People are so wacky.

Seriously.

I just spent a Saturday answering calls from people about their phone service. From 9:00 am to 5:30 pm, I enjoyed the wonderful variety my job has to offer. People moving, people in the armed services disconnected because they are shipped over seas, people who's service is broken, or who want to change this or that, remove something, etc.

Ah, and the *good* calls. The drunken old man singing "I'm an old cowhand from the Rio Grand" in German, the one who believes the phone company is actually a branch of the FBI and is trying to listen to everything he does, bragging about how he unplugs the phones and stuffs foam in the jacks whenever he's not using them, never saying anything he doesn't want "us" to know... the guy who's sitting in a room full of lawyers (at $100 an hour each, I'm sure) because he's going to sue the phone company over a $6.95 charge... But it's true. I've had an elderly Irish woman curse me out with language that would make a Marine drill instructor blush, she must have been all of 95 years old. Not just token profanity either; complicated and full of helpful suggestions. Things your average dominatrix would never imagine could be done with a cell phone. I mean, she had obviously put a lot of thought into it. I was so tempted to say "While I realize you are frustraited, I'm certain that even if you were able to find the man who ordered it for you, doing that with the phone would void the warranty". A sweet lady, without a doubt, once she vented for a bit. Had me laughing so hard I was crying at one point. Thank the goddess for the mute button. Those of us with the stamina for customer service work know to let the harsh stuff just roll right off, it's not personal. Get's funny after a while. Odd; the simple calls bore me, but I look forward to the insane, abusive ones. And I'm saying it's everyone else who's sick, right? Denial isn't a state of mind; it's where I built my summer home!

We've got a new corporate direction now, which is not a bad thing. The new CEO seems like a great guy; if the two things aren't mutually exclusive. "The Spirit of Service". A customer service group who's focus is, well, customer service. Wild concept I know; but it really is the first time I've worked in a CS job where we were actually focused on CS. Not just verbally, but much to my shock and surprise, in actual application. Makes me concerned that our CEO may actually possess some common sense; a trait not normally surviving into upper management in my experience. I mean, we, like most companies, make our money the old fashioned way.

We take it from the customer.

Seriously. We have to get people to willingly send us money every month. If you keep shafting them and treating them like expendable cash-cows, you quickly run yourself out of people willing to fall for your line of BS. Our line of BS has improved dramatically, and the products we are offering now are actually worth what we are charging for them. Twisted, I know.

Our CEO's first name is Dick. Note, by the way. To all of you considering having children. Please, sweet goddess in the morning, show some freaking compassion. Your child may be world famous. They may have their name on the cover of magazines. Consider, consider oh so carefully, what you are doing to them. Because, well, several of us are getting new shirts, in honor of our new corporate focus and our new CEO.

Front "If you don't know the Spirit of Service..."
Back "You don't know Dick."

The jokes just fall from the sky. He's a great guy too! It's terrible. What if his parents had named him "Erick", or "Brian", or even something cool like "Prometheus", or after some great Greek hero. As it is however, dispite him being quite possibly the only genuinely sentient corporate CEO who's not out to play Bubba The 400 lb Convict to his corporate prisoners and their just as frail and captive customer base, dispite that he's the butt of a whole slew of phallic turn-of-phrase jokes.

Bad human race! Bad! Bad!

AHHHH!!!!!!

Spring here at last.:) :(

Well sort of . It's coming . Not very fast but it's coming. I know I know we all want it back. We all want the sunshine back. We all want to go rollerskating again or swim in our pools or a million other things. If we had to do a spring dance we would all be dancing in our living room or in the snow frezing our butts off tring to make spring peek its little head out.

YEP I MEAN YOU TOO!!

We want our gardens back. Winter go back to sleep you are geting boring.... zzzzz, you've been here for 4!!! months...zzzzz .Ok thank you for listening wait a minute winter is not listenig... your reading this post not winter. ( Come to think of it I'm not shure winter can read ) yes well where was I . :)


To make a long story short. We want spring back plain and simple.

