Sept 19, 2002
11:35 am

*Sigh*  I'm so blissfully happy this morning.  It's funny how one little insignificant thing can turn your whole approach to life around.  Nah, we're still poverty-stricken with few prospects beyond eating cold beans from a can around a barrel fire with a bunch of smelly elderly gentlemen with suspect bathing habits.  But check this out:

September 5th was my birthday, which came and went with little fanfare, which was fine by me.  I was turning a ripe old 41 and was pretty much content to let it ride out.  I was SUPPOSED to go to LA for the GH Fan Weekend as my present, but if you go back to the week of Friday, August 23rd, you'll see how THAT went.  Once that wasn't happening, birthday just sort of slid off the radar.  My sweet buddy, Erick (not my hubby, Eric, but a dear friend of ours), brought me a wonderful box of goodies like some fab massage oil and tealights and other cool stuffs.  My girlfriend Georgia, got me this MAGNIFICENT pig that weighs about 14 tons (I have it on top of my desk and I think the desk is bowing under its weight). 

click me

When she gave him to me (AND she took me out to lunch!!!  Nummy!), she said, "Does he look just so cheeched or WHAT?"  LOL  Lordy, I love her.  

Then, my sweetiepal, Jennifer, got me this beautiful butterfly candle holder:

click me

She said she saw it and thought of me.  (*sniff*)

I start my birthday campaigns with the family about 2 weeks ahead of time cause god knows they aren't going to remember otherwise.  I didn't say anything for a couple of days because we were pretty caught up in the heat of Eric's job going away and all that entailed.  I invited David (my son) over for dinner, made a nice meal of boneless, skinless chicken, potatoes, veggies, etc and dammit, not one of them remembered!  Not Eric, not Josh (other son) and not David.   My oldest son, Joe, remembered and called me and it's always a total joy to talk to him and we had a great chat.  My MOM even remembered and called me and she NEVER remembers until the week after, then feels bad and hurries to call me and pretends like all two of the circuits between Kentucky and California were busy the whole week and she couldn't get through.  I dragged home this 14 ton pig from my lunch with Georgia and Eric still didn't have a clue.  I was good with it and preferred not to bother him about it since he already had so much on his mind.  It was perfectly fine with me to just let this one ease off the grid...until 11:50 that night.  He was going to be "a porch monkey" that night, which means that he sits on our Not From Sharper Image resin chairs on the front porch, smokes his pipe and thinks deep thoughts, trying to understand and unravel the mysteries of the Universe.  I've never seen another human who can "think" as much as he does.  I think it's possible he's really sleeping with his eyes open and pretending he's thinking.  He contemplates mysteries like "Why do humans still have hair on their arms" and other Straight Dope related questions.  Anyway, he came in to tell me he was going to be a while longer and gave me a hug and I said, "Honey, you've got 10 minutes to wish me a happy birthday!"  He said, "Aww.  You're right. What do you want to do?"  I said, "Do for what?"  He said, "For your birthday."  I said, "Whatever it is, we'll have to do it in ten minutes." (I had some ideas for how to spend that 10 minutes, actually - wink)  He looked slightly stricken and said, "It was today?"  "Yep."  "Oh honey, I thought it was tomorrow.  I'm sorry."  He gave me a big hug and said, "I will be in really soon.  I just want to be a porch monkey for a little while longer."  And that was that.  He patted me on the head, returned to the land of The Mysteries of the Universe and I went to sleep.   To his credit, he felt guilty enough that he let me lay around in bed all the next day and be a bag of potatoes and made me hamburgers and french fries that night.  That was golden in and of itself.  

Eric and I gave up on buying each other presents when we first got married.  We don't much celebrate our anniversary or Valentines Day, choosing instead to just go out to lunch alone and maybe take in a movie on those days.  On Mothers Day and Fathers Day, we'll have a picnic in the park or do something with the kids.  On birthdays and Christmas, we pull out $100 or so from the budget and "go shopping," picking out things we want, but would never dream of spending that much money on if it was a normal day.  Since this year, that was totally unthinkable, I was lying in wait for the perfect moment.

