I'm about to shove that book up your...::Merry Christmas::

I think I mentioned that this was the strangest Christmas ever here in the land of Robin.  What with the move at the end November, there just was NO time for Christmas shopping, decorating, gifting, etc.  We let everyone know that we simply were not gifting this year.  We LOVED everyone just as much as ever, but we were stretched and stressed out. 

With this in mind, I knew it would make for a bizarre-o Christmas for H-Girl and C-Man.  I used to be The Gifter like that insane woman in the commercial who buys buys buys.  Yes, I was a Dream Come True for a kid.  I loved Christmas as a kid and I wanted them to love it, too.  I wanted them to have all of my traditions and feel.the.love.  As it turns out, my ex had tons of traditions of his own, and his family had lots of love to give, too.  So, they were WELL LOVED on Christmas.  By Christmas afternoon they went into Christmas shell-shock.  And still the gifts kept coming.  So much family dysfunction.  So many divorces.  So many relatives.  So much LOVE.

After my ex and I divorced, I decided that it was a good thing when I moved to FL, and I actually did Christmas with them in January.  They had a few weeks to come off the Christmas high.  I also decided, at long last, to tone it down somewhat.  A serious lack of finances will do that to you.  Add to that the realization that all of that STUFF wasn't actually making them better people.  Go figure.  Did you know that more stuff in the hands of children does not equate to a better child?  Seriously.  I have seen the results.  It is fact.

However, I knew that "no gifts this year" would not make me the best non-mom ever.  So, I decided, as I was packing up my stuff, to go through it and give them the gift of me.  Stuff I would like them to have maybe a little sooner than I intended.  Or stuff that I thought they would like that was currently mine.  It turned out that this was easier for H-Girl than C-Man since we are both... girls.  I did luck up and find the comforter that I bought for C-Man back when I was planning on redecorating his room WAY back in the day.  As in back when he lived with me.  Yeah, that was in storage a long time.  Fortunately, I chose something that was suitable for a boy of any age.  Lucky me.  The rest of the boy stuff looked a lot like this:

In addition to the novels, I did find a book on Astronomy to mix it up.  And I also found some "really old" books that I thought were interesting, simply because they were the first books I bought with my own money from Scholastic Book Services.  Ergo, they were important to me.  I also found a Neil Simon play because the kid showed some interest in drama at school last year.  However, I should have realized that he had totally lost all interest in reading and this was NOT going to be a hit when he was not happy about his birthday present (another book) that I had shipped to him earlier in December.  He was less than thrilled to get it. 

When I saw him he still had not read it.  So, I should have known that this bounty of books was going to go over like... well, a bad smell.  What did he say about my precious books, that I had so valiantly saved because they were my first ever book purchases?  "Oooh, they are old.  Look at the pages.  They are yellowing.  What is the copyright date on this?  1981.  Mommy, you are REALLY OLD." 

He had been quoting from the Neil Simon play as he was flipping through it earlier.  I hadn't really looked at it as thoroughly as I should have, and Mr. Simon used the sh*t word quite frequently.  C-Man found this to be rather amusing.  He substituted poop and kept quoting from the play.  One of the lines was about shoving something up someone's something.  I then told C-Man if he didn't lay off my book I was going to shove it up his ::something::  Merry Freaking Christmas.

Ironically, this story usually plays the other way.  Usually C-Man is a darling and H-Girl has me pulling my hair.  H-Girl was a delight.  She loved all of her hair things, fingernail polish, pedicure kit, the tiara I gave her from when I married her dad (let's face it, I won't be using that again), some purses, a tye-dye kit, some pictures in frames from when she and her brother were younger, and bracelets like these that I made when I was a camp counselor:

Those she really loved.  None of mine had the cool peace sign, but she REALLY liked them, and she thought it was pretty awesome that I knew how to make them.  I think I went up a notch.

I also gave C-Man all of my favorite cartoons that I had cut out from the newspaper and saved from the 80s.  I don't think it even registered.  He is hording that along with my treasured Calvin and Hobbes Book that was a collector's item. I gave that to him last year.  He probably lost it.  I would ask, but I just don't want to hear him tell me that he has "no idea" where it is.  I'd hate to lose control of my arm and accidentally clock him in the jaw.

My doctor told me this last visit that my stress is way too high.  She says that I need to do one hour of meditation daily.  I think she's right.


images found at www.weheartit.com

Annie Get Your Gun

There are some things that I read and I think to myself, "I wish I had written that." 

Now, sometimes I think that because it is just so darn beautiful that it makes my heart hurt.  The words fit together like music.  Actual music. 

And other times it is because it something that I have been trying to say, but I just have not quite made the point succinctly.  Often it is because I think for SO MANY REASONS that I can't decide on just one. 

Here is a portion of something that I did not write, but I wish I had:

Oh, one last thing: Here’s a little history lesson regarding gun-grabbing and the carnage that ensued:

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th century because of gun control: 56 million.

You won’t see this data on the U.S. evening news or hear politicians disseminating this information. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens.

Take note, Americans.

