His Side
September 3, 2004 - I have to agree with my wife about Bush. How can anyone who calls themself a conservative in the small-goverment, low-tax, mind-your-own-business sense actually consider voting for him? Did anyone listen to or read Bush's speech last night? It sounded like he was trying to out-Wilson Woodrow Wilson and out-Johnson Lyndon Johnson. More welfare and socialized medicine, more of our money thrown into the decaying public school system, more meddling with the economy, more warfare abroad ("advance liberty in the broader Middle East", a frightening hint of things to come), and an "ownership society", which sounds important but doesn't actually mean anything in particular. I think that "ownership" in this case is going to be the government owning the members of our society to a larger and larger extent as it increases taxes and instates a draft to pay for all of its handouts and wars.
Of course none of this should be a surprise to a student of history. The Republican party (the ideological successor to the Whig party) started out in the 1850's as the party for big-government projects, high tariffs, central banking, and the draft (after invading the confederate states). The Democrats have just been aping for the last 100 years or so what the Republican party was created to do in the first place.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying to vote for John Kerry. He and the rest of the Democrats are just as much a bunch of thieving parasites as the Republicans and are going to get just as many people killed in their crusades to spread American virtue aborad. They just have different constituencies.
I'm not even saying vote for a third party candidate. You can if you want to of course, until that become illegal (it hurts unity during war time you know). Myself, I'm going to exercise my civic virtue by not voting to give someone the legitimacy to steal from me and my neighbor and to send our children off to die.
Her Side
9/30/04 - Hello, visitors from Cousin Nina's blog! Thanks for the hookup, Cousin Nina!
This is starting to be the best week ever. Except Monday and Tuesday I was a little ill, and Drew's got quite the nasty little cold. My poor darling. Yesterday, my braces came off, and as y'all know, that was probably the best day of the past 2 and a half years. Last night, we went to Drew's co-worker's house and hung out with him, his wife, and two of their college friends. They remind me a lot of me and Drew and our college friends. They're basically our age, all between 24-28, and very, very cool people. And why did we go over there? Why, to eat pieces of a deer these guys had hunted, of course. Welcome to Mis'ippi! And I SO ate corn on the cob. And it was delicious. And I picked pieces out of my teeth like regular person.
Today, I'm going to run a whole mess of errands (hopefully before Alanna gets here at 11), drive to New Orleans to pick up my cousin Veronica from the airport, go to O'Henry's, then Morning Call/Cafe Du Monde (depending on which O'Henry's we go to) then it's back to the hotel room to watch the debates. Poor Cousin Veronica. Flies all the way from New York City to her hometown and her mean big (but favorite) cousin makes her sit in a hotel room to watch presidential candidates duke it out. I kid, she wanted to see them too.
This weekend's gonna be big, folks! I'll tell you all about it Monday. For now, I want to see someone else's theory/ies as to the Fred Thompson story. I have some of the most creative friends and family in the universe... y'all can come up with something!
*9/29/04 part deux* - Yes, my teeth are smooth. And straight. And my bite is perfection. YAY! This retainer's irritating though...
Okay, so I have an update on the Fred Thompson case (read 9/27, below). After I got the evil metal removed from my teeth, I went to WalMart to get the oil changed on the Jeep. The clerk asked me for my phone number, and when I gave it to him, he asked if I knew a Fred Thompson. My jaw dropped open. All of a sudden, another memory came rushing back to me. *Commence Wayne's World Dream Sequence*
It's about 3 weeks ago. We're at Sears, buying a lawnmower. The clerk asked what our phone number was. After I gave it to him, a Fred Thompson showed up on his screen! Wrong address (obviously, since our house is brand-new) but same phone number! I can't believe I didn't remember that during the answering machine incident! *End Wayne's World Dream Sequence*
So maybe, Fred Thompson used to live somewhere with caretakers. Those caretakers had the phone number in question. Fred moved out to be with other caretakers or to be by himself, but not to be completely independent - he still needed some constant care from the people with my phone number. Fred had a spell on Friday night, and Fred's friends and/or family found out and were livid that the people with my phone number didn't show up, so they started calling and leaving me the mean messages.
Anybody have any other ideas?
