Guess who?

I couldn't help giggling when I saw this picture from Emily's class party. The picture strapped across her face is her teacher, Mr. Dean. What's not to love, indeed!

Below is a picture of her crouched behind some of the donations that her class gave in lieu of the typical gift exchange. What a great experience for the kids to learn about giving to others in need instead of giving yet another gratuitous gift to a classmate or the teacher. Way to go, Mr. Dean!


Btw: Emily is in the pink t-shirt and sitting to her right (our visual left) is Makayla, Chris's niece.

One more Emily story:
Each of the girls dutifully filled out a Christmas list for Chris and I. Quite high on Emily's list was Tenko the Dog. Chris and I wore ourselves out looking all over town for Tenko the Dog.

Finally, after striking out several times, I said to Chris, "Look, let's just go to Toys R Us, they should be able to look it up for us and find out if it is available." So, we go to Toys R Us and track down an associate.

"Please," we beg, "Tell us where we can find Tenko the Dog!"

"Tenko the Dog? Tenko...the dog? I don't know....I've never heard of Tenko the Dog." Small pause. "We do have a Techno Dog, though."

Techno Dog! Duuuuh! Chris and I just burst out laughing. Why we hadn't figured that one out when we had spent two days looking at lists with words like " pink bead cutrains" and "Mary-Kate and Ashley perfum" I don't know!

Strip those titles

I am encouraged by the news that MADD cut its ties with Miss USA Teen when news of her hard-partying hit the media. In kind, I am also encouraged that Miss Nevada USA lost her title due to lewd and lascivious photos taken at a party where among other things, she was kissing girls and exposing private parts of her body for whatever jackass was pointing the camera.

I am encouraged by this news because I think Donald Trump's political correctness has trumped his more typical no-nonsense approach to handling challenges when he allowed Miss USA to keep her title. In a news conference earlier this week, he said that he thought she was a good person with a good heart and everyone deserves a second chance.

Ok, not everyone deserves a second chance. Here's an example of someone who does not deserve a second chance: a woman who kept her drug dependency a secret while she ran for a title that among other things, stands as the example of being a good citizen and a good woman to literally hundreds of thousands of young girls and teenagers all over the USA. A good citizen is not someone who hides a secret like that so she won't be disqualified from winning a title. A good citizen is someone who admits when she has a problem and takes responsibility for it. Instead, Miss USA only repented when she got caught. Now she's entering re-hab. Now she's getting help. Now she admits she has a problem. I'm sorry, I just do not believe that women who are picked to represent the epitome of good citizenship and to serve as a role model to young girls should be excused for what amounts to lying to the world about who she really is.

You know, I have five young women at home ranging in ages from eight to twenty-two. I don't want them looking at Miss USA and thinking, 'Wow, what a forgiving world we live in. I can go out there and make a complete mess of myself and guess what? The world will not only condone my behavior but give me a pat on the back for finally admitting I'm a mess.' I want my girls to see her stripped of her title and hear Mr. Trump say something like this, "This title is for the young woman who best exemplifies the values we all hold sacred; honesty, caring for others, helping others, doing good works, in short, promoting a good lifestyle. This young woman is none of these things and therefore is not worthy of wearing this crown or this title. She's done." I really want my girls to hear that so that they can say to themselves, 'Wow, there are serious consequences for messing up my life. Not only is it humiliating, but people can't respect women who make a mess of themselves. Therefore, I need to make sure I live a good life and don't make a mess of myself.'

Because, people, if we don't stand up and say what is right, how will our young girls and young women make those right decisions when the moment of truth comes? Do you think they'll choose not to do drugs if they see that it is acceptable in Miss USA? Do you think they'll eschew premarital sex if it is condoned constantly on TV and in the media? Do you think they'll make the hard decisions to go against the flow of all the stupid things the majority of kids are doing out there if we don't do the hard thing and stand up as a society and say, "Hey, bad behavior has bad consequences. We don't like it and it doesn't make you a good person, so don't do it."

Then and only then will the social ills crippling our society begin to right themselves. Until then, get used to jacked-up winners getting pats on the back for somehow being a good person in spite of their bad behavior. And get used to the idea that next week or next month or maybe five years from now, it will be your daughter or sister or niece doing the stupid thing, cuz that's where it is heading, folks if we don't do something.