Peace )O(

Hello I have a story about a fairy and a butterfly they lived In a hut In the forest. It was covered wIth vines. It was stone oen day they were walking In th forest and they saw a strange tree there were faces on It then they heard noises from the north. they jumped In to a bush. nothing came so they got out of the bush and started running north and then RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! out of no where a bear started batting at them so they flew so high they could not see the ber then they flew very very far then they landed and ran up up up and up some more. They reached the top and they looked down. They saw a strange pointy thing. A lot of them. They were so confused that they decided to go closer and they saw people like the fairy. Only without wings. so she went closer to one. It went in a pointy thIng. It was a tipi she came back out. They started going back home. Now of course the bear would be waiting for them but they knew that he would be... so they went a round him and got home safely. the end I hope that you enjoyed it. good bye

I was thinking today about why it is that the government interferes in the lives of parents to such a degree. Obnoxious does not begin to cover it. Why is it that if I were to choose to move out into the woods to a small cabin with no electricity and no running water, ala Walden... that would likely be considered neglect. If I make a lifestyle choice to raise my children in the middle of nowhere, with no running water, hauling water from the creek, and no septic, using an outhouse instead, and no electricity, using candles when needed... and I do all of this by a conscious choice, it is neglectful. I am neglecting to turn my children into conformists, this is true. I am neglecting their indoctrination and I have certainly neglected to give them phobias about their bodies or to instill fear of authority figures. But I do all of this already and I do it by choice.

But why should the government, any government, have the right to make lifestyle choices for us? Lets follow this idea through... let us say I did do such a thing and I did get investigated and perhaps they even took it oo far and removed my children from my home for this choice... I could fight, would fight, and I would win. I mean lets be honest, the Amish have done this for years. But why should we even have to go through the worry, the mess, the heartache of the fight in the first place? When are we as a nation going to admit that the system we have in place for protecting children is not working?

I fully acknowledge that we need to have something in place to protect and defend the children that are abused, beaten, neglected, or malnourished. But somewhere along the line we went overboard. I am sure we have all heard the horror stories about these agencies but somehow the horror stories are not enough to get us to tear the system to bits and rebuild it. The system does not work. Even the people who work there acknoeledge that usually. But we keep it in place for lack of a better way.

There are, right now, thousands of children in this country who are in fact being abused and neglected. But they won't get the help they need because the workers we do have are overburdened by the current system that puts familes that are different or even families who fit the norm at risk. I once read a story about a family whose little girl, I think she was three or four, ran outside naked one day, onto her lawn, and the school bus driver that was driving by at the time reported the family and they lost their little girl for a while because she ran outside naked. Are we really such prudes? Why do we even allow our governement to have such invasive rights into our lives? My children are MY children. They do not belong to the government, they belong to themselves and for right now I take responsibility for them until they are capable of taking the full investment of that responsibility onto themselves. I am their proxy for right now but they belng to themselves. My government does not own that which has ocme from my body.

And yet we give them that right. In the interest of protecting other children who are abused, we have said that the government has the right to invade our homes and our lives on the off chance that we might be one of those abusers. Why do we give our own power away like this? And then, once they are in our lives, we allow them to tell us everything we are doing wrong and how we need to do things differently in the raising of our children. What gives them that right? We do. We say that this is okay and we let them into our homes and then we make the largest fault of all... we slip away from any shred of confidence we might have had and we BELIEVE them when they say that we need to think like they do. We examine our thinking and try to figure out where we went wrong.

What makes these people more qualified than the parent? What logic says that these people who do not know you, your kids, your situation, or anything about you that makes you anything more than a statistic somehow knows more than you do? They have a job to do, an admittedly crappy one most of the time, but they are employed in a position that pays their bills. Thats it. Nothing more, nothing less. And that does not give them the right to force anyone to conform to their way of thought about how children need to be raised. Every child is different, and every child deserves to be something more than a statistic or a number in some case file. No child and no family should have to give up their right to individuality based on what "the norm" says they should be, think, feel, or do.

