly to star in a play?
To finalize this sermon, I will only add that Local Moron's high school plays are anything but professional, from curtain to curtain. He cuts the musicals in half, content-wise ... and everything is a musical. He hasn't staged a music-free drama since 2007.
Should high school plays go for the same actors and actresses, year after year after year? Your opinion is sought on this topic!
I want to thank all of you who posted kind remaks about the passing of Alpha Johnson. Some of those were so beautiful they made me cry! Blessed be to all of you. I was very comforted.
Well then. On to today's sermon.
My favorite local moron is a high school teacher in Snobville who directs all the school plays. This moron teacher came to the school when Heir was there, and the first thing the guy did was cast his own daughter in the leading role of every play until she graduated. Then there came to the school a family with a whopping six daughters, some of whom had bit parts in various little movies and professional stage plays. Since Daughter #1 became a freshman, no one but the siblings of D#1 has gotten the lead in the school play. Now Daughter #6 is a sophomore (I think), and she has the lead in this year's musical. Her older sister is the second lead.
I suppose Local Moron Teacher felt the need to offer a mea culpa about this constant casting of the same young women, year after year. He told our puffy local paper that these girls are "professionals" and he expects professionalism in his productions.
Since my daughter The Spare was one of the many casualties of Local Moron's slavish devotion to his professional daughter and subsequent sibling juggernaut, I've been wondering about the intentions of a high school play, the level of professionalism, and bald possibility that Local Moron is just out-and-out casting teacher's pets.
I'd like your opinion on this. Should all school clubs work like athletics? In other words, professional athletes are not allowed to play for their high school teams. Shouldn't this perhaps work the same way for dramatics? One would think that a big family of sibling thespians who have a theatrical agent could get paying gigs elsewhere, leaving the school stage open to the kids who don't star in cereal commercials.
Honestly, I felt sorry for The Spare. Possibly she wouldn't have gotten a big role in anything, anyway, because the competition at Snobville High is fierce. But she felt like she never had a chance. She auditioned for every musical and was optioned to the chorus. Unwilling to be hollered at by Local Moron during practices, Spare wound up doing costumes, a thankless job that she did with great "professionalism."
What do you think? If you were a high school director, would you go with the kid who has paying gigs, a voice coach, and a stage mom who cooks you dinner once a month, or would you cast the second-best kid, who is admittedly amateur but willing to work hard and wanting so badly to star in a play?
To finalize this sermon, I will only add that Local Moron's high school plays are anything but professional, from curtain to curtain. He cuts the musicals in half, content-wise ... and everything is a musical. He hasn't staged a music-free drama since 2007.
Should high school plays go for the same actors and actresses, year after year after year? Your opinion is sought on this topic!
Friday, February 22, 2013
Good and Faithful Servant
O dear Goddesses, Freya and Bast, please guard and care for the spirit of my Alpha, sent to You on Thursday, February 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Alpha was a good and faithful servant. I hope to find her in the Summerlands, waiting for me. And if death is all there is, then she and I will be united in that, some day.
Alpha Johnson, 1996-2013
Alpha was a good and faithful servant. I hope to find her in the Summerlands, waiting for me. And if death is all there is, then she and I will be united in that, some day.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Free Advice about Creating Passwords
You know what I'm tired of? I'm tired of Facebook and Google asking for my phone number all the time. Do you ever get the feeling that these two entities are the creepy guy at the bar who won't stop asking for your number?
They'll text my phone if "The Gods Are Bored" is ever hacked. Like, if someone steals my password.
A likely story. Google and Facebook just want my phone number so they can spy on me.
It's not necessary to give Google your telephone number! No one can hack anything if you come up with a creative password.
Awhile back, don't know how long, I read an article, don't know where (remember, this is a blog) that said most people just use "1234" as their password. Or their birth date. And then they wonder why they get hacked!
If you like numbers, and you're a Pagan reading this, did you ever think about using 1031 or 0202 as a password? Need a four-digit code for your debit card? How about the year you graduated from high school? (After, of course, removing all that stupid "Class of ..." crap from your home and car.)
Now we get into the thorny thicket of passwords for email and Facebook accounts. You definitely want these to be tricky. Steer clear of the name of your favorite pet or your home town. Chances are you'll lose them both and then be missing them every time you type. For years I used the name of a deceased pet frog as a password, and every time I typed it I thought of the lil guy.
Need a good password? Type out what you'd really like to be doing, all mushed together like cranberries and turkey!
skinnydipinthecreek
69withdoctorwho
isingthebodyelectric
You get the idea.
Recently I had to give a new password to a doctor's office that will now conduct its business online. First I hated the whole idea of that, and then they had all kinds of arcane rules for the freakin password. It had to have a capital letter, a number, and a symbol! So guess what? I created the account, tried three times to get an acceptable password, got it on the third try, and forgot it two minutes later. I've since gotten several emails from that doctor's office. Can't answer them. Can't remember the password. Can't remember it because I was so pissed that they wanted one that I refused to write it down.
If you ask me, there's a vowel too many in "password."
Free advice? Don't hand out your phone number to strangers. And if you must devise an assword, conjure up a really great one and use it with reckless abandon.
canthackmecuzudontnome0202
Anne Johnson
They'll text my phone if "The Gods Are Bored" is ever hacked. Like, if someone steals my password.
A likely story. Google and Facebook just want my phone number so they can spy on me.
It's not necessary to give Google your telephone number! No one can hack anything if you come up with a creative password.
Awhile back, don't know how long, I read an article, don't know where (remember, this is a blog) that said most people just use "1234" as their password. Or their birth date. And then they wonder why they get hacked!
If you like numbers, and you're a Pagan reading this, did you ever think about using 1031 or 0202 as a password? Need a four-digit code for your debit card? How about the year you graduated from high school? (After, of course, removing all that stupid "Class of ..." crap from your home and car.)
Now we get into the thorny thicket of passwords for email and Facebook accounts. You definitely want these to be tricky. Steer clear of the name of your favorite pet or your home town. Chances are you'll lose them both and then be missing them every time you type. For years I used the name of a deceased pet frog as a password, and every time I typed it I thought of the lil guy.
Need a good password? Type out what you'd really like to be doing, all mushed together like cranberries and turkey!
skinnydipinthecreek
69withdoctorwho
isingthebodyelectric
You get the idea.
Recently I had to give a new password to a doctor's office that will now conduct its business online. First I hated the whole idea of that, and then they had all kinds of arcane rules for the freakin password. It had to have a capital letter, a number, and a symbol! So guess what? I created the account, tried three times to get an acceptable password, got it on the third try, and forgot it two minutes later. I've since gotten several emails from that doctor's office. Can't answer them. Can't remember the password. Can't remember it because I was so pissed that they wanted one that I refused to write it down.
If you ask me, there's a vowel too many in "password."
Free advice? Don't hand out your phone number to strangers. And if you must devise an assword, conjure up a really great one and use it with reckless abandon.
canthackmecuzudontnome0202
Anne Johnson
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Floppy to the Rescue!
Wowsa, did I have a shitty day yesterday! Bad dreams, drama at the office, qualms about Mr. J leaving his job. And it was 52 and sunny, but I didn't emerge from work until nearly sundown!
And then what did I do? I wallowed in self-pity. Oh, please. So not me.
Awhile back, during a similar bout of woe-is-me, one of my readers sent me a golden vulture named Floppy to improve my spirits. Wouldn't you know, Floppy is here with me right now, and he says ... well, let's get an interview! *cue recording device*
Floppy: Anne, stop that right now! You anger the deities when you moan about your wasted potential.
Anne: Don't vultures like it when people are depressed?
Floppy: No, dummy! They like it when people are dead. You're not dead. You aren't even sick. Shame on you!
Anne: You know what my problem is? I had a job I loved for 20 years. I was my own boss, and I really looked forward to work each day. Now I have a job I don't love. I've counted out the days until summer vacation (99).
Floppy: So you think you're going to attract a wide readership complaining about your job when there are millions of people who don't have jobs at all? And millions more who have to drag into Wal-Mart every day and work like dogs, then use their food stamps to feed their kids? Bad form, Anne. I have half a mind to jab my beak into your crushed velvet sofa!
Anne: Oh no! No, Floppy, don't! You know how many hours I spend every month steam-cleaning that sofa! It's my pride and joy!
Floppy: Now, what you have to do is start lining up stuff you can look forward to doing. That will give you the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
Anne: Well, one of those psychologist professional types told me that looking forward to specific short events is just a "patch," and that I needed to get all joyous in my everyday soul.
Floppy: I'll bet you paid a bundle for that keen observation, didn't you?
Anne: Yes, these psychologists don't come cheap, unless they're on your health plan. This one wasn't.
Floppy: I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money, Anne, but frankly, you could have gotten that advice from almost any religious text from any pantheon ... for free.
Anne: Oh, you are really cheering me up here! First you threaten my unblemished sofa, then you remind me of misspent ducats! Is this how you go about making a girl feel better? Okay. You tell me. How do I go about getting joyous in my everyday soul?
Floppy: Line up stuff you can look forward to doing! Then do it! Patch, my ass! Every time you do something fun, something you've saved for and awaited with great anticipation, you're filling your soul with spirited adventure that becomes spiritual memory!
Anne (to audience): And you wonder why I worship Thunderbirds.
Floppy: Of course, there's a great deal of soul-joy you could derive from a meaningful daily experience of the bored gods. You don't do much of that, frankly.
Anne: Guilty as charged.
Floppy: So I suggest you put "meaningful daily experience of the Gods" on your list of stuff you can look forward to doing. Then make it happen.
Anne: Floppy, you give great advice! I feel considerably bucked up. You are a very fine bird. I'm glad Kim C sent you to me.
Floppy: My pleasure, most of the time. Now. On that list of things to look forward to. What's for dinner? I'm cold, and I want some comfort food!
Anne: Lucky you. Comfort food is on the menu. Except it will be freshly cooked, and not likely to go rancid for a long time in this weather.
Floppy: I'll lower myself to eating fresh. Just don't serve peanut butter. It glues my beak shut.
Reader, many people find solace in a meaningful experience of the Gods. In my house, sometimes all it takes is a little chat with wise, if goofy-looking, buzzard.Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go look in my fridge to see if there's something in there that's growing a little fuzz -- a treat for my golden friend.
PS - Floppy takes Medicare and most health plans. Call today to schedule an appointment.
And then what did I do? I wallowed in self-pity. Oh, please. So not me.
Awhile back, during a similar bout of woe-is-me, one of my readers sent me a golden vulture named Floppy to improve my spirits. Wouldn't you know, Floppy is here with me right now, and he says ... well, let's get an interview! *cue recording device*
Floppy: Anne, stop that right now! You anger the deities when you moan about your wasted potential.
Anne: Don't vultures like it when people are depressed?
Floppy: No, dummy! They like it when people are dead. You're not dead. You aren't even sick. Shame on you!
Anne: You know what my problem is? I had a job I loved for 20 years. I was my own boss, and I really looked forward to work each day. Now I have a job I don't love. I've counted out the days until summer vacation (99).
Floppy: So you think you're going to attract a wide readership complaining about your job when there are millions of people who don't have jobs at all? And millions more who have to drag into Wal-Mart every day and work like dogs, then use their food stamps to feed their kids? Bad form, Anne. I have half a mind to jab my beak into your crushed velvet sofa!
Anne: Oh no! No, Floppy, don't! You know how many hours I spend every month steam-cleaning that sofa! It's my pride and joy!
Floppy: Now, what you have to do is start lining up stuff you can look forward to doing. That will give you the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
Anne: Well, one of those psychologist professional types told me that looking forward to specific short events is just a "patch," and that I needed to get all joyous in my everyday soul.
Floppy: I'll bet you paid a bundle for that keen observation, didn't you?
Anne: Yes, these psychologists don't come cheap, unless they're on your health plan. This one wasn't.
Floppy: I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money, Anne, but frankly, you could have gotten that advice from almost any religious text from any pantheon ... for free.
Anne: Oh, you are really cheering me up here! First you threaten my unblemished sofa, then you remind me of misspent ducats! Is this how you go about making a girl feel better? Okay. You tell me. How do I go about getting joyous in my everyday soul?
Floppy: Line up stuff you can look forward to doing! Then do it! Patch, my ass! Every time you do something fun, something you've saved for and awaited with great anticipation, you're filling your soul with spirited adventure that becomes spiritual memory!
Anne (to audience): And you wonder why I worship Thunderbirds.
Floppy: Of course, there's a great deal of soul-joy you could derive from a meaningful daily experience of the bored gods. You don't do much of that, frankly.
Anne: Guilty as charged.
Floppy: So I suggest you put "meaningful daily experience of the Gods" on your list of stuff you can look forward to doing. Then make it happen.
