Tag Archives: Politics

My December Update

Alright….what I have I been up do?  Work, work and work…..gym, gym and gym….lol

Well today I didn’t do either of those today, does that count?  =)  I did make some cookies.  The refrigerator kind that my mom use to make for the holidays.  I think it is the correct receipt, it tastes like I remember…..I could ask mom to verify…..grin  Need to do that next time I talked to her.  =)

Frustrated, got one more of my items delivered…I’m 2 away from having my holiday shopping delivered.  But the one that I really want I won’t get until Monday.  Then I need to turn around and get to the post office that day to get it shipped out.

In between work and gym, I did get all our holiday cards out.  That was a project.  =)  Hubby laughs because I’m the only person he knows that still talks to people from my first job/HS and exchange cards with them….grin

Holiday Cards 2010

I even got my nails done for the holidays…grin  A little blurry, but cute. =)

Holiday Nails 2010

I also took about 4hrs to get our tree decorated…..lol  It is the biggest tree we have ever had, I even had to use a chair to reach the top….never done that before and I have never had to use all my garland and extra lights before….so cool…lol  I need to get more beads and bows for next year, want to add more silver…..I have a lot of burgundy and gold, which was my theme when I started this years ago.

Holiday Tree 2010 Grand Fie

I love the fact that we live with a bunch of tree farms near us.  We get them fresh.  =)

Our Alaska Ornament

I did take time out from decorating our tree to attend our local tree lighting.  It was cold and windy, but it got a nice size little crowd and I got free hot cocoa….grin….can’t turn that down.

Troutdale Tree Lighting 2010

As usual, if you follow my babble on my tweets, I’ve been going nuts on politics….my normal.  =)

Today history was made with the repeal of DADT!!!  So that was one good thing. That is the Civil Rights of our generation.  Now we need to get rid of DOMA.  That is horrible law…..I’m so hoping the courts overturn, totally don’t trust congress.

But I’m totally displeased about the Dream Act failing and how the senate has not passed the 9/11 Responders Bill.  Which is totally sad that it took The Daily Show on Comedy Central for other news networks to start reporting on it…..totally messed up.

Any day now I’m going to be great-aunt to a new niece……wow does that make me feel old….lol  My 19yr god daughter Cassie is due Xmas day, but is so wanting for it to happen now….lol  I so can’t wait to see the pictures of the Gracie when she is born and she’ll be close to sharing my horrible date for a birthday….grin

Got Heather to add me to her chat, the good thing is that she likes to talk to me and hit me up.  Which I’m grateful for, since I even if I’m not there in person I want to help guide her as much as possible.  Very proud that when Heather wasn’t happy with me yesterday and I had to smack her down telling her that I won’t be disrespected (even through chat) that she apologized the next day.  Even though I have to admit that I didn’t handle it very well.  A boyfriend of hers was totally flashing red flags to me……icks  I’m very pleased that she dumped him.  =)

The family says that she reminds them of me, I see it but I also don’t see it.  There is a lot of things that she does that I would never do, but then I grew up on Army Posts moving around, not in the middle of farmland Indiana….huge difference.

Gym wise…..did my 1st full week in over a month.  Been going to the gym, but skipping about one day a week.  This week I did all 5 days and got 75-90min workouts in.  Only left one day early due to issues with treadmills that messed me up…..ggrrrr

Which leads me to this.  We’ve been going to Bally’s for 3yrs this coming Feb…..we are canceling our membership when our contract is up.  The staff is good, they do what they can.  But the corporation bites.  We need new treadmills badly, they have decreased their speed suddenly, almost messing up Harold knees.  They have stopped on me, telling me that user not deducted…..I’m no pixie, it can’t miss me.  Tues I went to 4 DIFFERENT treadmills and they all did it to me.  I was so pissed.

I know their maintenance doesn’t sit on their asses when they are there.  They are always working on them.  The treadmills are just old and we need new ones.  Of course, our response from corp when we tell them this has been a blow off.  So we’ve had it and going to take our money elsewhere.

