More government at work

So while looking at the local paper this morning, I see a headline - House of Representatives offers its sympathy to Omaha - in response the the shootings at Westroads Mall.

I clicked on the link to read the story. I thought that was nice that as they started their week they were making an acknowledgement of what happened. But then I started to read the story.

"House members unanimously approved a resolution that expressed their "heartfelt sympathy" for the victims and their families and thanked local officials and emergency personnel for a quick response in securing the mall and the surrounding area."

Does it bother anyone else that they have to take a vote to issue a statement that as a group, public body, and elected officials they acknowledge what happened and are thinking of those affected? And that by taking a vote, it assumes that by chance there might have been someone who would have voted to not pass such a resolution.

Why would you say something like this?

The first week in December there was a mall shooting at the Westroads here in town. It was a truly a terrible thing.

Last week, I was making a purchase at a store and the clerk stopped, stared at me, and told me that I looked exactly like one of the young girls that was killed in the shooting at the mall. "That's really freaky," was her comment.

Why on earth would you tell a complete stranger that they looked exactly like someone who was just killed? Wouldn't you have stopped the person and perhaps instead said "You look really familiar."

And so it begins

So I was working at my part time job at the store the other night. It was busier, obviously, now that it is "officially" the holiday shopping season. It really wasn't a bad time at all. I spent most of the evening pointing people in the right directions.

As I was doing just that, I was grabbed on the arm by an older woman who was there with her husband and grandson who was about 6 years old. She had questions about the bear.

Every year the store has a stuffed bear it sells at Christmas. It's always a little different each year and has a name. It also goes with the theme of the holiday decorations in the store. This year its a polar bear named Marshmallow.

The woman who stopped me wanted to know what movie Marshmallow was from. I explained exactly what he is and that he isn't from a movie. She didn't believe me and proceeded to pick a fight with me about his origins. She even asked her grandson what movie he was from and he told her, just like I did, that he wasn't from a movie. Only then did she finally decide that there was a slim chance I have been correct.

So, the lesson is...if ever in doubt, find the nearest child and ask them.

Swimsuits

So last Friday afternoon as I'm trying to get things wrapped up to go home, a co-worker who sits near me says that she just received an email from Victoria's Secret saying that the new 2008 swimsuit preview was now available to look at.

#1 - Hellooooo, it's November. I know there are some places that you might be able to get away with wearing a swimsuit in November but none of them are anywhere near here.

#2 - Does it really seem fair to send that out to people just one week before Thanksgiving? I mean, for women, there's nothing like ruining your once a year big turkey feast like thoughts of Heidi Klum in a bikini. Not to mention that that picture could randomly pop in your head at any time during the next 6 weeks as you eat and drink yourself into the blissful state of "fat and happy".

World Series

Congrats to the Red Sox for winning the World Series in 4 games straight.

However, why must all camera shots in between batters be back and forth between players showing them spitting all over the place?

Pokemon and the Pink Sweater...

So again...another tale from the bookstore.

I get stopped as I'm running around trying to clean up piles of books and such left by people. The woman, how is wearing one of the brightest pink sweaters I've ever seen, is telling me over and over how her son saw another little boy with a Pokemon book and he wants the same one and he wouldn't give it to her. She wanted to know if we had another one exactly like it. I spent the next couple minutes trying to figure out what kind of book it was - chapter book, activity book, etc. She had no idea because the other little boy wouldn't let her son have it.

She found one that looked like it. I then pointed to two fixtures where it would have been located. She said "Well aren't you going to help look for them?"

I said "Yes, I'm just showing you where they would be."

She then stuck her hand up in my face and told me not to yell at her. She walked away from me and sat down next to her daughter.

None of them got up to help. So I spent the next 10 minutes going through both fixtures to find one Pokemon book. I walked over and asked her if it was like the one i had found. She was coloring with her daughter, refused to look at me, and said that she didn't know.

Her son looked up and said "Yes! That's it! Mom, she foundit!"

They stayed in the store for the next hour and a half.

I spent that time avoiding the childrens section. And warned everyone to beware of the pink sweater lady.

Now I remember why I never did like Pokemon.

Please go home

So I have a part time gig a few hours a week working for a large bookstore. I like it. The people are nice, the hours aren't terrible, the discount and extra money are nice. And if I'm going to have an another job, its a whole lot better than working at a bar or restaurant and being harrassed for a few hours a day.

I worked last night. I got asked to come up front and help with a teacher buying stuff for her classroom. No problem, be right there, no big deal.

When someone comes in to make a classroom purchase, they have to be signed up with us and show a card we give them that proves they're a teacher in order to receive a discount on items for the classroom. This woman procedes to pull out every card in her wallet. Every card. Then hands me the card for our competition. She then also hands me about 5 other cards. I have to go through them one by one and give them back to her and explain why I don't care about it because it has nothing to do with her being in our store.

Then I had to explain it all again because she didn't get it the first time.

