Generalisms are Clever

“Just goes to prove, women can’t drive!”

As you can imagine, I didn’t take kindly to that comment, uttered halfway through my shoveling of the 2 feet deep snow from the 10-foot length of driveway. This woman takes cares of things and does a damn good job. I wasn’t actually the target of the comment; although, I did catch the rebounding shrapnel from it, as did half of the American population. The deduction capabilities of the insulting grisly old man had much to be desired. (“Young” versus “Girl”? Let’s blame it on gender…) The car stuck in the 3-foot bank of snow was obviously the result of the lack of experience. The teenager driving the auto had had a license for less than a year and was experiencing her first snowfall with significant accumulation. Imagine…she didn’t know the tricks of handling the car in that setting! Shocking? That old man better never leave upstate NY, or he will quickly learn how inexperience and bad weather shouldn’t, but often DO mix…

My 6-year-old and I drove from Rochester, NY to Columbus OH two days later. The 6 hour 45 minute trip took just under 10 hours. Of course there were driving winds, slush, and beating freezing rain to contend with. Oh, and accidents so fresh on every highway that I traveled on that most of them did not have emergency personnel present yet…rather, only lights in the distance. And then, they started closing off parts of the road (although, a couple of us drove across the median to avoid the queue…I’m not implicating anyone in particular though.) And then 20 miles down that expressway, all the entrance ramps were blocked and cops corralled us off the road. I took a gamble with the first road that said south…a local road, but still ended up sitting for 30 minutes from another 3-car pileup. With a bit of direction, I found a connecting interstate that did minimal damage to lengthening my trip and soon it was just the truckers and I. Well, we did pass a sheriff at one point. And with such open road, despite pounding rain, I started to grip the steering wheel with less of an iron grasp. And just when my tensed back muscles started to let go a little, we came across another pileup—which included a lorry, and the car’s tires crunched as we passed the accident scene and the resulting shrapnel. Fear of blowing a tire in combination with the icy road surface had me sufficiently tensed for the rest of the journey. Nearly 2-dozen accidents from the start of our journey later, we arrived to our destination.

Wait, I forgot, I can’t drive.

*British female voice* "Hello. Your call cannot be taken at the moment and you cannot leave a message"

Wow. Well that doesn't leave me with many options, now does it. Call back again sure...[presses in the 12 numbers required to dial international numbers, again, an hour later]....same thing. Well, I guess that rules out the call-back option, too.

Am I being sensitive, or would you say I was being given the V-sign, the English equivalent of the middle finger, generally accompanied by "Fuck-off"? What if I also told you that the reason for the call was regarding a visa I applied for (including paying a $430 fee) 1 YEAR ago but have not even been considered for, due to technical issues with their application process? That this phone call was one in a bucket of phone calls (some at $3.00/minute), emails, visits to the Consulate (with travel costs totaling more than $1000) and faxes made over the past YEAR in an attempt to resolve this issue?

Well, good job to the British government for minimizing the immigrating and visiting riff raff, including those small business owners with PhD qualifications in science. I am feeling more than disheartened; I am feeling exhausted from the battle.

Love 0 points; British government 10 points.

Peace

One of the salient and sad aspects of the McCain-Palin campaign focused on presenting Obama as Muslim. (Recall chants of "McCain not Hussein!" at rallies for instance.) Millions of people in the world are proud to be Muslim, but here in the US, certain factions consider calling a person "Muslim" a way of name-calling. The reason? There is a negative connotation associated with "Muslim", an association with terrorist activities, for example. I find this to be very strange, given the long history of war and even terrorist activity associated with almost all religions, notably Catholicism.

As was aptly put by a professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University in Washington:

“Certainly we cannot claim that violence is the monopoly of only one religion.”

Truly any large group of people, regardless of where they live in the world, their ethnicity, or who they call god, will harbor a small extreme faction prone to violence. We cannot judge any group solely by their fringe faction(s) or we will find that we will be forced to bring judgment on ourselves as well.

Cheers to Americans!!!

I feel proud to be an American. Americans have come together and demonstrated that collectively we are beyond prejudice, that we will elect the right man for president, whether he is black or white. And I have never seen anyone who is so obviously the right man for president. President-elect Barack Obama is a brilliant, steady-handed, inspirational leader who has consistently made decisions out of principle, not ease or self-benefit. I will spend the next four years in tears, because even as early as the Democratic Convention speech in 2004, his words resonate with me so completely that I often tear up with happiness that he so completely "gets it."

Strange

Noel opened her eyes and told me straight away this morning:
"I wish I was allowed to call you 'Turkey' instead of 'Mommy.'"

