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 |  My American Notebooks |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** When Nathaniel Hawthorne was writing, he kept a series of journals, The American Notebooks. They were part daily journal, part diary, but mostly a place for him to jot down and try out bits of writing he hadn't a full venue for yet. He kept character sketches, odd bits of conversation, and observances he wanted to remember for future writings in his notebooks. This, then, is my place for odd bits I want to remember. When you read this, keep in mind, you are rummaging through my mental storehouse. Check out:
And don't forget to vote for your favorite blogger each month. 
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Response to "Invalid Entry"  :I am just to fucking busy to sit and ramble on and whine about how fucking busy I am. (My apologies to my regular readers who don't like the word fuck. It just captured how I felt about this particular entry. ) |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" : I just did an entry about counting my blessings, so I'm not going to re-chew old stew. ("Invalid Entry" )Instead, I'm going to discuss the current economic situation here in Montana. It sucks. Pretty much like the rest of the United States (and from what I gather, the rest of the world, too.). It's probably a little better here than other places, but we are hurting. Unemployment is pretty high and business is off at the little mom and pop hardware store where I work. See, nobody is building. Or remodeling. We count pretty heavily on the construction industry in our business and none of that is happening right now. Everything has slowed down to less than a trickle. The owners are trying to keep from firing anybody (which happened last year at this time - three people got laid off), so instead, many of us got the choice of reductions in pay or reductions in hours. It was interesting the variety of responses that came out of that action. My boss and I are close and he discussed some of the reactions. One or two of the employees were indignant that this was happening. He told them that it was happening with everyone, and if they didn't like it, they were welcome to leave and open up a place in the company for someone who would appreciate ANY kind of paying job. A couple just swallowed and took it. A couple thanked him, hugged him and told him they were just happy to not have been fired. See, that would have been me. (My hours were voluntarily cut because of school, so I didn't have to go have a conference - I was exempt.) I can't understand people who can't grasp the enormity of the economic situation this country is facing. I want to just slap them and scream "WAKE UP"!! I think before long, we will all be facing the prospect of too little. We need to be thankful, though for the too little we do have. And who knows? Maybe we'll hit the lottery tomorrow. I promise to be thankful for the too much then.  |
| Response to "No Explicit Admission" : Regret is an empty emotion. It causes a person to needlessly spiral into depression and an endless cycle of "what if?" Who needs that shit? Years ago I made a deal with myself. Regret nothing in my life. Instead I decided to LEARN from my mistakes and move on. That's right. For all the crappy ass mistakes I've made in my life. I regret none of them. There's a lot of things in my life I'll never do again, but I don't regret them. I just live and move on. Time flows in one direction. (As far as I know, but then I'm not a physicist. ) Life can only be lived by progressing from each day from dawn until dusk. Minute by minute, second by second marching by in an orderly fashion.Maybe it's the not having much of a memory. Maybe it's having screwed up so VERY many things in my life. Whatever it is, I don't regret it. Every second of my life has brought me to this second. To this moment. To this place in my life. I am the culmanation of every decision- good, bad or indifferent. Any changes I want to make to the me I am now, I need to make in the FUTURE, not the past. So...no regrets. Only plans. |
| Response to: "Invalid Entry" : "Forget about it." I hate that phrase. It implies a person has a choice. To remember something or not. Your choice. That's not always the case. I don't have a choice. I take medication that affects my memory. Where Steve remembers silly little stories from the past--I struggle to remember large portions of my life. I get so frustrated in day to day life. I misremember or flat out forget so many things. School is hard for me. So much of school is memorization. I remember odd facts, so that helps, but I have trouble with specific sequences of events. That's why I'm such a good storyteller. I just make up the bits I don't remember.  Hubby and Monilad accept that about me (and Monilad shares the problem to some extent). They accept the lack of memory thing at work, too, which is nice. So, to anyone who says, "Forget about it"? I say...I already have. |