Then it took her about 5 minutes to decide how she was going to pay for her purchase. Then she had a kind of conversation with herself to figure out how she was going to get her 2 bags out to her car. Small bags. Not heavy bags.

All I could think when she was leaving was that somewhere, this very confused lady is teaching little kids.

Too much time...

I like sports. Actually for a girl, I'm probably one of the minority who are perfectly happy sitting on the couch and watching a little football or the occasional baseball game. I even like to occasionally watch Sports Center to catch up on scores or what's going on.

That's exactly what I was doing the other night - watching Sports Center. Checking out the latest scores.

Of course its that time of year when its baseball playoffs. Trying to figure out who's going to be in the World Series.

The guys on Sports Center are talking about the Boston vs. Cleveland game. They show a clip of one of the guys hitting a homerun. Good. Great. What's more exciting than that. Espacially in a playoff game.

Then the guys voice comes on that says that the homerun hitter is the first short-stop to hit a homerun in post season play for Boston.

Who has time to keep track of that specific of a stat? And does it really matter what position he plays on the field? Is it really that important to the game? Or change the fact of what he did?

If they have that kind of time, I have some extra stuff they could do for me.

Godzilla...

So after working 10+ hours yesterday, I grab something to munch on and sit in front of the TV, determined to tune everything out for a while. I didn’t exactly know how easy that was going to be.

When I turned the TV on, it was already on the cable station FX. I like that station; they have good shows sometimes, movies on once in a while. So I decided to just leave it on the channel for a while and see what it was.

It starts with Mathew Broderick talking in the same voice he has in every other movie looking at large eggs. Within a second, Hank Azaria is there looking at some of these huge eggs. Pretty soon I figure out that I’m watching the latest Godzilla remake from a few years ago.

It is truly a horrible movie. Basically, Godzilla has babies in Madison Square Garden and they have to blow it up to kill them all. Then they bomb Godzilla on the Brooklyn bridge. I didn’t want to know that much about it, but it was like a train wreck and I couldn’t stop watching it.

The girl in the movie is so incredibly girly. Somehow, these four people are 15 feet from Madison Square Garden when its blown up and somehow, none of them are injured, have a scratch or are remotely dirty. They spend a good 5 minutes running around Manhattan from Godzilla and there is not one other person anywhere to be seen or another car driving.

I like action movies. I even like the old original Godzilla movies, but isn’t there a point where it’s all just a little too unrealistic? Especially when Ferris is the big hero in destroying Godzilla.

Mindless questions...

So flipping through channels last night, I found out there was a college football game on – Boise State vs. New Mexico State. Which I thought was weird for a Sunday, but it works just fine for me. Besides, who doesn’t like looking at a bright blue football field?

It was just getting ready to go into halftime when I found it. I watched until then. Of course, there is some reporter trying to snag the coaches before they leave the field to get comments on the first half.

The score at halftime was Boise State leading 35 – 0.

The sports reporter grabs the New Mexico State coach and asks “So how do you feel about the teams’ performance in the first half?”

Now, if I was the coach, I would have shoved the microphone up his nose.

My team is loosing and hasn’t been able to score at all for an entire half of a football game. How do you think I feel?

Isn’t there somewhere a reporter who can come up with a more intelligent question than that?

Where has all the news gone?

I remember being in high school and religiously having to go get new magazines every month. We had to read Cosmo, Glamour and Marie Claire. Which I suppose in the grand scheme of things is better than nothing, but still not exactly something that makes you use your brain too much.

I live to read now. But I like to read actual books. And the occasional magazine, but not the same ones anymore. And I tend to lean more towards reading my news rather than watching it on T.V.

I would like to know now that I'm trying to be more of an "adult" and be aware of what's going on around me, how am I supposed to do that?

I can't get past stories about the same 5 celebrities.

Does anyone remember that there's a whole wide world out there?

Who does this???

This past weekend, I’m running around town trying to get my errands done. I had just made a couple stops and was on my way to a 4-year-old birthday party. I’m driving along, singing to the radio, minding my own business, and then apparently the bad driving fairy hit me.

I hit my turn signal and moved over into the right turn lane. The right turn lane rolls past a gas station and has a place to turn in or out of it. This of course is right next to the turn lane.

I see a car sitting there waiting to pull out into traffic. It’s a big, light blue Caprise. The person behind the wheel is looking down and towards the passenger seat. Not paying any attention to how traffic is moving, the lights at the intersection, nothing. Because of this I naturally (although stupidly) assume that means he isn’t trying to go somewhere where is might interrupt my driving.

As I approach him, he raises his head and, without looking, pulls out right in front of me. There would have been an accident if I hadn’t slammed on the breaks. I also hit the horn to make sure that he finally noticed that there was a car driving here.

He stopped and looked up at me and was slightly startled. Then he relaxed a little, got a smile on his face…and blew me a kiss.

