Saturday, June 21, 2008

Looking Glass

Ok, most people that I've told this to think I'm seriously weird.  There's a song that's been out for quite some time that is from Stone Sour and it's called Through Glass.  Most of you know how I feel about gorillas.  I have an extremely difficult time seeing them in captivity and yet when I do see them, I feel compelled to stay as long as possible.  I feel like there is definitely more to them than just some animal, even without all the scientific evidence to prove it.  It's in their eyes.  I want to apologize to every single one of them for taking away their homes and for locking them in cages.  In the defense of most of the zoos I've been to, they only have gorillas that are unable to be returned to the wild or were born in captivity.  Back to the (one of) the reason I'm weird.  When I hear this song, from the very first time I ever heard the lyrics, it reminds me of the gorillas at the zoo.  So I leave you with the lyrics and you can see for yourself if I'm completely insane or if you too see it.   

I'm looking at you through the glass...
Don't know how much time has passed
Oh, god it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

How do you feel? That is the question
But I forget.. you don't expect an easy answer
When something like a soul becomes
Initialized and folded up like paper dolls and little notes
You can't expect a bit of hope
So while you're outside looking in
Describing what you see
Remember what you're staring at is me

Cause I'm looking at you through the glass...
Don't know how much time has passed
All I know is that it feels like forever
When no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

How much is real? So much to question
An epidemic of the mannequins
Contaminating everything
When thought came from the heart
It never did right from the start
Just listen to the noises
(Null and void instead of voices)
Before you tell yourself
It's just a different scene
Remember it's just different from what you've seen

I'm looking at you through the glass...
Don't know how much time has passed
And all I know is that it feels like forever
Whenno one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

And it's the stars
The stars
That shine for you
And it's the stars
The stars
That lie to you.. yeah-ah

I'm looking at you through the glass...
Don't know how much time has passed
Oh, god it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

'Cause I'm looking at you through the glass...
Don't know how much time has passed
All I know is that it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your heaaaaddd

And it's the stars
The stars
That shine for you.. yeah-ah
And it's the stars
The stars
That lie to you.. yeah-ah

Ohhhoh when the starrs
Ohhh oh when the starrrrs that liieee

Fire finger without flames

Have you ever had rope burn?  Ever have it all the way to the muscle?  I got to experience just that today.  I took Doodle to an adoption event earlier in the day.  She's awful on a leash.  It's to the point that I dread taking her anywhere at all.  She was good walking across the streets to get to our tent.  She was overly excited around all the people and it took a while to get her to settle down.  I sat in a chair and held her leash as there were no open crates at that time.  She had been sitting next to me for about five minutes, without moving much so I must have gotten comfortable and let my guard down.  Next thing I knew, she took off at a full run.  The leash was tangled up in both of my hands.  She actually ripped me out of my chair.  At that same moment, a crate opened up and I put her in it so I could tend to my hand.  I hadn't really looked at it yet.  Sure enough, all the way to the muscle.  I have multiple gashes where the leash went into my skin on both hands as well as bruises.  My ring finger on my right hand got the worst of it though.  It's really uncomfortable.  For the first few hours, I couldn't bend my finger or completely straighten it out.  You can't imagine the names I called that dog in my head.  She didn't get allowed out of the crate again till it was time to go except once when a lady wanted to see her.  And then, I put her in the car before it was time to go so that I could help pack up without being jerked around like a stuffed animal.  This is a dog who in January was 65lbs and has put on at least ten pounds since then.  Not only is she big, but she's strong.  I've been very honest with people about her inability to be leash walked.  I try to be very honest about all of my fosters flaws.  Better they know now than find out in a month and want to bring it back.  Needless to say, I still have Doodle.

