An Open Letter to Republican Senators and Ben Nelson

Dear Sirs and Madams:

I just wanted to take the time to thank you for helping me make a profound change in my life. See, I have been unemployed since January, when I was let go about a month after I disclosed to my employer that I had a disability. I immediately applied for unemployment insurance and within a few short weeks, I had my first check. It was only for one week, but lucky for us, my husband was also drawing unemployment since he had been laid off in April of 2009.

When that second check came with 3 weeks of payment, I must confess I went a little wild and spent nearly all of it on COBRA. I am ashamed to say this, but Orrin Hatch was right about us unemployed spending our checks on drugs. Every two weeks, I shot myself up with Humira for arthritis. In addition to being a Humira junkie, I was also addicted to other pills. No one told ever told me just how addictive blood pressure pills are! Thyroid pills too. Now that I no longer have unemployment money and the COBRA subsidies are going away, I can proudly say I kicked the habit of those nasty medications. Should I die of a heart attack or stroke, I will die with the satisfaction of knowing that my body was free of any sort of substance. And that's thanks to you!

Another area I have made some changes in since my unemployment benefits ran out is nutrition. Now that we have no money for grocery shopping, we won't be eating so much. Finally, the chance to attain the sleek and slender frame of my dreams! My three year old has been looking pretty chunky too so this not eating thing should be just great for him as well!

Now here is where I need some guidance: which utility should I stop paying first? Maybe our gas bill? I mean, it is summer and all, and who needs warm showers? A cold shower builds character! Maybe we should stop paying our water bill too. Indoor toilets are way overrated. My grandparents had an outhouse and if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for us. Plus the shrubs in our front yard have been looking a little sparse, so the extra fertilization should perk them right up! Our electric bills are getting pretty high now (almost $400 this month) so I guess we ought to think about letting that go also.

One thing I know for sure we'll continue to purchase is gas for our truck. Spending money on that gas gives us a chance to support Big Oil, and I wouldn't miss out on that for anything! They deserve their billion dollar profits, especially BP. They made about 5 billion this quarter and they sure need that money to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf! Haley Barbour was right when he said they had the most to lose; if people like me don't buy their gas, then the execs have no bonuses to look forward to and that's not right. They need their bonuses and tax cuts. Senator Kyl was right on the money when he said that those tax cuts for the wealthy don't have to be paid for which is why you guys are blocking unemployment benefits. The wealthy obviously deserve money more than we working people do; they wouldn't be rich if they hadn't worked so much harder than us! People like Paris Hilton toil away for hours on things like photo shoots in Tahiti and that's backbreaking work!

You will also be happy to hear that I took Andre Bauer's advice to heart and got an IUD when I still had insurance. Remember how he compared poor people to strays and said all they do is procreate anyway? Well, this stray won't be procreating anymore! I am honestly surprised that my husband wants anything to do with me anyway. He's working now (it only took 15 months to find a job) and I just don't know how he tolerates my freeloading butt! I really have been spoiled, just like Sharron Angle said. That reminds me, I have a question: if she wants a million people to send her $25, isn't that also freeloading? Shouldn't she go and get a job and make that money herself? Silly me, I get so confused. Must be from trying to figure out how statistics show 5 applicants for every job but you guys keep saying the jobs are there. If you're talking about jobs in fast food, etc., you are correct. They won't hire me though. They say having a degree makes me overqualified and then they go and hire some teenager. Maybe we should eliminate teenagers!

All in all, you guys really are lifechangers. Mitch McConnel was right when he said you got your groove back. I know I, for one, am not only grateful to you for helping me get off my duff (I was only spending a couple of hours a day looking for work instead of all day, every day), I am grateful that you know what the important stuff really is. Why here in my home state of Texas, where 30,000 people a week are losing UI benefits, the GOP has chosen to focus on re-criminalizing sodomy so being gay is against the law. Yeehaw Texas and God bless the USA!

A new catchphrase for the pundits...

In my first entry of this blog, I contemplated posting transcripts of the conversations had by me and my husband while watching TV. I now present you with the first installment:

*watching "The Daily Show" off the DVR, we hear Glenn Beck rail against soccer being "rammed down our throats"*

Me: Good grief! Everything is always being 'rammed, jammed, or crammed down their throats'! Can the pundits on the right not think of another phrase to express their displeasure at everything?