Anne: Floppy, you give great advice! I feel considerably bucked up. You are a very fine bird. I'm glad Kim C sent you to me.
Floppy: My pleasure, most of the time. Now. On that list of things to look forward to. What's for dinner? I'm cold, and I want some comfort food!
Anne: Lucky you. Comfort food is on the menu. Except it will be freshly cooked, and not likely to go rancid for a long time in this weather.
Floppy: I'll lower myself to eating fresh. Just don't serve peanut butter. It glues my beak shut.
Reader, many people find solace in a meaningful experience of the Gods. In my house, sometimes all it takes is a little chat with wise, if goofy-looking, buzzard.Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go look in my fridge to see if there's something in there that's growing a little fuzz -- a treat for my golden friend.
PS - Floppy takes Medicare and most health plans. Call today to schedule an appointment.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Estate Sale Dream
Do you like estate sales? I know some people just love them. They're economical, and the stuff is usually better than yard sale quality, and the prices are right. Me, I just can't get around the fact that I'm buying some dead person's belongings, from the house that person lived in.
Yeah! Go figure! A buzzard-lover like me, skeeved about picking the carcass of a dead person's house! Oh well, la di dah, I never claimed to be logical.
A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues who haunts estate sales told me that there was an estate sale the following weekend in Ocean County. "The ad says there's lots of Wiccan stuff there," she told me. "I thought of you. You might want to go check it out."
Say what?
Now I'm not only buying a dead person's stuff, I'm buying a dead person's religious stuff. No way, no how, not ever! Please feel free to differ, but I could never incorporate into my praise and worship some item that belonged to someone else before me, unless that person gave it to me specifically to use, with his or her blessing.
Estate sales make me sad. It's just how I roll. No free advice from me this time -- you do it your way.
It's no wonder then, that I have been in the pit of depression since early Friday morning, when I dreamed that I was attending an estate sale at my grandparents' farm on Polish Mountain. It was a pretty vivid dream. The new owner of the house had already begun renovations, and scattered about the construction debris was my grandparents' furniture, my grandmother's jewelry, knick knacks (she loved them), and clothing. Spare was in the dream with me, and she and I were just hugging and crying.
When I woke up, I cried. Maybe twice in my life a dream has made me cry.
When I was 20, I was planning to write a great, meaningful, popular novel that would earn me enough to purchase the property and live blissfully in it all my days. When I was 40, buying the farm looked like a bigger hurdle, since I had a mortgage and kids to educate ... but it still could happen. I was still working on that novel, and it still looked good to me.
When I was 52, the novel had been rejected by a dozen agents and editors. I started a new, low-paying job for which I am completely unsuited. There's not enough money for anything. I face growing old in a career that shows no mercy to older workers. You'd think I could put a positive spin on this job, but I can't. It's difficult and thankless. My salary keeps going down. The expectations keep increasing. And the farm is sold. Sold to a local man who bought it for his 18-year-old son. The kid's name is on the mailbox.
Langston Hughes was absolutely correct. What you're looking at when you see me is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Anyone have a splint?
Yeah! Go figure! A buzzard-lover like me, skeeved about picking the carcass of a dead person's house! Oh well, la di dah, I never claimed to be logical.
A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues who haunts estate sales told me that there was an estate sale the following weekend in Ocean County. "The ad says there's lots of Wiccan stuff there," she told me. "I thought of you. You might want to go check it out."
Say what?
Now I'm not only buying a dead person's stuff, I'm buying a dead person's religious stuff. No way, no how, not ever! Please feel free to differ, but I could never incorporate into my praise and worship some item that belonged to someone else before me, unless that person gave it to me specifically to use, with his or her blessing.
Estate sales make me sad. It's just how I roll. No free advice from me this time -- you do it your way.
It's no wonder then, that I have been in the pit of depression since early Friday morning, when I dreamed that I was attending an estate sale at my grandparents' farm on Polish Mountain. It was a pretty vivid dream. The new owner of the house had already begun renovations, and scattered about the construction debris was my grandparents' furniture, my grandmother's jewelry, knick knacks (she loved them), and clothing. Spare was in the dream with me, and she and I were just hugging and crying.
When I woke up, I cried. Maybe twice in my life a dream has made me cry.
When I was 20, I was planning to write a great, meaningful, popular novel that would earn me enough to purchase the property and live blissfully in it all my days. When I was 40, buying the farm looked like a bigger hurdle, since I had a mortgage and kids to educate ... but it still could happen. I was still working on that novel, and it still looked good to me.
When I was 52, the novel had been rejected by a dozen agents and editors. I started a new, low-paying job for which I am completely unsuited. There's not enough money for anything. I face growing old in a career that shows no mercy to older workers. You'd think I could put a positive spin on this job, but I can't. It's difficult and thankless. My salary keeps going down. The expectations keep increasing. And the farm is sold. Sold to a local man who bought it for his 18-year-old son. The kid's name is on the mailbox.
Langston Hughes was absolutely correct. What you're looking at when you see me is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Anyone have a splint?
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Interview with a Bored God: Cupid
There's nothing quite like a high school on Valentine's Day. You can practically feel the hormones buzzing in the corridors.
But you know what? I think this holiday sucks. Seriously!
As early as the age of poor Charley Brown, kids start building their self-esteem on the number of Valentines they get and the quality of those Valentines. By the time high school rolls around, all the bright balloons, gifts, teddy bears the size of real bears, and roses, go to the popular girls from the cutest boys ... and the other boys and girls just suffer.
I was one of those sufferers in high school. I know.
What about the rest of us? The older folks who have seen many, many Valentine's Days? It's all too tempting to dismiss this holiday as a shameless ploy for ducats from the candy, flower, and card companies. Don't you feel sorry for the person whose loved one only tells them once a year that they're loved? Once again, how about all the single people ... the widowed ... the divorced. No wonder some people call this "Forever Single" day!
With that in mind, I've cornered the culprit for all this rosy madness. Please give a warm, wonderful "Gods Are Bored" welcome to Cupid, bored god of senseless love!
Anne: Cupid, you are a little kid. A baby, in fact. If not for the bow and arrows, you would look like that tot on the Gerber jars.
Cupid: Tee hee!
Anne: You encourage otherwise thoughtful people to act like babies. Love is blind! And if not blind, then seriously blinkered.
Cupid: *burp*
Anne: Okay, so call me cynical. It's easy for me to fling your arrows back at you. I'm set in my ways, older and wiser. If I happen to see a happy couple somewhere, I don't give you credit. You seem more bent on mischief than meaning.
Cupid: Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
Anne: Oh, now, there's just what I mean! That boy is so wrong for that girl! They have nothing in common. He will want her to wear high heels all the time, and she will resent him sitting in the sports bar with his bros. Do you give any thought to what you do?
Cupid: Tee hee! Nope!
Anne: I can't believe you have been around since ancient times. Was there ever an era where people had sense? Like, did people ever choose lifetime companions based on compatibility and sensibility, leaving erotic love out of the equation?
Cupid: *snort*
Anne: Oh yes. Of course. That would be any era where you marry someone and then get the hots for someone else. Because frankly, Cupid, that's all you're about. Giving people the hots for each other.
Cupid: SsssssSSSSSSSSSssssssssSSSSSSSSS!
Anne: I guess it perpetuates the species.
Cupid: Party pooper!
Anne: You know something, Cupid? You are so right! I am a party pooper! I'm not going to change this silly species. So, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Off to the card shop to scour the nearly-empty shelves!
I know this for sure. When I get to those empty shelves, the rest of the people scouring them will be male.
As for Cupid, He's the ultimate irony, isn't he? Sweet little baby, causing a world of trouble everywhere He turns. Note that he's red. Just another foe for the anxious lovelorn out there.
No! Cupid! For the love of fruit flies! Don't shoot an arrow at that cat lady and the guy with the allergy! Stop! For all that is holy, please!
But you know what? I think this holiday sucks. Seriously!
As early as the age of poor Charley Brown, kids start building their self-esteem on the number of Valentines they get and the quality of those Valentines. By the time high school rolls around, all the bright balloons, gifts, teddy bears the size of real bears, and roses, go to the popular girls from the cutest boys ... and the other boys and girls just suffer.
I was one of those sufferers in high school. I know.
What about the rest of us? The older folks who have seen many, many Valentine's Days? It's all too tempting to dismiss this holiday as a shameless ploy for ducats from the candy, flower, and card companies. Don't you feel sorry for the person whose loved one only tells them once a year that they're loved? Once again, how about all the single people ... the widowed ... the divorced. No wonder some people call this "Forever Single" day!
With that in mind, I've cornered the culprit for all this rosy madness. Please give a warm, wonderful "Gods Are Bored" welcome to Cupid, bored god of senseless love!
Cupid: Tee hee!
Anne: You encourage otherwise thoughtful people to act like babies. Love is blind! And if not blind, then seriously blinkered.
Cupid: *burp*
Anne: Okay, so call me cynical. It's easy for me to fling your arrows back at you. I'm set in my ways, older and wiser. If I happen to see a happy couple somewhere, I don't give you credit. You seem more bent on mischief than meaning.
Cupid: Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
Anne: Oh, now, there's just what I mean! That boy is so wrong for that girl! They have nothing in common. He will want her to wear high heels all the time, and she will resent him sitting in the sports bar with his bros. Do you give any thought to what you do?
Cupid: Tee hee! Nope!
Anne: I can't believe you have been around since ancient times. Was there ever an era where people had sense? Like, did people ever choose lifetime companions based on compatibility and sensibility, leaving erotic love out of the equation?
Cupid: *snort*
Anne: Oh yes. Of course. That would be any era where you marry someone and then get the hots for someone else. Because frankly, Cupid, that's all you're about. Giving people the hots for each other.
Cupid: SsssssSSSSSSSSSssssssssSSSSSSSSS!
Anne: I guess it perpetuates the species.
Cupid: Party pooper!
Anne: You know something, Cupid? You are so right! I am a party pooper! I'm not going to change this silly species. So, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Off to the card shop to scour the nearly-empty shelves!
I know this for sure. When I get to those empty shelves, the rest of the people scouring them will be male.
As for Cupid, He's the ultimate irony, isn't he? Sweet little baby, causing a world of trouble everywhere He turns. Note that he's red. Just another foe for the anxious lovelorn out there.
No! Cupid! For the love of fruit flies! Don't shoot an arrow at that cat lady and the guy with the allergy! Stop! For all that is holy, please!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
It Goes with the Territory
Well, what do you know? Two people resigned this week: my husband, Mr. J, and His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI.
One would imagine that Pope Benedict will get the best of everything in terms of a comfortable retirement. Not sure what's going to unfold for Mr. J.
One thing I do know: Mr. J was not the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
I'll bet you've heard it already. Benedict XVI's retirement is the first such exit-stage-right since 1415. And most of the popes before that died in office as well. (Some, of course, were murdered.)
Far be it from me to tell the followers of the busy god what I think about their leadership, but I'll do it anyway.
Churches that are led by people who are elected in secret and then wear crowns and ride around in armored Humvees ought to have an ironclad rule: You lead until you die. Period. End of story. If you spend nearly a decade of your life dressed better than a king, adored by a billion-odd church members, you ought to be ready to prove, with your own life, that you are a mortal. Are your faculties declining? Is that crown getting too heavy for your aged head? Grow old before us! It goes with the territory.
One of the most important lessons religion teaches us is that we all die. If you're the pope, and you step down because you can't do the duties of your office anymore, you're not getting it. Dying at the helm is one of your duties. Going into a slow and painful decline is one of your duties! If not you, then who?
This is the same pope who re-instituted the Latin Mass. I don't get it. He was supposedly so conservative!
Granted, the Catholic Church has taken a beating lately, with the long-overdue revelation of priestly misconduct. No one will ever convince me that any man could be elected pope without knowing that some of his servants are criminals. But on Benedict's watch there was no denying it. Maybe he's tired of apologizing to victims of his church's power structure. Hey, Pope! It's your hot potato! Don't use the excuse that you're old for dropping it into someone else's lap!
I have never been a Roman Catholic, although Mr. J is one (unpracticing, but not necessarily apostate). Perhaps if I had grown up in that faith, I wouldn't find the lavish crowns, robes, castles, parades, and appearances so distasteful. It seems to me that, if you're representing a god who lived modestly, you should yourself live modestly.
The busy god in question is Jesus Christ. He died on public display, in agony. His representatives, especially the top-tier ones, should be willing to die on public display as well. Just saying that you gotta walk the walk of your deity, or your cred goes bust.
Bad form, Benedict. Unless, of course, you're immortal. Some people will look at it that way.
