Praying for those folks stricken by Katrina today, again, and for a long while

It just saddens me to read, see and hear about the aftermath of Katrina. She was devastating enough on her own, so I thought, but now the situation seems to worsen by the hour.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you what's going on there - just pick up your local edition of the paper or tune into CNN to hear a female veteran journalist who thought she had seen it all in her career actually fighting back tears as she reported on what the human condition was at night in the flooded areas.

Heartbreaking. Unthinkable. Impossible for us in the United States to imagine. Unless we're in it.

It's hard to judge the folks busting into their local WalMart and drugstores taking unpaid diapers, water, first aid supplies and the like. What is hard to fathom is the taking of things like DVD's, jewelery and beer. Who knows what people are going through over there right now and who's to say what people should need - but really - looting TVs? There's no electrical power there people!

One of the uglier sides of humanity rears it's thorny head I guess.

My prayers go out to everyone in that area, affected by that area and attached to that area by family, friends or just by being part of the human race. I'm especially worried about the law enforcement officers who are outnumbered by looters, emergency crews seeing the most horrible things today and for anyone still stuck somewhere on a rooftop or attic. May God have great mercy on all of them and may these folks know that prayers - the most powerful thing on the planet - are being sent their way by many of us right now.

I have an awful feeling that we haven't seen or heard the worst from that area yet.

Pray at any opportunity you have today...just do it.

My Kingdom for the VH1 Coldplay/Storytellers CD...seriously...help!

Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but I can't find this CD! VH1 normally comes out with the CD from a Storytellers show - but I haven't heard or seen the Coldplay VH1 concert in any store, on line or not. To appease me, I have the original show TiVo'd and it's off limits to the 'delete' key until I get the CD.

I like this live version better than the regular CD, actually. I've got the VH1 Culture Club CD since I have no idea where all my LP's are from seventh grade. Where IS the Coldplay one people???

Okay, enough pretending like I'm in college chasing CDs around...LOL!

********************HELLO TO MY FRIEND LAURA!**************************

It's nice to hear from Laura! Howdy and welcome to my strange blog - Laura and I met through my hubby on a forum (the only on line forum that I participated in basically) and is a fiercely intelligent lady. One can learn a lot from a gal like this. Anyhow, we try to snail mail each other to keep our handwriting up to spec, and the ball is in my court.

Laura, the letter is almost done. You know me, I write mini-novellas about, well, everything. Just call me 'Faulkner' for short!

If any of my friends or family who read this blog (to make sure that I'm not totally out of it from my latest surgery) have a blog, please let me know so I can visit, read, post and put on this blog.

Gotta run, my son, JP and I, are watching Batman (the cartoon) and Kim Possible. KP and Jimmy Neutron are my favorite cartoons - while my hubby, CP and JP prefer Looney Tunes, Batman and Jimmy Neutron, in that order I believe. JP only gets a half hour of cartoons per day, so gotta make this family TV time count before dinner tonight!

I must say, I LOVE being a mommy - or JP's mom to be more accurate. Being a mom ROCKS - it's so freeing - and I can watch cartoons again!

...but I need my Coldplay/Storytellers CD too! Help!

Ads on other people's blogs

Not cool, not wanted and certainly not a message to leave a lady - this spam was about weight loss.

As if.

Even locally, in out own town, our own entertainment center has been 'bought' to show a 'new' and 'temporary' name when the old one was just fine. In fact, the old name actually honored a pioneer here in the area who is deserving of things being named after them. Can't even remember what the new name is (for the next year or so) but I'll keep calling it by the old name.

Ads are everywhere and sometimes, for me anyways, I don't even see them anymore. Even radio ads - can't even tell you what they were trying to sell and don't care.

So, to the blogger who left me all of his ads - don't. Really, don't. It's not cool or wanted and it's pretty annoying. Advertise on your own blog and find a better marketing scheme that's not so evasive.

By the way, I don't need help with weight loss, thanks!

Wonder what Miss Manners would say about it?

Journalism without brains, Katrina, CNN and you

I never worked for CNN or anything close to it, but I was a journalist. Not a huge journalist, but rather a feature reporter and I did have a small weekly beat with the oh-so-glam Planning Commission and City Council meetings. I know - I lived the life with my piddly paycheck and shared Mac in the office.