| My response to "Invalid Entry" . All of my daughter's parents are old. And I'm not just talking about their chronological age, either. They ACT old. Every time she has friends over, we sing and dance in the kitchen. Or we play video games, or we watch movies together and laugh about boys. But I'm treated as one of the girls. (Or one of the guys if she happens to have guy friends over.) My daughter's friends can't believe that she and I share the same music on our iPods. I taught her how to dance. She let's me help her shop and I let her help me shop. (I don't want to look like a teeny bopper, but I don't want to look like a middle age frump either!) We share makeup tips and jewelry. She helps me fit in at college. Apparently, Hubby and I are thought of as the wicked cool parents in her class. One of her girlfriends even comes to me with boy problems because she "can't talk to my own mom about this stuff, she gets bright red and mumbles about it."  Good God. This is why girls my daughter's age get pregnant. Their mothers are too embarrassed, too stupid or too self involved to TALK to their kids. This is why kids her age are out there doing drugs and drinking. I know it was one of the reasons I was such a wild teenager. I damn sure couldn't talk to my parents. My mother was (and in many ways still is) clueless. I had a girlfriend with a cool, hip mom that I talked to. I vowed that when I grew up I would try to keep a more open line of communication with my children to help prevent them making some of the same mistakes I made. But...it has a price. The other parents tend to shun you when they know how popular you are with their kids. Oh, well. We can't all be stylish and hip. And jealousy is an ugly thing to behold. |
To my regular readers--all both of you  : I am entered in "Follow the Leader" this round. I have refrained from entering mood indigo  's contest before this and even spoke strongly about it at the time. However, I think that time has weeded out the Negative Nellie's and I am looking foward to a chance to stretching my writing muscles this round. And so..on with the entry...... This is in response to "Invalid Entry" ."Why did you do that?" "I dunno. I felt like it." That conversation or one just like it takes place in my household daily. Usually my logic-worshipping husband is the questioner and either my daughter or myself is the non-answerer. What can I say? She and I aren't logical people. Our brains don't work the same way other people's do. We don't know why we do things. We don't always have a reason. Or if we do, it's simply too nebulous - or too disturbing to the straights - to express. "Why did you take every trash in the house out but this one?" "I dunno, I just did." "Why do you wear Disney character socks like a little kid? You are 37 years old." "I dunno, I just do." Logic lovers can't stand that response, either. It offends their sensibilities. In their world you should have a defensible, concrete reason for every action. "I dunno," doesn't cut it and the conversation usually devolves from there. Sometimes we do or don't do things based on strictly gut instict. Sometimes it's a case of forgetting. Sometimes it's convoluted non-logic that only makes sense to the person thinking it. Sometimes it's OCD: I check the door four times a night because four is a safe and magic number. The first time doesn't count because I might have just THOUGHT I checked. The second time was in case I didn't check the first time. The third time is to double check the second time and the fourth time is a final check before bed. See? Non-logical logic. It doesn't make sense, but there is a reason for it. And, when I'm asked, "Why do you check the door four times a night?" If I say, "I dunno, I just do," it makes me sound like less of a damn nut. "Why?" "Why?" "Why?" "The dragon in the basement told me to." "The fairies in the back yard told me so." These are not considered solid concrete reasons to a logic lover so I don't recommend using them. (I know, I've tried using them during arguments. What followed were severe adjustments to my anti-psychotic medications!)From someone who just accepts the world, as it is, though...I ask you: So what if I have no reason? At least, not a reason I can explain to you? Can't you just accept, "I dunno?" |
| Have any of you ever studied the Incan people? They flourished from 1200 until the 1530s when Spanish explorer Pizzarro conquered them. That’s over three hundred years – longer than America has been a country. The Incas built extremely complex networks of roads that connected every part of their diverse empire. There is a series of 25,000 miles of roads throughout the former empire. They used special couriers to disperse news and information. The couriers were selected and trained from childhood to flawlessly remember verbal messages since Quechuan – the official language -- had no written form at that time. (There is now a Quechuan form of Google!) They did however carry quipus -- bits of knotted string that recorded numerical information such as statistics on warehouses and taxes. They were also incredibly advanced agricultural experimenters. They used sophisticated terracing, crop rotation, and laboratories to maximize yield in a given area. It is believed that they were the first to cultivate as many as half of the agricultural products the world produces today. They also had an incredible storage and distribution network for their food; allowing the bounty from one growing zone to be distributed to areas that might have had crop failure due to drought. The Incas never used wheels for