If you are looking for a bored god or goddess who won't expect you to work until you keel, well! Wow! I'm looking for one, too! Is there a bored god of comfortable old age? I'm in with the Crone. Anyone else?
One would imagine that Pope Benedict will get the best of everything in terms of a comfortable retirement. Not sure what's going to unfold for Mr. J.
One thing I do know: Mr. J was not the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
I'll bet you've heard it already. Benedict XVI's retirement is the first such exit-stage-right since 1415. And most of the popes before that died in office as well. (Some, of course, were murdered.)
Far be it from me to tell the followers of the busy god what I think about their leadership, but I'll do it anyway.
Churches that are led by people who are elected in secret and then wear crowns and ride around in armored Humvees ought to have an ironclad rule: You lead until you die. Period. End of story. If you spend nearly a decade of your life dressed better than a king, adored by a billion-odd church members, you ought to be ready to prove, with your own life, that you are a mortal. Are your faculties declining? Is that crown getting too heavy for your aged head? Grow old before us! It goes with the territory.
One of the most important lessons religion teaches us is that we all die. If you're the pope, and you step down because you can't do the duties of your office anymore, you're not getting it. Dying at the helm is one of your duties. Going into a slow and painful decline is one of your duties! If not you, then who?
This is the same pope who re-instituted the Latin Mass. I don't get it. He was supposedly so conservative!
Granted, the Catholic Church has taken a beating lately, with the long-overdue revelation of priestly misconduct. No one will ever convince me that any man could be elected pope without knowing that some of his servants are criminals. But on Benedict's watch there was no denying it. Maybe he's tired of apologizing to victims of his church's power structure. Hey, Pope! It's your hot potato! Don't use the excuse that you're old for dropping it into someone else's lap!
I have never been a Roman Catholic, although Mr. J is one (unpracticing, but not necessarily apostate). Perhaps if I had grown up in that faith, I wouldn't find the lavish crowns, robes, castles, parades, and appearances so distasteful. It seems to me that, if you're representing a god who lived modestly, you should yourself live modestly.
The busy god in question is Jesus Christ. He died on public display, in agony. His representatives, especially the top-tier ones, should be willing to die on public display as well. Just saying that you gotta walk the walk of your deity, or your cred goes bust.
Bad form, Benedict. Unless, of course, you're immortal. Some people will look at it that way.
If you are looking for a bored god or goddess who won't expect you to work until you keel, well! Wow! I'm looking for one, too! Is there a bored god of comfortable old age? I'm in with the Crone. Anyone else?
Monday, February 11, 2013
The Purpose-Driven Holiday
Welcome to this little old web site where no facts are checked and no upholstery is stained! My name is Anne, with a capital "A."
I grew up in the mountains. I loved the mountains. I will always love the mountains. , Heck, pick a verb tense, and I will love the mountains in that, too.
When I lived in the mountains, I went hiking all the time. There was never much purpose to the hiking. I'd look at the view, or climb through the wreckage of old log homes that had fallen down, or take a dip in the crick. But it was sort of a rambling, ambling kind of thing -- mostly. Oh yeah, when I was young and stupid I did some ridiculous rock-climbing. But generally speaking, I didn't head out for a day in the mountains with the idea of coming home with stuff.
Now I'm trying to bond with the beach, and let me just say that the seashore is very different from the mountains. Maybe you have noticed.
First of all, a hike along the surf line ... well, maybe it works for some people, but I can't stick it at any price. It all looks the same to me! Not that it isn't pretty, but for the love of fruit flies, you can walk five miles, and basically it's waves breaking on the sand, seagulls, and maybe a few little wading birds. The cute kind.
So I find myself going to the beach with the purpose of collecting sea glass. Seems like I have to do something at the beach ... either swim or beach-comb. And the only thing at the beach that compels me to lean over and pick it up is sea glass. Shells don't do it for me. I've got rocks from the mountains that have shell imprints in them, and those puppies are millions of years old. Last week's clam is a yawner. Every little pebble at the beach is beautiful. How could anyone ever collect the best ones? So I go for the glass.
Sunday was a beautiful day with a low tide, after a Nor'Easter. These are good conditions for collecting sea glass. So I went, got to the shore at super low tide, and was therefore able to comb some areas that have been inaccessible since Sandy. At least inaccessible to me. The hard core glass-hoarders, you couldn't keep them off those beaches with artillery.
Long story short, I was looking for larger chunks of sea glass, figuring that angry King Triton had flung some up in the storm. And darned if I didn't find a chunk that has a capital "A" on it!
So here's how the beach works for me. I scour the sand for glass, then I gaze out at the water and think, "Ah, that's pretty!" Then I repeat that for a few hours, about as long as I would have hiked back in the day. I say hello to whoever is around, pet whatever dogs are running about, and watch the shore birds. (This time I saw a flock of brant. I don't think I've ever seen brant before. I had to look them up in the bird encyclopedia.)
I always get the nagging feeling that, if I'd grown up along the shoreline, I'd need no purpose for my ramblings there. But I'll never know about that.
I came home with a bag of sea glass. I rinsed it off and put it in jars. And there it sits.
Except for the piece with my initial on it. I took that to work. I put it on my desk. I made a vow that I would keep it on the desk until the day I'm able to walk out of there for good. And then I will fling that piece of sea glass back to King Triton.
It's likely to be a long time before that happens. Hope my flinging arm still has some pep when that day comes.
In the meantime, here I sit with two jars of sea glass, small pieces and medium pieces. What happens when the jars are filled? Do I stop going to the beach?
Does anyone out there want an envelope of sea glass? Email me, luvbuzzards at yahoo dot com. Send me your address. Give me a purpose-driven holiday.
I grew up in the mountains. I loved the mountains. I will always love the mountains. , Heck, pick a verb tense, and I will love the mountains in that, too.
When I lived in the mountains, I went hiking all the time. There was never much purpose to the hiking. I'd look at the view, or climb through the wreckage of old log homes that had fallen down, or take a dip in the crick. But it was sort of a rambling, ambling kind of thing -- mostly. Oh yeah, when I was young and stupid I did some ridiculous rock-climbing. But generally speaking, I didn't head out for a day in the mountains with the idea of coming home with stuff.
Now I'm trying to bond with the beach, and let me just say that the seashore is very different from the mountains. Maybe you have noticed.
First of all, a hike along the surf line ... well, maybe it works for some people, but I can't stick it at any price. It all looks the same to me! Not that it isn't pretty, but for the love of fruit flies, you can walk five miles, and basically it's waves breaking on the sand, seagulls, and maybe a few little wading birds. The cute kind.
So I find myself going to the beach with the purpose of collecting sea glass. Seems like I have to do something at the beach ... either swim or beach-comb. And the only thing at the beach that compels me to lean over and pick it up is sea glass. Shells don't do it for me. I've got rocks from the mountains that have shell imprints in them, and those puppies are millions of years old. Last week's clam is a yawner. Every little pebble at the beach is beautiful. How could anyone ever collect the best ones? So I go for the glass.
Sunday was a beautiful day with a low tide, after a Nor'Easter. These are good conditions for collecting sea glass. So I went, got to the shore at super low tide, and was therefore able to comb some areas that have been inaccessible since Sandy. At least inaccessible to me. The hard core glass-hoarders, you couldn't keep them off those beaches with artillery.
Long story short, I was looking for larger chunks of sea glass, figuring that angry King Triton had flung some up in the storm. And darned if I didn't find a chunk that has a capital "A" on it!
So here's how the beach works for me. I scour the sand for glass, then I gaze out at the water and think, "Ah, that's pretty!" Then I repeat that for a few hours, about as long as I would have hiked back in the day. I say hello to whoever is around, pet whatever dogs are running about, and watch the shore birds. (This time I saw a flock of brant. I don't think I've ever seen brant before. I had to look them up in the bird encyclopedia.)
I always get the nagging feeling that, if I'd grown up along the shoreline, I'd need no purpose for my ramblings there. But I'll never know about that.
I came home with a bag of sea glass. I rinsed it off and put it in jars. And there it sits.
Except for the piece with my initial on it. I took that to work. I put it on my desk. I made a vow that I would keep it on the desk until the day I'm able to walk out of there for good. And then I will fling that piece of sea glass back to King Triton.
It's likely to be a long time before that happens. Hope my flinging arm still has some pep when that day comes.
In the meantime, here I sit with two jars of sea glass, small pieces and medium pieces. What happens when the jars are filled? Do I stop going to the beach?
Does anyone out there want an envelope of sea glass? Email me, luvbuzzards at yahoo dot com. Send me your address. Give me a purpose-driven holiday.
Saturday, February 09, 2013
What Nervous People See
Are you nervous? Me, I'm nervous. I've been nervous all my life -- it's a way of life. Oh sure, I keep my nervousness in check by using all the techniques designed for nervous people. But there's only so much a gal can do.
My school district mandates that we teachers put our lesson plans online, where any parent or administrator can see them. The "coaches" review the plans and make helpful suggestions, also online where any parent or administrator can see.
When the day's lesson meets with approval, it gets a yellow star. When the day's lesson is not approved, it gets a button like Exhibit A:
EXHIBIT A:
Can you imagine being a nervous person, and opening your lesson plans online, and seeing this image? No? Lucky you, to be not-nervous!
As for me, I open my online lesson plans, that any administrator or parent can see, I get a glimpse of Exhibit A, and to me it looks like:
YOU. HAVE. SINNED!
PACK YOUR BAGS, YOU'RE FIRED!
WE HATE YOU, MORON!
DO WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW? BECAUSE YOU SUCK!
I know, I know. I'm over-reacting. My gentle teacher coaches didn't design the web site. I'm sure if they had, they would recall being teachers of sensitive students who would be so crushed to see something like this on their work. No doubt this online lesson plan site was designed by computer geeks who never got a red mark on anything they ever turned in to a teacher or a coach, forever and ever in their lives.
And just like any put-upon student who gets a paper doused in red ink, I have a worthy excuse. I repeated the same lesson three times in the plans ... because I was out with the influenza for three days the prior week and couldn't get to it. So online, it looks like I was teaching the same lesson two weeks running. Duly noted with an angry red dot, without checking my absenteeism of the prior week.
I would laugh this off, except parents can see my plans. And so can the people who will be armed with the draconian tenure-crushing evaluation tools.
EXHIBIT B:
There's something about the color red. Apparently I'm not the only person who has noticed. Maybe you like it, but as for me, I'm nervous. The web master created a red dot with an exclamation point. (Exhibit A). When I see it, I see Exhibit B. Not approved. The devil is pissed.
If I could get hold of those website creators, I wouldmake them drink 25 cups of coffee while listening to blaring Residents music sweetly suggest that they revise their "not approval" button. It should look something like this:
EXHIBIT C
Yes! Let's let Fintan, the gentle Salmon of Wisdom, kindly point out our minor errors, having first (being a Fish of Great Wisdom) ascertained, by conversing with us, that the errors were, indeed, errors.
Ahhhh. Just bringing Fintan in here makes me feel so much better! He reminds me that a wise person does not get riled up by red buttons. He steadies my nerves. Well, at least he tries.
My school district mandates that we teachers put our lesson plans online, where any parent or administrator can see them. The "coaches" review the plans and make helpful suggestions, also online where any parent or administrator can see.
When the day's lesson meets with approval, it gets a yellow star. When the day's lesson is not approved, it gets a button like Exhibit A:
EXHIBIT A:
Can you imagine being a nervous person, and opening your lesson plans online, and seeing this image? No? Lucky you, to be not-nervous!
As for me, I open my online lesson plans, that any administrator or parent can see, I get a glimpse of Exhibit A, and to me it looks like:
YOU. HAVE. SINNED!
PACK YOUR BAGS, YOU'RE FIRED!
WE HATE YOU, MORON!
DO WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW? BECAUSE YOU SUCK!
I know, I know. I'm over-reacting. My gentle teacher coaches didn't design the web site. I'm sure if they had, they would recall being teachers of sensitive students who would be so crushed to see something like this on their work. No doubt this online lesson plan site was designed by computer geeks who never got a red mark on anything they ever turned in to a teacher or a coach, forever and ever in their lives.
And just like any put-upon student who gets a paper doused in red ink, I have a worthy excuse. I repeated the same lesson three times in the plans ... because I was out with the influenza for three days the prior week and couldn't get to it. So online, it looks like I was teaching the same lesson two weeks running. Duly noted with an angry red dot, without checking my absenteeism of the prior week.
I would laugh this off, except parents can see my plans. And so can the people who will be armed with the draconian tenure-crushing evaluation tools.
EXHIBIT B:
If I could get hold of those website creators, I would
EXHIBIT C
Yes! Let's let Fintan, the gentle Salmon of Wisdom, kindly point out our minor errors, having first (being a Fish of Great Wisdom) ascertained, by conversing with us, that the errors were, indeed, errors.