*9/29/04* - Why did I asterisk that date? Well, today is the most wonderful day of the year so far, only to be trumped by my the joining of the Branson/Hopkins and Taulli families on Saturday. Yes, that's right. I had a little brother turn 16, a little sister turn 18, and a little sister turn 21 this year. I celebrated my 3rd anniversary. I moved. I bought a house. I lost 30 pounds. I visited Aunt Cindy on her 50th birthday. I fed an emu. What in the world could be more special than that? It's a day I've planned, loved, anticipated, every single day for the past 2 and a half years. I've imagined this day and it's wonder for two and a half YEARS. Young and old alike will envy me on this day. So, as you can see, it's very, very special.
For from now on, I will be able to eat corn on the cob. I will be able to eat sandwiches and smile shortly after taking a bite of one of them. I will be able to bite my fingernails if need be. I will be able to bite my hangnails if they bother me too much. I will be able to floss in less than 5 minutes. I will not go through a toothbrush in a month. I will not be embarassed to smile in pictures. I will not have my inner cheeks swollen and bleeding. I will not be tempted to attempt illegal drug use to alleviate my pain. I won't obsess about toothpicks, because I'll be able to pick my teeth like a normal person. I will go back to looking older than I am.
I'd better go. I'll be late for my appointment. For today, my braces come off!
9/27/04 - Happiest happy birthday to my little sister Alanna! She's 21 today folks, give her a hand! Happy birthday little sis, I love ya! I can't believe I was all teary eyed at your high-school graduation and now you're 21? How did that happen?
And a few happy anniversaries - to my friends Billy and Terri on 6 years together and to Cousin Nina and Dan on 1 year!! Big congrats to everyone! I'm so proud of y'all!
And congrats to Laura and me on a great bridal shower on Saturday. Everything went really, really well and with Jennifer's permission, I'll post a few pictures from the shower. We played some really fun games and everyone had a good time. Of course, now my mom thinks I should be a party planner, so maybe all the fun we had was to my detriment.
Drew was out of town on Friday night, and we got some really weird messages on our answering machine. Since I thought they were funny (if slightly worrisome), I'll transcribe them here.
Message 1: (Distraught sounding, very southern, very angry older woman) "Hello? This is n'emergency! Call... go down there and see about Fred Thompson*. He's havin' some kinda bad spell. *pause* Go down there RIGHT NOW, y'all are supposed to see about them. I'm not k... *pause* I'm gonna call the police on somebody. Get down there and see about him RIGHT NOW!" *pause* *click*
Message 2: (Same woman, sniffling now) "Somebody come on the phone now! Somebody get on the line now and talk... go down and see about Fred Thompson! He's having some kinda spell and y'all are supposed to stay there all the time and see about these people. (yelling now) GET DOWN THERE AND SEE ABOUT HIM or I'm going to sue the HELL out of you people and I mean it!" *click*
Message 3: (Redneckish, foul-mouthed, angry man) "God****** I need to talk to somebody! Hello?" *click*
Message 4: (Same man) Somebody's sick down there in Fred Thompson's apartment. You get y'ass down there and see about him or I'll come'n get you out!" *click*
*Name changed for privacy reasons.
There were, in total, 14 messages on the machine when Drew came home Saturday night. The rest of them were completely incoherent, just a bunch of yelling or something. Unfortunately, our answering machine was VERY quiet and it's hard to hear our outgoing message, so I'm sure it'd be easy to mistake us for somebody else. Now, thankfully, Drew yelled the outgoing message so it's easier to hear, but we're still going to get a new phone. With caller ID.
Fred Thompson has spells of some sort. He's maybe crazy, or epileptic, or maybe he has strokes or something. Some sort of "spell." It also occurs to me that he must have some sort of home care and either our number used to be the number of the home care or it's very similar. What is blatantly obvious to me is that if Fred has such horrible spells, and everyone's so worried about him, these people should have called 911 instead of yelling nasty messages into my answering machine over the span of an hour...
I hope Fred's okay.
9/21/04 - Has it been 10 days since I updated already?
