Halloween Update

I know a guy whose costume idea is to wear all black, painted white face, white gloves, and walk around saying "Hi, how ya doin'?"  He's a bad mime.

STILL SORRY

An addendum to the "I'm Sorry" thought:  I don't think children should be forced to say "I'm sorry" when they do something wrong.  This is forcing them to say they possess a feeling that they may or may not have.  We wouldn't make them say "I'm happy" or "I'm sad," so why make them say "I'm sorry"?

Now, getting them to say "I shouldn't have done that.  I was wrong" might be worth something...

Any thoughts?

Taking My Own Advice

I'm taking my own advice today, and not being scared.  If you need me, I'll be at the park, having a picnic dinner with family and friends.  The weather here in Austin is GORGEOUS today... low 70's, all sunshine, everyone's outside... ahh! 

Today's Potpourri of Thoughts

A quote from Kevin Smith (Director of Clerks, CHasing Amy, Mallrats and Dogma... also known as "Silent Bob"):  "Well, I always figured I"d have a good-looking wife because I always had good-looking girlfriends.  Regardless of the fact that I'm built like a tub of shit, personality goes a long way.  I've always had a pretty decent personality, so I never had trouble getting laid, regardless of my girth."

More randomness to follow soon.

A Conversation.

Gowan and I had the following conversation.  Honest, I cut 'n pasted it from Yahoo Instant Messenger. 

Gowan:  I think my monitor may be going out.
Sadzi:    With another monitor?
Sadzi:    On dates?
Gowan:  Yes, on dates.  They'll make little 14" monitors.
Gowan:  Heaven forbid if it starts going out with TVs or flat panel monitors.  I'm completely against the whole intermonitor relationship craze.
Sadzi:     I remember way back, when the black and whites were first allowed to started seeing the coloreds.
Gowan:  That's where those damned green screen monitors came from.
Sadzi:    ExACTly.

Swear to GOD, I have strange friends.  Anyway, Gowan's nifty.  He's single.  He doesn't blog enough.  Go to his page and pester him. 

I Never Knew Racism Would Be Politically Correct

Yesterday, my husband hosted the radio show again.  He didn't KNOW he was the host until an hour before he went on the air, so he had to grab something quick to talk about.

He found a USA TODAY/FOX survey that 70% of Americans think it's okay, at least for now, that Arabs and Arab Americans in the U.S. be treated differently because of their race.  70% of our fellow Americans believe racial profiling is suddenly alright, and that it's ok for the FBI to go into a mosque and demand a list of their membership.  70% of our country's citizens feel it's alright for police to tail anyone with middle eastern-looking skin to "see what they're up to." 

My husband is partly Mexican, and his cohost yesterday was a Puerto Rican blend (I'm making them sound like coffees, aren't I?).  They were aghast at this survey -- but sure enough, about 70% of the callers to the show agreed.  African Americans, Hispanics, Europeans -- across the board, people believed it was okay to step backwards 40 years and pretend that the civil rights movement never happened.

Now, today, a man in the US on a Croatian visa has slit the throat of a Greyhound bus driver in Tennessee, sending the bus rolling, and somewhere between 6 and 10 people were killed (including the Croatian).  Croats are from Eastern Europe and are generally white, but with an accent.  (Do you watch "ER"?  Goran Visnjic, pictured right, plays Louka, that handsome doctor... he's from Croatia.)  Should we target all Croatians?  Here's a few things I'm thinking:

• I have the misfortune of being the same shade as Timothy McVeigh -- but I haven't heard anyone hollering for racial profiling of people with skin the color of Wonder Bread.
  
• Suppose we'd had Arab racial profiling in place pre-9/11.  Still, the guys that crashed the planes seemed NORMAL -- to their friends, coworkers and neighbors.  NO ONE WOULD HAVE KNOWN ANYWAY.
  
• What's next -- interrment camps like we did for the Japanese in WWII?  Stars of David on folks' heads, like the Nazis did?
  
• I think Dr. King is rolling over in his grave.  Did he do all that work for nothing?
  
• Are you willing to give up your liberties?  Really?

Give me some feedback here, folks.  I'm beside myself.

NO!

"NO!" was my only reaction when I heard about what happened today.  Today, my dad's birthday, and a dear friend's birthday... and a day that will always live in infamy.

My husband does talk radio for part of his living.  While driving down the road to pick up my throwing-up child from school, the first tower of the World Trade Center was hit by a plane.  I called Richie (the husband), woke him up.

"Uhhh.  Hi.  I was asleep... had weird dreams about buildings blowing up.  So what's up?"

I'm in shock, I suppose, like everyone else.  Although I'm all the way in Austin, Texas, I'm glad my son is with me.  My husband went to the radio station 4 hours early to do whatever he could.  I'm praying for the people.  I don't know what else to say.  I want to blog feelings, facts, information... but I'm too stunned.

It's Just Meant To Be.

VeryModern made me think again.  She talks a lot about astrology, and how planets and moons are in different houses and whatnot.  Most of it (oh, alright, ALL of it) is over my head, but I'm feeling a rhythm in her discussions.  When she speaks of her transiting Mercury and conjunct Mars, I'm starting to get a feel for what she means.  I know not to be late for a date with a Capricorn.

