Life is too short, too short

Today, after spending 40min of my time in traffic because of a 7 car accident on I-64 which, ta-da, made me 30min late for work, I was told I'd better start being here on time no matter what or I will not have a job.

When I tried to explain how I just spent the last 40min in traffic and that is something completely out of my control, I was told it didn't matter, I should have left earlier.

He then said I've been late everyday since I began working here and since I'm first on phones it's unacceptable. His idea of late, btw, is getting here exactly at 8am.

So either I'm going to get fired by Friday or I'm going to quit. I'm really tempted to leave today and not come back, but at least by getting fired I can claim unemployment. I just don't know if it's really worth my sanity to stick around that long.

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Peanutisms

Penelope somehow obtained my black bra yesterday morning.

I came into the room and Peanut says, "Mom, Penelope has your breasts."

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Inflexibility at Work

I arrived 10min late to a note on my computer monitor that read, "Crystal, Please be at work by 8am. Your job starts at 8am. Thank You! ~boss' name."

And that's it. No hey, what's going on, nothing. Just be here or be fired. Which I can certainly understand but wow, I would love for them to live a week in my life and then perhaps they'll change their strict, inflexible ways.

Because it's not like I woke up this morning and decided I wanted to be late just for the hell of it.

In fact, Peanut was awake at 6:30am but when I told him at 6:50am it was time to get up and dressed, he proceeded to throw several mini-tantrums, telling me how this is why he wished I'd never taken this job, it's too early to get up, etc. That threw us off schedule by 5min but we were still okay since I built a 5-10min buffer into it anyway.

Yet, if that weren't enough, I decided to pack us in the car then get on the highway, unconsciously heading straight to work. Thank goodness I realized it fast but again, that set us back by 5min. Yay for Monday's!

It was when I got to Peanut's daycare that really threw the already tight schedule off. One of the teacher's (she's really the one who takes care of the programs finances but hangs out with the kids in the morning and afternoon) wanted to talk to me about Peanut, how he does a good job there, they are working with him, etc. I wasn't going to tell her to wait, that I had to get to work, because Peanut is more important than any job simply because he's my flesh and blood. Money certainly helps but it's not everything.

So all that combined created the problem of me being 10min late to work.

That's a lot of life to happen before 8am and hey, shit happens and, in my opinion, if you're going to employ a single-mother, you should be a little more understanding and compassionate. After all, she's most likely trying the best she can to begin with.

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Friday Dog Blogging: The "It's Official, We're Keeping Her" edition

Family Pets 015
Originally uploaded by a nut.

Her owners found us last week while we were walking about in the rain. They were in the process of moving from their house in Church Hill to another neighborhood down the road a bit called Fulton Hill and the mom was picking up her sons from the school around the corner.

She got out of the car, claimed it was indeed "Duchess" and asked if they could visit. We exchanged phone numbers, I lost theirs 2 days later and I haven't heard from them since. Mom did ask if they could visit, told me Penelope used to take her collar off all the time and loved to sleep in the bed with her husband, who is paralyzed. Had I fully realized I would definitely be keeping the dog, I would have asked if she'd been to the vet for initial shots or if she'd been spayed. Oh well.

We go next weekend to do all that and in May she will have her reproductive insides taken completely out.

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Judge passes the buck

He decided to pass the decision off to the guardian of Anna Nicole's baby girl because he personally wanted her to be buried in the Bahama's with her son.

Britney Spears is cracking which of course might award K-Fed the kids after all.

There.

Can we go back to more important things now? Like say the elections coming up in November 2008, a shitty war in Iraq and the increasingly impatient push to go to war with Iran? Or how about the AIDS pandemic in Africa or the various highly curable diseases also found there?

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And this is why I support Obama...

“It’s not clear to me why I would be apologizing for someone else’s remarks,” Mr. Obama said. “My sense is that Mr. Geffen may have differences with the Clintons, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with our campaign.”

Hillary admits she wants to run a positive campaign yet is too busy getting her digs in to follow through with it. She needs to stop fretting over a lost donor and the fact this could change the minds of impressionable voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and the like and start sounding like she really believes what she's saying.

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It's nice to see they're taking it seriously

4 Iraq soldiers were charged with raping a 50-year old Sunni woman after she wouldn't tell them what she didn't know.

This report comes just days after a 20-year old woman brought allegations on 3 other Iraq soldiers for the same thing. That case, however, was quickly dismissed by the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, as "fabricating the allegation to undermine support for the security forces during the ongoing Baghdad crackdown."

Nice huh?

Of course no one appreciated that decision, especially the fact it was made in less than a day's time, with no investigation into the matter. The US, being the good Samaritans we are, has launched our own investigation into the matter. I think we need to make sure our own soldiers stop raping Sunni and Shiite women before we can tell anyone else not to.

For those of you who don't know, rape is a big deal in the conservative Muslim culture, often bringing shame onto women and their family because they (the women) either had sex outside of or before marriage, despite it not being the woman's fault. Often, a male family member will kill the woman in order to defend his family's honor and rid the village of her sin. Never mind she didn't rape herself nor tempt the man who did. (For heaven's sake, they wear a burqa's and/or hijab’s, which cover them completely. What temptation is left to blame a woman for?)
It's hellish being a woman in a country that doesn't respect you and thinks you're "just a woman" so anything can happen to you without regard for your personal safety or well-being.

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Wanted: A Child-Friendly Workplace

Let me know if you have any suggestions okay? Because working for a small company that isn't child-friendly in its practices when the job is mundane, repetitive and so easy I feel like I'm wasting my hard earned college degree is, well, no fun and only adds to the stress of being a single mom.

