(note that it was raining on monday morning. no garbage vandalism; however, i was awakened in the wee hours by the wild turkeys looking for food. note also that the turkeys were all over our property but did not tear open the trash...)

i have so much to say about seeing my kid onstage, but i just don't have ALL the words.  here are some, though...

i was so pumped up that i woke up a few hours later and even could have made it to work if i hadn't taken a vacation day...

some time this week, i'll dump my photos onto my flickr, and will put them onto myspace to tag the band.

_____
* my parents are not Sid's grandparents. as i've posted a few times in the past, the [four] kids' mom was... absent. when i met her, it obviously did NOT go very well; however, she saw how the kids interacted with me - they were still small, with Pin, the oldest, barely in his teens and the youngest, oh, six maybe? - she named me their guardian if anything happened to their dad.

biology, as i've said a million times, isn't the only way to make a family. i just have to remember to tell that to the kids' friends when i meet them. based on the stories, they expect to meet a witch - no offense to real witches - when they meet the kids' mom!

except when i have to explain this, i never think of Pin, Sid, Duz, or Corey as anything but my own.

I hope that everyone else's kids called :)

my mom was probably pretty happy... my brother drove down and mowed her lawn, dropped off a new shower head that he'll install next visit (my dad was in the shower when my brother arrived) and then he had to go. but she saw him. i got her the gardening gloves she requested, plus i brought her fair trade white chocolate and a book from the church book sale yesterday. besides that, i also took her to the supermarket - in other words, the stuff i do all year without a hallmark holiday (well, the gloves were a one-shot deal).

my friend amy, with whom i've been friends forever, called this morning to go for breakfast. i love hanging out with her! and wish we'd had more time.

after breakfast, i went over to the park across from my house, to clean the jungle gym with the graffiti remover so recently donated. (my friend donna had offered to replace it if the people whose cars were vandalized had needed it! thank you so much, sweetie! but one of the neighbors has a power wash and cleaned all the cars.)  the jungle gym had, surprisingly, been recently cleaned. i got off the most recent filth. two neighborhood kids came out to keep me company, and walked with me to the trash can, and picked up litter with me. their mom and dad have taught them well :) - who'm i to undermine that!

got an interesting message among the OKCupid messages. alas, a girl younger than three of my kids has a crush on him. creepy.

i phoned liz, the awesome mom who rented to my boys when they were old enough for their own apartments. she saw sid last week and i'd be jealous if i weren't going to see sworn enemy tomorrow night. (that's my kid on bass!!!) had to wish her a happy mother's day; i'd honestly say that she's the best thing that ever happened to the kids, present company included.

close to ready to go tomorrow. with the fibromyalgia, i don't really drive much anymore, between my hands, and my skin hurting if i sit too long. but i've got the gps, i can stop at the rest stop in stamford (which is only 25 miles from the venue). i've got my green velvet Doc Martens, clean black jeans, and a clean WM3 shirt. (i, however, have not gotten my government massage stimulus check, though the IRS says it was to be deposited by last friday...) the only thing left is to get the junk out of my back seat (why leave a target in the parking lot).

now... i'm off to sleep. in my car.  why? you may ask. well, our trash has "mysteriously" been ripped apart every week. only ours, and not the neighbors, so i'm doubting it's turkeys or feral cats. besides, last week, the bag ripped apart was one with papers, not table scraps. i'm thinking that it's someone (ahemjunkieahem) on whom i'd needed to call the police last year... if i catch her, i'm pressing charges.

From WTNH: Random vandalism intrudes on personal property and feelings. This is our block watch captain who was victimized. Nice reward for her, for working to make our neighborhood better. (She's not on my street, but it's only about three minutes by tricycle.)

It's not even the only episode tonight: at about 9:30, as I was having a cigarette and just one more chapter, the police knocked on the garage door. Seems that some jackass hit and ran - a bunch (?) of parked cars. The police followed the fluid pouring from the hit and run, down my street.

Anyway. Just woke up. (Sleeping on my right side hurts my skin - but I've been sleeping on my right side since I was a little girl, and I still wind up rolled over the wrong way...) AND I remembered that Melissa's husband, up the street, left me a can of graffiti remover!!! I don't know what it does to cars, so I'll bring it to Mrs. Harris and NOT try to do it myself. I'm thinking that, if she needs to get her car re-painted over the graffiti, maybe sharing this can of graffiti remover can at least make the car drivable without embarrassing her family or her kids...