A new gym just opened up down the road, no contract needed, cheaper month to month.  And there is new location going in where we are looking to move to when our lease is up in over a year.  We’ve heard good things about them.

I do admit, that I will miss the staff at our gym and the regulars there.  They have seen us there for almost 3 yrs and say hi, friendly small talk, and have been encouraging in my weight lost…..shedding 50#…..but I’m not going to miss the treadmills.

I had mom ask me what I want for the holidays…I’m like, I really don’t need anything.  Yes, there is always stuff that I would like….books and pricey apple stuff…..but we are much better off then others.  We are too the point in our lives that we don’t really need/want presents.  We usually get what we want when we can.  Now, I do admit, I love giving presents…..grin  But really don’t need anything.

When hubby asks what I want, I don’t know what to tell him, other then a large list of books.  But while watching a show tonight, it reminded me what we can tell our folks….you want to get us anything…make a donation, we love the humane society, red cross, salvation army, ACLU, goodwill, food banks and organizations for helping people pay for heat/energy during the winter.

So folks, when you don’t know what to tell people what to get for you, have them do a donation instead.  In this economy, there are so many organizations that need even more help then ever.  And that is my service announcement for the day.  =)

Well, this took a lot longer then expected……lol….per usual.  But that is what is going on right now.

Flying Cat, Police & SCOTUS

Well, this time I remembered to put subjects down when I thought of them to remind myself of what I wanted to write about.  =)

Today we actually got a few things done, hubby got the place vacuumed of all the cat fur…not a fun job. We did some outside work.  Hubby got it done much faster then I thought it would take. I got #8 of strawberries cleaned and frozen, shortcake made, laundry done & a blog post.  Tomorrow, debating on making up some egg salad and need to finalize our taxes….fun, fun….  I really need to get back focused on our project….need to get that done.  What I need to do, is put on my ipod to my classical music and just tunnel vision myself.

I finished the Secret Lives of the Supreme Court last week. That was a very interest for a SCOTUS geek like me….grin I’m now reading True Compass by Edward M. Kennedy.  I’m really enjoying how he wrote it.  It is filled with humor, personal insight…..telling a story without it being dry.  So far you get to know people like he knew them….  I have been trying to give myself reading time…it really helps for chilling out and keeping my sanity.  =)

I so can’t wait for more hiking weather…just to get out of the house more.  The gym is getting ho-hum…I think I’m getting restless with it.  I don’t want stop it, just want to get more drive again and less boredom.  Changing between the treadmill & elliptical is helping.  But by the time I get my abs in, I don’t feel like getting my weights in….not good.  But as long as I’m maintaining for now, it is a good thing.  Once we get out more, it won’t be so bad.

We discovered that our other cat, Sakura, can fly….grin  But unlike her brother, she didn’t care that we saw her.  We have a black leather chair that spins with a foot stool about 5-6ft away from the end table.  As we were watching a Ron White stand up, I saw out of the corner of my eye a chunky furry body flying through the air from the end table to the chair….she landed on the top of the chair and it went spinning around in circles.  LMAO  She just looked at us like “What? I do this all the time”  Holy cow…..we just lost it…  I don’t get these 2 cats….we’ve never had cats act like they don’t give a rats ass about us correcting them and don’t care if they do things in front us that they are not allowed to do.  They are something else…we have never had cats fly before….LOL

There is one thing that I find very different to me here in Portland.  I guess there is a history of police brutality from the PDX police.  And from the news reports it sounds like they have taken a lot of steps to correct the actions of the past.  But there have been a few deaths from police shootings in the last year or so.  One of the shooting, sounds like the cop totally screwed up, but unfortunately we had one a few weeks ago and there has been protests….but this one doesn’t sound like a screw up.

