I thought Freud was Austrian....

Introducing the London Olympic games mascots, specifically designed  to excite, engage and encourage children to become involved in the coming Olympiad:




Very interesting........

Teach your children well

This week my 6 year old passed a "major" milestone in her growing up. She lost her very first tooth. Most children are somewhat excited by this, but little one  has not been and it seems never will be "most children".

She was actually upset by this and when I finally was able to get to the bottom of her problem I was surprised to find out that she was vehemently opposed to having that "woman in her room". What woman you may ask? Why tis the tooth fairy of course. Little one doesn't know her and does NOT want "that woman" in her room even if she is leaving $$$$$. She never met her and does not want her sneaking about.  I can put the tooth under my pillow and she can just leave it with me according to Little One, but she is not having any of it, end of story.....place visual of blinky eyed parental units here. ( We are not crazy obsessive stranger danger people, we don't need to be, we just keep our kids close, almost exclusively with extended family.)


How do you argue with that? You don't.

Good riddance

to bad rubbish.


"In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon, often twisted, for political gain,” Souder said. “I am resigning rather than put my family through that painful, drawn-out process."



  Thats funny coming from a man that has made a reputation, a living, pushing and implementing  punitive laws based on the "personal failings" of drug addicts and gamblers.

The middle finger salute

Seems some super rich followers of Islam  have bought a largish property right across the street from ground zero (the used to be twin towers) and are building an 11 story mosque. Some folks are .. um......unimpressed.

Caught on the wrong side

..of conditioned codes of honour. Retired CIA general counsel John Rizzo complains about irony:

He pointed out that while Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaida, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed were undergoing waterboarding in CIA detention, the United States was conducting lethal operations against terrorists. "There was never, ever, as far as I could discern, any debate, discussion, questioning on moral or legal grounds about the efficacy of the United States targeting and killing terrorists," he said.




"A lot of attention, a lot of criticism was given about the number of waterboarding sessions they [Abu Zubaida and Mohammed] had," Rizzo said, "but I don't believe there would have been nearly as much similar discussion about the number of bullets that would have been pumped into them if they had been killed rather than captured."

Truth be told Rizzo the moral hypocrisy of holding two such positions has been noted by scores of folks world wide, some even in your country.

Obama don't like white......

I don't know why but that was funny in a truthful kinda way.....If you are waiting for any government to save your behind, might as continue bending over to kiss it goodbye.

What is a screek?

One Formidable Lady

While a very young child the Grey Lady's Grey haired Mamma adored all the old musicals, I spent the weekday afternoons sitting by my Mamma while she watched all the old musicals that were on TV. I could only watch if I was quiet, I'm sure it was a sanity strategy for my Mamma as apparently I was a wee bit of a chatter box, legend goes that I was able to make an exception for these movies.

You might be amazed at the high quality talent that came and went on that screen. I was introduced to the fancy foot work of Fred and Gene, I longed for Cyd Charisse's sassy sultry legs. But no one made more of an impression on me then Ms. Lena Horne. She was stunning in looks and her voice was heaven. Lena was an elegant fighter and my appreciation of her lead me to other soul, jazz greats who all have given me pleasure over the years. Of course the first song I ever heard her sing was Stormy weather, one of her signature songs, the song that put her on the Hollywood map. She died yesterday, at 92 , still stunning in her seemingly ageless beauty. A class act in every way. I thank you Ms. Horne, you have given me many joyful hours over the years.

This is Ms. Horne singing in her eighties, A different take on her song which I appreciate.

 

The original treatment from the 40's movie:

Officially trailer trash

......and loving it.

We took possession of a brand spanking new, new to us, 35 foot recreational trailer this weekend. Ohhhh Ahhhhhhh. A little spit and lot of polish, dragging stuff around and now we have a cost effective, heaps of fun, lots of modern conveniences required for summer fun and frolic. It has a fridge...Ohhhhhh  Ahhhhhhh. . I could make formula in advance and it has a place to stay.....a  freezer...a stove...an oven...Ohhhhh Ahhhhhhh. A heating system that will work...soon...Ohhh ahhhhhh. It has a room with two sets of bunks with pull out trundles...Ohhhh ahhhhhhh. There is a almost queen size bed at the other end of the trailer for the cattleman and I....Ohhhhh ahhhhhhhhh.