transport. They used llamas instead. Llamas were more versatile on the rugged terrain the Incan Empire encompassed – from sea level up to over 23,000 feet. The llama provided more than a mere cart: wool every year, milk, companionship, food and leather. People who descend from the Incas have also been found to have a curious biological adaption to living in such a rugged homeland. They have larger lung capacity and hearts. It helps them in the higher altitudes. The true jewel of the Incan culture however is Macchu Picchu. It was the one place never found by the Conquistadors. When the city was originally rediscovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911, it was believed that it was a city dedicated to the sun god Inca. However, recently they have discovered what they call “replica” rocks scattered about the city. The rocks are representative shrines for the mountains that surround the site. The Incans were polytheistic and believed in a heaven, a hell and in a form of reincarnation. All in all a fascinating people. What prompted this little foray into history and culture, you ask? I watch a series called “Hot Rocks” from the Science Channel. It’s a series devoted to how culture is shaped by geology. Tonight’s episode was “Peru.” That’s where most of my facts came from. The rest I Googled. I hope to visit Peru and also Bolivia one day so that I can see some of these things for myself --especially Macchu Picchu. |
| Have you guys ever seen that new show on NBC, Crusoe? We love it because the actor who plays Robinson Crusoe, Philip Winchester, is a super hottie and a hometown boy from near Bozeman. He attended my daughter's high school and his parents still live here. He's engaged to one of the teachers at the Intermediate school and is often seen around town. Today we went shopping and as we were leaving the mall, they were walking in the Barnes and Noble as we were walking out. My daughter waved at the teacher and said hi and I tried not to drool on myself as he held the door for us. I thanked him and tried not to stare. Staring seemed rude. But he's just so damn YUMMY! -------------- My family thinks I'm nuts. I mean more than normal, nuts. Midnight likes to eat whatever I'm eating, or at least to taste it. Her favorite things are yogurt, granola, cereal bars and milk. So whenever I am eating, I break off little bits and give them to her. I don't like to just put them on the counter or the table because then the table or counter is sticky. Or in the case of the yogurt, it's just plain yuck. The milk is pretty impractical to pour on the table, too. What I do have is a small cheap Japanese tea set that my grandmother gave me a couple of years ago. It's just two little cups and saucers. They aren't doll sized, but they are more little kid sized - kind of like classic tea party size. So I pulled them down washed them up and whenever Middy wants something I'm having, I put it on a saucer or in a teacup for her. My daughter thinks I'm a weirdo for having what she calls little tea parties with my cat. *shrug* Maybe so, but now my table's not sticky. Hubby just rolls his eyes and perseveres. He's a saint. +++++++++++ For Christmas, Monilad got the P2 Lego Batman. Now we have all four Lego games. If you are any kind of gamer, I recommend getting at least one of them. They are TONS of fun. You can rip through them pretty quickly (we have almost beaten Batman) but we are enjoying the hell out of it. When you kill another character in one of the games, it breaks down into its component Lego pieces. And you can do it in really fun ways. In the Indiana Jones one, there are characters you can be who carry shovels, when you want to kill someone, you whack them with the shovel. It's very satisfying. There are also places where the whole goal for you is to go into the area and just wreak havoc. You just break as much stuff as you can as quickly as you can. It's a wonderful stress reliever! And there isn't any blood or guts. Fabulous! |
| School starts next week, and before I get going have to get caught up on laundry. It's the hardest thing about college for me. Making sure my family has clean socks and underwear. They do ok feeding themselves, but for some reason, they will go commando or even wear swimsuits before they will wash for themselves. It's maddening. ====== As I mentioned in Special Kay 's blog, we finished putting away the Chrismas decorations. But...sadly, the tapered Santa candles didn't make the cut.  It seems that happens every year. One or two items miss out on the big clean up. This year it was the Santa candles and a little plastic wreath ornament. We usually wind up just sticking the left over items where ever we can find a place for them. I don't even know where the wreath is now, but as I sit and stare at the Santa candles, I'm thinking they are probably going to sit on the shelf for a few for days and then get stuck in one of the drawers in the living room. Then next year, we will wonder, "Where the hell are the freaking Santa candles?" The wreath is part of a set of what used to be 24 but is now about 18. The attrition rate is pretty bad on that particular set. Meh. We still have most of them. I think the cat got the wreath. If she did, it's long gone now. +++++++ I bring a lot of whimsy to my husband's life. He lives with lunatics and puts up with a lot. One of the silly things I've brought into our lives is a stuffed ladybug laundry hamper. The cat loves it. She loves to get into it and put toys into it. Every time we sort laundry, we have to dig cat toys out of it. I even have a pair of fuzzy socks that she loves to get out of the clean laundry and tote around like a baby. |