I'm going to have to ask Melissa's husband for another can, or the vendor's name... but they rock so hard for getting me stuff to clean the park. Maybe it's good that I was too tired to clean yesterday!

I've got to get back to sleep...I've got a 2:30 tattoo appointment and, even though I'm going to try meditation music (thanks Mona!) so that maybe I can relax enough to get the nap I'm going to miss, I've still got a work day to get through, AND I want to run out for an hour before the coffee's even ready so that I can offer my neighbors' offering to the block watch lady.

last night, in my continued efforts to protect those who want to be protected (!) i went to the neighborhood block watch meeting at the police department. my neighbor melissa, and her husband, joined me in representing our street :) it amuses me mightily that i learned about the block watch because the sign is directly in front of the home of that beeyotch nora.

part of the problem is that my block seems to have decided that, if there's a problem, to call me. they've even cell phoned photos of dogs playing off leashes to me - what the hell am i going to do with that? they've got to call the police on their own; i'm not their mothers. that said: if i personally witness something like a dog off a leash scaring a kid, or vandalism, i will call.

only half a dozen adults, total, showed up. (one woman brought her two kids, who behaved.) we were there for a good two hours, easy. we discussed the resources of the police department and how they generally do respond well. melissa's husband has had a few experiences in which the police were not sympathetic to his calls about nora (they, poor dears, live directly next door to her; their back yards connect) and he was told to demand a supervisor. they're doing their best about the kids drag racing by the playground (!) and indeed, our crime numbers have dropped. (for a city of, we were told last night, 60,000 - i thought it was 52,000 - our crime rate is very low!) we heard about a crime ring, which was caught by another block watch, who were riding up and down I-95/I-95, between hartford and new york, and getting off the highway, going into neighborhoods, and stealing GPSs out of cars. (the GPS units were returned because the police hit the Navigate HOME buttons on them!)

we were told to keep calling the police about chronic problems, and not to be afraid to.

we're told that someone is going to talk to nora about her dog - my mom has said more than once that, if you've got Beware of Dog signs, you've got no business letting THAT particular dog off its leash! (we have a leash law.) i did point out that i'm a bit afraid of her retaliation. nonetheless, the kids on my block are afraid of the dog, and that's just not cool. they're supposed to be able to play in the park safely (and cleanly) since the park has, posted, signs from the city about the leash laws and the Curb Your Dog laws.

we've got to call public works about signs for the one-way street; it IS possible to miss the signs (though the cabs that come regularly to nora's should know better, by now) and i want to see about getting a bench for the swings area. either the officer who led the meeting, or maybe melissa's husband, will try to get me graffiti remover (i paid for bleach out of pocket, along with a bunch of other stuff, out of pocket, and none of it worked) and i said i'd clean the playground equipment myself. (that means that i'll also be watching the equipment all summer to make sure the vandals don't repeat it.) one of the ladies there, the wife of a retired officer, was saying that she won't let her grandchildren on the equipment any more because they keep asking about the words written on it. in a way that sounds prudish - but she's right. she shouldn't have to explain expletives on playground equipment - especially when you take into account how our property taxes keep getting higher and higher!

nothing is resolved, per se, but the officer knows my face, and melissa's and her husband's, now. he told us that they've got a file on nora. (we talked about how she used to be pretty! - drugs are bad, mkay?) he knows our concerns, and the police also know - from everyone at the meeting - that we do appreciate their efforts and we know that they're only human.

the meeting for city-wide is tonight. (last night was just about a half mile radius of our area) i didn't want to go; i needed to nap yesterday to make it! but the officer did ask for a representative from our block, and melissa and her husband are busy. and there's coffee.

i feel good about this.

I really should have commented on Open Source: Boobies a long time ago, but i didn't want to take part in encouraging. following are the comments i left as a comment to an unlocked post (if it were locked, I wouldn't link) by </a></b></a>ms_daisy_cutter. i seem to have upset people with what i think. i'm not rewriting my opinion because really, typing it once was enough. i'm just bringing the discussion to my own space because i really don't like using other people's guestbooks for my own platforms.

but, bottom line: any woman who's dumb enough to play along with these prepubescent guys is literally requesting a grope. (the dumb part is the playing along; again, what she chooses to do with her body isn't my business.) i'm not "blaming a victim" for crying out loud; i'm saying that if a woman is wearing a literal sign that says "yes, you may," she's got to assume that no other interpretation is required.