Today, it came.   Oh yes.  Today, it came.  For no reasonable reason, I was scrounging around on E-bay this morning.  I have no business being on E-bay seein's as how, well, I have no business and therefore, I have no money.  On instinct, I threw in a few key words and like the Holy Grail, glowing in the sky before me, there it lay:

A simple sun, moon and star pendant, you might think??  Oh no.  There is a story...and with Katrina, isn't there always a story.  I am about to proclaim myself the Uncle Remus of our time.  In Idaho in May of 1995, Paul and I had been married for just over a year (the second time, we already had about 15 years behind us on the first time and then 2 years of divorce).  One thing Paul had always despised about me was my Paganism.  It didn't offend him on any kind of spiritual level, for Paul HAD no spiritual level, which, I feel, greatly contributed to his soulless behavior.  It offended him on a purely intellectual and societal level that his wife believed in something that "wasn't there."  When we got back together, one of my conditions was the "like it or shut up about it" speech, so I was granted a little corner of the garage where I could house my books, set up my altar and adorn the walls with my "Witch Crap."  I did.  About a year or so into it, I was feeling the call to find other Pagans, which is a neat trick in Idaho, the heart of the Aryan Nation.  I was doubting my decision to do so and was considering going far back into the broom closet again (possibly even exiting out the trap door in the back) when I went into a little convenience store to buy some gas.  There, on a small display on the counter, in a batch of very nondescript key chains, was one lone pendant and it was the one you see above.  It cost $4.95.  I bought it and as I put it on, I felt the promise of incredible things to come.  I was claiming something very important to me.  It was something precious and integral to who and what I was in this world.  I never again considered not being a Witch and I wore that pendant with pride through all of the madness that was to come in the next year.   I never took it off until I was divorced from Paul again, living here in Sacramento, California, already married to Eric and sitting in Black Angus on Sunrise Blvd in 1998.  We were  waiting for our food to come and Dylan, our first son, was antsy.  I took off the pendant without thinking (don't ask how after 3 years you just take off a pendant without thinking, I just did) and gave it to him to play with.  He was thrilled and reached for it and cooled and laughed and our food came and we ate and went home.  No pendant.  I called the restaurant and they said yes!  They'd found it!  I went in to pick it up the next day and they didn't have it.  It was gone.  No one remembered anything about it, including my call or finding it.  I called that night and talked to our waiter, who the hostess I'd spoken to the previous night said had found it.  He didn't remember us or the pendant.  The hostess did not remember taking my call or the pendant.  It was just gone.  I was sad.

On E-bay this morning...there it was.  The very, exact, absolute same one EVEN on the same type card I'd seen in that gas station years ago in Idaho.  No bids.  Buy it now for $5.95.  A dollar's inflation over 7 years.  A buck for postage.  My birthday present.  I started to cry a little, not just for what it was, but for what it meant.  I took money out of our account (and probably a quarter bag of groceries out of the mouth of my kiddies) and bought it.  It shall be mine.  Oh yes.  It shall be mine.

Here's the kicker.  Last night, I had a real crisis of faith.  Eric has been unemployed for a month now and despite his openness to accepting almost any jobs, he hasn't been hired.  He feels he has a good chance at the e-trade job he interviewed for yesterday (4-10 hour shifts a week, plus overtime and bennies and they pay for your testing and $12 an hour with room to move up), but there were a LOT of people interviewing this week for only 4 positions.  I've also had no call backs.  I've been determined to let my faith "be the rock on which we stand."  I've spent a month refusing to doubt that we will be fine, refusing to believe that The Universe will let us down, being the pep rally for the family, giving the inspirational speeches, debunking his doom and gloom outlook, insisting that we will PREVAIL if we just remain calm and patient, be frugal and act in accord.  Last night, there was nothing left and I allowed myself an hour of sobbing and fear and anger and lashing out.  I really went for it in a big way, complete with wailing, moaning, gnashing of teeth, pulling of chest hairs and pounding on the chest itself (unfortunately for poor Eric, I was wailing and moaning in HIS ears, gnashing HIS teeth and pulling the hair on and pounding on HIS chest - talk about wrong place, wrong time!).  Once I was done, I washed my face, brushed my hair, put on make up and went out of my cave to tell a cringing Eric that I wanted potato skins and by God, I wanted them NOW.  He put on his shoes and took me to The Elephant Bar, the only place in town, perhaps the world, with better skins than I can make myself.  While there, we read Tarot cards and got a good reading.  We met a really awesome guy named Chad who worked there and was also a card reader.  It was a glorious night, funded by Mr Change Jar.  Came home, went to bed and got a bit of sleep, then woke up this morning to find my special pendant and within minutes, have it well on its way to its rightful place on my neck.  I will NOT give it to any of the grandbabies (when any are born and look bored) to play with!  Seeing that pendant showed me that I was forgiven for my lapse in faith and that everything will happen just as I'd hoped or better.  This weekend, the beginning of Mabon and second harvest, will be the result of the turnaround I felt this morning.  That pendant made the clouds part, the sun come out and the Angels sing.  It might have only cost $6.95, but it was worth way more than my usual birthday allowance.  I'm at peace. 

