Morons

I cannot for the life of me understand some people.

Okay wait, not some people. Most people.

In the last two days I have heard more racist jokes than I have in my entire 23 years.

It is unfortunate that these ones have been directed at our President Elect. And that just pisses me off.

I cannot wait, when 4 years from now, America is better than it is today because we made the first smart choice in 8 years.

I know that people understand that electing Bush twice was a mistake. Few admit it, but, it’s the truth.

I know that most of the people who voted for Obama did not tell those closest to them that they did so.

Some people understood that the only way to fix this country was to elect Obama. Not just because he would make a good president, but because it’s time for Bush and his people to gtfo.

This election has made me see evil in people. I have removed people from my myspace friends list (lol omigosh).

This is the first time in my life I have outwardly admitted to having political opinions. Those who know me, know that I had clamied to have none and not care before. But that was just to save myself from arguments.

I could not be happier that in my lifetime I saw the first African-American to be elected President. I could not be more exstatic that another lazy Republican did not get elected. (no, i dont mean all R are lazy, Bush and McCain for starters) I could not be more pleased that the night of the election when The Girl saw McCain on tv she turned to me and said “mommy, that’s John McCain on tv, but I like Barack Obama better”. I didn’t even know she knew who they were.

How To Tell

When you’ve been watching too much Desperate Housewives…

Someone knocks on the neighbors door (and since your front door is 10 feet away and you can hear said knock) you jump up and eagerly peek thru your peephole to see who it is.

It was only a delivery guy.

I never used to watch this show, but on Monday there was pretty much nothing on and so I turned it to this and now I have to see every episode.

Good show. Side effects may occur. Just sayin’.

Fortune Cookie Say

You are a deep thinker with a knack for problem solving.

Probably one of the more accurate peices of paper ive almost eaten along with my cookie.

Time, A Rant

I dont have any of it.

Like none.

It’s not like my life is terribly busy, but it’s also not like I have all kinds of free time either. I feel like my day just goes and by the time I sit down to do something that is not busywork it’s way late or im doing it instead of something more important. Like cooking dinner, bathing a child, changing a diaper, folding laundry, telling the kids to stop hitting each other for the 90th time in the last hour. You know, all the good stuff.

Ever since The Girl started kindergarten I feel like I have even less time. Today I paid attention and figured out why.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday go something like this: I feed them lunch at 11am. They get done at around 11:45 because they are the slowest eaters on the planet (read: they play with their food and don’t sit still, etc) that gives me 20 minutes to get her ready to go.

I have to brush her hair (which she has ‘already done’ the 7 times I asked her to do it), Round up shoes, socks, her school uniforms, her backpack, snack and water. That gets done in 20 minutes if im lucky. She has to be to school at 12:15pm. We try to leave the house at 12:05.  That means lugging the 25 pound 6month old/carseat combo down the stairs, turning around 9 times to tell The Boy to hurry the hell up, getting to the car and getting everyone in the car 5.5 million hours later.

The school is 3 minutes away asuming the one traffic light is green or halfway done being red by the time I get to it. We usually get to the school at 12:16. I used to walk her in because that is what the moms who arent screwing up this parenting gig other moms do. But I noticed that none of them have 3 kids to lug around so, now I just drop her off at the gate. It makes her happier anyway. All that independence and whatnot.

So after I’m done with the 4 speedbumps I am sure will destroy my car before the school year is over and we are on our way out of the school it’s probably 12:20. We get back into the house at 12:30, give or take.

That’s 45 minutes from liftoff to landing.

Then there is the picking her up from school part. The part where I leave the house at 3:25, ten minutes early, again, 6 minutes later were on our way to the school. We get there, I drive over the horrid speedbumps again, searching for a place to park. I get out, get the stroller out (because my arm would break off if I had to carry her for 10 minutes, really), put her in it, get The Boy out and were on our way, slowly, to pick her up. Wading through the ocean of children, bicycles, strollers, scooters, skateboards, and everything else to get to the classroom. 10 more minutes later were back at the car. Loading everything into it to go home.

That was 45 more minutes of time I spent picking her up from school.

I spend an hour and a half of my time, 5 days a week, just on pick-ups and drop-offs.

I’m not complaining really. Okay maybe a tiny bit. But not about the fact that I have to do it. Just that it takes THAT much time. It is one major time sink in my day.

I feel like lately I get nothing done. The laundry never stops. I’m always doing it, it’s never done. Something always needs to be done and the only way it will get done is if I do it. The kids rooms? Not clean, ever.

Somehow I always find time to cook an exciting from scratch meal, every night. I probably could use the time I would have if I made simpler dinners to fold the laundry, because that is normally the time I remember to fold it.

I’d really love to take a shower every day. I’m not talking just water and soap. I want a shower, hair done, makeup on, not looking like i just woke up and put my hair up kind of shower.

I know, I’ve heard that if I really wanted to I could, but, here’s the thing. Most people who say that, dont have 3 smaller kids. Here, let me explain it to you…

For this to work I would have to have all 3 kids either being monitored or asleep. I cant monitor them while I take a shower and by the time He is home to monitor them I’m busy cooking, bathing them, etc. So, they’d have to all take a nap at the same time. Or two of them would have to take a nap while The Girl is at school. Let me tell you how often that happens.

Never.