To answer some questions :::  There are reasons I would like my mom to be with me during my labor and delivery.  My husband didn't do much at Jasmine's birth aside from hold my leg while I pushed.  My mom was the one feeding me ice chips, getting me wash cloths for my forehead and holding a basin for me to vomit in.  Iknow it's because he didn't know what exactly he was supposed to be doing but it made a huge difference having someone who did know there.  If I can avoid having her watch Jasmine, I will, although my mom is the person I trust the most to watch her.  My grandmother is getting up there in the years and I think watching Jasmine for that long would be a bit difficult for her.  Other than that, the only other person I trust would be my brother's girlfriend but again, who knows how long it will all take and she could be in school during the time I am in labor or it could be in the middle of the night and I'm not waking up a sixteen year old girl to come watch my kid in the middle of winter.  Pretty much I feel screwed.  My dad is out of the question as he does.... recreational activities which I do not approve of, nor do I approve of my daughter being around them.  No way would I leave her with my MIL.  I don't leave her with my MIL for even an hour right now, so HOURS isn't even a possibility in my mind.  Jasmine LOVES my uncle Jeff but he is under a lot of stress, works between six and seven days a week so I'm not putting that on him.  I may just end up having to train my husband to do what my mom would before we get to that point.  After everything is said and done, I have to decide what I want to do AFTER the birth.  Do I have Shawn stay with me overnight as he did last time and Jasmine stay with my mom?  Or do I beg and plead with my mom to come stay with me overnight so Jasmine will feel a little less like something is going on with me?  I know I can't stay there alone.  I have occasional panic attacks and I can't tell you how many times I came close to losing it in the hospital last time even when someone was with me and if anyone mentioned leaving me by myself, I went pale.  Again, if it hadn't been for my mom, I would've spent a great deal of time alone in that hospital.  My husband claimed to be going "stir crazy."  I was like, deal with it, I'm stuck here like a prisoner.  I was terrified to sign out on my own because I'd had such a severe infection at the time of my delivery so I begged my nurses to let me go home or to get the docs to let me go home but I wasn't leaving without my baby either.  (even though at that time I felt little to no connection to her due to severe post pardum depression, I've never been so grateful for a celebrity writing a book.  Brooke Sheilds may have saved me a lot of heartache with her story of ppd)  Anyways, that's where all that stands to clear up everything. 

I have a question if anyone knows the answer.  Why is it that bamboo is so green friendly for wood floors?  Aren't there panda bears out there that are starving due to all the bamboo being cut down for more houses?  To me that's not green friendly.  Maybe I'm wrong on my information, it's just something I'm recalling in the back of my rolodex of a brain. 

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Hospitals

I had my nurses appointment at my OB today.  Basically, they ask you a ton of medical questions, some several times and ask if you have any questions.  It seems to take forever but at least there's nothing being stuck in any crevices.  When I got home, I flipped through the encyclopedia of information they gave me.  I got to the paper from the hospital and I'm not sure why I read through it.  It's not as if I haven't done the pregnancy/labor thing in the hospital before.  However, I didn't have another child.  One of the dissappointments for me was that no children under the age of 12 are allowed in the labor and delivery room, at all.  I was planning on having Jasmine with me as long as she continued to mature at the rate she is.  Now I have to figure out what to do with her while I'm laboring.  I also found that she isn't allowed to stay overnight with me and quite frankly, if I was given the choice of having Jas with me or my husband, I would choose her.  I've never spent more than a few hours away from her and I can't imagine an entire night, let alone two without her.  On top of that, my husband will probably have to go home with her and I'll be at the hospital alone.  I know I sound like a baby but I was literally freaking out the last time I had to stay in that place.  As if the walls were closing in on me.  *sigh*  I shouldn't be worrying about it already but here I am.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

In search of a snack

I'm hungry.  I think one of the worst things (aside from grocery shopping) you can do to yourself is look at recipes.  I found a brownie recipe that I would kill to be eating right now.  I got like this last night and found out quite quickly that my can opener was broken.  Being eco friendly, I went without an electric.  My second mistake was that I allowed my husband to buy the thing.  It hasn't even been a year since we bought it.  It just won't grip the can anymore.  I ended up bending it far enough that I was able to make quite a few large gashes into the can and then I used a piece of metal to bend the lid out and break it enough to get my frickin soup out.  You just don't mess with a hungry pregnant woman.  You just don't.  I was going to make me and Jasmine chocolate shakes but she drank the last of our milk a few hours ago.  Stingy toddler.  Oooh, I just remembered, we have chocolate that I bought due to Jasmine's insistence that we needed some.  Mmmm, chocolate.