No, I am not being investigated by child protection, no, there is no real reason for this to be a pet peeve of mine save for this...

I was considering last night, just how far do we want to go with our lifesyle choices. See, we want to homestead, all great and wonderful, but i might enjoy giving Walden a shot for a while. No electricity, living with what you have, bare minimalist type of lifestyle. Would I want to stay with it? I don't know until I try it do I... but I think trying it would be a wonderul lesson in self-sufficiency and other things. Thoreau is someone I have long admired, and I wouldn't mind that little experiment in my own life. By choice.

But then it occured to me, because I know someone who just went through hell with child protection and her son and all of it was for nothing and they had no case but that didn't matter to them they barged into her life anyway and made a mess and now they are trying to pull their lives back together because these agencies think they know better than a parent about what to do for children... how's that for a run on sentence? ;) Anyway I was htinking about Walden and do I want to try this out in my life and would it be a good thing for my kids because you know, frankly I think it would be. I think that learning to live succinctly and learning to live in a way that has minimal impact but is really a lot of work would be healthy for everyone here. But then it occured ot me that these agencies might find that offensive to their sensiilities and they might step in because I didn't have running water and hauled it from a creek or because we didn't have electricity... anyway you get the idea. And that offended ME.

But no one cares if I am offended right? But we do have to be careful not to offend the almighty THEM because THEY have the power to make your life a living hell. But in this, that I even had to think about it, that it even occured ot me was offensive. That I would even have to consider the idea that THEY might step in in this situation was abominable to me. The mere thought made me cringe, both at myself and at the system as a whole.

So will I do it? Maybe, just maybe I might. Truthfully, the Amish do it, so I do have some leeway correct? Or at least in my way of thinking I do. And I really do not feel that any agency has the right to tell me that I have to conform to their way of thinking or ELSE. I feel that lifestyle choices are just that. And if someone can prove to me how hauling a bit of water and peeing in an outhouse is somehow neglecting my kids, then I will be happy to hear them out. But all I can truly see is that it will have untold benefits to everyone.

I am offended that I even have to contemplate the "might happens" in this kind of a situation. In reality, no one knows anymore about raising my kids than I do. They have theories, or suggestions, or ideas about right and wrong and moreal and immoral but in the end everyone is just guessing and going off of instinct anyway. They may have a degree which teaches them how to guess a little better or even a book out which makes people think they are really good guessers because the publisher said so. But we are all of us just operating off of instinct and love. I love my children, therefore I treat them with kindness and respect at all times. I want my children to grow up and have confidence and to be able to take care of themselve sin this world so I educate them on the world around us. I do not like to be hit and so I do not hit my children. This is common sense, every religion on the planet has some form of "the golden rule" in place. But when it comes down to it, no matter who these people are, regardless of a degree, regardless of their employer, everyone of us is GUESSING. We might acknowledge this about ourselves but we find it hard to figure out about other poeple. We spend so much time and effort trying to convince everyone else that we are doing something more than guessing when in reality all of that time could be better spent elsewhere. We might use tools, like studies or literature, or books, or colleges, or perr reviews... but guess what? They are all guessing too! The difference is that they all agree to tell everyone else that they are all right! And we wonder why our kids grow up with distorted viewpoints? We are one wacky species.

And truly the sooner we grasp this concept, that they are not better than we are and they are guessing too, the better off we will all be. And maybe, just maybe, so too will the children.

Have to admit, this was a wonderful idea. Tip o' the hat to my beloved Lyric again. My three wonderful ladies.... Ah, but who am I?

I'm Mischief. I'm far and away the most outspoken of us all, and the ones likely to ramble on the longest. But that's what a blogs all about, right? Aside from interests in philosophy, poetry, science and religion, I work for the phone company. Yep; one of the enemy. Expect a lot of rants about what talking to 100 different people a day, five or six days a week is like, for an average of 11 minutes each. All in all, a wonderful view into what Americans are like. Which is to say, wacky.