JD: How about 'rammed, crammed, or jammed up their ass'?

Me: Perfect.


P.S. My mother wants each and every one of you to know that she did not raise me to use or appreciate coarse language of any sort. I just turned out that way. End of disclaimer.

A small break

Hello all. I'm taking a short break. Killian is sick and I am too angry with our Senate and their lack of a conscience to be good company. On the good news front, Danny got a job, and I'd probably be more excited about it if it covered my lack of unemployment benefits. I also spoke with my sister, who doesn't need a kidney (though if any of you do, let me know and I will gladly give you a kidney for a small price), and is a lovely person with whom I have lots in common. I am glad she found me.

See y'all soon.

Ghosts of Christmas past haunt me in June...

"Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is
in the very here and now,
the practitioner dwells
in stability and freedom."


The above quote is attributed to Buddha. I try very hard to follow it and live in the now. Trouble is, yesterday keeps finding me. And for the most part, that's been good. Over the past year, I have reconnected with some very important people from my past. My BFF from middle school onwards, a lot of great friends from high school, even my middle school crush. What I found was that I still got along with these people just like I did back in the day, even finding my old crush still worthy of swoon (seriously, he should be glad I am happily married or I might've flown to New York and thrown myself in his path, just like I used to "accidentally" be by his locker after fourth period every day in the seventh grade). I have found several old photos and mementos I thought long gone. Some of them I held onto, others I had to let go, for in addition to the constant revisiting of old memories and friends, I have been on a quest to clear the clutter from my life.

It seems like the Universe is trying to tell me something. Every time I turn around, I am running into old friends or seeing signs to clear clutter. For example, I'll turn on the TV only to see a special on clutter coming up, or I'll get an email from my book club, and the featured book will happen to be about clutter and how to get rid of it. I am a big believer in synchronicity. I take these signs seriously, and I have been systematically cleaning and clearing, both materially and spiritually/emotionally. I do this because I realize now that if I don't, I won't have room for anything new.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard from my cousin Kerri that my sister wanted to contact me. I've never met my sister, but when I was a little girl, I wanted to meet her more than anything in the world. I wanted someone to borrow clothes from, someone to play dolls with, or produce interesting nail polish experiments with. For the most part, my friends filled this role, but most of them had their own sisters and I knew that our relationship was still different than the one they had with their sisters. For all practical purposes, I was an only child. My brother is 12 years older than me, and he was always more of a dad to me than anything. All the things that dads are supposed to do, my brother did. He taught me to ride a bike, how to drive, and he gave me away at my first wedding. I still call on him for advice on car repairs and such. But he never would assist me in the nail polish experiments.

Where was my dad, you ask? Drunk. We pretty much only saw him when he wanted to take his frustrations out on someone. And that's why I never met my sister. About ten years before my mom and dad met and mated, my father was married and had a daughter. But after dealing with Dad's drinking and abuse for so long, his first wife took their daughter and left. Dad never knew exactly where they were, which was smart on his first wife's part, because Dad was not above stalking to terrify someone. Eventually she remarried and her new husband adopted my sister. All I really knew about her was her name and birthday. Every so often, Dad would call one of his first wife's relatives and put me on the phone to beg for information. That finally stopped when I was around nine years old and refused to do it anymore, both for my sake and my phantom sister's sake. She didn't want to be found and I didn't blame her. I would've felt the same way. I hadn't thought about this in years; I guess you could say I relegated it to the clutter pile.

So now I finally have the chance to have a sister. But do I want one? The crass cynic in me wonders why now? Does she need a kidney? What if I don't like her? What if she's really horrible? What if she doesn't like me? What if she thinks I'm horrible?

I told Kerri I would call her because I needed to chew on this a bit. But I procrastinated (one of my worst personal flaws, hands down) and didn't call (sorry, Kerri!). Then yesterday I received two emails back to back from Facebook: a message from my brother asking if we could meet him for dinner because he was in town for business, and a second, a friend request from someone with my sister's name. I accepted the dinner invitation, and then went to see what I could see on my sister's profile. There wasn't much info there; it looked like she just opened an account with Facebook. So now I know her name, her birthday, and where she went to school.