Ahhhh.  Peace=good.

Love,

Sept 18, 2002
11:35 am

LAUGH-IN STAR KILLED IN BRUTAL ATTACK 

If  you see these headlines, you’ll know that I have taken out Goldie Hawn in an act of rage transference.  It was weird.  I was innocently watching “The View” today and the guests were Goldie and Susan Sarrandon, pimping their moving “The Banger Sisters” that opens on Friday.  All was well and good and fine, except that I have a bit of an issue with SS who was a real cow to The View gals the last time she was on because they were daring to talk about frivolous stuff when there are all kinds of atrocities going on in _______ [fill in the name of some obscure country].  She was much more carefree with this interview, so I guess she gets off the evangelical kick and lightens up when there’s more money on the line.  Anyway, while I was watching this, Goldie was wearing what was obviously (I wish they had pics up of it) a satin nightie camisole in dark brown with spaghetti straps.  I realize there are fashion moments and I understand what she was going for, but to me, it looked like she just zipped jeans over whatever she was wearing and headed out.  That pissed me off.  She’s 60 years old and wearing a nightie to be interviewed on The View.  Not only that, but LITERALLY about every 10 seconds, one of the straps would slip off her shoulder and she’d push it back up.  Slip off, push it up.  Slip, push…constantly through the interview.  So now I’m thinking that she’s 60 years old, is richer than God and can’t even wear clothes that will fit.  She was asked what she felt gave her staying power in the industry and she said that it was because she had no fear.  It entered my mind that she must fear the mirror if she let herself go out in such a state that morning.  She and anyone who saw her before she left the house should be beaten.  Sure, I know Goldie has a carefree persona and sure I know everyone, even Goldie, is human, but PLEASE. 

The more pissed I got at Goldie, the more I wondered if I was transferring my anger over the current situation to Goldie.  But then, maybe I’m not.  To test, I went to the place where I keep “the current situation” in my heart and my head and it still felt fine.  I looked in all the inner closets and behind the doors (even the locked ones) and found that I’m still confident it’s all going to work out, still full of faith that we’ll be fine and trusting that we just have to wait a bit longer to find the key to it.  Hubby has been aggressively looking for a job, as have I.  Something has to pan out.  I’m definitely testy today, but I can’t feel it around the situation.  I’m edgy because Eric hasn’t slept the past two nights, so he’s really out of it or sleeping through the day, which leaves me on 24-hour single mom detail.  He kept waking me up to get me to “snore in the opposite direction,” which means I have to turn to my left side and for some reason, I’ve been (for the first time in my life) right side oriented lately, so I roll to it in my sleep.  Nathan has been hitting bed around 9-10pm and I get up around 6am to get Delena out to school, so that leaves me exactly no nonkid time lately.  I feel like I’m going to short circuit.  Maybe that’s what I took out on Goldie.  I've also got both Delena and Dylan out of school today with slight fevers and scratchy throats.  I very much don’t want this to bleed over into my focus on the positive in the Big Situation.  Any of you who’ve had husbands who can’t sleep know that it basically means that YOU don’t sleep either.  I need to find some pampering things to do to recharge my batteries. 