Funny Business

One day you are opening the mail when you see a card to your teenage son with handwriting you don't recognize. You are burning with curiosity but just can't bring yourself to open the card and invade your son's privacy like that. Instead, you put the card on the counter where he can see it when he gets home, hoping he'll open it in front of you. The naive optimism of the suburban parent is but a myth – in truth, your mind starts sparking suspicious little thoughts of spurned affection. Has your son dashed some girl's hopes? Inquiring minds want to know!

When your son arrives home, he tosses his backpack on the counter with his usual plaintive whine, "What's to eat?" Suddenly his mood changes, however, when he sees the card. He swipes it off the counter, grabs his backpack and mumbles something about a test, making a bee-line for his bedroom.

Do you investigate? Of course you do! You may not go to the extent of rifling through his belongings, but a few polite inquiries wouldn't hurt, n'est ce pas? Any person with even a trifling of parental intuition would have their curiosity piqued by such circumstances, and would follow up by at least asking who sent the card. Right? Right.

So what the hell was wrong with Hastert? And how could Bush, in a good conscience, stand in front of America and defend Hastert's actions by saying, "He's a father, he's a coach..." Ok, if he's a father and a coach, why the hell weren't major warning bells going off when he was informed of the naughty communications between his aging colleague and his under-age pages?!?!?

Something is very, very stinky on Capitol Hill.

And the fact that Hastert has garnered support by the likes of James Dobson and Focus on the Family only further blurs the line between responsible behavior and negligent inaction. The only sane people out there right now are the ones calling for Hastert's resignation. The Wall Street Journal said it straight: Either Hastert didn't take the allegations seriously or he chose to just look the other way. Either way, he's guilty and should resign.

He's a bad, bad boy. Rowr.

I've got something in my pocket.....

Thursday I was at home sick, sick, sick from eating at the *award winning* restaurant, Jack's, when I reached in my pocket and pulled out.....

A NEW JOB!!!!!!!

I realize, folks, that in the short time I've had this blog, I've had several jobs. Ok, ignore that fact because this is THE JOB. The One. And I'm not just saying that to justify my job-hopping. I wouldn't have been job-hopping if I could have made enough money working at the newspaper. But hellow - who can live on $500 a month!?!? So.....the radio station HIRED ME!

As any ketchup fan will tell you, good things come to those who wait.

Boy, that final interview was the clincher! I met the regional manager and chatted with him for about ten minutes. He walked out of the conference room and went right to the general manager's office and said, "Hire that girl." Yay for me! Apparently he was very impressed by the fact that I really knew where I was at and where I was coming from....and not in any rhetorical sense, either. I'm together, peeps. Smooth. Witty. Charming. And hired!!!

So, if you are ever in the 'hood, you can check out my productions at 92.7 the van!

I'm smiling. Can you tell?

Gimme Life part deux

To tell the truth, I've been down. Not writing on the blog has been part of that. Not being able to talk to my best friend is part of that. And with my grandmother dying last week, I have been doing a lot of thinking about how I'm living.

Grandma loved it when I would post to my blog. Of course her favorite posts were the ones with pictures of the kids or cute stories highlighting what *unique* and *vibrant* children they are. But regardless of what I wrote, she was a fan and loved to post comments chiding me about my polarized world view. I loved that about her! But...life got busy, and our computer at home had a virus, so I just quit posting. And then Grandma died. I looked back at her last post to my blog: "Pleeeeeeease update!" Drawn and quartered in my soul, I was. Guilty. Bad. Neglectful. Dare I say selfish?

I don't want to lose another person in my life having to wonder if they knew how much they meant to me. I don't want to let go of things that bring meaning to my life just because I haven't gotten the upstairs bathroom cleaned and *should* get the work done before having fun.

Life is about LIVING. About experiencing life. I'm so caught up in whether or not I've sorted through every paper in each child's back-pack that I'm letting important things go in my life. Like relationships. Like my writing. And this blog is an important part of how I am developing my writer's voice. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is.....this blog is here to stay, bunnyjo fans! Now...if I can just get my pisse et vinaigre back.....