| In the last week I have heard or read several variations of "How shitty 2008 was and how great 2009 is going to be." I hear that every year. "Last year sucked, next year will be better." I've even been guilty of it. That just cracks me up. 2008 was no different from any other year. Some good, some bad. Some ups, some downs. It evens out over the decades. For me, 2000 and 2007 were crappier years than 1996 and 2008. You just have to take a longer view. And to people who are all gloom and doom about the economy and the nation's situation? Get a damn grip. Yeah, it's not so hot right now. You just gotta take it one day at a time. I personally wasn't thrilled with the country's choice of new president, but it'll work out in the end. We may have more rough times ahead, but it will come out ok, it usually does. You just gotta think positively and try to plan well. Hubby and I have adopted a bunker mentality about all of the rough times right now. We are just hunkering in and holding our position. We are going to try to entrench here and wait out the turbulence. And while we are here, we are counting our blessings. We both are gainfully employed for bosses we both respect and like. We are all three healthy and so are our pets. (Bear's cancer is in complete remission for almost a year now. Woot!) We live in a place we love in a house we love. I am finally working toward a degree I've wanted for years. So...the next time you feel like 2008 was a bust and/or 2009 might be headed there to join it? Take stock, regroup, entrench, count your blessings. Send your woes on their merry way. Leave the past in the past and get on with living TODAY. Good luck and check back with me when you are done with your tally. I'd love to hear your new improved mood. |
| Happy 2009 to every one. Why do I suck? Well, I just re-upped my membership here and I realized how little I utilized it last year. That just sucks. I let "real" life interfere with my writing. I include blogging in that. Because I - unlike many friends, colleages and my spouse - consider blogging "real" writing. I enjoy my blogging. I enjoy the interaction with all of you. And it makes me sad that school, work and my home life have interfered with my online relationships. I look at my blog and I have a month or more between entries. When I get a chance to get in here, I spend a hour catching up on just one blog. It's pathetic! I go back to school next week. New scthedule. Monday, Wed, and Friday this semester. I am going to make more of an effort to build time in during the day to check blogs and write. There are computer banks all over campus that students can use for free. No sign up, no time limits. If it's open, you just sit down and do whatever you want on it. I've seen people playing games at them.I have some time between classes this time, so I should be able to spend a little more time here. I got my grades from last semester. An A in one class and a B+ in the other. Not bad for an old gal who's almost 20 years out of the game. Yea, me!Now that I've gotten that first semester under my belt, I'm feeling a little better about the whole thing. I am feeling like this is something I can do. I will do. I will get my degree. Even if I do suck. |
| Back in October, I took on MSU. Today I got a phone call from the Associate Dean of the College of Education of Health and Human Development (or as I like to call her...the Grand High Pooh-Bah. )She was calling to apologize for taking so long to solve the problem. (Since October, I've received two letters of apology from the school.) Here's the solution the committee they formed to deal with this came up with: From now on, people will have a choice on whether to go to this rape/domestic violence seminar, or to go to one that is a little more sensitive to the fact that you may have been a victim of one of these crimes. That's right. They created a whole new seminar just for victims. And the Grand High Pooh-Bah assures me that it will take into account the differing responses women have to these situations and not just pigeon-hole them. So....mission accomplished. Not one more woman has to sit through that wretched seminar. Sometimes it pays to be the squeaky wheel. Yea, me. |
| I am simmering chicken on the stove right now. Soon it will be Chicken and Dumplings. The first of the season. There are so many comforting foods this time of year that I don't make during the summer and that we are tired of by spring. Cooking is a kind of quiet passion of mine. I love the creativity of it. I love the experimentation. Sometimes we've had some godawful dinners. But, everthing is always made with love. (My husband says that's my secret ingredient.)Since I started a new diet that excludes MSG, caffeine and chocolate, my cooking has become more of a refuge for me. I use more natural ingredients, fewer boxed items and more organic items. I can't just open a box of Kraft mac and cheese. It's chock full of MSG. So, I've created a homemade recipe for mac and cheese. My husband and daughter love it. I know it's better for us and I feel better when we eat it. One of my favorite meals to cook is big Sunday breakfast. This morning, we had omlettes and waffles. Yum! And now, I have the chicken cooking for the chicken and dumplings. Last night we had a rotisserie chicken from Costco. (Walmart has MSG.) I took what was left and boiled it. I love the seasoning from it and I feel like I'm "recycling" a meal. I also have some Rosemary rolls to have with it. With a little cheese on the top of the dumplings? A feast. I need to go debone my chicken. Too bad it's not snowing. That would make it perfect. |
