I have two motto's- 1. Live life to the fullest; and 2. don't have any regrets. I'm married to a wonderful man, and I work as an ER nurse. I enjoy my garden, good music, photography, cooking great meals and having a good time with my friends, oh, and I really love reptiles.
This is a piece of news which I only heard about through The Plural Of Apocalypse list of the "New of the Apocalyptic sort," which she does periodically.
Onto the news (insert old-timey clickity clack of newswires here):
Miss Deaf Texas was text messaging parents before accident
AUSTIN (AP) — Miss Deaf Texas was walking just a foot away from the train tracks on her way to her mother’s workplace when she was struck and killed by a passing Union Pacific train.
While she was walking, Tara McAvoy, 18, was text messaging on her cell phone last week to her parents, who are also hearing impaired. Police said McAvoy was likely distracted before she was hit by the snowplow on the front of a 65-car Union Pacific train. She died at the scene.
“As the train approached, they sounded the horn and got no response,”
A railroad spokesman said that the accident underscores the danger of walking anywhere near railroad tracks.
“It’s not safe to be there,” said Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis.
McAvoy graduated from the
~~
Understandably InsaneIs it weird that I have something like five projects all going at once and yet I want to learn to a) etch glass and b) weld for purposes of metal sculpture?
And where do all the people go to sell their used big expensive art supplies when the muse disappears? I want to go there.
And yet I have no actually demonstrated artistic talent.
Meh.
Well, okay not so much.
But I've got another burr under my saddle and it's this:
Smoking is bad for your health and costly to society, no question.
TV shows and movies routinely get harangued for showing smoking in a positive light.
Remember when Winona Ryder was being lambasted for smoking in all of her movies? The poor thing had to resort to shoplifting to relieve the stress.
The pilot of Desperate Housewives got more hate mail for Eva Longoria's lighting up a cigarette after sleeping with a high-school aged gardener than for sleeping with the high-school aged gardener.
Okay, fine. Keep up the ads. Kids, please don't smoke. Eva and Winona should also stop, not because they are role models but because it's going to hurt them physically.
But why is it that in nearly every sitcom these days everyone is guzzling alcohol.
Case in point: What I Like About You. I don't particularly like this show but my lovely wife does. It's on the WB before Reba which we both enjoy watching. Watch it sometime. Every single scene has alcohol in it. Trust me on this one. Do you think Amanda Bynes was all cross-eyed before this show? No, it's because she's constantly drunk on the show. Oh and underaged to boot. And Jennie Garth (the oldest living high schooler in the 90210 area code many years ago)'s character arc is based on the premise that she got so totally drunk that she married a guy during an alcoholic blackout.
Reba's show is better but they consume a lot of beer in a house where the daughter is a saucy young alcoholic.
Maybe it's because I don't drink alcohol (I've too much of an addictive personality and it does nothing for my girlish figure) but this seems like a huge double standard.
Tobacco is addictive and causes cancer. Yet alcohol can also be addictive and causes 17,000+ driving related fatalities per year. That's just driving.
Watching Will and Grace leads me to believe that the age of the good-natured and loveable drunk (Karen) is finally back after a hiatus during the 70's and 80's. Maybe we can bring back other old favorites: the loveable wife-beater, the happy go lucky shoplifter, the white supremacist with the heart of gold. Oh wait, I have one: performers in black-face tap dancing.
But then folks would write letters of condemnation. Better to have a bunch of happy drunks. Apparently the Salvation Army has no propoganda General. At least they still have their sniper corps.
Word to the wise: Don't let anyone on Will and Grace drive you home. 'Sall I'm sayin'.
Cheez… all this ranting lately. Perhaps I need a drink.
~~~
Click on my renter: Gidget Bones. Really, you'll be glad you did.
I love malapropisms.
I love to say the word 'malapropism.'
Malapropism
Malapropism
Malapropism
Malapropism
It's even fun to type. Try it.
Also try slipping these lovely words into your next cocktail party, business meeting, or anti-technology manifesto:
When folks use words incorrectly it often leads to a disastrophy.
If several folks use words incorrectly it could cause wide-spread pandalerium.
I can't count how many times I've had callers who wished to be unanimous.
Once a lady told me her neighbors were trying to use her as an
escape goat.
A weight loss surgery patient on a WLS board my wife frequents complained of a high anal hernia (yeow!)
Actually there is a Bill Clinton joke in there somewhere.
I don’t expect greatness out of James Patterson but I do expect a good time. This book is like a lovely TV movie: not too much brain power required and a fun diversion. I recommend this book for only that reason.
Yet one thing just goes screeeeeeee like fingernails on a cheese grater for me: product placement. The main character refers to her cellular phone repeatedly and exclusively as her 'Nextel.'
Okey dokey. Let's review:
1. Nextel is not a brand of phone. Nextel used to be a wireless communications company and now it is part of Sprint. They were the first (and maybe only, I don’t frankly care) company to integrate digital cellular phone service, two way radio, and text/voice paging. In this and only in this way there is such a thing as a "Nextel" phone.