Gimme life

For the first time in my overly-loquacious life, I am facing writer's block. There is a huge difference between talking and writing, by the way. I once bought a book called, "If You Can Talk, You Can Write." It was full of journaling exercises where I would write whatever was on my mind, and I found that 90% of the time I covered the same ground repeatedly. Since that time I have become sharply aware of my gerbil-on-an-exercise-wheel pattern of thinking. And my redundant, over-used analogies that show an extreme lack of creativity. Actually, it is mental laziness. Just sayin.

So, how about a useful bit of information?

I don't have any.

How about an update on my interview process?

I met with the General Manager again on Friday, but I am still waiting to complete my peer interview. Hopefully it will be tomorrow or shortly thereafter. It would be nice to have *some* sort of resolution. One way or the other.

Grandma,

It is so hard knowing that you will never post to my blog again or that I'll never see an email from you again. Knowing that you won't be at my wedding, you'll never be able to meet Chris or Brandie or see our beautiful house. I'm going to miss playing Balderdash with you, singing around the campfire, the many special times we spent together sitting on the porch talking. You meant so much to me, Grandma, and I am so sorry I didn't get to say goodbye. You have taught me so much about how to be a woman and how to be a wife. Thank you for showing me how to love and appreciate a man, how to truly admire him. Thank you for all the things you did for Kady and I; all the sewing projects, decorating the bassinette, encouraging me no matter how sick or discouraged I got. You taught me so much, Grandma, and my life would not be what it is today if you hadn't been such an important part of my life. I love you, Grandma, and look forward to seeing you again one day when we can all be together with Kady and Grandpa Leslie and Laura. What a reunion it will be! Until then, Grandma, I will be loving you and missing you with all my heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you gave me.

loving you,

Laura

The rest of the story

Here's a quick update for all my *faithful* fans. The second interview went like a breeze, although I must say, I was asked some rather tough questions. But, as always, Miss Bunnyjo was quick on her feet and wowed the prospective employer. As such, she was invited back for a third round of interviews!

The bad news, however, is that my third interview was supposed to be on Wednesday morning. As I arrived in Holland, I discovered a voicemail on my phone saying that the woman I was scheduled to meet with that day had called in sick. My third interview was moved to next Wednesday morning. Ugh!

In other news, I was nearly fired last week over an incident that will forever remain in my mind as The Great Post-It Note Incident. I am now prohibited from ever using a post-it note. Ever. They were surreptitiously removed from my desk while I was at lunch and, just in case I wanted to replenish my stash, removed from the general office supply stock. I now have to tear off little strips of paper and paperclip them to pieces of paper when a post-it note would have brilliantly sufficed. I am reduced to strips of paper and paperclips while the rest of the office plants brightly-colored sticky notes like so many wild flowers sprouting up everywhere. And I have to like it.

Which only makes me more determined to get the radio job. Nothing like back-handed office politics to make a body wish for more pleasant surroundings, I'll tell ya.

Not now, but soon

I just got the call yesterday regarding my second interview. I am going in on Friday at 11 am EST. Now, keep in mind that the interview process with this company entails three - yes, three - initial interviews before they make a decision to hire someone. If I am lucky and all the planets line up in the atmosphere just so, I may be embarking on a brand new career before another phase of the moon passes!

Meanwhile, down here in the insurance trenches, things are heating up. We've had 80% turnover in the last two months. I'm the last "veteran" in the marketing department and let me tell you, I'm not all that veteran! We had a new person start last week and because A. she lost her glasses and can't see, and B. she's a slow learner, she's not anywhere near working independently. And because we lost the other marketer, it's phone central station around here with me being the go-to person....which just makes me shake my head in wonder. So many people feed their egos by insisting on maintaining a "go-to" status. Lemme tell ya, it's overrated. I'd rather be relegated to the back of the class and do my job in peace! Like they say, the nail that sticks up gets pounded down.

So, wish me luck on the interview on Friday. Not that I need it all that much, but in truth, I need a bit of *something* to get me through this week at work!

Oh, I'm good! Good, I say!

So I go in for my interview yesterday, and I said, "God, if this is meant to be, just let it flow." That was smart thinking, huh?

Yeah it was! The guy loved me and wants me back for a second interview. Yay! However, it will be a lengthy interview process primarily because the FCC (Fed Communications Commission for you foreigners) requires 30 days from the date of posting before anyone can be hired. So, they've got three interviews before they hire someone. I've made it to the second round and unless lightening strikes, I'll make it to the third.

