It’s garbage day!

There is a blessed feeling you get when you look over and your husband is giving you a look.
not THAT look….not that irritated one either.

The one where you see him looking at you and you can’t quite place what
he’s thinking…so you ask.  And he says “you are so beautiful.”

Never mind that you haven’t combed your hair yet and your in your
pajamas.  Skip that you weren’t even paying him a bit of
attention. You wonder for a brief nano-second who is this man? and
where’s my husband? 

It hits you right in the solar plexus.  This feeling. 

If you haven’t felt it, you know and you need to keep looking until you
find the man that makes you feel this way.  If you have felt it,
then you know exactly what I’m talking about and I don’t need to say
anymore. 

I was surfing Xanga and found some early 20-somethings debating about
whether it is better to be community minded and responsible for their
fellow man first or is it better to be self-productive, think of
yourself first and foremost and share whatever is leftover.  In the
theory that what you have leftover is better because you have thought
of yourself first so have the best there is to give.  Well, it
wasn’t my debate so I didn’t get into with a bunch of strangers who
might feel like all I wanted was a flame war, but of course I have an
opinion and you get to read it, unless you navigate away immediately.

navigate away now…..okay, you were warned.

It is my belief and humble opinion that we are responsible not only for
ourselves but for our less fortunate brothers and sisters.  I
think we have a responsibility to the care and feeding of our fellow
man and should share what we have freely and without restraint. 
Better leftovers?  They are still leftovers and you are taking
away from yourself and the person you are offering this charity to if
that is all your offering.  I wouldn’t want your leftover caviar
and champagne, I would much rather have that jar of peanut butter and a
helping hand to get out of the situation. 
That is actually part
of the reason why I support Heifer International.  They give a
helping hand to people but at the same time they are teaching people
how to be self-sufficient and fostering a whole new chain of 
giving within the own community.  They don’t take away pride by
turning you into a lifelong charity case. 
This leads me to a direct indictment of most of the American Welfare
system.  That system and I are in complete disagreement about how
to operate but of course the gov’t didn’t ask me how to run
things.  But honestly why would you want to live a hard life
working at a minimum wage job and struggling to pay bills month after
month. When you could just let the gov’t pay your way.  There were
plenty of times when I thought I must be all kinds of stupid for doing
exactly that. 
I’ll never forget when Arkansas started the child health insurance.
(now common throughout the U.S.)  We were so excited that our kids
would be covered and routine visit to the dentist and doctor wouldn’t
have to be planned out like a D-Day invasion.  Then to our
amazement when we applied we were told our monthly income was over the
top limit.  I got the chart and looked and sure enough we
were………by $10.00.
This presented us with several choices.  I could ask my boss to
reduce my already pitiful salary by ten dollars a month to
qualify.  Or I could just quit my job and then we would qualify
not only for free health care for our children but we would qualify for
food stamps, free school lunches, and all school fees would be
waved.  This would save us hundreds of dollars.  It would
have been so easy to do that, sit back and accept the hand-out. 
But you know the bottom line is we didn’t want a hand-out we wanted a
helping hand.  Just for a little while, just until we got where we
were headed.  It was and still is an absurd thing that we were
working out tails off and poorer than the people on all the gov’t
“help” and it is still a weird source of pride that we didn’t cave into
the pressure and be on the dole for years just because they made it so
easy to be.
My kids know we were living tight but they also knew then as they do
now that there were plenty of people who had it worse.  They
usually brought them home.  Either through a combination of awful
parents or just no where to go we had a lot of flow thru family. 
A little food and a little friendship and understanding goes a long
way.  We also always tried to give to the local food banks and
“adopted” kids at Christmas.  And I also tried to give to other
national and international charitable organizations.  I hope that
I have taught them that
their family is not limited to a specific chain of DNA.  I hope
that when they give they do it with a free hand to all their brothers
and sisters throughout the world. 
So yes, I believe we are responsible for all the “ugly, disagreeable,
undeserving, lazy,”
people in the world. (sarcasm there,  but I hope you take the time
to click on the colored links)   But I don’t give hand
outs.  If you want a hand UP then I’m your girl.  And don’t
tell me you don’t have any money to spare.  For years I didn’t
have any money so I did what I could through volunteering.  Girl
Scouts, The local nursing home, the literacy foundation, etc. 
Most
organization are just as desperate for a pair of hands as they are for
a dollar bill.  Do what you can when you can.  This is what
comes of my surfing….I sometimes think I take things a tad
personal.  Oh well.  Have a great Tues.