The reason for my last post was the usual, money or the lacking of it.  The bills keep piling up and there's just nothing there to pay them with.  I don't know why I bothered voicing my concerns to my husband because I basically got there's nothing we can do about it right now.  You know they always say money can't buy happiness but I think it sure can't help to have it.  I just don't want to be living week to week for the rest of my life.  And what's really ridiculous, my husband has one of the best jobs you can get in this area without having a college degree.  I can't imagine where we'd be if he didn't.  We'd probably still be living with my mom.  Which, doesn't sound bad as long as I'm out from under this house payment.  I keep thinking if we hadn't been in such a rush (excitement) to get a house, we could've stayed at my mom's for a while and put a lot of money in savings.  We'd be in a far better place.  Now I don't know if we'll ever have money in savings.

Does life get any easier?  And if it doesn't then what the hell is the point?  I don't want to spend the rest of my life struggling like this.  It's like swimming up stream in a river.  I'm not getting any where and I just feel like giving up.

30 Days

Watching 30 Days, which is one of my favorite shows to ever air.  Today's is having a hardcore hunter move in with a vegan family, one of whom works for PETA.  I already don't like this man.  He says "Deer are food, if they're not food for me, they're food for the front bumper of your truck" It's so unbelievably hard for me to watch this.  I am so hormonal and I am just balling watching these animals.  You know it's going to be brutal when PETA is involved in any way shape or form.  It's just really hard for me to watch animals be harmed.  And it's really hard to watch someone talk about it like they don't feel it.  "I've seen a deer get shot, with a fatal shot and keep eating."  I don't get how someone can say that and laugh about it.  I have no problem with people hunting any animal that is impossible or difficult to get in the store, within reason.  I don't see a reason to hunt wild turkeys when you can go to the store and get it there.  To me, it's like the turkey at the store died for nothing and you went out and killed another animal instead.  The only thing I like about this guy is that he seems to have some what of an open mind.  He honestly wants to understand why we feel so strongly about animals and their pain, their rights.  I don't think my husband even understands how strongly I feel on the issue of hunting.  I told him, if he were to ever go out and even attempt to shoot an animal, I would never look at him the same again.  I just couldn't.  And then if he killed an animal.  I don't know if I'd ever get over it.  I just couldn't deal with it.  I know a lot of people who raise their own livestock so that they can have them slaughtered KNOWING, that animal lived a good, kind life and their death was quick and painless.  I eat meat and I really wish I were able to do that.  I get attached to any animal though and I just couldn't have my little fluffy hen or farting spotted cow killed and then eat it.  I wish I could, at least then I'd know where it came from and that it was treated humanely.  Back to the show, this guy says that all animal rights people do the same thing, try to shock you.  Yes and there's a reason for that.  It's one of the few things that really gets your attention.  I think the problem he's having is that these animal rights people are coming straightout and saying you're wrong.  You can't expect to get some one to open their minds if you continue to keep your's closed.  You have to at least try to understand where another person is coming from, even if you don't agree with them.  He has been far more understanding with those who try to understand where he's coming from as well.  Now he has actually seen one of these factory farms and is obviously bothered by it.  It just goes to show that if people really opened their eyes and saw what was happening to their dinner, they would speak up.  Now don't get me wrong, I don't see this guy going vegan at the end of the show but I do think he may just put a little more thought into where his food comes from and how it's treated.  I don't believe we will ever be without meat but wouldn't it be nice if our dinner had been treated with care and a little bit of respect before it's life was ended so short?  He is really more open to anything that has to do with dogs in particular.  They took him to a shelter and watched them choose a dog that had to be euthanized.  "The thought of killing that one dog, is probably one of the most difficult things I've felt in my life."  Wow, just wow.  He is actively out there talking to people against wearing fur.  WOW.  I didn't see him make this big of a turnaround.  When he first got on the show, he wouldn't even touch a bird and now he's holding chickens for children to pet.  I'm not sure how his wife will feel about him painting naked 20 something girls for a protest but hey, he's a little more informed now than he was 30 days before.  "Have I changed?  Who couldn't change?  I had to change.  I am going to hunt when I get home but I believe the animals have rights."
 
Next week on 30 Days, a traditional mom moves in with a gay couple raising a son.  You know I'm already on the side of the gays on this one.  And if you didn't know, you do now.  I'm for gay marriage, gay relationships, raising children etc.  If it's wrong to love someone just because of their sex, well in my opinion feeling that way is wrong.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I Kill YOU!

The Jeff Dunham folks will get this one.  ;)


SILENCE!! I..... KILL U!!
see more crazy cat pics