| monilad is learning to drive. She's taking Driver's Ed right now and in addition to the class she takes every morning at the crack-smoking hour of 6:30am, she drives with an instructor once a week for an hour. Each week they learn a new skill set. The first week it was basic driving - signs, parking, backing, etc. She did okay at that. She had driven a few times in our neighborhood with her Daddy. So, it wasn't her first time behind the wheel. She said driving with him made her feel more comfortable. She also likes driving the school car (an Impala) more that her Daddy's truck (a four door, long bed, diesel F250). She said she can't tell where all of the truck is around her. The second week, they put my baby out on the freaking interstate.  She did pretty badly at that. She got a C- on it. I think he wanted to fail her but realized that part of the problem lay with the fact that he kept making her nervous. She said she got down graded because she didn't want to drive as fast as he kept telling her to. She likes to drive s-l-o-w. She also doesn't like the other cars around her. She said a couple of times when cars were passing her, she drove by Braille. (That's what we call driving on the rumble strips. ) She said the instructor kept jerking the wheel over when she did it, because he thought she was going to over correct.This week she got to do Mountain driving. She got an A+ on it. I said, "Sure. It's just you up there and you can drive as slow as you want!" She's worried about next week. They will be going into Downtown Bozeman and doing parallel parking. I actually failed that part of my driving test. But, now I can parallel park with the best of them. |
| Do you know the little coin operated rides you see at the restaurants and the mall? The ones little kids ride on? When I was little, I never got to ride on those. I was one of four kids and there was a pretty big age gap between the oldest and the youngest--ten years. So Mom was always harrassed, harried and hurried. So I never got to ride on those things. But I always wanted to. And I vowed that when I was a grown up and had kids of my own, they would get to ride on every dang one we saw. Flash forward to my daughter's small childhood. She rode every dang one of those we saw. Up until people started giving us funny looks because...ok, well, she probably was a little big for them. Saturday she and I were shopping at the mall and we had lunch in the food court there. They have an area next to where we were eating that has about ten different coin operated "rides" for little ones. She and I lingered over lunch watching little kids clamber all over them riding a horse, a motorcycle, a train, a motorboat, and an ice cream truck. It took me back to her childhood to see the wonder and excitement on their little faces as they dropped the coins in and the ride would jerk into motion. As we were watching and giggling at them, a funny look came over my daughter's face. "Hey, Momma. Do you have any quarters? I've got fifty cents in my pocket." "Yes. Why?" I handed over a dollar in quarters. "Watch!" Then she quietly went over to the horse which was currently unoccupied and baited it with two quarters next to the slot that starts the ride. Then she slipped back to our table and watched in glee. A little boy about five years old who we had heard ask his mom for quarters and receive a negative reply, "Sorry, honey, Mom doesn't have any right now." went up to the horse anyway and delight broke over his face as he realized his luck. He picked the quarters up, looked around carefully and then popped them into the machine as he quickly climbed on. The joy in his smile was priceless! We did it with two other machines. Oh, the happiness to be given with spare pocket change. |
| I was unclear in my last entry. The Grand PoohBah and my therapist (who are both woman) are BUSINESS partners. They share a practice. Bozeman is a small university town. MSU is the largest employer in town. Unfortunately for many of the professors, however, it is primarily an engineering and agriculture school. If you aren't in those departments, you get the short stick. In grants, in funding...in pay for professors. So, many of the teachers have sideline businesses/practices. I would say that (conservatively speaking) 60-70% of the therapists/psychiatrists in town have some connection to MSU. They teach there or they are on some kind of board there. The same is true for many other professions. My therapist was also VERY sensitive to my situation. I promise. She just thought that since my goal was action, the Grand PoohBah might be a good way in the backdoor, so to speak. Honest, I'm not mad at her. She was just sharing the info with a collegue who might be able to help me in a different way. |