Rule number one with reporting - never, never, ever risk your life for a story. Period. You're on your own if you do and nobody will remember you for your stupidity.

Case in point - this Katrina story - if you haven't seen the stupidity on CNN, please turn it on RIGHT NOW. They keep showing these two IDIOTS who report for CNN knee deep in floodwaters earlier this morning - blowing around with Katrina and - well, just stupid. Does one need to be knee deep in floodwater with goggles on (not kidding) standing next to an Army power generator letting us know that he's standing in a parking lot? Um, we get it dude - we see the huge white mini-van being submerged behind you. Yes, we see the water coming in the window of the van and yes, we are aware that it's in a parking lot.

Oh, and that water coming from the sky, we know it's rain - as in water.

The sad thing is this - my husband and I were waiting for this guy to fall into the floodwaters and get swept away. You didn't see any women doing this sort of reporting, now did you? No. The women were INDOORS and reported from outside their hotels, in the worst cases. Water, storms, winds and bad weather like this ain't a woman's best friend. Bad hair days you know.

So, the question is this - why do they keep showing us on CNN 'what it's like to report a hurricane' - 'the tapes from today's stories, from our brave journalists' -- really, why?? Do they like pointing out how stupid their reporters are?

Apparently.

Look, as a journalist, I wouldn't stay in a meeting for more than two hours knowing the outcome would be 'at our next meeting we'll recap this" at 2:30am...not kidding either...and this was a paying gig too. There's NO WAY I'd be knee deep in some storm/sewage whatever water reporting to the world that there's "MORE WATER THAN THERE WAS SEVERAL MINUTES AGO" for crying out loud.

I wear waterproof Clinique 'workout' makeup and all, but COME ON! This was just way over the top.

Thankfully there were no reporter deaths from this hurricane, but mark my words, someday soon a CNN reporter will be remembered for their 'sacrifice'. Please - just prevent this and use your brain people.

Oh, and CNN, could you please, PLEASE stop calling it Hurricane Katrina? She's a tropical storm now laughing at us over NashVegas.

Okay, rant for tonight done - over and out!

The freedom of the Cable stitch & Katrina in New Orleans

This weekend I taught myself how to do the dreaded Cable stich thing. Wow! How cool is it when you teach yourself how to do something (a skill as in this instance) that has nothing to do with a computer? Very cool. Very empowering, very freeing.

I've avoided this particular stitch pattern because it just looks so difficult to do (not to mention those wiggly looking cable needles that go along with it - just scary looking). Not knowing that a little twist here and a little twist there and VOILA! I've got a nice little cable pattern going into an evening halter top that ties at the neck in back. Grabbed some nice soft and softly sparkling black yarn and it's coming together rather nicely.

See, the hidden fashion designer in all of us can come out once you learn the basics of knitting! LOL! Well, at least I know the outfit I'll be wearing to my hubby's company Christmas party this year. The cable halter top that I'm making now, my lovely Ann Taylor silk skirt that I've held on to for just the right occasion and - well, I'll have to make some kind of nice evening wrap to go along with my outfit to finish it off (and to keep me a bit warm!).

I've also thought of my painting again now that my recovery time is coming to an end here in September. I've got a few things I have in mind to paint, and would like to get going on but should really wait until I'm back in the groove. Kinda like the writers block that you hear of. Yeah, being a Journalist in a former life (in my early 20's) I knew what that was like too, but deadlines don't let writer's block take over, that's why they have Editors to help kick you in the rear and remind you that you could lose your job!

Not so with painting. Nobody's going to fire me - and I think the little break is good for me. Good for artists in general. You paint and paint for a period of time (or a weekend let's say), get motivated about your next series of paintings, get set up and perhaps need a break all of the sudden. The ideas are still there and the desire to do these paintings are still there - those blank sheets of canvas are hovering around, waiting for their colours -- but you're just not 'there' yet. In my case this time I think it's the drugs from this latest and hopefully last surgery. Once they decide to get out of my system (and once I start drinking more water to help them out) I think the energy to do these paintings will return.