well, shall we start.
It’s amazing the things you can accustom yourself to.  I have
apparently grown accustomed to only having 2 English language channels
on T.V.  One is LPTV or more commonly known as MTV.  In case
your wondering LP stands for Lame Pop.  Much more appropriate
don’t you think?  The other is CNN/Europe.   Now I know
a lot of people love MTV but they play the same crap over and over ad
nausea until you have to change to CNN.  Which also loops the same
“news” over and over ad nausea. 

What’s really bad is how catchy some of the music is, I always
know  I need to get out when I find myself singing …..This is
the Black Eyed Peas in case your wondering  (and don’t think Bear isn’t appalled that I know this, he’s just old, lol)
                                                  
“What you gon’
do with all that junk?
                                             
       All that Junk inside your trunk?
                                                  
 
Ima’ get, get, get, get, you drunk,
                                             
       Get you drunk off my hump,
                                              
      My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
                                                 
  
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely
                                                  
 
little lumps.(check it out)”

I hate to be critical but, I ask you, what genius wrote those lyrics? 
In retaliation I play the media player on the computer which is hooked into our stereo, I start with “O Fortuna” really loud.  A brain purge.  Though when I hear it I don’t think of the movie “Glory” (1989) I think of “Excalibur”  (1981)
all those knights in shining armor riding thru the apple blossoms on
their way to war.  That immediately makes me feel better so I’m
able to restrain myself from the bullet in the brain cure.  By the
time my classic at the movies cd is done I feel appropriately
uplifted.  Then I go back to my more normal Led Zeppelin or Janis
Joplin. Maybe some Cult, POD or 7 Mary 3,  with a little EmmyLou
Harris or Kasey Chambers on the side.  Hmm, eclectic?  Oh
well you like the songs you like right? 

CNN on the other hand just depresses me most of the time.  It was CNN fault that I recently adopted geese, chickens and part of some tree seedlings.  Zhenai reminded me how much I admire this particular charity. 
Bear is gonna kill me if I don’t quit doing stuff like that.
I did like the story of Owen and Mzee. 
A good love story is hard to beat and I don’t care who you are it’s
just sweet that the old man adopted Owen.  It still doesn’t change
the fact that they play the same stories over and over, then reedit
and play them again.  Same news, same reporter, different
configuration.  Then God forbid a crisis happens because that is
all they will play for the next 3 weeks. (that seems to be the standard
milking time) So we change the name CNN to  “The Tsunami Channel,
then the Pope Channel, the
Katrina/Rita Channel then most recently the earthquake channel”. 
I
am not hard hearted but really is nonstop coverage of nothing but that
necessary?  I really think this is how people get inured to
tragedy.  And can somebody tell me why ALL of the news is
bad.  I swear when they told about Owen and Mzee it was the first
good news I had heard in a week.

That’s all, I’m done.  Rant or whatever you might call it, over. 

In other news: 
I’m still smoke free and Bear quit on the 30th of Dec.  so yay for us.
My cold or whatever it was is finally gone except for the cough.  But I feel so much better I almost don’t care.
I got all 7 boxes and 2 cards ready to mail and may get them actually
mailed tomorrow.  (Sorry Lise and Allie, I’m a failure at
correspondence in a timely manner.)((Not that all of them are for you
two.))
I almost forgot, I bought a pilates dvd.  I was going to start it
today but luckily for me something better came up.  Whew, that was
a close one. 

Hope everyone has a great day.