It is currently my plan to spend the majority of the summer here, by the lake,  with the children and of course the dogs. Beach, forest, nature out doors by day, quiet quilting by night....Ohhhhh ahhhhhh.

The Cattleman will spend weekdays working in town at the house and drive out for weekends.  He thinks Ohhhh ahhhhhh.

Second note to self..

Be more careful when checking weather forecast, 9 degrees was not what it was going down to last night, it was the forecasted high for today.(It went down to minus 1 last night. Expected to be around the same tonight.)

We are still having a great time, you just move around more. :) Kids exhausted, Dogs exhausted, the Cattleman too. All of them snoozing  away.

Dang I think I hear rain.....yup. Poop.

Who ordered that?

I'm Camping Baby.....

This post is brought to you courtesy of my brand spanking new Turbo Jet packed Internet stick type thingy.Very, very, very cool. The lap top is a very happy critter, humming away, in the middle of "Where the heck are we again?" land, in the dark, by the fire, with a coffee warming  my near numb hands. Going down to 9 tonight, but who cares? We are hearty, we are ready to be bug food, we are camping. This is the life.

Note to self: When you decide to go at the last minute, do not, I repeat DO NOT take the word of a 6 year old when she tells you that she saw the diapers, pull ups in the van. Do not just high five them and tell them "Great Job!!!!!!!". Hey everyone helps pack up, right?????

Pays to have an adult  double check pesky details like that......saves from using makeshift ones  from garbage bags and a series of sanitary napkins........Would have saved us a trip into the nearest town tomorrow......... C'est la vie,  n'est-ce pas ?

Oh come on....

I canna believe it cap'n, I guess some Jackboots take their baseball too seriously. Taser a 17 year old for running on the Field? I thought that was sort of an American tradition or right of passage or something?



I appears it has become the jackboot weapon of choice for all occasions instead of the advertised alternative to using lethal force.

H/T The Padre

The Breakfast Club

I had a wonderful day today, had a meeting of my Breakfast club, first one in a long time.

Took my youngest and meet the ladies at a semi "local" eatery to celebrate one of us coming home and share the news and boos of our current  commitments. L had just come home from volunteering at the orphanage in Uganda for the last 6 months. L ( fifty something if she is a day) has a grown family and a wonderful hubby who understands and supports her impeccably.

In Uganda there is a very high rate of mothers dying during birth. The people are so poor and lack knowledge or ability to feed newborns, often out of desperation and some times grief, if they do not know someone who is already breast feeding in the family, a wet nurse, they have a tradition of taking the babies to a field to let them die of starvation or an equally gruesome fate awaits the children in the field. Snackies for the local beasts.

Now the African culture is definitely one for taking in Family, it is not unusual to see one sister take in the children of another sister if she should die in birth or of aids, (which is happening all tooooo often. Aids is a scourge), then another family member may die and they will take them on too. But eventually due to the amount of poverty and tragedy in a lot of African countries there does become a limit to how much one family member can do and take on. That is where the orphanages come in. These orphanages are not supported by their Government, be it monetarily  or materially, they are funded and run by outside interests. Sometimes it is by just ordinary folks kinda  like the ladies of our breakfast club.

This particular orphanage has been built beside one such field and is scoured daily by the volunteers and the local ladies, teen moms that have no other place to go,  that they have hired to help. Babies are picked up and taken care of. Often in a matter of days you will find the father after grieving for a while has been able to think more clearly, been able to find a helper/wet nurse or  family member comes to the door asking if their  family "baby" was taken in, fathers are brought in, taught how to use bottles, ( they have no means of getting these on their own really) given lessons on how to care for his newborn and milk from the cows that the orphanage owns. Of course this also helps the folks running the place to keep an eye on the children's progress as the new family now comes back almost every day to get more free milk for the babies. (these people are devastatingly poor)

There has also been a foster system set up that has matched smaller families with the children and they are supported by food and very meager funds for incidentals to take in some of these children. This strategy has worked out very well as it is very cohesive with the culture to take care of family and children as much as possible and again the children are monitored as they are all going to the school that has been set up. The schools is very well attended as education is very highly prized and seen rightly as a ticket out of the grinding poverty.