| So I got a hit on my letter to the Dean. Not as promising as I might have hoped. A little backstory. My therapist has a partner in her practice. The partner is also the Associate Dean of the College of Education of Health and Human Development. Yeah, yeah. Grand PoohBah of Something-or-other. What it boils down to is my therapist asked if I minded if she explained my situation to her partner. No, I didn't mind. I'm interested in results. If telling the Grand PoohBah will get me the results, Yea! If not, I'll go back to my original Dean of Students. I heard back from him. He was Not Amused. I could tell he was Not Amused, because when he called me on Friday after I sent the letter on Wednesday, the first words out of his mouth on the voice mail he left me were, "I assume you wanted me to get this letter, even though you got my name wrong. My name starts with a "Y" not a "P"." Really? That's the most important thing you got out of my letter? Look, buddy, I'm sorry that the website listed your name incorrectly, (yes, I went back and looked--but I noticed that it's been changed since!) but gimme a freaking break you stiffnecked dinosaur. I was a little distraught when I wrote the G-D letter! I didn't think to crosscheck the spelling of your name. So, you will understand that I haven't been exactly chomping at the bit to set up a meeting with him if the Grand PoohBah can do something in the back channels. See, my therapist called me back and told me GP advised against meeting with him as he could be "unapproachable". Gee, you think? As the Grand PoohBah, she is actually over this group of yahoos putting this program on. So, she is working on things on her end. Thus...the waiting. Commence with the thumb twiddling. If I don't hear something by Thursday, I'll call my therapist and find out what's going on. If I don't like the answer, I'll call the Dinosaur and go through with the meeting with him. "Unapproachable" or not. It's gonna be to the bitter end on this one, baby. |
| Wait, I've read this book....the answer is 42. And I think the meaning of life is "We apologize for the inconvenience." Douglas Adams was a comedic writing genius. I enjoy his books very much. Especially when I'm down. I went to the library and saw that Tony Hillerman died on Sunday. Robert Jordan has been gone a little over a year. So many good authors....sigh. I went to see my therapist today. That's when I was thinking about the inconvenience. Not her. I like her. I meant of life. It's just so damn messy.Sometimes I wish it was more like in those Walgreen's commercials. LOL With everything perfect. Alas...it isn't. Life is often messy and bloody and, well, up close and personal. It frequently sucks. A lot. There are good things, too, though. Many good things. Like you guys. Thanks for being here guys.  If any of you are looking for a good read or need a new author, I highly recommend Jim Butcher. He has two excellent series. One SciFi/Fantasy and one straight Fantasy. Some of you might remember the first series from the SciFi channel. It's the Harry Dresden series, or the Dresden Files. It starts with a book called Storm Front. The second series is more in keeping with straight fantasy. It starts with a book called Furies of Calderon. The fifth book in the series comes out next week. Good stuff. |
| 10/21/08 VOICE Montana State University PO Box Bozeman MT To Whom It May Concern: In late August, I received an email from MSU, from your office, informing me that all first-year students were required to attend a mandatory seminar regarding rape awareness. It was entitled “The Other Side of Silence.” Although this is technically the first year in which I have been enrolled at Montana State University, I am a transfer student and thus am enrolled as a sophomore with over forty hours credited to me. I do not consider myself a first year student. I assumed that the email had been sent to me as part of a mass-mailing and that it did not pertain to me. I therefore ignored it. I also ignored the second and the third emails that were sent to me regarding this program. On October 13th, however, I did not ignore the two subsequent emails I received informing me that I had not attended and that university sanctions were being threatened against me if I did not attend the following week. I was informed that I could not arrive late and it would not count if I left. Nowhere in the email is there information regarding what to do if you feel you should or could be exempt from this policy. Nowhere is there information about who to call except the group putting on the program, VOICE. So on October 21st very reluctantly and feeling coerced, I attended the one o’clock screening of “The Other Side of Silence.” And I sat in horrified silence through the entire fifty minute program. Where do I begin enumerating the violations against me? First a little history: I was molested as a child. I was raped as a teen. I was in two violent domestic situations-mentally, emotionally, physically abusive situations. I don’t tell you this to shock you, or to garner your sympathy. I don’t want that. What I want is for you to understand that with all of the statistics