My point, though, is this:  In astrology, after a while, it starts to seem like people don't have much of a say in who they are or what they do.  "She's a Cancer, with her moon over here and a transiting whats-it, which means she'll drop out of college and work fast-food her whole life."  Or, "He's a Taurus, which means that he felt this way about the situation, and reacted in this typical manner."  That sort of thing.  I've started to wonder if astrologists believe we even have choices in what we do.  Can we, in their view, alter the inevitable?

This line of thinking is certainly not exclusive to astrologers.  In Christianity, there's the "predestination" school of thought.  This says that God has a plan mapped out for our lives, or at the very least, He knows (being God and all) whether we'll be Christians or not, and what course our lives will take.  Some hard-liners believe God's sort of made up a list of who'll be Christians and who won't.  If you're not on that list, forgetaboutit -- you're not "in".  Some folks take an in-between stance, saying that we DO have choices, but God just knows ahead of time what those choices will be.

Then there's fatalists.  I don't mean people that think everything's going to be a fatality... I mean those that think "fate" rules everything we do.  That we're destined to meet our future spouse, destined to get in a car wreck, and that fate will hand us our situation in life, no matter how hard we may try to change that course.  "When it's my time, it's my time... not much I can do about it."

So what do YOU think, dear blog reader?  Do you feel that you have total control of what direction your life takes?  Do you think that life/God/the universe hands you life, and you deal with it the best you can?  Do you feel somewhere inbetween?

Tell us.  You're destined to. 

More Steveishness

**An Aside:  Steve was born two months early.  My mother had encephalitis (inflamed brain lining) and meningitis during her pregnancy with Steve.  This was 1960, before HMOs, and they kept you in the hospital for months at a time then -- this was good, because they got her the proper nutrients and bed rest that she may not have been able to do at home.  The doctors had given baby Steve no chance of survival, and my mother a 50/50 shot.  They're both alive and well today.**

Steve, despite his shaky beginnings, grew big and strong.  (This picture is one of my favorites of the two of us, circa about 1982.  His curls are natural, mine were permed.)  My mother attributes this to the yummy vitamins, nutritions and various drugs he got from her during her hospitalization with him.  

However, Steve's personality never matched his body.  As I said earlier, he was cute and round and clueless, and remains so today.  This became especially apparent the older we got, and I remember an incident in high school that really brought this home.

Steve in 12th grade, I was in 9th, and we had just started at a new school.  One day, I was walking in the hall behind two jock-types, and heard them talking.

"Hey, there's a new guy -- a senior.  He's BIG."
"Yeah?  Maybe he'll join the basketball team.  That'd be great!"
"Nah.  He's big, but he's stupid, and a dork.  Just a big dumb idiot."

There I was, a brand new freshman in a new school... and I went off.  A protective instinct awoke in my head -- you parents know the one, it's what you feel when a child near you is threatened.  You jump to protect them.  In this instance, I went on a verbal rampage that left these poor guys so stunned, they just stood in the hall and stared, finally stammering, "Uh, sorry."

Steve wasn't stupid.  He was goofy and maybe dorky, but he later surprised all of us with SAT and other standardized test scores.  He's not a Rain Man, but he did win offers for full-ride, four year scholarship to any public university in Michigan. 

So THERE, Jock-Boys! 

Steve.

Can I tell you about my brother, Steve?  He's not spectacular in the save-a-baby-from-a-burning-building way, but I think he's pretty special, all the same.  I'll probably do this in pieces, as I don't think I can fit Steve into one blog.  (He's 6'3", for Pete's sake.  He's BIG.)  This picture is of my grandmother holding her grandchildren.  My oldest brother Rick is on the far left, looking like he's plotting to steal the candy dish, just beyond the photographer, at the next available moment.  My cousins are in the middle.  I wasn't born yet (Steve is 3 years older than me).  There's steve, on the right -- with a clueless look of wonder on his face.  He's retained that eact look for most of his nearly 41 years (His birthday is Sept. 22, yay!).

While Rick was mostly pure evil (he's a chemist and a Baptist preacher now, and the dad of Alex, the Red Cross Poster Child mentioned in previous blogs), Steve was/is sweetness and light.  Did I mention he's BIG?  Early on, he passed the elder Rick up size-wise.  My mother would buy "slim" sized pants for Rick, "huskies" for Steve.  She couldn't find a hat to go on his big ol' bowling ball-style head.  He's just been cute and round and without a clue forever.

When we were kids, Rick would do things that would get a person in trouble with their parents.  Of course, he always denied wrongdoing, so my parents did the thing that was popular in the late 60's and early 70's -- "If one of you doesn't confess, you're all going to get a spanking."  Steve's answer to this was to confess to the crime, even though Rick did it.  He figured Rick would NEVER confess (true), so Steve was going to get a spanking either way... but if he confessed, he could at least save me, the little sister, a spanking.  Are you getting the idea of what kind of person he is?

More to follow...