...with fibromyalgia.

I don't know if you enjoy the ballet or not, but this is worth watching. It goes to show that if you dream it and gave enough passion, all things are possible. These two are amazing.
-- Cosmic, 26 Apr 2008

(thanks for waking me to show me, Mom!)

With permission, I'm reposting Bev's Funny the World entry of 06 April 2008. I considered linking to it but I worry that people won't bother to click what they don't want to see.

Puppy mills whore dogs; they keep all the profits and don't even treat the dogs well. Read what Bev says. Not only is she educated, but she and her husband open their homes to foster dogs on a never-ending rotation.

There is absolutely no need for people to be so damn selfish when the pounds are full of animals who need homes - nd when such utter flipping selfishness hurts destroys animals. (for the record: we have never ever had a cat from a store or a mill. Even our Scottish Fold was adopted - we weren't looking for a fold, but Missy was looking for a home and that was that.)

Here are Bev's words, unedited, copied and pasted. She says it better (and withou the obscenities) than I ever could.

---

...Stark contrast to the Oprah show yesterday on puppy mills. The show had me in tears, watching the plight of thousands of dogs, forced to live their entire lives in wire cages, stacked on top of each other, their feet never touching the ground, churning out litter after litter of puppies to sell to pet stores across the country. I don't know how any animal lover could fail to be moved by the sight of dogs in too small cages, begging for attention, or, worse, cringing away from humans out of fear.

Wayne Pacell, President and CEO of The Humane Society on the show put it succinctly: "We're better than that."

I have heard people say "It was probably from a puppy mill, but I wanted an xyz breed puppy and I just didn't want to know."

People, we have to know. We have to know because "we're better than that."

I went to Google looking for puppy mill pictures and this one about broke my heart. This is a female from the "breeding stock" of some puppy mill. Skin and bones...front legs bowed from years of poor nutrition, hair loss probably from mange. This dog suffered years of agony probably in a cage just big enough for her to stand in.

I look at her face and indeterminant breed, and she could be Russell's mother. She has the same kind of face. Is this a Jack Russell terrier? I don't know.

But she was forced to churn out litter after litter of puppies which went to pet stores, cute little puppies that people bought, without knowing where they came from, either because they didn't think about it or because they "didn't want to know." As I look at this picture, I would guesstimate that she's probably past her puppy-bearing years and will be killed because she's no longer of use to the breeder.

The Humane Society's estimate is that 99% of pet stores in this country get their puppies from puppy mills. Anybody who buys a puppy at a pet store is contributing to the plight of dogs like this one.

You might not recognize this puppy, but she's a shitzu, rescued from an Amish puppy mill (The Amish, they explained, don't view dogs as family pets, but as chattle, much like sheep or other livestock, and so many of the puppy mills will be found in Amish country, and the dogs shipped all over the country.) Her leg had been gnawed off by a pit bull in an adjoining cage. She had received no medical attention. She was rescued by the people who took the picture and taken to the vet where the notes indicate she was unresponsive, covered in feces and urine and had a foul odor, her left cornea was ruptured, the left rear leg had the large bone missing, there were multiple fractures, the tissue was necrotic indicating an old injury, bone fragments exposed. The puppy died 20 minutes after they

This is the kind of place where you guys who "don't want to know" get your puppies from. Well, they ultimately become the cute little guys in the pet store window, but they started their lives in places like this. Their mothers are still there, with new litters of puppies to become cute little doggies in the window of some pet store. You may think you are rescuing one of them when you plunk down hundreds of dollars, but you are contributing to the demand and the puppy mills will continue.

I am so incredibly proud of the work that the SPCA and other animal rescue agencies do. I may sigh as I pick up another bit of puppy poop in the kitchen (Russell is not guilty of that, most of the time, I am happy to report), but these dogs, and all the dogs the Yolo SPCA deals with have a home where they can play keep-away or be part of a morning love-in, or just snuggle in someone's lap at night while watching television.

"But I don't want a mixed breed...I want an xyz kind of dog," some may wail.