It’s also altogether possible that Goldie was dressed like a $2 Ho on “The View” and that offended me when she has the means to look really cool, even by my lofty standards.  Anyone who knows me, knows that funky doesn’t bother me a bit when it comes to dress.  This did. 

This weekend is the Pagan Pride Day Harvest Festival here in Sac, which is always great fun.  I’m so tremendously excited because on Sunday (it’s a 2 day event), Janet Farrar, one of my favorite Witchy Writers, will be speaking.  It’s going to be jam packed, but I *will* get in there!!  My group is going on Saturday as well.  It’s also fun to go to people watch because you can really see many aspects of Paganism on display.  I love being Pagan, but I really get frustrated with people who are Pagan and treat the religion as though it’s one big Renaissance Faire (it has to always have the “e” on the end, mind you).  These are the folks who, for reasons unknown, lapse into fake British accents in ritual, call themselves odious names such as “Lord LighteningBolt” and “Lady Midnight,” and refuse to clean their cat boxes or houses because they “operate on a plane higher than the physical.”  They bless everyone with love and light, but can’t bless their floors with a little Pine-sol.  

Speaking of evangelical (chuckle).  Sorry. 

Judge Joe Brown has been moved. >:<  It’s now on an hour later, which is when All My Children comes on.  *sigh*  First Judge Mills Lane, now Joe Brown.  I’m stuck with People’s Court and some chick judge.  Where the hell is Judge Wapner?  

Eric has an interview this afternoon for a job as an “e-trader.”  It makes about ½ of what he made at his last job, which is about ½ what he made at his job before that, so I will definitely need to get a job as well or he’ll need a bartending gig.  He’s applied for many, but the placement service for the Bartending College only gives you the name of places that are hiring and then you go jump into the pool of applicants.  He’s also been applying for telecom jobs.  

Josh can walk again (hallelujah) and is being pushed out the door to work as well.  He hasn’t found anything yet, so the whip cracks harder this week.  At this point, our income is Eric’s $200 a month in VA disability and $535 a month in pending food stamps, so I know whatever happens is going to be absolutely spectacular. 

This weekend is Mabon, the beginning of the second harvest (first harvest is Lammas on Aug 1, when the grains and garden veggies come in), when the fruits, berries and nuts begin to harvest.  We see the first harvest (in a nonphysical sense) as the results of your own efforts and the second harvest as the gifts from Heaven, since the fruits, berries and nuts would grow and harvest without our assistance if left in the wild, whereas the garden foods and grains require our planting, nurturing and harvesting to be of best nutritional value to us.  The second harvest continues on until October 31^st, when the agricultural season ends and we go into the dark part of the year to rest and go to inner, introspective work instead of the physical labor of preparing, planting, tending and harvesting.  

I’ve been feeling a culmination at Mabon, so I think something is going to happen this weekend, or a day or so before or after.  I had this confirmed (almost word for word) by a Tarot card reading on Saturday night, so I’m very confident that within the next week, things will change greatly.  Guess I should go back to buying lottery tickets!!  

I guess I’ve rambled long enough.  Just didn’t want you guys to think I forgot about ya. 

Take care,

Sept 12, 2002
11pm

Last entry for the night.

Got the book written night before last and it actually took (ready for this?) 4 hours to complete all of the welfare paperwork.  That doesn't include the hours spent finding vehicle titles, birth and marriage certificates, social security cards, last utility bills, VA disability paperwork, Unemployment Paperwork and bank statements.  Nothing was where I'd left it or where it was supposed to be.

We spent 6 hours total in the Welfare Office yesterday.  I'm not complaining, mind you.  I'm more than willing to do whatever it takes to get some help.  We have an income of $200 a month now and Eric and I have both been job hunting like mad.  Eric got 6 more leads today and he's really excited about one, plus a lady at the Radisson Hotel suggested he try the airport, so that's a possibility.  We were supposed to find out today what the outcome of the appointment yesterday was, but the computers went down last night and they were unable to input anyone's info, so we have to wait until tomorrow.  No calls from the Property Managers today, so we don't know where the house rental stands.  It's the 12th, so we're a week late on rent today.  Only one bill collector called the whole day and she was so extremely nice, it wasn't a bad experience at all.  Eric was even in good spirits today.  I realized that if I didn't know intellectually that we were in jeopardy, I wouldn't know we were in jeopardy.  It definitely follows that Wayne Dyer premise that events occur around us and it's only through our own filters that we see them as positive or negative.