The great, great, great news is that this radio station - oh, I better tell you what the job is - the job I applied for is Account Manager, i.e. radio ad sales. Ok, so this radio station is part of a radio conglomerate that owns 42 some radio stations, all privately held by a broadcaster in WI who loves the business and wants to keep making a lot of money with it. But, did you catch the important part there - PRIVATELY HELD. Family business. No stockholders! No CEO and Board of Directors! No Corporate Evil!

YAY!!!!

Salary, benefits, commission plus extensive training and current accounts to manage while I'm looking for new business. Per-effing-fect. ("Perfect," for those of you not up on my personal lingo.)

Someone's happy. :)

Not Thursday

Hi everyone, just wanted to give you an update that I'm not able to go to my interview on Thursday. Oh, the office politics pool is fraught with rip tides. The Holy Macro lady is on yet another vacation for the rest of the week and my co-hort here at work announced yesterday he has surgery on Thursday. Oh, apparently him snipping his nether regions is more important than me finding another job! Sha! So, I'm going in on Monday afternoon instead. I'll keep you posted!

Get this!

I received the following two emails today:

"ok I will out you down and the new contract for Oom's office ok."

Translated: Ok, I will put you down as the new contact for Oom's office, ok?

"it is contracting for equitrust ed needs to sign on the signature Mark Woods is writing a piece"

Translated: It is a contract for EquiTrust. Ed needs to sign it in order to appoint Mark Woods who has some new business to write.

And this from so-called business professionals!

Kiss my grits and grit my teeth!

Bad case of the gripes

Oh, do I have a bad case of the gripes! Ooo, I just wanna gripe everyone's head off! You ever have one of those days when you really want to have a good day and even though you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, you keep thinking to yourself, "Stay positive, don't let little things get to you." Well, it wouldn't work if you worked here, that's for sure!

You ever work for one of those people that need to take psychotripic meds just to get through the day? You ever work for someone who assumes that because they are losing their grip on their life, so are you? You ever work for someone who seems not to notice the amazing things you do on the job everyday, but seems to have a knack for zooming in on irrelevant issues? And then calling you into her office to drill you about it? That is the woman I work for.

Yes, I work for Cruella DeVille. Since she started working here in February, she has been on vacation FIVE TIMES. Five. First, she took a cruise. The next week she went to Mexico. She's taken days off to spend with her daughter. She took a whole week off to watch her daughter come in 27th place in a sailboat race. She went to Florida with friends after hearing that one friend was driving down there and wanted company. That was a two-weeker. Yes, she has taken all this time and more, and she actually had the audacity to ask me exactly how much time I expected to take during Chris's surgery. To be quite precise, I took.....the day of the surgery off, two hours the next morning, and two hours when he was dicharged. That was it! But, people, come on! Where was my loyalty? I really should have been here. After all, Chris is an adult, is he not? What did I need to be there for?

But that is not all. She called me in her office one day to ask me if my daughter had hacked into our system. My ten year old daughter! A snafu caused her name to be autopopulated by MS Office as the author on all documents I edited and saved. It was quite innocent, but that didn't prevent me from being called on the carpet about it.

THEN she called me in her office last week to ask me if everything was ok in my life. The reason? A new employee ordered the wrong mailer card from our lead company and 5,000 went out wrong. Another new employee paid an agent wrong. And then when I got some contracts together for her, I accidentally included two sets of the same paperwork onto the back of each contract. Ok, the first two things had nothing to do with me and the last? An irrelevant mistake. But she seriously wanted to know if everything was ok with me.

Well, guess what? It's not. I'm deeply frustrated. I took over this position from a person that had embroiled an absolute rat's nest of paperwork into his ever-growing pile of incompetance and then threw up his hands and declared it impossible. I reordered the entire department, designed a process that drastically reduced processing time for contracts and facilitated helping agents write business sooner. I'm doing double the volume of licensing than the guy who screwed everything up and to top it all off, he was doing a lot of things wrong. Me? I straightened it out and am not making his mistakes. But...yet I have to listen to her ask me the most ridiculous, inane, irrelevant questions about whether or not I feel overwhelmed. Or if I'm not happy with Chris or if his health situation is overwhelming me.