Well, since I don't have much to say (and I'm waiting for an AWESOME bird to cool down so it doesn't go all dry when I cut it), I'll share my new favorite website with you. Of course, there will be others. But for right now, this is my favorite website. So useful. There was a song on an HP commercial that was so great and funky, and that's where I found it to *gasp!* download. Enjoy!
T-minus 4 days till the best bridal shower ever!
9/11/04 - Has it been three years already?
My new husband woke me up at about 8:30 that morning, after I had been woken up twice already from the phone ringing. Who is calling my house this early?? My best friend Angie was in town, scheduled to leave that day at 2pm. "Honey, your mom's on the phone," Drew told me. "Some planes flew in to the World Trade Center in New York, they think it might have been a terrorist attack." I pick up the phone, thinking my mom's overreacting. Of course, my mom's not the kind to overreact, but I'm not real bright when I wake up in the morning. "Are you okay," a very worried mom asks me. "Fine, Mom, why?" "Just making sure." After we hang up, I get up and go check on Angie, who's walking around our guest bedroom in a daze. I then went to watch TV, and saw some of the footage, and suddenly, I'm impacted. Good Lord, what happened? My mind is racing, thinking of my baby cousin who lives in Manhattan, my friends Rob and Becca and their families.
Drew talked to Rob, who was in a tailspin because his mom was supposed to be at a meeting near the World Trade Center that morning. He didn't know where she was, and was trying frantically to call his dad. Matt came to pick Drew up so I could have the car for the day, and after a tearful and frightened goodbye, Drew left for work. Angie and I watched the news for a little while then decided to go have lunch. Drew called halfway into the meal, saying that Raytheon was letting people voluntarily take the day off, and that he and Matt were going to hang out at our apartment. He called me a few minutes later, giving me one of thousands of coincidences that day, that Rob's mom had decided the night before not to go to the meeting. I unfortunately found out later that Becca's family wasn't so lucky. Her aunt died in the attack, and her father had been trapped in the debris, but was discovered alive with a few broken bones.
My pastor and I got together and hastily planned a prayer vigil at our church for anyone that wanted to stop and pray or fellowship, starting at 7pm. People that had left the church over a rift that happened earlier that year came to pray with us. The wounds were still fresh, people could forget their differences and come together to comfort one another. Poor Angie stood on the porch of the church, feeling the huge impact of her family being 2000 miles away.
In the days after, I was glued to the television. I watched everything I could, so I could somehow empathize with the people whose families had died. I tried to come to terms with what happened. It was so hard. I couldn't understand why someone would hate the U.S. so much that our children and innocent people would deserve to die. I prayed that we wouldn't retaliate.
Angie couldn't leave for another two weeks. Slowly, everything got back to normal. Well, as normal as orange alerts and an attack on a whole nother country could be...
9/9/04 - My unsolicited, yet sage advice for the day IS...
If you are buying a new house, I can offer no better advice than to either find some way to withhold some percentage of your down payment or DO NOT CLOSE until your builder has completed every single little thing you want done with your house. And I do mean every... single... little... thing. My builder was Johnny on the spot before we gave him that hefty 20%, but the second that check was in his pocket, his subcontractors were like farts in the wind. I won't go into further detail, because it'll turn into a rant, and while I know those are often amusing, I don't feel like ranting AGAIN about these people.
Say it once out loud for me, though. Do not close until every single thing is finished. Every single thing. Repeat that to yourself tonight before you go to bed, if you are one of my future homeowning friends.
9/8/04 - GOOD MORNING!!!!!!!! That's what our eager smoke detector told us at about 4:30 this morning. But we sure thought it was the alarm clock.