Interestingly the girls are snapped up quickly and the boys tend to be left to stay, it was a puzzlement, until we understood that girls are paid for with a bride dowry when they grow up and the boys must pay for it. It has been impossible to get across to families that they will not be responsible for this burden when the boys grow up to a marriageable age. :) They feel the children are theirs and they are now the family and they are responsible. Now if only we could import that level of commitment and attitude to some Western cultures.

Currently this small place has about 120 children on any given day living there, babies seem to keep around the number 15 or so and almost all of rest over the age of two. In their summer time it drops down to about 30 as family members who have large numbers of children, ( the sister who has three sister's kids for example) will take the children home for a month or two but are unable to cope for  the full year.

So that is the current project that the Breakfast club is working on and meeting about.


We have all connected thru the years by one person or another thru Hosting children in one way or another. Some of us have taken in children from Chernobyl to give them relief and an opportunity to get healthier, some of us have had kids return year after year each summer until they have become almost adults. One just cares for  downs syndrome children. Some of us have hosted Native / Inuit children that have had to come south for health reasons such as lung disease, it is very hard to cope in the super sub zero temps if you have lung issues. ( Lets face it not  lot of doctors are interested in being snow bound in the Attic for 6 to 8 months a year.)Some with children from war torn Africa that were suffering from Post traumatic Stress, patch them up and send them off home. Always, always the condition is that the children have  to go back no matter what or you could ruin the program for the other children that could benefit. Countries are suspicious of white western folks that want to "help" black or ethnic folks with their children and history has proven their suspicion right.

So over the years we ladies have molded into a group, new ones added in and some have fallen off, some religious, some not, some older, some not so old. Most are married, a few are not. Some with children of our own, some have none. Some are economically advantaged, some not so much. Some with PHD's, some just a plain old high school. But there we were this morning having our breakfast talking about our future gaols sharing notes, who had what children in their homes, who was taking a break, touching base on how our natural families were doing, bitched about bureaucracy, ( one has to be careful with that topic, because you could get permanently stuck)  who was going back to volunteer to do hands on work. (It will not be me.) I had a wonderful time, a Bestest time as one of my kids would say.

Tomorrow night we go to hear L give a presentation on her trip to Uganda, our families will be there, it will be open to the public, the Cattleman swears he hears his wallet groaning already.....

U.N. Scores again..

Not so much, the slimy do nothings, never weres, low life parasites of the collective world tried to slide one past us...AGAIN.

Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."




Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.

This is also the theocracy which had a leading cleric state last week that Earthquakes are caused by immodest women, no Burka on your Barbie means Earthquakes boys. Do your duty to your country's geography lads, keep your woman in line. (Yup there it is in the same article.)

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.

 
I don't know about you, but I would hazard to guess that  Canada would be considered a very immodest country by Iranian standards and I only feel the earth move on a semi regular basis localized around the top floor of my house. Other wise? Not so much. 
 
 
I guess too many nations and NGO's were up in arms over the thought of Iran being on the Human rights Council, To save face , yet at the same time not offend the esteemed (oil rich) Iran, the thought process must have gone something like this. "I know we can get them to withdraw and we have to do is throw our women folk under the bus"....The payoff is so disgusting, even for such a parasitic organism such as the UN, I begin to wonder if there are any sane folks to be found outside a few pockets of free thinking refugees.
 
Trying to stay positive now,  lets take a look at the list of the other members of the Status of  Women, surely they are going to be able to temper Iran's ideal image of a woman that is "suffered to live" right? Again..not so much. Of course there are a few but come on....
 

When its term begins in 2011, Iran will be joined by 10 other countries: Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Jamaica, Iran, Liberia, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe.

 
The UN, a noble experiment that has failed miserably to come anywhere close to it's intended results, these are the folks we are supposed to trust/believe about other important things like Climate change and all those glorious billions of dollars being funneled into their hands? (TWB)Time to throw it out with the rest of the useless trash.

Link fixed.