Ahhhh. Just bringing Fintan in here makes me feel so much better! He reminds me that a wise person does not get riled up by red buttons. He steadies my nerves. Well, at least he tries.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
The Company You Keep
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" (Old habit. Sorry.) Call me zany, loony, weird, wacky, or out-in-left-field. Or all of the above. You see, it's my philosophy that everyone has to get out of the box, at least sometimes. While not staining the chintz. OxyClean is useless against a smudge on chintz.
Leaving the chintz aside, anything goes! Get out of that box and look around a bit! You might see something like this:
I purloined this classic photo from the Two Street Stompers Facebook page. It was taken this year, 2013. I love the way my new friends are framed by Philadelphia City Hall. If you missed previous posts, the Two Street Stompers are a Mummers Comic Brigade (I'm a member), and this year's theme was "Gold Rush." Well, if you're gonna have a gold rush, you're looking for the mother lode, right?
Now, seriously, if you don't think this looks like fun, maybe you ought to biff off "The Gods Are Bored" and go find some nice, sedate site -- maybe a streaming web cam out in the middle of the Sahara or something. You might want to knit a scarf, or swim laps, or fold socks. Not me, by golly! We are here to have a party! Laugh is a bowl of cherries!
Referring back to the Exhibit A photo again, please bear in mind that this is an event held on January 1, which this year was about 40 degrees.
So, today, two things are official:
1. The East Coast Vulture Festival 2013 has ben canceled due to lack of vulture participation, and
2. Mr. J is leaving his job for self-employment.
Some company, you want to keep. Some not so much. Here we go loop di loop, all on a Saturday night!
Leaving the chintz aside, anything goes! Get out of that box and look around a bit! You might see something like this:
Now, seriously, if you don't think this looks like fun, maybe you ought to biff off "The Gods Are Bored" and go find some nice, sedate site -- maybe a streaming web cam out in the middle of the Sahara or something. You might want to knit a scarf, or swim laps, or fold socks. Not me, by golly! We are here to have a party! Laugh is a bowl of cherries!
Referring back to the Exhibit A photo again, please bear in mind that this is an event held on January 1, which this year was about 40 degrees.
So, today, two things are official:
1. The East Coast Vulture Festival 2013 has ben canceled due to lack of vulture participation, and
2. Mr. J is leaving his job for self-employment.
Some company, you want to keep. Some not so much. Here we go loop di loop, all on a Saturday night!
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Suicide at the Mini-Mega Church
I've always viewed mental illness as an illness ... and suicide as the fatal form of the illness. If a doctor tells someone they have Stage Four cancer, that person knows he or she is going to die soon. Well, there's Stage Four mental illness, too, and it's just not realistic to expect to save the life of a person who is in that stage.
Having said that, I'll quickly add that most people don't consider mental illness an illness. It's just a bad mood, snap out of it! Or better yet ... Here! Take this semi-automatic weapon! Clearly there's nothing wrong with you -- you look just fine.
If you take the prevailing American indifference to mental health, and combine it with a philosophy that says you can "pray away" things like depression and homosexuality, you get a volatile mix of toxins.
Last weekend near Sharpsburg, Maryland, a father of four shot himself in the head on Sunday morning after his wife and children had gone into church. This is the same mini-mega church that my sister attended for many years ... the self-same church where my father's funeral was preached by a fire-and-brimstone moron who used the extravagantly ridiculous simile that Heaven is like an amusement park where you have to pay to get in the gate.
One can only imagine how sick a man had to be to end his life with five people dependent upon him. But honestly, knowing what I know about that church, I would have to say that it probably contributed to his demise the way smoking contributes to lung cancer.
If the poor fellow had the courage to speak of his pain at all, no doubt he was told to take it to the Lord in prayer. (Well, I've seen many sick people take their issues to the Lord in prayer, and not one of them survived indefinitely. The Lord fails everyone in the end, no matter how much they pray.)
My completely in-the-dark guess is that the man never told anyone how he felt, because his unanswered prayers for healing made him look weak and sinful.
Churches like that one generally do more harm than good, because everyone that goes to churches like that is so damned sure of everything. Inevitably, when life gets messy and God is too busy to do what moron pastors claim God will do, people become angry, depressed, isolated even within a throng, and occasionally ostracized.
My sister no longer attends that church. She had a major falling-out with the congregation and the pastor (not the same moron who preached Dad's funeral, another moron). And to hear her tell it, the "elders" of the congregation verbally attacked her to the point of screaming at her. I saw some of the bullshit comments she got on her Facebook site from those people, and for the love of fruit flies, I can't even imagine why she had words with them. I'd have just bailed.
The only good I can see in toxic churches like this is that people who attend them, and see through them, often wind up in search of the bored gods. Those of us who believe in Higher Power, but who want to separate that divinity from dogma, get out of Dodge ... leaving behind terminally ill parishioners who can't understand why God doesn't deliver like a pizza man.
Do you think the members of that church will sit down together and do a sober assessment of this tragedy and the part they might have played in it, either through oversight or blind faith? Me neither.
Having said that, I'll quickly add that most people don't consider mental illness an illness. It's just a bad mood, snap out of it! Or better yet ... Here! Take this semi-automatic weapon! Clearly there's nothing wrong with you -- you look just fine.
If you take the prevailing American indifference to mental health, and combine it with a philosophy that says you can "pray away" things like depression and homosexuality, you get a volatile mix of toxins.
Last weekend near Sharpsburg, Maryland, a father of four shot himself in the head on Sunday morning after his wife and children had gone into church. This is the same mini-mega church that my sister attended for many years ... the self-same church where my father's funeral was preached by a fire-and-brimstone moron who used the extravagantly ridiculous simile that Heaven is like an amusement park where you have to pay to get in the gate.
One can only imagine how sick a man had to be to end his life with five people dependent upon him. But honestly, knowing what I know about that church, I would have to say that it probably contributed to his demise the way smoking contributes to lung cancer.
If the poor fellow had the courage to speak of his pain at all, no doubt he was told to take it to the Lord in prayer. (Well, I've seen many sick people take their issues to the Lord in prayer, and not one of them survived indefinitely. The Lord fails everyone in the end, no matter how much they pray.)
My completely in-the-dark guess is that the man never told anyone how he felt, because his unanswered prayers for healing made him look weak and sinful.
Churches like that one generally do more harm than good, because everyone that goes to churches like that is so damned sure of everything. Inevitably, when life gets messy and God is too busy to do what moron pastors claim God will do, people become angry, depressed, isolated even within a throng, and occasionally ostracized.
My sister no longer attends that church. She had a major falling-out with the congregation and the pastor (not the same moron who preached Dad's funeral, another moron). And to hear her tell it, the "elders" of the congregation verbally attacked her to the point of screaming at her. I saw some of the bullshit comments she got on her Facebook site from those people, and for the love of fruit flies, I can't even imagine why she had words with them. I'd have just bailed.
The only good I can see in toxic churches like this is that people who attend them, and see through them, often wind up in search of the bored gods. Those of us who believe in Higher Power, but who want to separate that divinity from dogma, get out of Dodge ... leaving behind terminally ill parishioners who can't understand why God doesn't deliver like a pizza man.
Do you think the members of that church will sit down together and do a sober assessment of this tragedy and the part they might have played in it, either through oversight or blind faith? Me neither.
Reality Doesn't Always Bite
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where life is never dull except sometimes! I'm your hostess, Anne, aka She Who Worships Buzzards. Here! take a seat! Just don't stain my upholstery, please. Spotless sofa cushions are top priority in this household.
A year ago I could have canceled my cable and ditched my t.v. altogether. I don't watch much t.v. Five minutes of Bill Maher sends me running for the shelter of my Mother's Little Helper.
Alas, in the past few months I've succumbed to some really, really bad t.v. habits.
Have you seen some of these new reality shows? I'm not just talking about "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," my 30-minute weekly reminder that many American students are not ready for national testing. No, I'm talking about other evil pleasures, like "Bridezillas" (a show where awful women throw fits as they're preparing to marry) and "Pawn Stars" (three generations of ugly men buying other peoples' stuff).
Lately I've become addicted to a show called "Pickers" about a pair of dudes who go through hoarder houses (and barns) looking for cool stuff. I like that show because the one Picker is a hottie who brims with enthusiasm over rusty tin signs and motorcycles that don't work.
One lazy afternoon I stumbled upon a marathon of a reality t.v. show called "Moonshiners."
As its name suggests, "Moonshiners" is about various men in Appalachia who are making and selling liquor illegally. There's actually a disclaimer at the beginning of the show that says, "This is illegal. Don't do it." So, how do they film it with a big old camera crew, lighting, and that stuff? Can you imagine going to court for making moonshine, and the prosecutor cues up ten episodes of a t.v. show called "Moonshine," all of them featuring you breaking the law?
I suspect that the secret, in this case, is the fact that moonshine is the same color and consistency as water. The viewer sees a clear liquid dripping out of a still, and some hillbillies cooing over it -- but that doesn't make it alcohol.
EXHIBIT A
If you take a look at Exhibit A. some of the cast members of the reality show "Moonshiners," you may be prepared to dismiss this rot as more stereotyping of the Appalachian male. Which of course it is. But at least these fellows really are Appalachian males. You see, they've got the accents. And it's the accents that hooked me on "Moonshiners." Voices from home, don't you know. Every time anyone speaks in that show, it's like all of my old, dear uncles have come back to life. Or, in the case of some of the younger men, my school chums and cousins.
There was a national park near where I grew up, and for awhile they had an exhibit of a moonshine still. They really could brew liquor in it. Trouble was, enterprising visitors to the site were able to take notes and make copies of the technology. I think someone even had the audacity to activate the exhibit! Anyway, it got torn down.
People commit crimes everywhere, but there's always been considerable romanticism attached to moonshiners. If you ask me, it's the scenery. If you're going to be fascinated with outlaws, it helps to have a nice view of the sunset over the purple mountains' majesty.
Don't judge me for watching "Moonshiners." Everyone needs a little guilty pleasure. Mine is just listening to people talk with a certain regional inflection.
And no, I've never tried moonshine. Hard liquor makes me a wild woman -- I steer clear of the stuff.
A year ago I could have canceled my cable and ditched my t.v. altogether. I don't watch much t.v. Five minutes of Bill Maher sends me running for the shelter of my Mother's Little Helper.
Alas, in the past few months I've succumbed to some really, really bad t.v. habits.
Have you seen some of these new reality shows? I'm not just talking about "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," my 30-minute weekly reminder that many American students are not ready for national testing. No, I'm talking about other evil pleasures, like "Bridezillas" (a show where awful women throw fits as they're preparing to marry) and "Pawn Stars" (three generations of ugly men buying other peoples' stuff).
Lately I've become addicted to a show called "Pickers" about a pair of dudes who go through hoarder houses (and barns) looking for cool stuff. I like that show because the one Picker is a hottie who brims with enthusiasm over rusty tin signs and motorcycles that don't work.
One lazy afternoon I stumbled upon a marathon of a reality t.v. show called "Moonshiners."
As its name suggests, "Moonshiners" is about various men in Appalachia who are making and selling liquor illegally. There's actually a disclaimer at the beginning of the show that says, "This is illegal. Don't do it." So, how do they film it with a big old camera crew, lighting, and that stuff? Can you imagine going to court for making moonshine, and the prosecutor cues up ten episodes of a t.v. show called "Moonshine," all of them featuring you breaking the law?
I suspect that the secret, in this case, is the fact that moonshine is the same color and consistency as water. The viewer sees a clear liquid dripping out of a still, and some hillbillies cooing over it -- but that doesn't make it alcohol.
EXHIBIT A
If you take a look at Exhibit A. some of the cast members of the reality show "Moonshiners," you may be prepared to dismiss this rot as more stereotyping of the Appalachian male. Which of course it is. But at least these fellows really are Appalachian males. You see, they've got the accents. And it's the accents that hooked me on "Moonshiners." Voices from home, don't you know. Every time anyone speaks in that show, it's like all of my old, dear uncles have come back to life. Or, in the case of some of the younger men, my school chums and cousins.
There was a national park near where I grew up, and for awhile they had an exhibit of a moonshine still. They really could brew liquor in it. Trouble was, enterprising visitors to the site were able to take notes and make copies of the technology. I think someone even had the audacity to activate the exhibit! Anyway, it got torn down.
People commit crimes everywhere, but there's always been considerable romanticism attached to moonshiners. If you ask me, it's the scenery. If you're going to be fascinated with outlaws, it helps to have a nice view of the sunset over the purple mountains' majesty.
Don't judge me for watching "Moonshiners." Everyone needs a little guilty pleasure. Mine is just listening to people talk with a certain regional inflection.