As to the war. What can I say that my sweet Lyric has not? At what point does killing hundreds, now thousands of Iraqi's have to do with "liberating Iraq"? In reccorded human history there has yet to be any culture thankful for being bombed. Do people seriously think all those soldiers dying are orphans? They are people. Born of a mother and father, kin to brothers and sisters, just like everyone else you've ever known, regardless of the country. They have hoped, dreamed, wandered and wondered. They want to be happy, they want to be treated well, and have faith and respect in those who govern them. They hope the future will be better than the present. And when you hurt them, when you kill their friends and families, shatter their lives, destroy the things which are dear, familiar, the things around them which make up the world that they know, even the bad things, you engender both fear and hatred. No different than us.

We had a chance, that's what really kills me. We had an opportunity, on September eleventh, two-thousand and one, to truly change the world. To be the first, the be the "good guys", to be the ones to prove that terrorists, that hatred is wrong. To stand up and say "It is wrong to kill people. We greave, deeply and truly, for those who have died. We greave for those who felt they had no option but to try and kill our women and children, our families. We will do our best to see that those who use such methods are captured and brought to justice. But we will not respond in kind." We could have use diplomacy; we could have spoke out, expended the billions, tens of billions spent on warfare to give support to those who wanted to change the shape of their poverty-stricken nations and overthrow oppressive governments. Don't tell me $76 billion dollars in aid would not have enabled an internal regime change in Afghanistan, or Iraq. We could have used non-lethal weaponry (there are dozens of kinds; ultra-sonics that cause intense, disabling motion-sickness as it resonates in the inner-ear. Sedative darts instead of bullets. Prozac in the damn water.), we could have done hundreds of things.

But we didn't.

We bombed them. We blew down their buildings with vast explosions and fireballs. We killed them. In the fields, in the streets, on the roads, where they work and in their homes. Their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters. Husbands and wives.

War is moral cowardice. It is an unwillingness to keep trying another way. People say "there's no other way". What a pitiful, cowardly lie. There is *always* another way. To say there is no way but war is to say peace is useless; it's just what you use to fill in while preparing for the "real" solution. I do not, can not, will not believe that is true.

I am however the eternal optimist. I know that history will vindicate the truth in this; that all the BS will be brought to light, the shame and error of what was done held up before the world. And it will herald the end of America as we've known it. Maybe that's not a bad thing; we've grown so arrogant, so belligerant this last decade. I wonder if historians will call the '90's the begining of the end of America's dominance. Now it's about too late. Our global political power is erroded virtually beyond repair. Our economy drags while Europe and Asia steadily ascend. We can not support the lifestyle we have created for ourselves. The last flailings of our Empire...... ah, Rome, where are you now?

But, back to the here and now. We watch, we wait, we greave. We cling to our families, and we are thankful. Thankful for cascades of shimmering, golden brown hair splayed over the pillow in the first rays of dawn and their gentle play over the sweet face of the most beautiful woman I've ever known. For little Cookies who drag themselves out of bed, bleary-eyed and tired, just to get a hug from Daddy before he heads off for work, so he knows they love him. For little Pixies who drop everything, leap up and run around yelling "Daddy's home! Daddy's home!" like it's the most important thing in the world, even when he's only been gone 5 minutes to the corner market. For tea and philosophy at sunset, crayon-created fathers day cards, and bed-time hugs.

Oh, and Milano cookies. Even at $3 a bag. Sweet goddess in the morning those are yummy.