Of course, Christmas will be coming up sooner than later, and that's always a good deadline to work for. Sigh. Maybe I'll make it this year. Who knows? My loved ones with either get a painting (or already have one - especially if they live in Chicago or Nashville!) for this year or something lovely that I knit especially for them. Or perhaps both. We'll see what the creativity meter reads in a few weeks - and if I don't have a job by then.

No job so far - and Lord knows I've sent out many a resume on line in the past two weeks. Let's see what happens this week if anything. Re-entry ain't the most desirable thing to have floating around on a resume or cover letter.

Praying for those folks in New Orleans and surrounding areas - including family in Tennessee...I've driven down from Nashville to Mobile, Alabama (facinating place for a painter!!!) and it's not that long of a drive as you're going through to Destin Beach area...hoping everyone is safe and sound tonight, Lord willing.

May Katrina's force be swift and without the loss of too many lives. They say this type of storm comes every 150 years or something like that. Time for some serious prayer, folks. Lord, have mercy!

'Super Sweet Sixteen' on MTV

Since I've been home recovering (aka: watching TV and knitting, a deadly combination) I've stumbled across something horrible on TV. This is even more horrible than VH1's "Surreal Life" which is just degrading and makes one want to take a shower after seeing it.

Even though all these shows are so bad that you shouldn't be watching them in the first place, once you start watching them it's like watching a car accident - you just can't look away. So, today I made sure the TV was off. Can't see this show again!

The premise of this newest 'reality TV' show is the MTV installment called "Super Sweet Sixteen" and boy, they can just drop the "sweet" from the title. These full blown divas that apparently are turning 16 but act like the rich, spoiled divorcee on the '80's Dallas or Falcon Crest are too fake to believe. First of all, they are minors and secondly, money seems to be no object since it seems all the girls have parents who are divorced. Shocker!

The fact that these girls are mini Paris Hiltons isn't what bothers me, it's more that their parents are spending so much money on these brats that one has to wonder - WHAT are they gonna do for this diva's wedding? Well, that is IF the girl can step off of her high horse for ten seconds to land a man who can put up with it.

I'm a parent - not to a girl, but still - and there is NO WAY IN THE WORLD I would do this sort of thing for my kid (daughter or son) let alone mortgage the house to do a party to make my kid the most popular and stuck up person in the school system.

Watching this program four times (which was plenty enough - and the format is basically the same each time) made me also think of what the girls featured on the program would think when they saw themselves acting so terribly on the TV for the world to see. I would be mortified, but then again, I never acted like I was Paris Hilton - let alone while cameras were rolling!!!

Perhaps the girls were flattered that MTV would care enough to follow them around taping their every move, bad word, fight with their mothers, $900 dress sessions, hair-do cranky-ness, etc., and thought that they would actually look 'cool' under the MTV lights.

Um, nope! If anything, these young girls need some serious time at a boot camp or with habitat for humanity or something to help get their blonde tresses down to earth with the rest of us. For my 'sweet sixteen' my parents went to Hawaii (without me) which gave me the opportunity to date the guy I wanted to, snag that all important 'first kiss' and get busted by my own (younger) sister hours later. I wasn't yelling at the party coordinator from the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas over some Freshman busting into my Gala and chasing the culprits down in my Prada shoes, toenails with REAL DIAMONDS encrusted on them and $1000 dress! LOL!

I think I was in jeans, tennis shoes and a sweatshirt! The whole ensemble cost like $40! Ah, the '80's - so simple!

However, I do like the High School Scandals and Pranks on MTV that showcase the creative minds of Senior class members who try to come up with (and do) the coolest prank before graduation. Mostly, the kids get into trouble because they're kids, and the school administration deals with this kind of stuff each year. Of course, they never tell you how the grades are of these kids - so you have to wonder if they were doing this as extra-credit or just for fun.

Thank God I'm not a teenager these days! I'm too much of a square peg for this sort of stuff on MTV!

Accidentally on Purpose

Okay, this will be the title for my book, if I ever write one. "Accidentally on Purpose" -- LOL! If you know me, you are laughing right now. The title is from a Stitch N Bitch book, so it's not my idea, but good artists borrow while GREAT artists steal. I'll be stealing!