And no, I've never tried moonshine. Hard liquor makes me a wild woman -- I steer clear of the stuff.
Monday, February 04, 2013
You Know You Hail from Baltimore When...
... you remember a great team named the Colts. They got whisked away in the middle of the night back in the early 1980s. In came the Ravens, and I'm very happy for them (and my many friends in Maryland).
I'll stick with the old Baltimore Colts, though. Back in their day, a college kid could afford a seat for herself and one for her uncle (who cheered himself hoarse for the Cleveland Browns without getting his nose caved in).
The Super Bowl is only good for one thing: commercials. Last night's were epic fails. To wipe their blot off the face of the planet, I post below a really fun commercial that, I believe, might have been on a previous Super Bowl. It's adorable!
Keep warm,
Anne
I'll stick with the old Baltimore Colts, though. Back in their day, a college kid could afford a seat for herself and one for her uncle (who cheered himself hoarse for the Cleveland Browns without getting his nose caved in).
The Super Bowl is only good for one thing: commercials. Last night's were epic fails. To wipe their blot off the face of the planet, I post below a really fun commercial that, I believe, might have been on a previous Super Bowl. It's adorable!
Keep warm,
Anne
Sunday, February 03, 2013
Will This One Fly?
Faithful Blogger space! What has happened to you?
My Imbolc post didn't publish for some reason. Oh well, now it's the next day -- but every day is graced with Queen Brighid the Bright, whose blessed silver mantle made our world habitable.
Last night I placed a red candle on the Shrine of the Mists, and it glowed so beautifully through a little dusting of snow. I could feel the Bored Gods warming themselves in its light, having a little mid-winter party in a congenial environment. How many wonderful deities, Goddesses especially, have been lost to time? Well, they are all welcome here.
I changed my sidebar. It happily now shows my readership, but I lost the links to other peoples' blogs. If you know how to keep the followers and restore the blog links, let me know.
And don't forget -- March 2,2013 is Virtual Vulture Day! Come here to celebrate the Golden Purifier who sees all and keeps the country clean!
Pinky swear I'll write something funny this week.
PS - free advice ... Don't try to decorate a table centerpiece with Hershey's kisses. Your artful rendering will not withstand a single afternoon.
My Imbolc post didn't publish for some reason. Oh well, now it's the next day -- but every day is graced with Queen Brighid the Bright, whose blessed silver mantle made our world habitable.
Last night I placed a red candle on the Shrine of the Mists, and it glowed so beautifully through a little dusting of snow. I could feel the Bored Gods warming themselves in its light, having a little mid-winter party in a congenial environment. How many wonderful deities, Goddesses especially, have been lost to time? Well, they are all welcome here.
I changed my sidebar. It happily now shows my readership, but I lost the links to other peoples' blogs. If you know how to keep the followers and restore the blog links, let me know.
And don't forget -- March 2,2013 is Virtual Vulture Day! Come here to celebrate the Golden Purifier who sees all and keeps the country clean!
Pinky swear I'll write something funny this week.
PS - free advice ... Don't try to decorate a table centerpiece with Hershey's kisses. Your artful rendering will not withstand a single afternoon.
Friday, February 01, 2013
Pity Poor Pastor. Not.
Did you see this story, readers?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/applebees-waitress-fired-pastor-receipt-193820748.html
A pastor, having received a hefty bill for a largish sup at Applebees, took umbrage with the 18 percent gratuity that had been tacked on, left $0 for a tip, and asked why a waitress should get 18 percent when God only gets 10 percent?
The waitress who leaked the snarky receipt has been canned by the (largely inedible and comprhensively fattening) Applebees chain.
Well, pastor Alois Bell. This is embarrassing to you, or so you say. How do you feel, having deprived a young woman of her job? That's what should be embarrassing! You should be down there at Applebees, trying to get that stripling's job back for her ... and paying the restaurant-issued gratuity.
Furthermore, here's a news flash for Alois Bell and her ilk from the staff of "The Gods Are Bored":
God is rich.
Yes! Moment to moment, Yahweh is richer than even the richest human on the planet! Just look at all the churches! From magnificent cathedrals to humble Methodist nursery schools, those places cost money! Look at how these pastors clothe themselves! Very few of them take the straight-and-narrow Mennonite view of simplicity in attire. After all, parishioners want their pastors to be gilded up. And yes, I know this is not exclusive to Christianity! It's just blatantly visible in Christianity these days. (My sis-in-law told me that one robe for a Vatican Cardinal costs $30,000.)
We at "The Gods Are Bored" think like this: If you're going to make a living off Yahweh, as all pastors do, you ought not be stingy. Judging by your bling, Ma'am, you are living large off the Lord. If you give Him ten percent, that's ten percent of a salary you're earning off Yahweh in the first place! I call that a kickback.
And Applebees! Gracious gateway to Future Alcoholics of America! Why would you fire a waitress for being frustrated at serving a large party and getting snark for her efforts?
Well, once again, we at "The Gods Are Bored" have an answer to this question: It's easy to fire an employee than to re-think an automatic gratuity policy that leaves diners feeling over-charged. Granted, most people are cheap cheap cheap when it comes to tipping, particularly when the feast is well-attended and the tab sky-high. But we at "The Gods Are Bored" think that a paltry tip is better than zero, and a kind recommendation on a menu or bill is better than a mandatory fee.
Back to Applebees. Hate to tell you this, booze-bucket chain, but the publicity over this may sink you deeper than it does poor, sad, embarrassed Alois Bell. Most of us hard-working Americans will feel far more sympathetic towards the undone waitress than the prickly pastor. And most of us are fed up to the gills with big, impersonal garbage restaurant chains.
To summarize:
1. God is rich.
2. Waitresses are not rich.
3. Alois Bell is a poster child for dwindling church enrollment. She's eating into God's bottom line.
4. Applebee's serves calorie-larded food and drinks strong enough to kill flesh-eating bacteria.
5. Workers should have the right to vent their frustration without fear of reprisal, so long as no one gets hurt and the furniture isn't stained.
The word of Vulture for the people of Vulture. Thanks be to Vulture! (Whose tithe is a dead skunk ... how about that?)
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/applebees-waitress-fired-pastor-receipt-193820748.html
A pastor, having received a hefty bill for a largish sup at Applebees, took umbrage with the 18 percent gratuity that had been tacked on, left $0 for a tip, and asked why a waitress should get 18 percent when God only gets 10 percent?
The waitress who leaked the snarky receipt has been canned by the (largely inedible and comprhensively fattening) Applebees chain.
Well, pastor Alois Bell. This is embarrassing to you, or so you say. How do you feel, having deprived a young woman of her job? That's what should be embarrassing! You should be down there at Applebees, trying to get that stripling's job back for her ... and paying the restaurant-issued gratuity.
Furthermore, here's a news flash for Alois Bell and her ilk from the staff of "The Gods Are Bored":
God is rich.
Yes! Moment to moment, Yahweh is richer than even the richest human on the planet! Just look at all the churches! From magnificent cathedrals to humble Methodist nursery schools, those places cost money! Look at how these pastors clothe themselves! Very few of them take the straight-and-narrow Mennonite view of simplicity in attire. After all, parishioners want their pastors to be gilded up. And yes, I know this is not exclusive to Christianity! It's just blatantly visible in Christianity these days. (My sis-in-law told me that one robe for a Vatican Cardinal costs $30,000.)
We at "The Gods Are Bored" think like this: If you're going to make a living off Yahweh, as all pastors do, you ought not be stingy. Judging by your bling, Ma'am, you are living large off the Lord. If you give Him ten percent, that's ten percent of a salary you're earning off Yahweh in the first place! I call that a kickback.
And Applebees! Gracious gateway to Future Alcoholics of America! Why would you fire a waitress for being frustrated at serving a large party and getting snark for her efforts?
Well, once again, we at "The Gods Are Bored" have an answer to this question: It's easy to fire an employee than to re-think an automatic gratuity policy that leaves diners feeling over-charged. Granted, most people are cheap cheap cheap when it comes to tipping, particularly when the feast is well-attended and the tab sky-high. But we at "The Gods Are Bored" think that a paltry tip is better than zero, and a kind recommendation on a menu or bill is better than a mandatory fee.
Back to Applebees. Hate to tell you this, booze-bucket chain, but the publicity over this may sink you deeper than it does poor, sad, embarrassed Alois Bell. Most of us hard-working Americans will feel far more sympathetic towards the undone waitress than the prickly pastor. And most of us are fed up to the gills with big, impersonal garbage restaurant chains.
To summarize:
1. God is rich.
2. Waitresses are not rich.
3. Alois Bell is a poster child for dwindling church enrollment. She's eating into God's bottom line.
4. Applebee's serves calorie-larded food and drinks strong enough to kill flesh-eating bacteria.
5. Workers should have the right to vent their frustration without fear of reprisal, so long as no one gets hurt and the furniture isn't stained.
The word of Vulture for the people of Vulture. Thanks be to Vulture! (Whose tithe is a dead skunk ... how about that?)
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Snow Turkey
Hello, greetings! After almost eight years it might be time to retire the stale old hello that usually pops up at this site.
Imbolc is nigh, and it is my favorite holy day in the calendar. My altar Goddess is Brighid, so She is very important to those quiet moments when I am being serious, grounded and calm. Oh yeah, and She's out and about with me the rest of the time, too, because if She waited for me to be serious, She'd never see me at all!
Today's Sermon: Save for Snow Day, or Roast on Imbolc?
Right after Thanksgiving, the local grocery store offered the leftover fresh turkeys at the unbelievable rate of $.30 a pound. I got a whopping big turkey for less than the price of those silly boneless breasts!
Home I stolled with the monster bird, and I flung it straight into the freezer. Its due date had arrived, after all.
This was maybe the Monday after Thanksgiving. So I told myself I would either roast the turkey on a snow day, or I would roast it on Imbolc if we didn't have a serious snowfall.
We haven't had a serious snowfall. We've recorded one inch, twice, and that's that. Last night it rained like the heavens above were bursting at the seams, but that was rain. Very little snow, for the second year in a row.
I'm ready to thaw out the turkey and shove it in the oven for Imbolc. We can get snow in New Jersey during February and March, but why wait around and see?
In a rare moment of seriousness, I would like to remind everyone that Queen Brighid the Bright is a bored Goddess, and if you pray to Her, She will bless you -- not necessarily with big bucks and vibrant good health, but just with a soothing presence. If you have never called upon Her, this weekend is the time to do it. We should all make Her feel empowered, consequential, and honored. Then She won't be bored, and She won't have to settle for the "St. Brigid" crap that was shoved onto Her by impatient Christian missionaries.
Maybe it's time for an interview! I'll see if the Great Goddess Brighid is available. We can talk turkey.
Imbolc is nigh, and it is my favorite holy day in the calendar. My altar Goddess is Brighid, so She is very important to those quiet moments when I am being serious, grounded and calm. Oh yeah, and She's out and about with me the rest of the time, too, because if She waited for me to be serious, She'd never see me at all!
Today's Sermon: Save for Snow Day, or Roast on Imbolc?
Right after Thanksgiving, the local grocery store offered the leftover fresh turkeys at the unbelievable rate of $.30 a pound. I got a whopping big turkey for less than the price of those silly boneless breasts!
Home I stolled with the monster bird, and I flung it straight into the freezer. Its due date had arrived, after all.
This was maybe the Monday after Thanksgiving. So I told myself I would either roast the turkey on a snow day, or I would roast it on Imbolc if we didn't have a serious snowfall.
We haven't had a serious snowfall. We've recorded one inch, twice, and that's that. Last night it rained like the heavens above were bursting at the seams, but that was rain. Very little snow, for the second year in a row.
I'm ready to thaw out the turkey and shove it in the oven for Imbolc. We can get snow in New Jersey during February and March, but why wait around and see?
In a rare moment of seriousness, I would like to remind everyone that Queen Brighid the Bright is a bored Goddess, and if you pray to Her, She will bless you -- not necessarily with big bucks and vibrant good health, but just with a soothing presence. If you have never called upon Her, this weekend is the time to do it. We should all make Her feel empowered, consequential, and honored. Then She won't be bored, and She won't have to settle for the "St. Brigid" crap that was shoved onto Her by impatient Christian missionaries.
Maybe it's time for an interview! I'll see if the Great Goddess Brighid is available. We can talk turkey.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Lemonade
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," bringing you tragic news today ...
There will be no East Coast Vulture Festival in Wenonah this year.
I have not gotten the flurry of emails that I would have gotten in the past. I have not rented the vulture costume. This is a day that no one looked forward to more than me, and it is not to be.