I'm finding that her little interrogation sessions with me are making my job almost insufferable.

Copping the Insanity

Andrea Yates is not guilty of drowning her five children, despite having systematically coaxed each one into the bathroom only to drown them in the bathtub. Number one was undoubtedly duped. But what about number two? And three and four and five? Did they not scream and cry and beg for their life, seeing their siblings lying still and lifeless in a tub full of water?

Andrea Yates was consumed with delusions about one son growing up to be a homosexual prostitute and the media bugging her home to catch her being a bad mother. Tops on the list? Not home schooling well enough. Hey, wouldn't any concerned parent drown their children after facing such horrific thoughts?

It is not that I don't feel that she is a sick woman. It would take an incredibly sick person to systematically destroy each child born of her womb one by one. And I have experienced first hand the mental distortions extreme religion can bring. Heck, I even got a little distorted myself once upon a time. I can relate to having deeply-rooted fears about the consequences of my rotten parenting. I've imagined the future counseling sessions where my daughters tearfully relate my early-morning rantings as I attempted to pry them out of bed or maybe they'll relate the time I threw their little tea table for no good reason. I can just see the counselor sadly shaking his head and making incriminating notes in the margins of his notepad about how I undermined my children's chances for happiness. And I've imagined my daughters growing up to become tragically involved with men who beat them or exploit them or get them hooked on drugs. I've played through hundreds of scenarios where their lives end in some self-destructive act because of the pain I inflicted on them as a parent. Oh, yeah, I have felt Andrea Yates' pain.

But here's the distinction: I honestly believe that there is hope as long as they are alive. As long as they are alive, I have a chance to do it right today. I can't take back the mistakes I've made in the past, but I can admit when I had been wrong and make an honest effort to do better. And I can show them that I love them, I can make better choices as a parent, and I can hopefully make a difference in their life.

With life, there is always hope. With death, the question of whether we could have ever worked it out is done. Finis. Exterminated. I feel for Andrea Yates and for her five children and for her husband and all the family and friends who will never be able to explore the possibilities for making a good life for those children.

But even as my heart goes out to Andrea, a part of me holds back. In my heart, it is perhaps too much of a leap for me to completely absolve her. But one thing is for sure: as long as she lives, so does the hope that somehow in some way, her life can count for more than the media hype of a juicy story. If anything can be drawn from the deaths of those children, it would be a better understanding of the devastating effects of postpartum depression and the desperate need these mothers have for professional intervention (not religious persecution).

Five innocent children died, but hopefully more will live because of what she has done. And countless loved ones will be spared the devastating grief and guilt and horror of living with the aftermath. No, I can't completely absolve Andrea Yates, but I can hope for a better tomorrow for the millions of women and children who are at risk, and hope that their lives, too, will go on.

Whoah, Nellie!

Alright, everyone, in lieu of actually coming up with something cunning and witty to say, I have devised instead something meant to spark *your* intellect! You know how some people say things that they think makes them look smart when in fact they've misused the word and they look like a pretentious ass?

Oh, yeah. Gotta love it!

Here's a great example: My marketing manager was upbraiding a co-worker for not responding to an agent's inquiry properly.

Manager: "Geeez, Shawn," she said, "He's going to think you totally disked him!"
Me: "Did you just say disked????"
Her: "Yeah. Disked."
Me: "You mean like with a K? As in like a rubber disk?"
Her: "That isn't right?"

Ok, maybe she wasn't trying to sound smart, but in her snooty-patooty way she was trying to show she could hang and use the lingo from the streets but just ended up looking like she just crawled from under her pressed-coal rock. A wetback. Or is it greenback? Anyway, she's also the one who gave me the inspiration for the "Holy Macro" title to my blog posting a while back. Apparently she's not up on her fish.

So, do you have a good one? Share it with my readers and to the commentor with the best story gets a autographed picture of your's truly!!! Now, hey, who wouldn't want that, right!?!?

By the way, did I spell "whoah" right? It does have that "ah" combo, right? Ugh....how to exist without the little red squiggly lines that tell me I've typo-ed again, cuz we all know I wouldn't misspell a word, n'est ce pas?!?!?!