Maybe this should be the name of my blog!

Sooooo me!

Trying to get back into the workforce...

...well, it's not like I'm trying to get backstage at the Coldplay or U2 concert here, just trying to get a J O B...but it feels like it. I've put out my updated and not so fluffy resume - one has to be more 'real' when one hasn't been in the job sector for oh, like four years. We must update that time period to include the whole time I was pregnant because, quite frankly, I didn't DO any work during that time.

Really. Not kidding. My co-workers did all my work. And they were very nice about it since I was like 190 something pounds and very VERY uncomfy. They were saints. God Bless all of them.

Back to reality. I'm recovering from surgery and a nice lovely head and throat thing going on that makes me sound as if I smoke all the time. Maybe it's not a bad thing that nobody has called me yet.

Sigh.

I must admit that sending out the resumes on line (the preferred way to do it nowadays) has made me think about a lady from my last real job. She was divorced (like just recently) and she was living alone, worrying about her college age son who just moved out and stuck at this huge company in the mail room. People didn't treat her all that well and she would break down in tears on occasion when the men left the room. The adjustment to her new life was hard on her and we tried to help by being there for her, but let's face it - if you've never been through whatever the person is going through, you simply don't know. You can't.

Anyhow, this lady was nice with everyone and a few of us ladies treated her like one of us - or so we thought, A lot of us were wondering how she got into this mess of her life at only 53 years old and vowed never to get into that situation - EVER. So much for female empowerment! At times I would wonder what made her lose so much of her vitality and lust for life that she didn't think she was worth more than the freaking mail room. She would actually admit that it was 'the only job she could get' although we knew she had more skills than she put on her resume.

They finally 'laid her off' - and believe me, she was the first on the chopping block. No severance, no thank you letter, no warning, really. I got laid off much later, but I got all the goodies, a send off party and everyone was so sugary nice, but I felt bad for the mail woman. She could have been my mom for crying out loud. Sometimes I wished I knew what happened to her - where she is now...what she's doing - where she's working.

Should I have helped her out somehow? Helped with a reference? Well, I won't ever know now, but I can say that I know what it's like trying to get INTO the work force for these re-entry women. It's nerve-racking and makes me wonder.

When I was younger and has less experience, all I had to do was waltz into a large corporate office well dressed with pearls and a perfect hairdo and VOILA! the job was mine! I never had to wait - and I mean EVER. Times are a changing and I'm not the little petite young single thing trying to get a job for $12 an hour anymore either.

My first hit of reality was several years ago trying to get a job at Hewlett Packard. Man, was that torture. They literally took a MONTH to go through the process, do the drug testing, personality tests, interviews with just about every manager there before I could walk into the front gate. That got me nervous back then. Today I wouldn't be able to get that job. Really, would not.

It's been a little over a week since I sent out my resumes around here, and I'm not expecting anyone to call for at least two more weeks. If it's the one thing I've learned from that mail room lady from years ago it's this...be patient and don't take the crappy job. Hold out for the job that's right for YOU and know that you are worth a better job than the mail room.

That said, if the mail room job comes with benefits, 401K and is local, maybe I'll take it for now! LOL!

Knitting to keep one's sanity

Forget the Prozac or the "happy lite" - the answer is in the Knitting, folks! You see, as I continue to heal up from the recent trip to Stanford, the knitting thing has kinda taken over my life. Good thing too - it's either that or compulsive cleaning - or as I'd like to call it "cleaning up after two boys in the house!!"

The interesting thing that's happened is this - I've actually begun to create a few little knitting pieces. This is interesting to note because A) I am not an accomplished knitter (as if one had to have a degree in this sort of thing) and B) Don't ask me how to knit what I just knit, because, well, I don't reallly know how I got from point A to point B to begin with.

Maybe it's the Dyslexia gift working it's way through my system into what I knit! Maybe not. Maybe I'm just loopy. Well, maybe.

However, I did find a book at the library on what is called 'Freeform knitting" - hmmmm, maybe I'm not so weird after all. Someone has the same thing going on and had it together enough to write it down.