My guess is that the vultures have moved on. Since Spare filmed "Momma Bird," it has been very hard to find the huge flocks of turkey and black vultures that were descending on the town in droves. I think it's that way with vultures. They stay awhile and then they go.
However, just because there's no East Coast Vulture Festival this year doesn't mean that we, yes we, you and I, can't create one!
"The Gods Are Bored" hereby declares Saturday, March 2 East Coast Vulture Day!
Contribute your favorite vulture pictures, stories, or comics to this blog, all to be published on March 2, 2013!
All you have to do is email your submission to luvbuzzards at yahoo dot-you-know-the-drill. That's me.
We can turn this happy space into a Vulture Day and have some laughs doing it!
Who is with me?
There will be no East Coast Vulture Festival in Wenonah this year.
I have not gotten the flurry of emails that I would have gotten in the past. I have not rented the vulture costume. This is a day that no one looked forward to more than me, and it is not to be.
My guess is that the vultures have moved on. Since Spare filmed "Momma Bird," it has been very hard to find the huge flocks of turkey and black vultures that were descending on the town in droves. I think it's that way with vultures. They stay awhile and then they go.
However, just because there's no East Coast Vulture Festival this year doesn't mean that we, yes we, you and I, can't create one!
"The Gods Are Bored" hereby declares Saturday, March 2 East Coast Vulture Day!
Contribute your favorite vulture pictures, stories, or comics to this blog, all to be published on March 2, 2013!
All you have to do is email your submission to luvbuzzards at yahoo dot-you-know-the-drill. That's me.
We can turn this happy space into a Vulture Day and have some laughs doing it!
Who is with me?
Monday, January 28, 2013
Guest Blogger: The Spare
Well well! I have a day off! Here's a little essay by my daughter, the Spare, with some frank talk about relationships in the under-20 set! Take it away, Spare!
I’ve been dumped. Maybe there are better ways of phrasing that last
statement. Perhaps this story should be told in a Shakespearean-style
sonnet to amp up the drama and romance, but why exaggerate the
situation when it’s so simple? I’ve been dumped. Dumped like a worn
out pair of tennis shoes.
To put it briefly, Boy is in a committed relationship with Girl A,
but meets Girl B and questions the validity of his committed
relationship. Boy ends his cataclysmic relationship with Girl A and
pursues Girl B. Boy then proceeds to start and end a relationship with
Girl B within the span of one moon cycle, because he realizes his love
for Girl A is undying no matter how unhealthy they are for one
another. Girl B dyes the tips of her hair pink in order to prove she’s
“totally cool” and moving on.
I don’t blame Boy for toying with both of the girls’ emotions. I
blame Girl B for being so naive and determined to make things work
with a guy who couldn’t be more wrong for her. I blame myself. Not
that I’m sitting here hating myself, listening to Nazareth's
heartbreaking ballad “Love Hurts” on repeat whilst finding solace at
the bottom of a gallon of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream ice cream
or anything.
This entire experience has showed me how much I have grown in the
past years (mentally of course, because physically, I still have the
body of a 14 -year-old girl). If this whole debacle had happened just
three years ago I would have lost it. In fact, I would
have most likely responded similarly to that of a scorned female lover
in a country song. Now I just grin and bear it. At first I felt a bit
crushed, but then when I got to thinking, I realized how useless it
was to feel any semblance of pain for a guy who was opposite from me
in all ways. If I were the dewy jungle floor, he’d be the cracked and
dessicated desert sand. Nothing about us matched. He hated my favorite
things and I his. I could spend hours talking about how incredible
organisms on the abyssal plane are, while he could spend hours talking
about advances in auto parts technology. Which meant that we spent
hours talking about absolutely nothing, because we bored each other to
no end. So it was no surprise when the tiny spark of our relationship
blew out.
When I was a child, I would spend hours watching movies and
television. It was an easy escape from the scary things in life, the
most horrifying being growing up. I didn’t have my eyes glued to
meaningless crap though. No, I watched far more enlightening programs:
Chick Flicks! I was certain that my life had to mirror that of Reese
Witherspoon’s circa “Sweet Home Alabama,” or just about any Julia
Roberts movie. I’m ashamed to say that only now is it settling in that
my life doesn’t have to be like a movie, especially not like a Chick
Flick, which I now recognize as the foulest creation of anything in
the world of cinema -- only a step above Pauly Shore films. I will
never be the leading lady of my own little Rom-Com, because those
women don’t exist in the real world. In the real world you’re lucky if
you can find someone who you can have an awkward silence with and
revel in it, something I could never have with Boy.
Now, for what feels like the first time in a decade, I’m without
someone holding onto my heart. In an attempt to create the picturesque
life, I let myself go from guy to guy whether it was a meaningless
crush, a foolish infatuation, or a full-fledged squeeze. I got
hurt many times and undoubtedly hurt others. I let people, like Boy,
use me and used
other people to make myself feel like a complete person. All for the
sole reason that the television told me that in order to be a whole
person I had to have a significant other. However, who gets to define
what a significant other is? Almost everyone close to me is
significant. So wouldn’t that make me one super omnipowerful mega
complete person? Probably not, but regardless, with all the friends
and family members that make such an incredible impact on my life, why
should I be so inclined to forge a relationship that I will settle for
someone who is my anti-soul mate? As I consider all these things I
can’t help but be happy that I’m “alone.”
While I probably made very little impact in Boy’s life, he made a
massive one in mine. Perhaps all it took for me to have this epiphany
was maturity and a small touch of heartache. I’m feeling driven and
stronger than I have ever felt in my life and maybe that is cliche to
say, but sometimes in order to grow in life you have to be cliche.
Yeah, I’ve been dumped, but so what? I like to trash pick.
I’ve been dumped. Maybe there are better ways of phrasing that last
statement. Perhaps this story should be told in a Shakespearean-style
sonnet to amp up the drama and romance, but why exaggerate the
situation when it’s so simple? I’ve been dumped. Dumped like a worn
out pair of tennis shoes.
To put it briefly, Boy is in a committed relationship with Girl A,
but meets Girl B and questions the validity of his committed
relationship. Boy ends his cataclysmic relationship with Girl A and
pursues Girl B. Boy then proceeds to start and end a relationship with
Girl B within the span of one moon cycle, because he realizes his love
for Girl A is undying no matter how unhealthy they are for one
another. Girl B dyes the tips of her hair pink in order to prove she’s
“totally cool” and moving on.
I don’t blame Boy for toying with both of the girls’ emotions. I
blame Girl B for being so naive and determined to make things work
with a guy who couldn’t be more wrong for her. I blame myself. Not
that I’m sitting here hating myself, listening to Nazareth's
heartbreaking ballad “Love Hurts” on repeat whilst finding solace at
the bottom of a gallon of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream ice cream
or anything.
This entire experience has showed me how much I have grown in the
past years (mentally of course, because physically, I still have the
body of a 14 -year-old girl). If this whole debacle had happened just
three years ago I would have lost it. In fact, I would
have most likely responded similarly to that of a scorned female lover
in a country song. Now I just grin and bear it. At first I felt a bit
crushed, but then when I got to thinking, I realized how useless it
was to feel any semblance of pain for a guy who was opposite from me
in all ways. If I were the dewy jungle floor, he’d be the cracked and
dessicated desert sand. Nothing about us matched. He hated my favorite
things and I his. I could spend hours talking about how incredible
organisms on the abyssal plane are, while he could spend hours talking
about advances in auto parts technology. Which meant that we spent
hours talking about absolutely nothing, because we bored each other to
no end. So it was no surprise when the tiny spark of our relationship
blew out.
When I was a child, I would spend hours watching movies and
television. It was an easy escape from the scary things in life, the
most horrifying being growing up. I didn’t have my eyes glued to
meaningless crap though. No, I watched far more enlightening programs:
Chick Flicks! I was certain that my life had to mirror that of Reese
Witherspoon’s circa “Sweet Home Alabama,” or just about any Julia
Roberts movie. I’m ashamed to say that only now is it settling in that
my life doesn’t have to be like a movie, especially not like a Chick
Flick, which I now recognize as the foulest creation of anything in
the world of cinema -- only a step above Pauly Shore films. I will
never be the leading lady of my own little Rom-Com, because those
women don’t exist in the real world. In the real world you’re lucky if
you can find someone who you can have an awkward silence with and
revel in it, something I could never have with Boy.
Now, for what feels like the first time in a decade, I’m without
someone holding onto my heart. In an attempt to create the picturesque
life, I let myself go from guy to guy whether it was a meaningless
crush, a foolish infatuation, or a full-fledged squeeze. I got
hurt many times and undoubtedly hurt others. I let people, like Boy,
use me and used
other people to make myself feel like a complete person. All for the
sole reason that the television told me that in order to be a whole
person I had to have a significant other. However, who gets to define
what a significant other is? Almost everyone close to me is
significant. So wouldn’t that make me one super omnipowerful mega
complete person? Probably not, but regardless, with all the friends
and family members that make such an incredible impact on my life, why
should I be so inclined to forge a relationship that I will settle for
someone who is my anti-soul mate? As I consider all these things I
can’t help but be happy that I’m “alone.”
While I probably made very little impact in Boy’s life, he made a
massive one in mine. Perhaps all it took for me to have this epiphany
was maturity and a small touch of heartache. I’m feeling driven and
stronger than I have ever felt in my life and maybe that is cliche to
say, but sometimes in order to grow in life you have to be cliche.
Yeah, I’ve been dumped, but so what? I like to trash pick.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Where Snow Is the Big Story
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Baby, it's cold outside! And inside too. I'm not pouring money into heating this drafty, big old house. That's what sweatshirts are for.
NEWSFLASH! IT'S GONNA SNOW!
I've never gotten over the hoo hah about snow here in Great Blue New Jersey and it's nearby city, Philadelphia. If the forecast calls for a dusting of snow, it's the lead story on every news channel for two days. The minute a flake flies, everything grinds to a halt.
You would think this is South Carolina or something, the way they take on about wintry precipitation.
Every few years we get a whopper of a blizzard, sort of like Hurricane Sandy except snow and far less flooding. I can see the reasoning behind doing some serious reporting about such an event as this. (Although they usually get the snow totals wrong anyway.) Yesterday we got a little Alberta Clipper, and for all intents and purposes regarding the television and radio media, the world was coming to an end.
If you walk outside in the morning to find a little dusting of snow on your car, rest assured you don't live in Philadelphia. A dusting of snow is cataclysmic.
Why am I ranting about this? Well, you see, I like snow. I've always liked snow. The more the better. when I lived in Detroit, I was in hog heaven. Therefore it is exceedingly annoying when the weather forecasters start bleating about a snowstorm days in advance, and then it either doesn't materialize, or it lightly dusts the ground.
Don't worry. You don't need to navigate the stupid captcha thing to give me free advice. I'm boycotting news radio until spring. The reality is that we don't get much snow here in southern New Jersey, and that's that. All the hype in the world won't turn anything white.
Have an ice day!
FROM ANNE
NEWSFLASH! IT'S GONNA SNOW!
I've never gotten over the hoo hah about snow here in Great Blue New Jersey and it's nearby city, Philadelphia. If the forecast calls for a dusting of snow, it's the lead story on every news channel for two days. The minute a flake flies, everything grinds to a halt.
You would think this is South Carolina or something, the way they take on about wintry precipitation.
Every few years we get a whopper of a blizzard, sort of like Hurricane Sandy except snow and far less flooding. I can see the reasoning behind doing some serious reporting about such an event as this. (Although they usually get the snow totals wrong anyway.) Yesterday we got a little Alberta Clipper, and for all intents and purposes regarding the television and radio media, the world was coming to an end.
If you walk outside in the morning to find a little dusting of snow on your car, rest assured you don't live in Philadelphia. A dusting of snow is cataclysmic.
Why am I ranting about this? Well, you see, I like snow. I've always liked snow. The more the better. when I lived in Detroit, I was in hog heaven. Therefore it is exceedingly annoying when the weather forecasters start bleating about a snowstorm days in advance, and then it either doesn't materialize, or it lightly dusts the ground.
Don't worry. You don't need to navigate the stupid captcha thing to give me free advice. I'm boycotting news radio until spring. The reality is that we don't get much snow here in southern New Jersey, and that's that. All the hype in the world won't turn anything white.
Have an ice day!
FROM ANNE
Thursday, January 24, 2013
The Unfair Interference of Meng Po
You know what's really unfair? Certain deities mess with you whether you want them to or not. I'm not the only one who has issues with this. Look at poor Odysseus! Make a little progress, get smacked down. Sheesh.
Last night my daughter The Spare phoned me with a few short questions about the year in which she was born. After the personal stuff, like her particular birth (which I pretty much remember), she started asking other questions. What was going on politically? Were there any inventions? Advances in science? What was the popular music of the time?
beep beep beep beep beep! Alarm in Anne's brain!