This last shooting, the guy was covered in blood, had a knife and was acting crazy.  A knife is a deadly weapon, I would prefer and would hope that they could find another way to disarmed them….but a knife is not something that you play with when it comes to the public and your safety.  So with the info that has been released, at this time I feel it was more like a justified shooting….but I like to hear the all the info.

I hate the arm chair “cops” that act like they know what should’ve been done without being in that situation and knowing all the facts.

Now yes, I know that there are cops that abuse their authority….ever dealt with a small town cop on a power trip?  Not fun.

But now a days, in most places (there are some cites that are nothing but corruption…..not going to name the ones I won’t trust) most cops are just doing their job, trying to keep the public safe.

Maybe I just have been lucky with my dealing with cops, especially the county and state cops in IN, even when I’ve gotten pulled a lot when I was younger and dumber (very well deserved pull overs, 90% of the time). I’ve only had one bad experience, it was in FL and that was due his attitude and talking to others…this cop was known for being an ass….so I don’t actually count him.  Every other cop I’ve dealt with has always been professional.  I treated them with respect and it has always been returned.

My first two jobs were in food service and when cops and emergency responders came in they got 50% off. There are two main reasons for that.  One you know their jobs don’t pay…..so two, if you take care of them and they keep coming back they keep even a better eye on your place.  One of places I worked, it was the only location in all of Lake Country that hadn’t been robbed, because we had cops there all the time. And when they saw cars that they didn’t recognized in our parking lot after hours, they called us to check on us to make sure that everything was ok.  So it is a win-win situation.

So, even though I know that PDX police’s history has been spotty, I’m very uncomfortable with how quickly that they “burned at the stake” no matter what the info is….like the knife and the threats.  It so ties the hands of the good cops that are putting their lives on the line to do a thankless job.

Well, if you follow my tweets with all the links, you know that I’ve totally tied up in the retirement of Justice Stevens.  When you are addicted to politics, history and social issues you know that the Supreme Court is a huge part of our advancement in society, ie Civil Rights…women being allowed to control their own bodies.  What is really sad about Justice Stevens retirement is that he is seen as the force on the liberal side when he is actually old republican moderate.  It is the court that has changed.

The right-wing-nuts rally against “activist judges” (which is code for liberal judges) but their hypocrisy shows because the actual activist judges on the bench are the conservatives.  They are always rolling back our rights…..I feel as if they are going to throw us back to segregation and back alley abortions.  Screw our rights as long as corporations are allowed to do what they want and the white men keeps their power…..ggrrrr No ONE tells me what I can or can’t do with my body, my husband respects that.

Time to do a little bit of reading.  =)

My Random Thoughts

Eat Me!
  • 10:42 even sneezing as much as I do from it, I love the smell of spring… AHCHOO!!!! ew… wet one…
  • 11:04 Zach Braff has confirmed via his Facebook page that the long running comedy series “Scrubs” is officially over – major bummer/maybe time?
  • 11:56 My only question, is he really sorry or just really scared? -Health-reform rally heckler says he’s sorry/scared – tinyurl.com/yc379k7
  • 13:37 Bill Donahue, just because no other religion called 911 on molesting in no way justifies catholics not calling 911, LAME argument.
  • 16:14 LOL! Jim Boeheim has coached ‘Cuse longer than Butlers coach has been alive…
  • 17:37 from the “You should be dead just for being THIS FUCKING STUPID” file… tinyurl.com/ygj4g2y
  • 18:02 Wow! Butler is looking great!
  • 18:08 Congrats to the Butler Bulldogs!
  • 21:11 WOW! Xavier/KSU 2 OTS!!! Some HUGE shots in this game! March Madness!!!

‘Daily Show’ Takes On Financial Regulatory Reform, Explains Dodgy Wall Street Practices

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You want to know what the corps are doing to steal that we has normal people can’t do without going to jail…..here is a very simple explanation. It will piss you off.

State of America

I thought this was appropriate.

I love ice cream…..so…you saw nothing……..grin