I discussed it with my brother (who, for the confused, shares a mother but not a father with me, so my sister is not his sister) at dinner. He said, "it's better to regret contacting her than it is to regret NOT contacting her." As usual, he is right. So after posting this, I will accept the friend invitation. And hopefully, this will be a part of the past I am glad to bring into the future.

A brief hello

Greetings! You may be wondering where I've been. Or not. I'll tell you anyway.

Killian is using the potty (poops included) more than ever. So all day, every day, goes something like this: he uses the potty just enough to get candy...I give him the candy and clean him up before dumping the contents of the potty into the toilet...I clean the potty and place it back into the seat...he goes again five minutes later, thus restarting the cycle all over again. I used an entire roll of paper towels yesterday just cleaning his potty! Last week, when I reported that he was parsing out the pee in order to get more candy, I wasn't exaggerating. And I am tired. But I am also happy he is that much closer to being toilet trained so we can do away with pull-ups once and for all.

Today is Killian's last day in the ECI program as well. He's been in ECI (which stands for Early Childhood Intervention) for about a year now, but since he will be three this Saturday, he is no longer eligible for the program and will transition to services in our school district. I cannot say enough good things about ECI. The speech therapist has been wonderful. For those unfamiliar with ECI, it's a program for kids ages 0-3 who have developmental delays, which encompasses everything from speech delays (like Killian) to autism. They do home visits so you never have to take your child to an office and they bill your insurance (if you have any). If your insurance does not cover their services or you don't have insurance, then the services are paid for by state funds, so it's totally free (and one of the few programs that our asshat governor hasn't cut). The services through our school district will be free as well. Killian was evaluated last month by a psychologist and speech therapist with the district and approved for their PCCD program. Starting in August, he will go for half a day to enhanced pre-school, where he will continue to receive speech therapy. Transportation is furnished via a school bus; much to Shelby's amusement, it will be a short bus with air conditioner and seat belts. I am really looking forward to this, mainly because he will have peers to socialize with again. We had to pull him out of daycare when Danny lost his job, so Killian hasn't had too many playmates since.

Speaking of, today Danny has an informal interview for a job. Here's hoping, especially since my unemployment has run out and God only knows if or when Congress will approve the extension. I am praying they do because if not, I don't know how we're going to eat. I figured out recently that if we never spent money at the grocery store or Target, we could pay all of our bills pretty well. Damn human physiology, needing food and water to survive. Booooo.

Shower time!

Pavlov's Boy: UPDATE

KILLIAN POOPED IN THE POTTY YESTERDAY. TWICE. TWICE!

No crying, minimal whimpering, just poop in a potty. And no, it wasn't a dream or some type of hallucination that results from sleep deprivation. I could tell by the rank odor.

I WIN!

Pavlov's Boy

Adorable, isn't he? Don't you just want to squeeze those sweet chubby cheeks? Pick him up and cover his face in kisses so you can hear the angelic peals of laughter emanate from that baby face?

Well, don't let the face fool you. Underneath that lovable countenance lies a ruthless stubborn streak and the iron will of a KGB general circa 1985. I know you're thinking , "Huh? Oh, c'mon, Angela! You're exaggerating! That sweet little angel could melt the cold, dead heart of Dick Cheney even. Ruthless? Please!" Well, you don't live with him. You don't know. I do.

My adorable son has been going pee pee in his potty pretty well this week. Earning and eating so many M&M's, I'm surprised his pants still fit. But pooping in the potty? Not so much. He's got it all figured out, see. Killian's bowel movements are about as regular and predictable as a Lindsay Lohan coke binge. Every day, near noonish, he's got to go. But he refuses to go in the potty. This plays out one of three ways. The first is that he hides and poops in his big boy pants, and when we discover that this has occurred, he then stares at us with woeful brown eyes that say "please don't be mad." We react the same way every time he does it: we gently walk him to the bathroom, speaking softly and telling him that we all have accidents but he really needs to tell us when he's got to go. We clean him up, while he whimpers remorsefully, which tears at the heart like nothing else. Sometimes we are able to salvage the underpants, sometimes not. And as soon as we're finished, his mood brightens instantly. An outsider would never suspect that mere seconds earlier, he was crying as if the world were ending or Sesame Street was canceled. No, the giggles that bubble up as he runs out of the bathroom and back to playing would never suggest anything at all had happened. It's very suspicious.