Have y'all ever heard a smoke alarm going off? Better question... have you ever been in a house when I'm cooking? Same thing, really. You readily accept it as the smoke detector. But when it jolts you awake at 4:30 in the morning, it must be a broken alarm clock. And oddly enough, right after I covered my ears in pain and my husband let out a string of curse words that would make a truck driving sailor blush, he turned off his alarm and the sound stopped. But 30 seconds later, it started again. I said "Is that the smoke detector?" "No - it's this %!#$^ alarm clock!" He fiddled with the alarm clock again, and eerily, the sound stopped again. Just as we were ready to relax, we heard a little beep and another eardrum-piercing squeal. My trusty, yet potty mouthed husband got out of bed to try and stop the noise, now assumed to be the smoke detector. He checked to see that there was no fire anywhere in the house, and nothing in the attic, whose door is right next to the smoke detector, then went after the detector. It would let out 5 second squeals of this horrible, horrible noise, then suddenly stop for about 15 or 20. But during the 15 or 20 blissfully serene seconds, it would make the beeps that normally signify a low battery. While struggling to take the detector off the wall, he discovered that it not only is battery powered, but wall powered as well. It's not your simple hit-it-with-a-broom-stick,-it'll- shut-up smoke detector, oh no baby, it's broom stick proof. Somehow while this thing is screaming at you, you're supposed to disconnect it from the wall AND remove the battery. Or, of course, flee the house with your most valued possessions, whichever is more appropriate at the time.
After several minutes of arguing with the thing, Drew finally disconnected it from the wall and stopped himself before saying yet another wordy durd. He disconnected the battery. Thinking it was all over, and it was dead, it sprung back to life like a hungry vampire with another warning beep. We froze, waiting for yet another earth-shattering wail. We then looked suspiciously at the smoke detector in our room, which is only about 4 feet away from the one in the hallway, praying that he hadn't just struggled with the hall smoke detector in vain. Drew had the great idea to put the undead detector in the bathroom to see if that was the one beeping. Sure enough - it must have some sort of 9th life tucked away behind the wall power and the battery power. The errant smoke detector is now sitting in the laundry room, thinking about what it's done.
Pretty harsh way to notify us of a low-battery, huh? Note to self: Buy 9V battery at Wal Mart today.
9/7/04 - Yay! We got new furniture today! The couch is super cute. Two quick problems though. #1 is Stella... the couch is cream colored and the Stella is mostly black. Guess I'll be using my lint roller pretty often.
Problem number two... the Pez. He's such a jerk. (I know, he's not a jerk, but he ain't that bright.) Lemme 'splain. When we adopted Stella, she was already declawed. When we got Pez and Louie, their little paws were au naturel, and virtually nobody in Southern California will do declawing. Louie, my darling little boy, quickly realized that if he ever scratched what he wasn't supposed to scratch, he'd get squirted in the face with a blast of water, and after about a month, completely stopped even trying.
Then, there's Pez. Oy. I have tried everything with that child. I have tried squirting the boy. I have tried those pads that stick to the furniture (they don't stick). I have tried yelling. I even tried kicking the chair he scratched every time he scratched the chair. It scared the heck out of him, but it didn't deter him at all. I have also heaped loads of affection and praise on him every time he scratches the scratching posts, giving him treats, saying "good kitty," giving him hugs, petting him... but he doesn't understand that scratching the wrong thing is bad. So we got the new couch today, and sure enough, he laid his claws into it. I didn't have the squirt bottle handy, so I just yelled at him. The yelling scared him, but I know that discipline will only work until his short little attention span forgets it. Next stop, aluminum foil and citrus smell soaked cotton balls. Next stop: concrete furniture. Now, for a picture of my sweet Stella:
9/6/04 - Happy Labor Day! Although, by golly, I differ with the "meaning" of this holiday too. I just have to be difficult. Know what I LOVE about this holiday? You love it too, don't deny it - BARBECUE! Drew has been smoking a brisket since about 10 this morning (it's 7:15 now) and took it off a couple minutes ago, and my goodness, it's the most tender thing you've ever put your fork in. So delicious. He's also whipping up some grilled eggplant and a salad, and here I sit, updating the website. Yeah, my life is good. Happy Labor Day.
9/5/04 - Did I get y'all riled up with that last one? Good. Hope it made you think a little bit. I have a whole lot more material against Bush than I do against Kerry (but would sooner cut out my eyes than vote for either of them), so I'll lob one more at you. I hardly think Jesus would support 90% of the things that Bush has done during his life or administration. For a guy who proclaims his love so loudly for the Lord, he sure doesn't act led by Him. Thoughts?