Hello I am Pixie Gril I am 8 years old and I am also home schooled. I have a very very wonderful sister named Cookie she is cool and nice I have a cool daddy and I have a very very very cool mama I love them all bunches much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I also have 8 great pets as many pets as my age. I dont have much to say but I have this to say... I am lucky. ;)

Hello,

I am Cookie, Iam 11 years old and am home schooled and have 8 great pets; 4 dogs and 4 cats. Long story how we got so many but I'll go through that anther day if ever :) . I have a wonderful wonderful sister, Pixie Girl. Who I play with evey day and I love BUNCHES MUCH!!!! I have wonderful wonderful mother who I love BUNCHES MUCH!!!! I also have a wonderful wonderful Daddy and I love him BUNCHES MUCH!!!!
I am very very lucky.


Peace,

I should intro myself I suppose. Just in case someone reads this at some point. I am the mom of this brood of mine. I am old enough to know better, but still to young to care as they say. I still suffer from 'the arrogance of youth' as my mother used to call it when she still walked this planet. Though my children are a whopping 11 and 8 years old and I am honing in on 'middle aged' faster than Cheney grabs for a buck on the sidewalk. I homeschool both of my wonderful blessings and this blog is a family project we are doing together. My fiancee and I, and our kids. That's about all you need to know for now I suppose, that, and that 'they call me Lyric'. On to more important matters.

The war. Isn't that what we are all supposed to talk about anyway? According to the latest propaganda I am supposed to be thrilled that people are over there dying, having their lives torn apart, and generally, they are supposed to be grateful and I am supposed to be yelling GO TEAM between bouts of semi-hysterical flag-waving and patting our psychotic dictator on the back. Sorry, guess I am just too busy, try me next week. This week I am going to try to keep from crying, bite my tongue every time I get called an "Anti-American commie, tree-hugging, peacenik, pro-Saddam -- In short, ENEMY." I am trying not to rattle anyone's cage, really I am. I am trying not to thump their pointy little heads flat every time they spout their patriotic jingoism at me. There have always been pieces of this nations history that ashamed me, the Native Americans leap to mind of course, but I wasn't there right? So I could sit back in my comfy chair and say how sorry I was for the past, the actions of those other people but none of it was my fault in the end right? This time how can I not accept the blame? I am here, now, in this country, period. No excuses. How can it not be partly my fault? I didn't agree from day one, true. I didn't vote for the nimwit in the white house, true. But I am here, I am an American... and I am powerless to stop it.

Powerlessness is a hard thing to come to grips with. But the fact is that right now, I cannot stop anything that is happening. And to those most affected, from the troops on both sides to the civilians everywhere who are dying or losing loved ones or suffering in general, all I can offer is an 'I'm Sorry!' I think that in all of this patriotic jingoism that we are all supposed to be spouting off at the top of our lungs, loud enough to drown out the rest of the world, they should offer us something of use. We should be told something better to offer up other than the pitiful and inadequate, 'I'm Sorry.' Some governement agency needs to put their blasted heads together and crank out for us some new set of words that MEAN something. I know, how about, 'We are leaving now.' or 'We made a mistake.' or 'We were wrong!' or even 'Woops' would be one hell of a start.

I read my news from a variety of sources, and maybe that is my problem after all, ignorance being bliss right? But how is it that we berate them for parading POW's on TV and then we do the very same thing? How is it that our 'heroic efforts' are televised and headline news but the defense contracts and under the table deals are making the back page? Have we completely lost sight of what is newsworthy or are we walking the gangplank to our own destruction? "Yes yes, right up here Mrs. Smith, the view is lovely isn't it? Just look right up there at the beautiful moon..." *shove*

When do we start to pay attention again? When do we come out of what I swear seems like a drug induced stupor. 'Wave the flag, wave the flag for America! We were wronged and THIS is the answer!!!'.

I gave up the news in any real dosage several years ago because I truly do believe that 'what goes in must come out' and I felt that I wanted to cut the negativity out of my life. I started to pay more attention when you-know-who stole the white house, and then even more attention on 9/11 of course. Now I am bombarded. Day in, day out. And verily, what has gone into the minds of Americans is coming out their mouths. Ahh, the sweet smell of horse hockey in the morning.