I had two very bizarre dreams last night.  Both were prophetic in feel, extremely intense, very sensory and freakish in their clarity:  

September 12, 2002
10:45pm

Well, it has been a while since I ripped apart the TV commercials we get to enjoy anytime we’re watching network tube, so I figured I’d get to it before it bites me in the ass and I learn it’s too late to complain (like they’re off the air and you guys all forgot about them, so they rattle around in my head forever like little lost sheep with no hovel to, well, sheep in).  I’ll begin with the positives and talk about the ones I actually like.  I do understand that some of these commercials may be regional, so if you don't get them, I do apologize.

<----click him.  I love this guy who dances like mad on the Joe Boxers at K-Mart commercials.  In fact, I love all of the Joe Boxer commercials AND all of the commercials for The Gap, especially the one with the old African-American guy who is bopping out the blues with Shaq...I think it's for loose fitting jeans.  

I love the Sears commercial for fridges where the woman is with her girlfriend who said, "What did you do" and it turns out she brought home a few refrigerators to see which one she likes.  Don't know why I like it, I just do in a kind of Janeane Garofalo way.

I like the little depressed Zoloft egg.  I'm that egg.  Yes, I am the egg (and John was the Walrus...or was it Paul?  It was Paul, definitely).

OK, having bored myself with the ones I like, which are few, I'll get on to the ones that bug me:

I am severely bothered that I don't think the voice of the old man in the Plavix anti-heart-clogging-drug (ACHD's) commercial is actually his.  I think it's a dub over and that drives me crazy.  I know any guy with the voice that sounds like that looks like Shadoe Stevens, not Wilford Brimley. 

I'm sick of the commercials such as Vanish Acti-Scents and Glade Press'n Fresh where some uppity little kid can't hang with the smell of poop and has to go bother his/her mom for some air freshener in order to survive the bathroom. In the first, a little girl has to pull her her shirt up over her nose and go bug her mom who has just dragged in from the grocery store to rummage through the bags and find a stupid bowl freshener so the kid can take a pee.  Give me a break.  I find that a little high and mighty for someone who was finger-painting with their own shit less than 5 years before while mom fought like mad to ward it off with a dinky diaper wipe, which, as Robin Williams so aptly points out, is "like trying to handle toxic waste with an oven mitt."  In the Press'n Fresh commercial, some little wise ass says, "I don't know how something so little can make so much smell!!" and the mom cuts him a look and says, "You're telling me" or something to that effect, indicating that the kid himself funked up the bathroom and is fussing about it.  Not to mention the fact that A) It's hard to believe we now have to have air freshener on the wall  because people are too damned lazy to walk to the window sill and pick up a can with twice as much that costs half the price and spray it into the air and B) You know if you have air freshener on the wall no kid in his right mind is going to hit that thing once or twice and be done with it.  He's going to be leaning on that thing like a New York cabbie on his horn in rush hour.  Dumb, dumb idea.

After I fussed about it in my last commercial slam dunk, I learned that there is actually a whole campaign designed to personally kick the asses of the nimrods who came up with the "Mama's Got the Magic of Clorox" crap that pretends we can clean anything, any time, anywhere and live to do it, baby, just so our families will sing about us.  The petition is here if you want to check it out:  http://gopetition.com/info.php?petid=1355.  Mama's got the magic of a few days of "on strike" of that plays out here.

And what about that commercial for Totino's Pizza Rolls where the mother tells the kid she wants the yard raked by the time she gets back and the kid opens the freeze to a storehouse of those stupid pizza rolls to give to his friends to get them to do the work.  Isn't he so smart and mom so dumb??!  Whoo hooo!  And what is mom thinking buying all that crap for the freezer?  Give that kid a damned apple, lady, how's that for a novelty?  How about an egg sandwich?  A carrot?  Lose the convenience foods and save your money.