I couldn't remember anything at all about 1994 except that The Spare was born. I used to take her with me to the public library when I was doing my research for my job. The janitor there called her "Library Baby."
So, there's 1994 for you. Library Baby was born.
This can only be the nefarious work of the bored Goddess Meng Po, whose duty it is to wipe our memories clean after death so that we can be reincarnated and start making stupid mistakes all over again.
I would put in a phone call to the Chinese Underworld, but I can't remember the number. And the Goddess What's Her Name is hard to get hold of anyway, because there are so many people being reincarnated all at once. I think.
What pantheon are we talking about here? Oh! Chinese! I dimly remember something about a wall.
Did I say that it's not fair when deities make life difficult for you while you're still on this side of the veil? Aren't we, as fallible mortals, more than capable of screwing up ourselves?
But honestly, I cannot think of a single other reason why I cannot recall one single song from a whole year, or whether or not Mr. J had already begun selling books on Ebay.
Yikes! I can't even recall a memorable vulture sighting from that era!
Someone tell Goddess Whozit to restore my memory! I look back through the mists of my life and see ... not a whole lot.
Of course, maybe She was aided and abetted by ... mmmmm ... what is it? That stuff you drink that makes you giggle.
Why am I writing this?
Last night my daughter The Spare phoned me with a few short questions about the year in which she was born. After the personal stuff, like her particular birth (which I pretty much remember), she started asking other questions. What was going on politically? Were there any inventions? Advances in science? What was the popular music of the time?
beep beep beep beep beep! Alarm in Anne's brain!
I couldn't remember anything at all about 1994 except that The Spare was born. I used to take her with me to the public library when I was doing my research for my job. The janitor there called her "Library Baby."
So, there's 1994 for you. Library Baby was born.
This can only be the nefarious work of the bored Goddess Meng Po, whose duty it is to wipe our memories clean after death so that we can be reincarnated and start making stupid mistakes all over again.
I would put in a phone call to the Chinese Underworld, but I can't remember the number. And the Goddess What's Her Name is hard to get hold of anyway, because there are so many people being reincarnated all at once. I think.
What pantheon are we talking about here? Oh! Chinese! I dimly remember something about a wall.
Did I say that it's not fair when deities make life difficult for you while you're still on this side of the veil? Aren't we, as fallible mortals, more than capable of screwing up ourselves?
But honestly, I cannot think of a single other reason why I cannot recall one single song from a whole year, or whether or not Mr. J had already begun selling books on Ebay.
Yikes! I can't even recall a memorable vulture sighting from that era!
Someone tell Goddess Whozit to restore my memory! I look back through the mists of my life and see ... not a whole lot.
Of course, maybe She was aided and abetted by ... mmmmm ... what is it? That stuff you drink that makes you giggle.
Why am I writing this?
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Inauguration 2013
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Politics and religion make strange bedfellows. But all too often, there they are, trying to sleep together. Never works, does it? They kick each other under the covers.
I remember the first time President Obama was inaugurated. Everything ground to a halt in this school where I teach. We were all so excited about the new era we were going to have in this country. It seemed personified by the dynamic young African American man who stood poised to lead the way.
So, four years later, I went to the thrift store instead of watching the inauguration. Before you jump all over me, let's look at Chateau Johnson and see if the previous four years have brought change we believe in:
1. Mr. J has taken pay cuts and has been forced to take a furlough week each year. His union is currently being asked to take a 20 percent pay cut. It will probably be negotiated down to 15 percent. By October he won't even have a union.
2. One daughter has finished college. Our monthly tuition payments for her hovered around $800.00. She is now $25,000 in debt -- or, basically, the price of a car she cannot afford to buy. She has a part-time job, which is better than her friends, who are mostly unemployed or working in such prime locations as South Korea.
3. At the beginning of January, both Mr. J and I lost a combined $120 or more in additional weekly taxes. I thought those tax increases were only going to be on the rich.
4. Another daughter in college -- payments $900 a month. Not sure about her loans yet.
5. More money for health care. This year 4 percent of salary, next year 6 percent of salary.
6. I've been working without a contract since 2011; hence, no raise in pay. My salary has declined.
7. Tonight Snobville residents are being asked to vote on the construction of artificial turf fields, with parking, as an annual addition of $190 to the yearly-escalating property tax. Ready for this, readers? My property taxes are almost $12,000 a year. If they don't hit that sweet spot this year, they will shortly.
So you'll forgive me if I skipped the platitudes about how wonderful this nation is. This nation should be three or four nations. It's too big to govern, and the political schisms cause legislative gridlock. The leader who seemed so promising four years ago just looks like another name on a plaque.
Why did I go to the thrift store? I've lost so much weight from worry that my clothes don't fit me anymore. Another pound this week! It was half price day at the thrift store, and I got a pair of jeans. Change I can believe in.
I remember the first time President Obama was inaugurated. Everything ground to a halt in this school where I teach. We were all so excited about the new era we were going to have in this country. It seemed personified by the dynamic young African American man who stood poised to lead the way.
So, four years later, I went to the thrift store instead of watching the inauguration. Before you jump all over me, let's look at Chateau Johnson and see if the previous four years have brought change we believe in:
1. Mr. J has taken pay cuts and has been forced to take a furlough week each year. His union is currently being asked to take a 20 percent pay cut. It will probably be negotiated down to 15 percent. By October he won't even have a union.
2. One daughter has finished college. Our monthly tuition payments for her hovered around $800.00. She is now $25,000 in debt -- or, basically, the price of a car she cannot afford to buy. She has a part-time job, which is better than her friends, who are mostly unemployed or working in such prime locations as South Korea.
3. At the beginning of January, both Mr. J and I lost a combined $120 or more in additional weekly taxes. I thought those tax increases were only going to be on the rich.
4. Another daughter in college -- payments $900 a month. Not sure about her loans yet.
5. More money for health care. This year 4 percent of salary, next year 6 percent of salary.
6. I've been working without a contract since 2011; hence, no raise in pay. My salary has declined.
7. Tonight Snobville residents are being asked to vote on the construction of artificial turf fields, with parking, as an annual addition of $190 to the yearly-escalating property tax. Ready for this, readers? My property taxes are almost $12,000 a year. If they don't hit that sweet spot this year, they will shortly.
So you'll forgive me if I skipped the platitudes about how wonderful this nation is. This nation should be three or four nations. It's too big to govern, and the political schisms cause legislative gridlock. The leader who seemed so promising four years ago just looks like another name on a plaque.
Why did I go to the thrift store? I've lost so much weight from worry that my clothes don't fit me anymore. Another pound this week! It was half price day at the thrift store, and I got a pair of jeans. Change I can believe in.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
13 minute vent
I have influenza. It sucks.
I've been sitting around covered with a blanket for three days and don't feel much better.
I made some doctor appointments just because I had some time on my hands.
One of the doctors has gone online. It took me 45 minutes to fill out their online form.
Thus using up the battery on my netbook.
I don't like online medicine. Not at all. When it comes to saying, "AHHHHH," I should not need a freaking password with at least one number and one #$@#@$@#$#$.
LOW BATTERY. @#$#@$!!!
I've been sitting around covered with a blanket for three days and don't feel much better.
I made some doctor appointments just because I had some time on my hands.
One of the doctors has gone online. It took me 45 minutes to fill out their online form.
Thus using up the battery on my netbook.
I don't like online medicine. Not at all. When it comes to saying, "AHHHHH," I should not need a freaking password with at least one number and one #$@#@$@#$#$.
LOW BATTERY. @#$#@$!!!
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Boxing without Referee: Promised Land
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," proudly replacing Roger Ebert as the premiere film reviewer of modern America! Why, yes, film-goer! About twice a year you can come to this site and find a fabulous movie to attend. Or not.
A few weeks ago I went to see "Lincoln." The theater was crowded, and the sound was so low I was worried that I was losing my hearing. But I digress. Before the showing of "Lincoln," one of the eight previews was for a film called "Promised Land." If Hal Holbrook and that cute guy from "Office" are in it, and it's filmed in Pennsylvania, and it's about fracking, I'll suffer through Matt Damon.
Last night Mr. J and I went to see "Promised Land." And take it from someone who despises the entire idea of hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus Shale in rural areas of Pennsylvania: This film stinks.
They say that the documentary "Gas Land" is slanted. Well, there's slanted, and there's horizontal. I don't think I have ever sat through a more poorly-acted, completely unbalanced, and shamelessly overdone piece of propaganda -- and I vividly remember Mel Gibson in "The River."
Mr. J and I would have been better served to stay home and watch the "Pawn Stars" marathon.
I'm going to spoil this movie rotten so you won't waste your precious ducats on it. Matt Damon and Frances McDormand are two egg-sucking corporate scoundrels sent into a bucolic hamlet somewhere in a part of Pennsylvania that looks absolutely nothing like the many parts of Pennsylvania I've seen. Must be in the north somewhere. It's their job to sign up dumb yokels (if it's rural, there have to be yokels, right?) for rights to frack the land.
Enter the noble Hal Holbrook who, in this film, has all kinds of fancy engineering degrees from places like Columbia and Yale. Except now, doddering though he is, he's teaching science at the run-down high school. Noble Hal leads a group of stalwart farmers who cleave to the land ... and urges some kind of "vote" on the issue.
Then enters the young cutie from "The Office." As befits a blogger, I know that his name is John Krazinski because I just asked Spare, but she couldn't spell it off the top of her head, so. Okay. This is a blog. Spelling doesn't count.
John is an environmentalist who has a small little outfit called "Athena." (Readers, trust me on this. Athena did not sign off on this use of Her name.) He takes some hush money from ravenous Matt and Frances, and then he uses it to make signs with dead cows. "Say No to Global."
Ah, "Global." The New World Order come to wreck the Pennsylvania hinterlands.
Spoiler non-alert. John the environmentalist turns out to be yet another pawn in the game of life, sent by Global Gas Galacticus, LL.C. to support clueless Matt and Frances in a sneaky way. In the end, Matt turns hero and tells the town to vote down gas drilling. Exit into sunset with a local gal who came home to her beloved family farm.
For my money, even this gal's farm vista didn't do Pennsylvania proud. Where was this turkey filmed?
Fracking is very controversial, and there are plenty of Pennsylvanians already who gladly go to hearings and lectures to show pictures of their wasteland properties and tell stories of their personal woes. There are also economists who use their economist smartness to show that all the jobs being promised to rural areas are temporary in nature: Once the wells are drilled, the drillers move on. Evidence is abundant and growing to prove that the process is faulty and extremely poisonous even on its good days.
(When a couple of gas company geeks tried to hold a Town Hall meeting in the township where my dear former farm was located, they drew a standing-room, well-informed crowd who promptly booed their PowerPoint presentation and told them to toddle. There will be no fracking in or near Artemas, PA 17211.)
So, why would presumably smart actors like Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, and Hal Holbrook sign up for such a piss-poor two hours of treacle? How can you make a film about fracking without a single shot of a gas pipeline or drilling rig? There are plenty in Pennsy just now.
I dunno. But viewer, if you drop your ducats on this flop, be forewarned. It's you that's the chump, not the poor yokels of Who-Knows-Where, PA.
The proof is in the producing. "Promised Land" was financed by Imagenation Abu Dhabi. Like, seriously. I am not making this up. Even the Joker and the Penguin aren't this duplicitous.
So a movie bashing fracking, and doing so with a monumental propagandizing stupidity, was financed by our finest supplier of overseas crude oil. Priceless.
I'm surprised Massey Coal didn't send in a stipend.
Long sermon short, it's always refreshing to see one despoiler of the environment try to knock off another despoiler of the environment. Free advice? Use less energy, beginning with saving the gas it would take you to drive to the theater to see "Promised Land."
A few weeks ago I went to see "Lincoln." The theater was crowded, and the sound was so low I was worried that I was losing my hearing. But I digress. Before the showing of "Lincoln," one of the eight previews was for a film called "Promised Land." If Hal Holbrook and that cute guy from "Office" are in it, and it's filmed in Pennsylvania, and it's about fracking, I'll suffer through Matt Damon.
Last night Mr. J and I went to see "Promised Land." And take it from someone who despises the entire idea of hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus Shale in rural areas of Pennsylvania: This film stinks.
They say that the documentary "Gas Land" is slanted. Well, there's slanted, and there's horizontal. I don't think I have ever sat through a more poorly-acted, completely unbalanced, and shamelessly overdone piece of propaganda -- and I vividly remember Mel Gibson in "The River."
Mr. J and I would have been better served to stay home and watch the "Pawn Stars" marathon.