It's not that my new job is unfriendly per say, but I can tell they'll tolerate Peanut coming to work with me only after I've exhausted all my options. Too many times of Peanut "distracting" me and I feel I'll be fired. How's that for taking care of your employees eh?

So next time he gets suspended (and I'm hoping against hope he won't), I'll be on the scramble yet again.

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Fighting for their Lives

American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer "fighting for our freedom", but are instead defending their lives from suicide bombers, roadside bombs and missiles large enough to take down several helicopters over the past weeks. (For the record, if I hear one more person say the US is in Iraq/Afghanistan to defend our freedom, I'm going to scream. You can't defend something that was never at risk.)

Today was no exception:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents launched a brazen coordinated attack on a U.S. combat post Monday, sending in a suicide bomber and clashing with American troops. Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 17 wounded, the military said.

Casualities weren't as bad as they could have been, but tell that to the families of these fallen soldiers. Then keep in mind the amount of civilians who die everyday due to the various bombings taking place when they are just trying to live their lives as best they can, surviving from one day to the next.

Would we stand for this chaotic lifestyle here? I don't think so.

Saturday the insurgency debate was squashed but the resolution to send in more troops was not. Neither really does anything to stop Shrub, but it definitely sends a hard message to his regime; one that showed Congress was finally beginning to stand for public opinion and congresspersons didn't simply give blind faith to their party (7 repub's voted with the dem's).

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Flip Flop

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Happy Valentine's Day

The latest story about an archeological dig that recovered a couple buried together touched me, perhaps it does because they are proof true love existed so many years ago. They were buried over 5,000 years ago yet here they are, forever held in an embrace into a life ever lasting.

It reminded me of a poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans I once had the pleasure of reading; the one I share here:

Thou thing of years departed!

What ages have gone by

Since here the mournful seal was set

by love and agony?

Temple and tower have mouldered,

Empires from earth have passed,

And woman's heart hath left a trace

Those glories to outlast!

And childhood's fragile image,

Thus fearfully enshrined,

Survives the proud memorials reared

By conquerors on mankind.

Babe! wert thou brightly slumbering

Upon they mother's breast

When suddenly the fiery tomb

Shut round each gentle guest?

A strange, dark fate o'ertook you,

Fair bab and loving heart!

One moment of a thousand pangs -

Yet better than to part!

Haply of that fond bosom

On ashes here impressed,

Thou wert the only treasure, child!

Whereon a hope might rest.

Perchance all vainly lavished

Its other love had been;

And where it trusted, nought remained

But thorns on which to lean.

Far better, then, to perish,

Thy form within its clasp,

Than live and lose thee, precious one!

From that impassioned grasp.

O, I could pass all relics

Left by the pomps of old,

To gaze on this rue momument

Case in affection's mould.

Love! human love! what art thou?

Thy print upon the dust

Outlives the cities of renown

Wherein the mighty trust!

Immortal, O, immortal

Thou are, whoe earthly glow

Hath given these ashes holiness -

It must, it must be so!

"In the excavations (1763-1820) at Pompei and Herculaneum, two cities destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D., plaster of Paris was inserted into empty spaces in the lava where there had been bodies. Thus a replica of the forms of the bodies was obtained. Hemans refers, as she said, to 'the impression of a woman's form, with an infant clasped to the bosom, found at the uncovering of Herculaneum.'"

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I found a job, I found a job, I found a job!!!

And I start first thing Monday morning, yay!!

It's with a local computer company and I'll be making more than my previous job and getting health, dental and life insurancies paid for 100%.

Yay me!!

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Friday Dog Blogging: The New puppy!! edition

Isn't she cute? Her name is Penelope (yes, Homer's Penelope) and last Friday my downstairs neighbor found her wandering around our alleyway. She knocked on my door to show me this cutie pie and we've been in love ever since.

Amazing though not all to suprising, no one has come forward to claim her. I've listed her as found with the local shelters, walked her throughout the neighborhood and still, no one seems to be missing her too much.

She looks pit bull at first glance but I think there may be wonky breeding practices or simply another breed involved. If you look at her ears though, she's got the telltale floppy ears of a pit bull puppy.

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Peanut's got the flu

It's been hell today lemme tell you.

This is something I wish I had someone here to help me with; it's one of the few times being a single mom really sucks because it's hard watching him wake up disoriented, only knowing some woman is shoving a little cup with medicine he really doesn't want to take at him then hey, she's back with toast.

Last night his fever spiked. I could tell because he suddenly woke up and looked around like he didn't know where he was. When I asked him a question, he looked at me like I was unfamiliar to him. That signaled an emergency in my brain so I rushed to get him the motrin.

His fever went down and he went to sleep soundly.

Just a little while ago he woke up, saw me and said, "I don't want to be here." When I asked where, he repeated, "I don't want to be here."

I asked him where here was and he said he was on a pile of....

A parent doesn't just watch their 7 year old child endure the virus, they go through it with them, from the chills to the heat flashes to the downing of medicine that's supposed to taste like bubble gum but instead takes like fancy dirt.

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Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

Her brash truth telling, raise hell ways will be greatly missed.

Syndicated political columnist Molly Ivins died of breast cancer Wednesday evening at her home in Austin. She was 62 years old, and had much, much more to give this world. She remained cheerful despite Texas politics. She emphasized the more hilarious aspects of both state and national government, and consequently never had to write fiction. She said, "Good thing we've still got politics -- finest form of free entertainment ever invented."

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