~Doug Giles, for the full article click here

You see, I am just sick to death of politicians using gun control to promote a political agenda.  If you want to beat a drum, try discussing mental health or actually putting programs that work into protecting our kids at school.  I think many a parent would be on board with that.  And you wouldn't have to even pay them to protect their own kids.  I suspect it would work a lot like Neighborhood Watch Programs.  People are invested in their neighborhoods, so they get together and decide to work together for the betterment of their Community.  It's proven that Neighborhood Watch actually works.  I bet that if parents actually manned the doors to every school and eyeballed the kids coming and going every day, it would deter school violence. 

It has also been suggested that some of those video games that kids are playing are pretty dang violent.  I heard one military officer who train men and women for Special Forces Ops say that some of the combat videos the kids are playing are virtually no different than the training videos they use.  It is one person killing another person via a cyber connection.  It is all about the mindset.  They use those "games" to prepare those soldiers to kill people by having them do it in a "game" first.  And so do our kids.  You tell me what the "real" problem is here.  I think it is the fact that these kids have already killed hundreds of times via video game before they fired off the first round in a real shooting incident.  But that is just me.  Seems like the answer is actually taking away the video game for everyone but Special Forces... who are actually training to kill people.


image found on facebook... before I fell off that wagon.
Or would it be that I am now on the wagon?  It is rather confusing....

All of the "F" Words

These last few weeks have given us time to reflect on many things including Christmas, our plans for the New Year (goals, resolutions, or, if you are like me your word for the year), and maybe just some general refocusing. And there has been a lot of time to do all of this because there have been so few distractions for most of us (unless you, too, just moved into a new home and are still unpacking). Family has come and gone. Probably. If they are still here then you have a lot of family or they stay a LONG time. You are probably back to work. You may have even scratched a good many items off that Honey-Do List. And if you live alone, that list is your own list. Whatevs.

What I am getting at is that during this time life comes to a halt, changes, we get a lot of stuff done, and then in a couple of weeks, it all changes again. What happens? Our regularly televised programming comes back. Yep. Our favorite shows come back from the mid-season hiatus they took and all that free time dries right up. And that leads me to the show that has me trolling youtube looking for a fix every so often, because I just CAN'T WAIT until it comes back. J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke joined forces to roll out the tour de force known as Revolution. It is the first show I have watched on NBC in forever. It would take an Abrams or Kripke production to bring me back. And, oh, what a show. If you are not watching that this blockbuster on Monday nights at 10pm, you are missing out.

I have posted the trailer for this show before, though it was a while ago, and couched in a HERE'S TO YOU posting.  So, I am going to post it again for anyone who missed it, or just didn't watch it.  That way you are up to speed for this post.




Okay, wasn't that amazing?  It gives you a pretty good idea where this show is going.  Yeah, it is about a time when the lights have gone off, there is no electricity, or batteries, or power of any kind.  A world where there is no USA anymore.  The government fell, militias rose.  Within that scope a writer gets to tell all kinds of stories.  Of course we want to know HOW it happened.  And, these writers will get there.  And HOW to fix it.  I imagine that they will get there, too.

But, like all Abrams/Kripke productions, at the heart of the story is CORE stuff.  Family.  Freedom.  Friendship.  Fighting.  Forgiveness.  It's all the "F" words.

Let's start with family.  That is at the heart of the show.  The Matheson Family.  Charlotte "Charlie" feels responsible for her younger brother, Danny.  She seeks out the aid of her uncle Miles; she hasn't seen him since she was a child.  These two have to work together.  When you start out as just family by blood but discover that you are family by choice and love, that becomes powerful.  Family.  How far would you go to save yours?



Without spoiling anything (I don't think), let's move on to friendship.  This element is explored through various paths.  Several people picked up the quest to help Charlie find Miles.  They were all merely friends.  Not family.  Keep in mind, this was a dangerous quest.  That asks a lot of a friend.  None of these people were really equipped for a war, either.  Then you have other people getting caught up in this mess, thinking they are on the "right" side, only to discover that maybe they aren't.  It really plays hell with your psyche to find out that maybe you were fighting on the "wrong" side of what amounts to a war for years.

And then there is the Friendship that started it all.  Miles and Monroe.  Best friends since children.  They only started the Militia to save people.  Irony there.  People were dying with the blackout.   Someone had to "step up."  The thing is that "Power corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Yeah.  That sucks.  What happens when you realize that your best friend has become the Dark Side Incarnate?  And you are his Commander-In-Chief and passed on everything you know about how to kill people?  And, for the record, that is what you do best.  So, you have the best trained killing militia ever.  ::You have seriously screwed the pooch::  I would have used another one of those infamous "F" words, because it definitely applies, but I am really trying to clean up my language for the New Year.

What we have here is one of the most Intriguing Friendships of the Show.  We have had glimpses into how it began, where is has been, and where it is going.  Miles and Monroe:  Friendship gone seriously sideways.  Now this hurts.



I feel certain that there will be a lot more Fighting to come based upon how the writers left it.  There are also plenty of opportunities for some Forgiveness and Renewed Friendships.  Family was reunited and I think we might see some Family torn apart.  If Freedom is to be had, it will have to be Fought For, because that is simply where they are.  What I think we will see at the end of this season is the main characters find a Foundation.  They will know, without a doubt, what and who is worth Fighting For and that will make everything easier.  Friendship.  Family.  Freedom.