2. The actual Nextel phones are made by our friends at Motorola and Blackberry.
So why use the term Nextel without even mentioning that it's a freaking cellphone?
I can think of many reasons why not:
1. Twenty years from now there might not be a Nextel. Shoot, it's already part of Sprint so in twenty minutes there might not be a Nextel.
2. It automatically dates your book. Why refer to a specific brand name?
And the reason why:
Someone is getting paid to endorse this product in a book by a Best Selling Author.
Will I someday read my kids the story of the eternal war between arachnid and child only to have them see a picture of the lovely Ms. Muffet eating from a tub of Lucerne Cottage Cheese?
Will the baby bear have a bed that is "just right" because it's a Sealy Posturepedic?
Does this really happen?
Tell me a story.
Oh and go get a Carl Hiaasen book, you'll be glad you did.
A: Nothin', you done told her twice.
There are two types of calls which I am particularly passionate about: mental health consumer calls and domestic violence calls.
Mental illness another time, today the topic is DV.
I've always liked telling women to leave their abusive men. It seldom works but at least it gets them thinking. Victims of domestic violence who end up on the phone with me usually are not thinking all that clearly due to whatever recent indignity to which they have been subjected.
My job is pretty simple: get them help in the form of immediate safety and documentation. Once the information I need for this task has been collected sometimes I get to enter the bonus round. This is where the victim and I just talk.
It usually consists of a little rundown of the living situation: Any kids? Married, living together, or just dating? Family or close friends the victim can stay with? History of the abusive behavior. The basics.
Then the tack I take is always this:
1. If you are not safe in your current situation, you need to go someplace safe.
2. These things usually escalate. No matter how "sorry" the abuser is, it's going to happen again.
3. A restraining order is a great tool with which to arrest the abuser if it is violated later but it will not actually protect a victim. It's just a piece of paper. See rule number 1.
I'm absolutely shameless. I have no problem laying a huge guilt trip on folks. "If not for yourself, then for your kids. Are you going to wait around until one of them gets hurt? Do you want them to grow up without a mother? Did you know children of domestic violence abusers are 20 times more likely to abuse their partners?"
And I almost never get to talk to someone the first time they get hit. Maybe you and your loved one have had some knockdown drag-out fights and maybe you've survived to old age together with great regret. The calls I get are the victim who has been abused mentally longer and more frequently than physically but usually physically several times before ever calling for help.
The worst is when the kids call and the parents are fighting in the background. Your heart just breaks because the kids are usually 6-12 years old and profoundly scared. Their whole world, such that it is, is bad and they know it's not going to change for the better any time soon.
That's the truth too. When the police come it's not going to turn out all happy. One of the parents is usually going to jail. If that's mommy or daddy it's going to hurt, even if they know it's the best thing.
The other parent will often be at the jail later that night to bail them out. That's a tragic truth. Change is hard. Maybe the abuser is the only bread-winner. Many times, as the result in the abusive relationship, the victim doesn’t have any close friends. What else do they know? How are they going to get along by themselves? If they don't bail their abuser out it's only going to be worse when he eventually gets out of jail. It's bound to come up at dinner later.
Getting someone to go to a shelter is the hardest. No one wants to be in a shelter. It's admitting defeat and opening up your private business to complete strangers. It's a tough sell. Yet it does fulfill rule number 1: a safe place.
I'd guess that in ten years and talking to hundreds of domestic violence victims I've only actually made a difference half a dozen times. Maybe less. Yet it's immensely satisfying to have pushed someone in a safe direction, even if they drift back into danger sooner or later.
What I haven’t figured out is how to get more folks to call. Do you have any idea how many gays and lesbians are in physically abusive relationships? Neither do I because they are less likely to call. It seems like there are a disproportionate amount of physically abusive lesbian relationships but I have not done any scientific studies. If one feels oppressed by society one is not likely to call the government to help.
Ditto victims who have very little ability to speak English, victims who come from cultures which are very patriarchal, and victims who are disabled.
And one thing I try to remember and try to impress upon my recruits is that it will only take one bad experience to sour the whole relationship. If a victim calls for help and doesn’t get it, they are not going to call back.
Those victims and their kids are in for a world of hurt.
If you are reading this and are being physically abused, get out. Not "soon" -- now. You didn't ask for it and there are no "good reasons" to abuse someone. No amount of being sorry can fix it and next time it will be worse. Do you want to get killed in front of your kids? Do you? And if you won't do it for yourself or your kids then do it for me; I'm going to worry about you if you are not in a safe place tonight.
I told you I was shameless.
~~
Photos:
This week's tenant is Unsettled.
Go check her blog out. It's great.
No really, go.
Now.
Suggest a satellite television service, ask her how she liked the movie Crash, comment on her hair, whatever tickles your fancy.
Tell her what you think then come back and tell me what you thought.
Or someink.