I'm going to spoil this movie rotten so you won't waste your precious ducats on it. Matt Damon and Frances McDormand are two egg-sucking corporate scoundrels sent into a bucolic hamlet somewhere in a part of Pennsylvania that looks absolutely nothing like the many parts of Pennsylvania I've seen. Must be in the north somewhere. It's their job to sign up dumb yokels (if it's rural, there have to be yokels, right?) for rights to frack the land.
Enter the noble Hal Holbrook who, in this film, has all kinds of fancy engineering degrees from places like Columbia and Yale. Except now, doddering though he is, he's teaching science at the run-down high school. Noble Hal leads a group of stalwart farmers who cleave to the land ... and urges some kind of "vote" on the issue.
Then enters the young cutie from "The Office." As befits a blogger, I know that his name is John Krazinski because I just asked Spare, but she couldn't spell it off the top of her head, so. Okay. This is a blog. Spelling doesn't count.
John is an environmentalist who has a small little outfit called "Athena." (Readers, trust me on this. Athena did not sign off on this use of Her name.) He takes some hush money from ravenous Matt and Frances, and then he uses it to make signs with dead cows. "Say No to Global."
Ah, "Global." The New World Order come to wreck the Pennsylvania hinterlands.
Spoiler non-alert. John the environmentalist turns out to be yet another pawn in the game of life, sent by Global Gas Galacticus, LL.C. to support clueless Matt and Frances in a sneaky way. In the end, Matt turns hero and tells the town to vote down gas drilling. Exit into sunset with a local gal who came home to her beloved family farm.
For my money, even this gal's farm vista didn't do Pennsylvania proud. Where was this turkey filmed?
Fracking is very controversial, and there are plenty of Pennsylvanians already who gladly go to hearings and lectures to show pictures of their wasteland properties and tell stories of their personal woes. There are also economists who use their economist smartness to show that all the jobs being promised to rural areas are temporary in nature: Once the wells are drilled, the drillers move on. Evidence is abundant and growing to prove that the process is faulty and extremely poisonous even on its good days.
(When a couple of gas company geeks tried to hold a Town Hall meeting in the township where my dear former farm was located, they drew a standing-room, well-informed crowd who promptly booed their PowerPoint presentation and told them to toddle. There will be no fracking in or near Artemas, PA 17211.)
So, why would presumably smart actors like Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, and Hal Holbrook sign up for such a piss-poor two hours of treacle? How can you make a film about fracking without a single shot of a gas pipeline or drilling rig? There are plenty in Pennsy just now.
I dunno. But viewer, if you drop your ducats on this flop, be forewarned. It's you that's the chump, not the poor yokels of Who-Knows-Where, PA.
The proof is in the producing. "Promised Land" was financed by Imagenation Abu Dhabi. Like, seriously. I am not making this up. Even the Joker and the Penguin aren't this duplicitous.
So a movie bashing fracking, and doing so with a monumental propagandizing stupidity, was financed by our finest supplier of overseas crude oil. Priceless.
I'm surprised Massey Coal didn't send in a stipend.
Long sermon short, it's always refreshing to see one despoiler of the environment try to knock off another despoiler of the environment. Free advice? Use less energy, beginning with saving the gas it would take you to drive to the theater to see "Promised Land."
Friday, January 11, 2013
Worried Sick
Some things are so ancient that we forget why and how they came about. One of these things, I think, must be the concept of being "worried sick."
When you're "worried sick" about something, or more than one thing, you lose your appetite. In the worst cases, you just can't eat at all. I've experienced a great deal of this over the past six months, and it is now moving into a new year with the pangs still firmly in place.
Could there be a reason, known to the bored gods but not the busy one, why people worry themselves sick?
Imagine that the tribe has fallen upon hard times, and there's not enough food for your children. Perhaps you're insecure because your loved ones are dying, or being killed, or deserting. It makes sense, in this situation, for you to shut down your own metabolism so that your offspring will have more resources at their disposal.
This is psychologically-based, of course. Logic would dictate that you remain powerful by eating and exercising and getting lots of sleep ... the better to help your tribe. But self-sacrifice is also logical. It's logical and admired.
Many religions have periods of fasting and feasting. When times are bad, the fasts last longer and the feasts are cancelled or scaled back. I've polled the bored gods, and they say that they are every bit as impressed by people who fast and deprive themselves as they are by people who chow down and throw big parties.
People who don't worry themselves sick will tell you that such worry shortens your life. Yes, I imagine that it does. But in the Old Days, you would have been more willing to get out of the way for the next generation, if the going was tough. At least that's how I look at it.
This cheerful little essay has no uplifting message or happy zinger at the end of it. I know I shouldn't worry myself sick. I just wish I knew how to put the brakes on it. Maybe you can suggest a good bored deity for such issues?
When you're "worried sick" about something, or more than one thing, you lose your appetite. In the worst cases, you just can't eat at all. I've experienced a great deal of this over the past six months, and it is now moving into a new year with the pangs still firmly in place.
Could there be a reason, known to the bored gods but not the busy one, why people worry themselves sick?
Imagine that the tribe has fallen upon hard times, and there's not enough food for your children. Perhaps you're insecure because your loved ones are dying, or being killed, or deserting. It makes sense, in this situation, for you to shut down your own metabolism so that your offspring will have more resources at their disposal.
This is psychologically-based, of course. Logic would dictate that you remain powerful by eating and exercising and getting lots of sleep ... the better to help your tribe. But self-sacrifice is also logical. It's logical and admired.
Many religions have periods of fasting and feasting. When times are bad, the fasts last longer and the feasts are cancelled or scaled back. I've polled the bored gods, and they say that they are every bit as impressed by people who fast and deprive themselves as they are by people who chow down and throw big parties.
People who don't worry themselves sick will tell you that such worry shortens your life. Yes, I imagine that it does. But in the Old Days, you would have been more willing to get out of the way for the next generation, if the going was tough. At least that's how I look at it.
This cheerful little essay has no uplifting message or happy zinger at the end of it. I know I shouldn't worry myself sick. I just wish I knew how to put the brakes on it. Maybe you can suggest a good bored deity for such issues?
Monday, January 07, 2013
Free Advice on Dating and Other Matters of Love
Look here. I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm quietly happy. But it still is baffling. Perhaps the work of a jealous bored Goddess.
My two beautiful daughters are unlucky in love.
Spare had attracted the attention of a young lad she met during her first term in college. I figured she would be dating seriously by this time in her college career, seeing as how she hadn't had a real boyfriend since early high school.
Wouldn't you know. She had one formal date with the lad, and two days later he has given her the gentle heave-ho.
Well, there you are. I mean to say, this is not such bad news for a parent who is shelling out ducats on college tuition. However, to Spare it is distressing. I had to pull her bodily out of the kitchen before she began to rage-cook a turkey dinner.
No daughter wants to hear from her mom that the best of all possible worlds is to work hard and make a place for yourself in the world before you turn a batting eyelash upon a likely lad. But that is the free parental advice I dole out to both of my young daughters.
This is the boring kind of blah blah blah you can expect from a mother. Goes in one ear, out the other.
Spare has gone to the home of a chum to bury herself in Chinese food and talk down the opposite gender. I'm sitting here with my dear cat, Alpha, who -- after giving us a holiday scare -- seems to have come back into her wits.
It can't hurt to ask a cat for dating advice. Why not? Alpha was towing a kitten through the dumpster when she was rescued by a crazy cat lady.
Anne: Alpha. What's your advice for finding true love?
Alpha: Don't think about it at all until you go into heat. Then, any tomcat will do.
Ahem. Thanks, Alpha. Sound advice ... if you're a cat. I'm glad I asked you, and not Spare!
Free advice on matters of love? Spay or neuter your pet.
Have a nice day!
My two beautiful daughters are unlucky in love.
Spare had attracted the attention of a young lad she met during her first term in college. I figured she would be dating seriously by this time in her college career, seeing as how she hadn't had a real boyfriend since early high school.
Wouldn't you know. She had one formal date with the lad, and two days later he has given her the gentle heave-ho.
Well, there you are. I mean to say, this is not such bad news for a parent who is shelling out ducats on college tuition. However, to Spare it is distressing. I had to pull her bodily out of the kitchen before she began to rage-cook a turkey dinner.
No daughter wants to hear from her mom that the best of all possible worlds is to work hard and make a place for yourself in the world before you turn a batting eyelash upon a likely lad. But that is the free parental advice I dole out to both of my young daughters.
This is the boring kind of blah blah blah you can expect from a mother. Goes in one ear, out the other.
Spare has gone to the home of a chum to bury herself in Chinese food and talk down the opposite gender. I'm sitting here with my dear cat, Alpha, who -- after giving us a holiday scare -- seems to have come back into her wits.
It can't hurt to ask a cat for dating advice. Why not? Alpha was towing a kitten through the dumpster when she was rescued by a crazy cat lady.
Anne: Alpha. What's your advice for finding true love?
Alpha: Don't think about it at all until you go into heat. Then, any tomcat will do.
Ahem. Thanks, Alpha. Sound advice ... if you're a cat. I'm glad I asked you, and not Spare!
Free advice on matters of love? Spay or neuter your pet.
Have a nice day!
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Transcendental Mummitation
Don't know about you, but I just can't meditate. They say nervous people have trouble meditating, and I'm nervous. I've tried many times, with various praise and worship options, to meditate quietly for transcendant purposes. Epic fail.
This doesn't mean that I can't have moments of transcendance. There are whole, wonderful varieties of meditation that are simply great for nervous people. You totally leave yourself behind and completely live in the moment -- joyous and at peace.
If you don't think that dressing up in a very fancy costume and dancing, wildly, to bring joy and awe to others is meditation, well. Who the heck are you, and what closet have you been hiding in?
All the best and brightest deities, including the Busy God, include singing and dancing in Their rituals. Archeologists have found unspeakably ancient flutes carved from animal horns. And let me tell you from a vast trove of personal experience: You can make almost anything into a drum. You don't even need a "thing" in the first place! You can snap your fingers or pat your lap with your hands!
(Don't get me started on tap dancing. It's drumming with your feet, and I know how to do it.)
I respectfully submit that, for every person who has sat quietly, grounded, centered, and breathing, there is a person who has leaped around laughing and singing and winding up with the same results. Just as there is more than one route between Detroit and Tampa, there is more than one route to transcendance.
Oh, I am boing myself to tears here! Come on, ladies, let's strut!
It is simply wonderful to strut up Philadelphia's Broad Street on New Year's morning, dancing with spectators and flinging beads to wide-eyed tots. There's a sense of camaraderie within your group, and a feeling of oneness with the people on the sidewalk.
All of this preaching stems from the fact that I can't yet find a YouTube of our Two Street Stompers Comic Brigade 2013 routine. I'll fling it up here as soon as I can. I may fling a few more routines from other clubs at you as well, because the whole idea is to get you laughing.
Laugh. Dance. Strut. Shine. This is pleasing to the deities, bored and otherwise!
(PS - If you are a calm and quiet person, this means of transcendental meditation might be an epic fail for you. Free advice to you? Ground, center, breathe.)
This doesn't mean that I can't have moments of transcendance. There are whole, wonderful varieties of meditation that are simply great for nervous people. You totally leave yourself behind and completely live in the moment -- joyous and at peace.
If you don't think that dressing up in a very fancy costume and dancing, wildly, to bring joy and awe to others is meditation, well. Who the heck are you, and what closet have you been hiding in?
All the best and brightest deities, including the Busy God, include singing and dancing in Their rituals. Archeologists have found unspeakably ancient flutes carved from animal horns. And let me tell you from a vast trove of personal experience: You can make almost anything into a drum. You don't even need a "thing" in the first place! You can snap your fingers or pat your lap with your hands!
(Don't get me started on tap dancing. It's drumming with your feet, and I know how to do it.)
I respectfully submit that, for every person who has sat quietly, grounded, centered, and breathing, there is a person who has leaped around laughing and singing and winding up with the same results. Just as there is more than one route between Detroit and Tampa, there is more than one route to transcendance.
Oh, I am boing myself to tears here! Come on, ladies, let's strut!
It is simply wonderful to strut up Philadelphia's Broad Street on New Year's morning, dancing with spectators and flinging beads to wide-eyed tots. There's a sense of camaraderie within your group, and a feeling of oneness with the people on the sidewalk.
All of this preaching stems from the fact that I can't yet find a YouTube of our Two Street Stompers Comic Brigade 2013 routine. I'll fling it up here as soon as I can. I may fling a few more routines from other clubs at you as well, because the whole idea is to get you laughing.
Laugh. Dance. Strut. Shine. This is pleasing to the deities, bored and otherwise!
(PS - If you are a calm and quiet person, this means of transcendental meditation might be an epic fail for you. Free advice to you? Ground, center, breathe.)
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