There's some brilliance in there somewhere...I just can't put my finger on it. ;)

Noel told me tonight...

If you were at a shop,

I would buy you.

*heart warms*

McCain, please tell me,

Is recruiting Sarah Palin your best example of good decision making?

Can we expect more people of this quality in your dream US administration?

Debate Resuls

The results of the debate are in!!

Six-year-old Americans resoundingly support Barack Obama...I know because my daughter tallied the data:

And I quote...

*eyeslids shut*, a whisper is uttered...
"But first of all, before I get ready,

I DON"T WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL."

And there's the Monday morning blues.

Generation Gap

When posited the question, "What is the difference between texting and emailing on your phone?"
My Mom quickly replied, "In emails the words are spelled out."

In contrast, the wisdom of today's technology has filtered down to my 6-year-old. Any unknown. No worries, she'll point ya in the right direction. "Google it," she instructs.

Change?

I love the current Republican platform. "Change." Seriously? If that's what a voter is going for, then why vote for the same party that has screwed up our economy and foreign policy for the last 8 years?

Burning Question

I would truly appreciate some good advice on how to get a ticket to attend the upcoming presidential debates. I have a burning question. I have many misgivings about McCain, not least of which is his involvement in the Keating 5 scandal. I truly desire an opportunity to ask him what his involvement was, as I strongly feel that we need to have a president that we can trust with our currently fragile economy. The following is the current draft of the question that I would like to ask Senator McCain.

"In a time of economic crises for many Americans, I would like to know how we can trust you, Senator McCain, who was one of the Keating 5 of the 1989 Savings and Loan scandal with the American budget (put deeper into dept than ever during the Bush administration) or Governor Palin, who unlike the rest of the 49 States has had to "deal" with a 5 billion dollar surplus in her budget due to revenue from oil. Senator McCain please explain your involvement in the Keating 5 scandal."

Listeners Wanted

Dear Mr. Obama,

As a doctor (but “not the kind that helps people”) and single-mother who moved to the UK to escape the embarrassingly terrible policies of the Bush regime, I need to thoroughly thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for dedicating your life to public service—a life that I realize cannot be easy. You have provided me for the first time with a candidate that I am supporting because you uphold the principles that I value, and stand for and issues that are key to the wellbeing of the United States, and indeed the world. I feel that you make choices based on what is right, not what is necessarily easy or lucrative. Please continue on that path; please continue to make me proud to be your supporter.

In return, for my birthday I am asking my conservative friends to listen to one of your speeches, and trading favors for the same, as well. Although I generally cringe at books in the “self-help” genre, for my mother-in-law, I will read “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” in exchange for her listening to your Democratic nomination speech. So, please continue to make me proud, indeed even often tearful with your words, and I will do my best to recruit listeners.

All my best,
Rebecca

Fairyland meets internet

Three mornings ago, Noel woke up declaring, "I believe in fairies!!!"


Then, she asked tonight...
"Does peter pan still come to windows?"

And the kicker, she also had a way to sort this out this very critical question, made all the more important because she has decided that she does not want to go grow up.

Even in the 6-year-old world, the all-knowing GOOGLE has made a presence.
She insisted that I get onto the computer and pose the question to google (which she even spelled out for me, just to make sure I got it right.)

We found, "Children will still come to Neverland..." SO, she went to sleep assured that she would have her turn soon.

Thank you, Google. And good night.

Potato Tits

I've been helping out in the kitchen lately. No, no...I'm not saying that I just recently started feeding my 6-year-old, I mean I've been helping out in the SCHOOL kitchen. Along with that comes the oven burns, flour hair, and local stories of other kitchen chefs.

One particular noteworthy one made it impossible for me to stay away from the blog (despite previous months and months of impressive sloth). Try to digest the following....Apparently, one unfortunate day, the head lady of the nearby school set about mashing her potatoes with particular fervor and zeal. In her haste to prepare the lunch, she neglected to don the required, provided apron. In fact, seemingly she must have been in a rush all morning, as she must not have managed to dress in a bra, or for that matter a shirt with coverage, because during the height of mashing her tit fell out into the potatoes. Yes, that's right. Go on re-read it, but it'll still say the same thing.

Now this hasteful woman could have tried to cut her losses and dip the tit in cool water, and get on with the mashing. Instead, she is suing the school for her burn and subsequently has had to produce said burned tit for her male supervisors. Frankly, it makes me wonder if there have been previous kitchen incidents involving head trauma....or maybe it's all down to natural genius?