If he doesn't poop his big boy pants, it's because he still has pull-ups on. The same basic scene is played out, with us reminding him that he needs to alert us before going, but minus the crying because hey, pull-ups are like diapers and he's pooped in diapers his whole life, so why should he feel bad? The third option is that the moment of poop occurs while we're letting him run around sans pants of any sort; I read somewhere that if you let your toddler go without pants that they'll be more aware of their need to go and act accordingly. This has worked well with urination. But with pooping, he either poops on the floor, after which a scene similar to the one where he poops in his big boy pants occurs, or he grabs a pair of pull-ups and insists we put them on him and then soils them within 5 short minutes, or he holds out as long as possible and just refuses to go.

Yesterday came and went with no poop. There were stray escapes of gassiness, but that was it. So we figured at bedtime that he must be holding it in. And the problem was that we only had one pull-up left, and no way of getting more until today when the unemployment money arrives. If we put the last pull-up on him and he pooped in it, then he would have to wear big boy pants to bed, and he hasn't mastered overnight dryness yet. That meant he would invariably wet the bed in the middle of the night, waking everyone up and creating a large mess to clean up. Being the optimists that we are, we figured we could once and for all trick him into using the toilet. We're adults, we can outlast a 2 year old, right?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

We went through the usual bedtime rituals of picking up toys, teeth brushing, bathing, etc. Interspersed in the activity were several trips to the toilet to urinate. No poo. After a particularly noxious passage of gas, we put him on the toilet thinking this was it. We did everything we could to entertain him and thus keep him there. We read him books. We watched Sprout. We sang songs. He got back up leaving only urine. It was 10:30 P.M., his usual bedtime (we're night owls and not working, whaddya want? Early birds we are not). We calmly played with puzzles until another gas bubble. Rushing to the toilet, we again did our best to keep him there. I read Dr. Seuss while Danny hugged him. He got up leaving nothing. It was 11:30 P.M. now. We decided to roughhouse, thinking the activity would force his sphincter to let go, at which point we would place him on the nearby toilet. This only resulted in my glasses almost being broken along with Danny's nose (Killian is much stronger than he looks). Now it was 12:30. I was starting to tire. Killian was not. I thought, "I can do this...I have the blood of Celtic warrior queens running through my veins, along with strong Native chieftains and German tenacity. I got this."

At 1 A.M. it occurred to me that Killian gets half of his genetic material from me and that he, too, is full of the blood of Irish warrior queens, etc. He also has the whole French charm thing working for him. Then I knew I was beat. But rather than admit defeat, we decided to place Killian on the big potty with his stepstool supporting his feet while Danny held him there. Maybe the change in position would help him along? He looked rather unsure, but he didn't protest. He made a couple of his "I'm pooping" noises, and we thought we had won. He started to get off the toilet so we hastily grabbed another Dr. Seuss and I started reading. All to no avail. Nada. And it was 1:45 A.M. It had been over three hours, 12 books, 2 bouts of roughhousing, 3 Sprout productions, and countless opportunities. We had lost the battle. We put him in his pull-ups and then to bed. He never did poo.

I'm not exactly sure what this all means. I thought I was learning patience when we had to wait almost two years and file endless stacks of paper with thousands of dollars just so Danny and I could get married. I thought all my wacky health problems were teaching me to let go, that I couldn't be in control all the time. I've always encouraged my kids to express themselves, so I don't think that's it. All I know is that my entire life is now centered around the toilet...day after day of laundering big boy pants, clothing, towels, crib sheets, and stuffed animals all covered in urine. Hours of asking "do you need to potty?" while rushing to the toilet and cheerfully reminding him "you'll get candy!" Sometimes we even have to bathe Killian more than once a day, and we probably have spent hundreds of dollars on bubble bath and body wash for kids. Oh, and the pull-ups and wipes? Another small fortune. Worse than that, I recently found myself telling another adult "I need to go pee pee. I'll be right back." I'm not sure I'll ever be able to regain my dignity. I will persevere though. That's what parents do. But he better learn soon because I'm sure as hell not explaining to his future wife why he needs to go to the restroom every time he sees M&M's.