available to you, you need to realize that I am probably not alone in feeling as I feel about your program. What you forced me to sit through was torture. Being made to sit in that dark room, surrounded by strangers; being forced back to some of the darkest nightmares of my life was one of the cruelest things ever done to me. How can you justify what little help you might be giving if you are torturing women like me to give it? I spent an hour after that screening sitting in my car crying. How dare you? I felt threatened and bullied by the university-in a position of authority over me-into being made to relive that. Much in the way my rapist threatened and bullied me. Much in the way my ex-husband threatened and bullied me. But what you did was somehow worse because you did it under the guise of a helping hand. Not one more woman should be victimized by the people who are supposed to be helping her. Not one more. I am writing this letter, not only to express my outrage at what happened to me and other victims, but to ask that you stop your policy of forcing every single student to attend this seminar so that it doesn’t happen again. The good you may be doing simply isn’t worth the harm you are causing. I will be weeks in therapy undoing the harm you have done with your program. I will continue to pursue this until I know that this policy has changed. I expect to hear back from your office within two weeks regarding this matter. Sincerely, I sent this letter this morning to the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs and CC'd to this group, the group who put the damn thing on. They have pissed off the wrong woman.  |
| My calendar tells me it's spring. Almost summer. But I'm not really believing it. It has been cold, rainy and snowy here since Tuesday. Yup. You read that right. I said snowy. It's been so cool I've been using the heating pad on my bed along with an extra blanket. I optimistically took the flannel sheets off last week when we had three days of 65-70 degree weather, but if this keeps up, I'm pulling them back out. Another sign of spring has been all of the birds gathering around my feeders. We've had a real influx of finches, sparrows and Mountain chickadees. I love the chickadees. They have a little white "eyebrow" that gives them a funny surprised look. We also have tons of robins. We have one fat, sassy one that my daughter and I have named Taft. He's a very pompous, strutting little bird. We love to watch him come out to the feeder or birdbath and try to push the other birds around. Last Saturday, Hubby was working in the backyard when he told me two birds he didn't recognize were out there really cussing him out. He thought maybe they had a nest in one of our apple trees. I went out later and was weeding my gardens and had the same thing happen to me. Both birds kept almost dive bombing me, issuing shrill challenges and warnings. I just ignored them and kept working in the same spot, never moving; hoping they would get used to me or decide I wasn't a threat to their nest. The garden I was weeding is my tomato and pepper garden. I make little mounds for each plant and then the rest of the garden is covered in shredded cedar bark to help hold moisture. I haven't planted yet (note if you will that it is still snowing in Montana), and the bark in the garden is from last year. As I was weeding, I was throwing river rocks back into the border that surrounds my garden. I put my hand out to toss three speckled rocks back into the border when I snatched my hand back and realized what the birds were freaking out about. I had been sitting within about two feet of their nest for maybe twenty minutes! They had nested in my cedar bark. I was about to toss their eggs out as rocks! Luckily I didn't touch the eggs and as soon as I realized what the fuss had been about, I stopped weeding, gathered up my things and went away so the momma bird could get back on the nest. I went inside and looked them up in one of my bird books. We have a pair of nesting Kildeer. They are really pretty birds. And VERY vocal. When you disturb them, they try to lead you away from the nest by going off a little way and faking a broken wing. They lure predators away and then when the predator is far enough from the nest, they "recover" and fly to safety. We've been watching her all week and worrying about her and the eggs. We can't believe they laid them in the middle of our yard since we have two dogs that regularly come and go. Obviously they didn't scout very well before they nested. All week long we've gone out with the dogs each time and watched to make sure they didn't disturb her, but something did. I had disturbed her while she was laying the dang things because later we looked and there were FOUR eggs not three. But as of Thursday, she was down to only two. We don't know what happened to the other two. So today, in the pouring rain, Hubby and I stood out and built a little fenced enclosure for her and the nest. (Yes, the man is some kind of saint.) We hope we can keep other predators away from her. According to my books, the eggs will hatch somewhere around the second or third week of June. I hope they make it. I understand baby Kildeer are really cute. I'll try to post photos if I can. |
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