Now, as I knit, I think about the ladies who write down the patterns as to what they are creating. WHAT? I'm pretty strange, but that just sounds like torture - Algebra pop exam - the annual - just not something that's fun to do. But, even now, as I knit myself to sleep tonight I think of these ladies. I think of them AND their perfect little worlds, the clean bonus rooms and the newly brushed cat named Muffy on the windowsil in the sun.

P2, K2...repeat til you pass out and use some creativity people!

There, that's my pattern. Hope you can understand it. I'm still figuring it out and the one lone sock on it's three needles still sits in the bag behind my bed. Kinda the "Home for Patterns in Rehab" of sorts.

BAD pattern! I love you, now change!!

Singing the praises of the local farmer's market

It is a lovely day today here in Sonoma County, and since I didn't quite get up early enough to make it to church (still recovering from surgery and can't get up before 10am still) we decided to go to the farmer's market in Sebastopol and man, was it cool. Almost like going to church since our church (with a 4 year old) is kinda done inside the church and outside the church in the most amazing garden ever! And of course after the service we normally have an AWESOME Greek/American buffet outside that is just heavenly.

So, the local farmer's market we were at today and man, did that totally rock. All the fresh, organic foods and our favorite -- all that sampling! Of course, there's the hippie element to those events, anti-Bush administration stuff in the live music - were we in Berkeley or the North Bay? Does it really matter when there's the best foods in the land right in front of you?

Uh, no, and I don't mix my politics with my fresh feta cheeses or organic chocolates, thanks! Makes for tummy troubles later on down the line...

I did, however, find a cool lady who was knitting at her booth - she sells her own homespun wool from her own animals...how cool is that? We chatted for a few minutes and I got updated on the Knitting scene in this area pretty fast. Good info to have.

All in all, beautiful day, lovely food, great family company - and then it got too hot so we watched some hockey games at the local rink and froze to death.

Lovely!

Remembering Passwords, the ordeal

Why is it that when it comes to remembering my password to the Dashboard here at Blogger that I can't? Well, perhaps it's the surgery and my normally foggy brain, or it could be the sock I tried to knit that really did the damage...or I think it's something even more sinister...try this on for size -- we have too many passwords!

Think about it for a minute...how many sites, ATM cards, medical info/cards and the like ask you for a password? Seriously, write them down or don't - maybe one should just count them up in their head! After all, it's a password!!

For creatures like myself, passwords should be all the same, but some require numbers AND letters, and some reject the password you've chosen out of sheer laziness due to, well, someone already has it. What? Now I must think of something ELSE to forget about...

ah! Passwords!

Socks can't be THIS hard to knit!

...but in my case, they are...why, well, for starters, I'm still on painkillers from my surgery (at night only) and they say the first sock you do is the hardest. Well, unless you're a perfectionist who actually follows directions. Directions and following them are not my cup of tea.

These sock patterns sound so nice, so pleasant and so easy to do until you're into them (around the 50th row) and then they start twisting, turning and acting like cranky children on a school day.

Now I know why I like to paint - at least there are no directions and it's not this hard!

So, I have three, no make that four, nice little socks that look lovely, but they're all missing the heel part and were abandoned at about that stage. My knitting pal that used to live across the way was always like 7 months ahead of me on everything and really good at following directions is now gone (sob!) and she gave up on helping me fix my first sock (unravel the whole bleeping thing??? again??? I think not!!). LOL!

I guess I'll have to join the local knitting group down the street and sit at the feet of some 13 year old who can knit a whole Vogue outfit for Nicole Kidman's next fashion shoot in less than 20 minutes and learn how to make ONE SOCK! (crying noise here)

Knitting, the new thing that calms me and wigs me out all in one turn of the needle. I did find a nice show on TV about knitting, and will be watching that over and over til I get what they are talking about (it certainly is English they speak, but what they're doing, not so sure) and perhaps when the drugs wear off I'll begin to 'get it' a bit.

Knitters say that one day it "just clicks' and then all is well with your pattern. Ugh, not doing it for me and it's been a couple of months. Can you say 'knitting for dyslexics???"

Keep on Knitting!