There is absolutely NO reason to buy a puppy from a place that deals with a puppy mill. You want an xyz breed dog? There are rescue organizations for any breed of dog you want. Lab Rescue, Greyhound Rescue, Cocker Rescue, Maltese rescue, Beagle rescue. Heck, there's even a "Puggle rescue" and whoda thunk that this high-demand cross-breed would ever need rescuing? Wayne Pacell even said that about 30% of all dogs in animal shelters are purebreds. It may take longer to get the dog you want, but there are thousands and thousands of dogs looking for loving families that don't come through puppy mills. Even reputable, as-kind-as-can-be shelters can't keep them forever and thousands of lovely dogs are killed every year because people go for puppy mill puppies and don't look in shelters at dogs who are already here and needing somebody to love them. The scenes on Oprah's show of the euthanasia of several dogs was heartbreaking because they didn't want to kill them, but had no choice.

If you MUST have a purebread from a breeder, visit the breeder. Look at where the mothers of these puppies live. Don't get sucked in by the cute puppies and leave a badly treated mother behind. Educate yourself and don't reward people who mistreat their animals for people who insist on cute little purebread puppies and don't care about the conditions under which they spent the first 6-8 weeks of their lives.

Go to YouTube and search for "puppy mill" and watch a video. There are lots of them. It's ugly. It makes you uncomfortable, you may cry...but don't turn away and pretend it doesn't exist. Check out Oprah.com for more information. How can we ever hope to change things if we don't know what the reality is?

how much is that doggie in the window?
the one with the waggily tail
how much is that doggie in the window?
I do hope that doggie's for sale

The doggie's for sale, of course....for big bucks to the pet shop, but at what price to its mother and thousands of other mothers like her?

Of course the other side is responsible pet ownership, having your pet spayed or neutered. I admit that we were once irresponsible pet owners and had two male dogs who were not neutered. It was a macho thing for Walt at the time, though there is no way he would not have a dog neutered now. "He never leaves the yard," we reasoned. But dogs will go crazy with a bitch in heat in the neighborhood and they did, once in a great while, get loose. The kids joked about how the dog came home "with a huge smile on his face."

That "huge smile" meant that he had probably impregnanted at least one female dog in the neighborhood and left some other family with an unwanted litter of puppies to deal with. It's why the SPCA won't adopt out an un-neutered dog.

We have to know, people. We have to speak out for these little guys who can't. We have to do all we can to stop this inhumane (or even un-dogly) treatment of dogs (I won't even get into other animals because there is not enough room). We have to do it because "we're better than that."

For everyone who requested this last June.

Ferrie Brothers did an AWESOME job on your driveway!

I often think of calling you, but the time is usually bad (like, 3 a.m. or else when I'm driving to the office). I have a missed call from you on my Caller ID, too... I did want you to know about the work being done at your house, which was completed yesterday.

Last weekend was warm enough for me to sit on our stoop and read. As I sat, I saw Ben Ferrie's truck pull into your driveway. I read until he came over. You may remember that I worked with his wife, at Yale, for several years; that's how I got to know him and that's how I began hiring him to do my parents' walk and driveway, when I lived in New Haven. He wanted to tell me some stuff about his wife and their kids, and mentioned that he was doing your driveway. I called my mom, knowing that she wanted to do ours. (The roots from our big oak had bucked the driveway a good 4" to 6"; she even fell off our tricycle recently! She's OK, before you worry.) Mom and Ben talked, and Ben did our driveway at the same time he did yours.

They prepped both driveways early in the week, removing the enormous roots from ours as well. Yesterday (Thursday), he and his crew (and son - I remember when this teenager was born!!) were outside before 8:00 a.m. When I got home from work, they were just finishing. I parked in front of your house, since our driveway was still being rolled and smoothed, and noticed the attention to detail. That bump at street level at your driveway, the one that some truck probably broke, the one that's probably the city's job to fix, had been repaired. When I pointed out to Ben that I'd noticed, he said that he wasn't charging you for that. When they finished my parents' house, there was some tar left over - so they continued to the end of the street!  That "lake" of the whole block's drainage will probably still be there, but I won't tear my tires on the end of the street, which gets worse every year due to the snow plows' blades. That, too, was no charge.

Do let me know if you'd like photos. I'll be taking pictures of ours, since my mom and I need to pose with the tricycle (friends have requested pictures) and my mom can either print for you, or I can have prints done for mere pennies.  Really, with the digital camera and/or cell phone camera, it's no big deal.

Things... are what they are. My dad is now 80, and isn't doing too hot. He's also belligerent; I can understand his frustrations, but I'm too sore and tired with fibromyalgia (that's what's been making me sick; it's "chronic, widespread pain in muscles and soft tissues surrounding joints, accompanied by fatigue") to be able to deal - and my mom may look 50, but she's, uhm, NOT. We can't do this, and we're on a wait list for the Jewish Home in New Haven. My mom's health has been pretty good, I'm happy to say.