Sometimes it does. And I’ll totally seize the opportunity if it happens to be that the baby is the one not taking her nap. Because there are places I can put her where she is ‘monitored’ long enough for me to take a shower. But taking a shower with either of the other two running rampant is just a bad idea. Sure, I could take a shower everyday if I didnt really care if they got into everything. If I wanted to spend 2 hours undoing the messes they would make in the 10 minutes it would take for me to shower. But I don’t. I like my house clean. I like my children monitored. So my daily hygeine suffers. So my hair looks like something you’d use to mop your floor with.

SIGH

I have to stop, I could really keep typing things that dont make sense for another hour or so, really.

The Kind of Thing that Pisses me Right the Fuck Off

California is as racially diverse as they come. I grew up here, in California and I heard racist remarks here and there but I always managed to see beyond race and beyond color. I’ve never had a discriminatory thought against someone based solely on those factors. Now, stupidity and general idiocy is another thing. I’ll judge someone based on intellect any day. But that isn’t what were talking about here. Let’s focus on something racial.

Language. America speaks English, primarily. A large percentage of the population of this country speaks English and Spanish. And then, there are those, who only speak Spanish. I don’t know if it’s because they just don’t want to learn, or what the deal is. I’m not against learning Spanish. I know that a foreign language course is a graduation requirement of all California high schools now and I think that is an excellent thing. Being bilingual is a great advantage. Especially here in America where some people choose not to learn our native language.

In our public schools, the teachers teach in English. Unless were talking about an ESL or foreign language class. And even in ESL they teach in both English and Spanish. But in a normal public classroom setting you would expect to hear a teacher speaking English. I’m also aware of a special program of some school districts in California called Spanish Immersion which consists of teaching in both languages to make the students bilingual.

Some family friends have a son the same age as The Girl, so he just started kindergarten. He kept coming home from school and telling his mom that he didn’t understand what his teacher was saying. When she went to the school to find out what was up, they wouldn’t let her into the class to observe. (Yeah we’ll get to that and all the levels of omg I dont THINK so in just a second)

So she went to the principal, where it was discovered that his teacher decided that it would be a good idea to teach the class in Spanish instead of English. She based this idea on the fact that there were only two white children in the class. Now that is white kids. That isn’t counting the numerous children in the class who are of African descent that were also put out of their learning environment because they couldn’t understand what she was saying either. Further, it doesn’t count the other Hispanic kids who don’t speak Spanish. Believe it or not, just because you are Hispanic does not automatically mean that you speak Spanish.

The resolution? Nothing.

The school did nothing. They played it off like it was no big deal. They said they werent going to stop her from teaching the class in Spanish. So they pulled him the hell out of that school.

All of this completely outraged me. The fact that they wouldnt let her into the class bothered me. To prevent a parent fror observing the learning environment of their child is completely horrid and no school should be allowed to make this rule. If I wanted to stay with The Girl while she is in school I am more than welcome to do so. I love her school.

Things like this make me want to get the hell out of California and move as far away as I can get. It is outrageous, some of the things that go on here.

Wordless Wednesday

Seven years ago

Seven years ago I was a smartass sixteen year old getting ready for school in the third week of eleventh grade.

When the second plane hit.

My mother had already frantically tuned the TV to a channel broadcasting the live footage of the disaster that the first plane had made. she was being annoying about it and i told her to shut up about it. Seconds later, it happened.

It didn’t phase me. You see, I was a smartass sixteen year old. I didn’t really even know what terrorism was at the time. I didn’t understand about the attack on this country. I didn’t get it. But most of all, it was important to my mother. And I hated her (another entry, or seven).

I spent the next several weeks trivializing the events of that day. Mostly, just to piss her off. Every morning in homeroom my highschool showed news specials and all kinds of things regarding that day and telling us that this was a time for us, as a country, to come together. I trivialized them. Even though she was not there for it to have any effect on her.

Eventually I got over using that to upset my mother. I just, got over it. I still didn’t truly see the significance of that day, of what had really happened.

Two years later, in 2003 I finally got it. Thanks to a TV special on all of the things that had happened. I saw that what went down was not just about buildings being destroyed by hijacked planes. What happened was, peoples lives were destroyed, peopled lost the ones they loved. Because terrorists chose to fly some planes into some buildings. I got it.

I don’t know if I was just too sixteen to get it when it happened. I really didn’t though.

So, for me, every year, since 2003, on September 11th, I take the time to remember that I was an ass. That even since becoming an ‘adult’ and ‘getting it’, I still don’t have the emotion to properly remember what happened on that day because I don’t feel it the way the rest of America does.

To me, it is just a day like any other. But I still remember.

To the people who lost the ones they loved. To the mother that lost a child, the husband that lost a wife, the sister that lost a brother, the friend who lost a friend. That day is not just any other day.

To all of the people who were not smart ass sixteen year olds, that day, is not just another day.

Getting my feet wet…

I’ve been reading amazing blogs for awhile now. Every single day, I check my reader for new posts from each and every blog listed in my blogroll. I sit and I read every word. I drink them up like sweet sweet crack laced kool-aid.

I love them.

They inspire me. The make me want to write about things. About anything. About my life, my kids, my past. About things I find funny, sad, annoying or things that anger me. I want to write even though I am not that great with words.

I really just want to say something. I want to get my thoughts out there. I don’t really even care if I am heard.

I only wish to write.