*Sighhhh...* Unfortunately, when one talks so much against Bush as I do while staying relatively silent about Kerry, one is also implied to be against the military. Au contraire, I am completely behind the military. I am so incredibly proud of my two cousins who have joined the military and are serving the country in their own unique way. I'm proud of the way soldiers conduct themselves, in their absolute discipline, and that's the way our country is represented. I'm NOT proud of what Bush is forcing many of them to do, and what Kerry will continue to force them to do.
I can't promise to leave the political-ese out of my updates here. Sorry. Y'all know me enough to know that when I feel strongly about something so incredibly important as the future of the country, I can not and will not shut up. My dad taught me that, and I'm incredibly thankful for that lesson.
Don't listen to my husband though. Vote. Find someone you LIKE, and vote for them. Don't vote for the guy that's good enough. Do you want our country to be good enough, or do you want it to be somewhere you're proud of living?
9/3/04 - Suckers.
Seriously, and no offense, but that's all I can think when I see people who want to vote for Bush or Kerry. And boy am I gonna make some people mad today. I can NOT handle this anymore, though. And if you're looking at this going, "Oh boy, Stacey's going all political on us again," DON'T STOP READING!!! This is incredibly, incredibly important to me and I want my friends and family to understand where I'm coming from. So many of my friends and family members are going to vote for one of these two people, and I just can't understand. I'm not even counting my friends and family who are going to vote for one of them simply because of the party to which they claim loyalty. Those people, I'd like to shake, but at least I know an even number of both so they essentially cancel each other out.
I'm talking about the people who are suckered by the promises of mainline candidates who say anything and everything they can to make you believe them and want to vote for them, and then you're surprised or disappointed when they do something boneheaded during their presidency.
As long as you continue to vote for mainline candidates, you're doing your part to make the next four years a very crappy, surprising, and disappointing four years indeed.
Bush and Kerry are the same dude, by the way. One may have a longer face and one may have bigger ears, but they might as well be their own doppelgangers. George Bush may have started the war in Iraq, but Kerry supported it. Bush won't pull troops out of Iraq until "the job is done," (which I can't say without feeling a little sick inside) but neither will Kerry. Bush is personally opposed to abortion except in cases of rape and incest and the mother's life/health (and we pro-lifers know "health" covers a very broad range indeed), but would never outlaw abortion. Kerry is personally opposed to abortion except in cases of rape and incest and the mother's life/health but would never outlaw it. Hello? Bush voted for a gay marriage ban, Kerry is against gay marriage. Bush has implemented more Medicare coverage (i.e. more money out of your pocket to pay for people who can't afford stuff because they didn't adequately plan for the future), Kerry supports that.
And y'all think Kerry flip flops? Bush has sent hundreds of military men and women to their deaths because of one major flip flop... consider "I do not believe in rebuilding of nations." How many billions of dollars have we spent rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq, whose buildings we bombed, whose businesses we've ruined? So far, upwards of $130 billion (woops, that's only in Iraq). I don't have a calculator that goes that high, you go ahead and figure out how much food has been taken out of your kids' mouths for this war. And Kerry won't pull troops out, so it's not as if that black hole of money is going to change. (http://costofwar.com/)
Woops, this is turning into a rant more than a plea for change... My bad. Gimme a second to find my inner self and go back to pleading. I am begging my little circle of friends, begging you, especially the Christian ones, please do not cast your vote for the lesser of two evils. Vote for someone you truly think will represent your interests as fully as possible. If you honestly think that Bush or Kerry represents your interests, consider how much lying and pandering has gone on in the past hundred years to obtain votes. Do a little bit of research on better candidates - don't be so lazy. You're voting on the next four years of your country.
If any of you care, I know of a better conservative Christian candidate. Please, my Christian friends, do you honestly think that Jesus would approve of almost anything Bush has done while trying to represent and be like Him? If you agree with me at all here, check out Michael Peroutka. Look at his issues page. If you don't agree with him, find a candidate you DO agree with as much as possible, then vote for him or her! Don't do this lesser of two evils crap! Buck up for your country!
9/2/04 part deux - By the way, in case y'all don't watch or read the news, Chechen rebels took a Russian school hostage on Tuesday. There are at least 350 hostages, but the terrorists let 26 of them go today. I believe 7 people were killed as the terrorists rounded all of the hostages into the gym. I'm basically asking that everyone pray, specifically for the terrorists. Not that I want them to succeed... just to soften their resolve and their hearts and make them realize how much they're hurting people. I don't really know anything about that conflict... I'm just asking that you take a second to pray for everyone involved. The children, the teachers, the hostages' families.