I've been fighting with Social Security; I need them to accept me as disabled so that the State can pay my medical bills. It's all a huge tangled knot! except that Social Security, the one agency I need to get the ball rolling, is the only one that's giving me a hard time. I've got a [free] consult with a lawyer next week, and my boss also gave me the name of a lawyer friend of his.

I get really angry when I look up the street and see that drug addict - the one with the big dog - who hasn't worked in years, and who lives off the Government while she does drugs and screams at her mother (when the wind is right, you can hear it a block away, in our house!), and I try so hard to help my mom and to keep going to work. I can only manage to type five hours a day; however, my boss only gave me stuff that needed polishing, not "hard" work, so this letter won't hurt me. I don't think I'll be working in another five years, though I don't know if it's the work injury I got in 2002, or the fibromyalgia, which wreaks the havoc on my hands and wrists.

That said, it's getting warmer. Two neighborhood children (they live in the McCarthy's old house) came over to sit on my steps with me, yesterday, for the first time this spring. Last summer, when I got involved with the neighborhood, was the best since I was a teenager, and I'm hoping for the same this year. They're good: they know that there's no fighting on my property, and if they start to "cut" through your front yard, I only have to say, "No, sweetie, that doesn't belong to you," and they remember. (The kids run on each other's lawns, so they forget.) I'm going to try to go to the Block Watch meeting at the police station this month. I've already complained to the police this year - cars speeding the wrong way down one-way Third Avenue, by the park where the kids play! and an officer phoned me to invite me. I'm keeping the parents up to date on what I hear. I do not know if you are interested or not; if you are, please let me know. If not, I won't bother you with details.

I hope you are well. Know that I think of you often, and I am sorry that my timing is not better. I'll call soon - or, you call me. After 2:00 in the afternoon, on weekdays, or any time on the weekend, is fine. Call any time, though, if you need something that is time-sensitive.

My mom and I both wish you the best.

 

 

despite my frustrations, i'm doing my best to hang on.

the first attorney i'd contacted said that she couldn't take my case because i'm "too sick." actually, her words were "I think you are way over what would be considered disabled." what the hell is that?

second attorney clarified. fibromyalgia is a money pit, given how much time is involved and that these are "contingency" cases - they only get a percentage, not an hourly rate. he was very nice, and said that i can call with questions. he referred me over to statewide legal aid.

statewide legal aid denied me; i live in the same house as my dad, whose three pensions make the household income too high; their grants only allow income to a certain level, and do not allow for deductions for medical bills. (much as i wish my daddy was in a home, this is not why.) they sent me over to the bar association.

the bar association can't help until i've been denied by social security twice.

but wait: i was going through old emails from mona, and i found one from last july, talking about my denial. i went through my calendar, and found that i'd mailed my first appeal last august. i was denied again march 19 - so i just left voice mail for the bar association.

this really was not the time to read Sophie's Choice. (I finished it this morning, and made an appointment for the shrink for right after my massage)

it's not all bad, though. budgeting carefully, i've gotten the first few things for the baby. by some miracle, my credit remains good, even though i've needed my american express for every script for the past few years. i've got lots of books to read. heyboy, my cat, has a new cute trick: he climbs onto my bed, pulls the comforter off from my head (i cover myself since my dad's hearing has worsened, and he blasts the radio - especially bad when he's crankin' out the country station, which is MY station damnit!) and purrs when he sees my face. i stopped by to visit my neighbor, melissa, for "just a second" and wound up spending over an hour. we're taking back the neighborhood (which means i should be working on letters to the police and trying to find out where the block watch meets). mom and i have an invitation to melissa's tomorrow... i'd better confirm! my pain level is down by a good 10%, between the weather warming and the amazing massages (which i'm going to continue when my eight sessions have ended). the new shrink is way nicer than the former shrink. it's warming up; i rode a quick 1.37 miles in four minutes, on the trike, on saturday, and then cooled down with a drink and book on my front stoop. (i couldn't believe that my breath froze the next morning...) mom got in at least a mile, herself. the mighty quin was in town for someone's birthday on sunday, and i picked her up from, and took her back to, the train station so that i could spend time with her - and she got me the coolest gift that reminded her of me!

i think i'll read now. police letters another time. the crack whore up the street depresses me.