I'm screwed..................

thank you xkcd.com

When did it happen????

When did a stuffed animal turn into a Plushie?
This is a Plushie
This is a stuffed animal

When did a Robert
turn into a Bob?

or


A Richard turn into a Dick?

When did "Sorry" turn into "Just Kidding"?

or

"Sorry, my mistake" turn into "My Bad"?

and please..........

When did they start breeding animals without legs???

The Sign of the Glove

"The Sign of the Glove"
2008 San Miquel, CA

A funny and sad thing - a single glove, or even as in the above case, a pair of gloves... that feel like single gloves.

A glove without a partner. A solitary glove. A glove without love. A lost glove. A glove with no owner. A trampled glove, run over while just laying there. To me, the lost glove always evokes something wistful and sad. But maybe I am completely wrong? Maybe these lost gloves are just 'signs'. Portents pointing to new pathways?

We take pictures of lost gloves. Why? Probably some of the above reasons, probably some that I haven't even thought of. I googled 'lost gloves' and came up with a wonderful site "Lost Glove" . I am so glad there are others that have feelings about lost gloves.

These are a couple of my lost gloves pictures. My thanks to my husband for recognizing the importance of photographing a lost glove as it is found. I intend to continue cataloging them as they come into my life.

"Worked to the Bone" Glove
2009 Paso Robles, CA

"I Wasn't Always Alone" Glove

2007 Carmel, CA

What I Don't Like about Myself....I Will See in You

As I walked out the door today I realized that the color of my sunglasses matched the color of my shoes. This made me inordinately happy. I told my husband, "Hon... my sunglasses match my shoes". I was happy.

But of course, my happy can't last long because I immediately had to figure out what it was about this particular matching sunglasses/shoes thing that made me so happy.

I realized I would have noticed this matching thing if it occurred on someone else. If YOU were walking down the street and had matching sunglasses/shoes, I surely would have noticed and I would have been happy about it too.

This then moved on to.... "Oh no.. so if I notice that my pants are too tight, I will notice if everyone else's pants are too tight also". Which led to: Whatever someone else noticed about themselves, they would surely notice about me.

So if someone hated how their hair always stuck in their shirt collar, they would always notice hair sticking in shirt collars on other people.

There is just no damn way any of us are ever going to be perfect! Either I will notice something I don't like about me and see it in you... or you will notice something you don't like about yourself and notice it in me...

oh woe :(

Now tell me how this whole train of thought went from something making me happy to something making me worry. In a matter of moments, the initial happy thought turned to shit.

I must work on this.

My Theory of Relativity

i am beginning to wonder about the amount of coffee i drink in relationship to the amount of questions i ask.

• the less coffee i have, the more questions
• the more coffee i have, the more answers i have
• go figure.

I'm Going to Talk about Child Molestation

Let me talk about child molestation and children's museums. Why? Because I want to and I feel I need to talk about it.

There is a current article in our local paper about the new Children's Museum. The headline for the article reads "Lone adults not always welcome -SLO Children’s Museum bars entry to anyone not accompanying a child or on a tour, while other facilities in the area are more lenient". SLO Tribune - Jan 11, 2009


ZZZZT, what a grabber title that is, huh? Interestingly enough, that is exactly what the article is about... usually we get this flashy, hot-issue, bold title only to find out the story is a piece of fluff. But this article really is about a children's museum that is excluding lone adults under the pretense that they would rather be 'erring toward caution' when it comes to their establishment and that they are creating a safe haven for all those little ones that come in with mommy or daddy or grandpa.

Look, i've raised two children. I think child molestation sucks and is a sickness and I would probably have tried to kill any adult that would have tried to molest either of my children... but some things just go to damn far.

If the museum is really erring on the side of caution, and not just catering to 'the fear factor', they better stop letting in parents with children, grandparents and uncles with children, babysitters and neighbors with children and any adult that may know the child, including school teachers, priests and police.

Why?

Because if they did their homework they would know that out of all the child molestation cases, **60% of them are done by family members and acquaintances.

If you are going to open a CHILDRENS museum, then there should also be enough staff to properly care for it and its patrons, with enough security so that the museum wouldnt have to settle on the use of an archaic, preemptive reasoning that infers that a lone adult constitutes a potential child molester.

I am all for being informed and cautious and safe. I am very much against instituting fear where there is no need for fear. I am very much against the insinuation that a lone man or woman is, by default, a sexual predator, until they can prove otherwise.


**strangers are the offenders in approx 10% of child sexual abuse cases. Most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims; approx 30% are relatives of the child, most often fathers, uncles or cousins; around 60% are other acquaintances/neighbors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse

BEWARE!!!

BEWARE!

BEWARE!!!

This makes me feel like tossing my lunch.....

The following article was posted on January 8th, 2009, in the New Times - Volume 23, Issue 23
http://www.newtimes-slo.com/shredder/1733/missing-but-unmissed/

Tossing it
Call it the Dumpster dive opportunity of a decade or the dumbest government decision since the war, but according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, as of Feb. 10, thrift stores, re-use stores and Goodwills are going to have to toss out all their used kids clothes and toys.

That’s right, just in time for the worst recession in American history, Congress and the Bush Administration are apparently banning thrift stores from selling used kid stuff.

Here’s the background: After last year’s scare about lead in everything from lunchboxes to T-shirts, Congress passed a law demanding that retailers verify that all children’s products are lead-free.

In practice, that means that all children’s products sold after Feb. 10 have to be tested for lead. It costs upwards of $1,000 to get the test done, per batch of product. That’s not a big cost for Mattel, one of the manufacturers actually found to have sold products with lead. But it is a big deal to people who hand-make toys, games, and clothes. In other words, it’s a big deal to the type of folks least likely to make products anybody has to worry about.

It’s an even bigger deal to consignment shops and thrift stores, because they can’t go around spending $1,000 to test a $1 hoodie. Their only apparent choice? Toss it out.