August in the Midwest

For any of you that have never been here during that time of year, let me explain.

August is a special. You will never in life be more convinced that there is no deodarant on earth that works. You know exactly where to go to find the best sweet corn in town and eat until you’re ready to burst. And you’re pretty sure the orange construction cones are multiplying when you’re not looking.

Also about this time of year if it ever does rain, it usually involves thunder, lightning, and the occasional tornado warning.

So it’s mid-August. My mom had just gotten back in town after a week in Colorado. I decided to go to see her. We made a stop at the local bookstore to check for anything new that had come out that we “had” to have and then a stop for ice cream.

We noticed as we were out driving around that it was getting cloudy and starting to look a little weird outside. The clouds looked weird, they had a weird color. We decided we should go home right away and check the weather. Sometimes you just get a feeling when it could be a little rough outside. Like when the sky starts turning unnatural colors and the wind comes to a complete halt out of nowhere.

Three blocks from my mom’s house is a fire station that is home to 1 fire truck and 1 ambulance. As we go through the intersection that is just on the other side of it, towards my mom’s house, I noticed that the ambulance is pulled out but is stopped in the driveway. This naturally made me tense up. (The guys that work at the fire station have been known to turn on the sirens on just as someone is at the end of the driveway. They apparently think they are terribly funny. The people in the vehicle on the other hand have to immediately go home and clean themselves up when this happens.) We both looked over and notice that there is a car in the firehouse. This of course had us curious. We then realize that there are several cars parked sideways in the firehouse.

And then the lightbulb.

Pull the city vehicle, the emergency response vehicle, outside into the path of the oncoming storm. Save your own cars!

We then get in the house about two minutes of the thunder and lightning. We turned on the t.v. to one of the local stations to check any storm warnings and radar. We stopped on one station for a while. They of course have on different people who work for the station who are all over the city and are giving live phone reports of what’s going on. The main news anchors are on telling how they would like to see pictures of any damage or of the storm and clouds, including downed powerlines. The woman anchor then tells people how they can email in their pictures of any power outages.

Now maybe I just live in the wrong area. Or I’m not up on the latest technology. But if I don’t have any power, how exactly am I supposed to get my computer to turn on to email you pictures?

Road Rage

I am totally one of those people that should not be allowed to drive myself around. I should have a driver. I should be allowed to lounge in the back seat where I’m allowed to be oblivious to anything having to do with getting me where I’m going.

I think I’m a fairly good driver. I signal when it’s called for, I don’t follow too closely, I don’t generally talk on my cell phone when I’m driving. However when these things are done by other drivers it sends me to a place I’m not sure anyone operating a vehicle should be allowed to go. When other people do not follow the “rules of the road” it makes me into a different person. I have been known to let some words slip out that my mother would backhand me for. In fast, occasionally sailors would be proud. There’s the occasional struggle not to perform a hand gesture – or at least to keep it below the dash board, just in case. And almost always the argument that proceeds as if the other driver can actually hear me or is willing to participate or might actually offer some sort of apology.

I have decided to try and make myself calm down while I’m driving. It can’t be good for me. I can feel my blood pressure rise. I can tell when my cheeks get flushed. I can go to the brink of a migraine with the eye roll that is sure to follow. So I’m going to relax. Or at least it started out that way.

As I’m driving on a stretch of the interstate that runs through the west side of the city connecting the north and the south sides. It was a nice evening so the windows were down, my hair was swirling around invading most of the car, I was singing to the radio, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. All was right with the world.

And then it happened.

On one stretch of road, there are three lanes. One that veers to the left, the middle and right lanes that veer to the right. This woman in her silver car whips suddenly from the far left lane to the far right lane, cutting me off. No signal, no warning, no look in the rearview mirror with a little wave and a sheepish grin that says “I know you hate my guts right now, but I really had to get over”. Nothing.

I was trying to keep myself under control. I kept repeating to myself “let it go. Relax. It’s no big deal.” I let out a deep breath. I went back to focusing on whatever was coming out of the radio and my duty to sing to the other drivers as I went about my way.

A few miles down the road, there is an area where for a very short distance, 2 lanes merge into one. For no real reason other than some engineers urge to screw up traffic and be annoying, the right lane ends briefly and then reappears. All traffic must merge left. It’s always been that way. There are signs posted. It’s not a secret.

As I am approaching this particular spot in the road, I notice that the silver car hasn’t exited yet and is just about a half-car’s length in front of me. Only now there’s an added issue…she’s talking on her cell phone. My stomach began to tighten a little. I knew where this was going. I was right. As the lanes merged, Ms. Silver Car jerked herself over in front of me, cutting me off, without signaling, while still talking on the phone. That is like the kiss of death.

I had tried so long on my journey to be good and stick to what I had set out to do. Really. I did. But out of nowhere it could just feel it coming up and before I even knew what happened my mouth opened and out it came…

“Donkeyhead!”