9/2/04 - Since 1998, I have moved 10 times. 9 of those times, I packed all my stuff myself (and sometimes, some of Drew's). Having had the experience of having to pack all my stuff 9 times has thoroughly broken me of any hoarding habits I may have ever had. I used to be BAD, too. I kept every magazine I ever read just in case I ever wanted to read it again. I kept all pictures, even the bad ones (like the accidental shots of my thumb). When I moved to New Orleans, however, I had to leave a whole lotta stuff in Newburgh because my dad only let me move the stuff we could fit in the trunk and backseat of a car. All the rest of my stuff is still in storage. When I moved from New Orleans to Hawthorne, I had 4 boxes and a suitcase carrying all of my earthly goods, and I still had a little of the packrat gene in me. For example, I still kept concert tickets - didn't do anything special with them, just kept them. They weren't especially sentimentally significant to me, but I thought I'd miss them if I got rid of them, so I kept them. I've thrown them away since, and don't miss them. I remember the concerts, shockingly enough, without the tickets. Now I throw things out or donate them even if they may have some slight sentimental significance or future use to me. Like pants I've gotten too thick (or too thin!) for - I don't wait to grow into them again, I donate them to someone who needs them now. And I don't miss the stuff I get rid of... if I do, I buy another one. If it's sentimental stuff, obviously there was no reason to keep it, because if I still remember the thing, I remember the event associated with the thing, and that's what matters. And if someday I don't remember the thing or the event, oh well, bygones.
I have to say, part of what has broken me of my packrat disease is my mother-in-law, who is massively afflicted. She keeps everything, and I mean everything. On her vanity is a neat little row of empty lipstick tubes. I asked her once why she kept them, she said "You never know." She has every paper, assignment, test, and note Drew ever completed in school. She still has his braces somewhere. This may be a morbid thought, but someday I'm going to have to assign significance to every single one of those things and millions more in her obscenely big house. When I went to pick the cats up, she tried to give me an empty Tidy Cats litter pail, one of those 33-pounders. "Don't you need a mop bucket? I'm keeping one of them to use for a mop bucket." I told her I already had a mop bucket. I didn't tell her that my mop bucket is the sink. I know that many, many years down the road, I'll find those "mop buckets."
Unfortunately, since someone else packed all our stuff, I didn't have the occasion to chuck most of my stuff. I did a lot of reorganizing before the move, but the full impact of all the stuff we have didn't hit me until I started unpacking. Lucky Drew gets to go to work, I get stuck unpacking. Last night, however, he thought he could win a bet against me, and since I knew I was right, our wager was that the loser would unpack the rest of the bedroom. He lost, naturally, and in the midst of a major allergy attack, unpacked the rest of the bedroom.
One whole box must have been the smelly stuff. Lotions, gels, sprays, creams, solids, spritzes, you name it, I have it, in like 4 different scents. As I was reorganizing that stuff this afternoon, I realized that by keeping some of that stuff, I'm keeping the packrat in me. I must have 15 different bottles of varying sizes of lotions, and at least as many, if not more, of sprays and perfumes. The lotion is rarely if ever used. The spray is probably used 10 times a month, if that. So, with a tear in my eye, I realized I have to get rid of the lotion. If for some reason I ever think I need one of those lotions again, I'll buy another one, just in a smaller size. I'm not getting rid of the Pearberry, though. It's my favorite scent, and it's being discontinued. Hmph n' stuff.
By the way, to all you packrats that are reading this (I can think of one that I love very dearly *wink wink* - and it ain't my husband), remember all the stuff I had to leave in storage in Newburgh? I can think of exactly three things I want, and my stuff must take up at least a third of that storage shed (if it still exists and my dad didn't get rid of it). A picture of my Aunt Sandy, a box of rare, old, and foreign coins (most of which I'll get rid of since it's probably worth nothing), and a stuffed monkey that I've had since I was 3. I don't miss anything else out of all that stuff. And you won't either... trust me.