Speaking of buying decent foods, I'm a little pissed at that Bounty Napkins commercial where the little fat Asian boy is eating barbecued whatever and flinging nasty barbecue sauced napkins onto the floor as he gluttons himself into a coma.  ??!!  Number one, that little demon better think twice before he throws a pile of mucky paper towels onto my floor and number two, isn't mom going to ever come in there and kick his ass for eating as much as Cox's army?  It's sad how many parents just throw up their hands and say they can't help how much or what their kids eat.  Pardon?  If I see one more Oprah show where the kids are running the house while the parents are shrugging and looking confused, I'm going to go on national TV myself and start a campaign.  Here's a hint:  If your child is morbidly obese or getting there, believe it or not, YOU can control what you buy for food in the house!  Yeah, you might have to go without some goodies and yeah, your kid might pitch a fit when s/he's no longer living on TOTINO'S PIZZA ROLLS and pizza and Pepsi and Twinkies, but your kid will lose weight and be healthier.  Guess what!  You might too!  What?  Your kid won't eat anything else?  Heh heh heh.  You're so naive.  Yes they will.  Oh yes they will.  Just give'em time, Sweetie.  It will also help if you get their chunky ass up off the chair from in front of the Nintendo and get them to push around a bike or a scooter for a while.  A pediatrician once told me that it takes the average hunger striker about 30 days before they go into any real physical distress from lack of food intake.  I'll guarantee you your kid won't last that long before they stop bitching and start trying the good foods.  Believe it or not, YOU are the one who's supposed to be in charge and making the house rules, not kids pretending it's a democracy instead of a dictatorship!!  {rant off}

This commercial is so bad that I love it:  "I can't concentrate...could I be pregnant?"  How about:  "I can't concentrate...could I be stupid?"

Lastly, speaking of stupid, anyone else want to get in line to bitch-slap the girl on the toothbrush commercial who's griping about how she's "more than just beautiful teeth"?  Line forms to the left.

Later!

Sept 12, 2002
9:30

A HAPPY MOMENT

Against my better judgment, I just invested an hour watching the sure to suck pilot of the "Family Affair" redux.  For those of you who do not know, "Family Affair" was a sitcom that aired from 1966-1971 starring Brian Keith ("Parent Trap" Dad) and Sebastian Cabot (voice of "Bagheera" on Jungle Book and the narrator for the old "Winnie the Pooh" specials).  ALSO, for those of you who don't know, Katrina had a severe, unrelenting crush on Uncle Bill (Brian Keith) until Keith died at in 1997.  Here are a few memories of old:

Very old, I am feeling.  (And like Yoda, I am talking...what the hell is up with that??)  God, what a man Uncle Bill was.  Pic #2 is the way I most remember him.  

So I watched the remake with a heavy heart, knowing there were total recasts and knowing the show would be butchered all to hell to herald in the new century.

It was wonderful.  Absolutely brilliant.  *I* could not have done a better job if I'd dug up Brian's Keith's bones and puppeted them around.  Gary Cole was no Brian Keith, don't get me wrong.  Of note is that Gary Cole also played the new and unimproved Mike Brady in the new Brady Bunch movies, so he's an old hat at resurrecting long dead paterfamilias.  Even though Keith was of the long dead variety, the cast carried the show perfectly and the writing and direction were dead on accurate to the original, even sticking, for the most part, to the script for the original pilot in 1966.  It was a warm and wonderful moment...a whole hour of them, actually.  The only and I do mean ONLY complaint is could possibly make is that Tim Curry, who now plays Mr French, Uncle Bill's "gentleman's gentleman," mugs whereas Sebastian Cabot was not quite as facially, well, rubber.  Considering that I have loved Tim Curry through his "Sweet transvestite from Transexual Transylvania" on to "Oscar" and "Clue" days, I think I can live with that.

To top it all off, they reshot the entire original opening for the show.  If that's not catering to my need for a Virgoen respect for history, I don't know what is.

Score for the new "Family Affair:"  A+

And I'm a harsh critic, believe me.

  
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