The "Strange Picture Thing"

Thought I'd give it a go...

1) What age will you be at your next birthday?

2) A place you'd like to travel?

3) Your favorite place?


4)Your favorite object?

5)Your favorite food?


6)Your favorite animal?

7)Your favorite color?

8) The town in which you were born?

9)The name of a past pet?

10)A bad habit of yours?

11)Your first job?


12)Your favorite song?

13)Your favorite holiday?

14)Your favorite sport to watch?


15)Favorite thing to do?


16)Your nickname?

17)Favorite hobby?

The question I'm adding:
18)What is your favorite foreign accent?



That was fun, long, but fun. Let's see what any trolls have to say about me now. The rest of you feel free to comment, too. ;-)

A Play on Steroetypes

This guy is having a Bad Day:


Maybe this is why:

That's Rough

It took me about 2 seconds to get this.

Hi, honey!

The kids and I were driving though "Smith"'s city today on our way back from lunch when we saw him with another officer and a cadet. I decided to turn around so we could say hi. Turns out, they were taking bets on if I was going to pull an illegal u-turn. I came close, but then saw the "No U-turn" sign.
Like I said, I came close to it...what was he going to do, write me a ticket?

Nice Quiet Field Trip? Think Again

I took EMT classes years ago, and even though I never worked on an ambulance, I've put those skills to good use. One of my kids has had febrile seizures, and the first time was when we were going to take a ferry ride, people called 911 and the cop who came out couldn't believe I was the Mom because I wasn't screaming or freaking out. Another time a chin got split open, stitch count:3. Minor surgey to remove a mole, I helped hold my child down. One child stabbed the other with a piece of bamboo, no stitches just on open wound to take care of - it was pretty small, though. There have been the usual splinters to remove, as well as the dime that got put up the younger one's nose. (He did it to himself). I didn't expect that training to come in handy today.
My older son had a field trip to a local region park's newt ponds. He asked if I would go, so I made arrangements for my younger son to be picked up from school. He wanted me to go so I could see where he'd gone on a walk with his Dad, and thought I'd like the newts. We took a 30 minute or so walk up the hill to the ponds.
We saw lots of newts, some were even mating. There were egg sacs all along the sides of the pond, and we put lots back in the water because the water level in the pond had gone down some. After that the kids and their teacher went up a hill on a hike, while the class aide, another parent, and I stayed at the bottom and watched.
The three of us caught up with the rest of the group, (it's a small class, with less than 10 students), at a tree on the other side of the hill. One of the kids was climbing in the tree and fell. When he got up, crying and making his way to the teacher, his forearm was bending where it shouldn't - several inches above his wrist. All I could think was that that arm needed to be kept still, how was I going to do that? I used my jacket for a sling and tied an Ace bandage around it and the child so it wouldn't flop around. We looked for a sling in the first-aid kit but there wasn't one. The class aide and I walked the child down the hill and out of the park to her car. My son came along, even though he really wanted to stay.
We got to the school and the child's parents were there waiting for us. The class aide explained what happened, and I told them I'd get my jacket next week, when the kids go back to school. I told my son on the way to the school how proud I was of him for not griping about leaving with us and about how supportive he was of his classmate. I also got him lunch from outside instead of having him eat the one I'd made for the trip.We've made plans to go back to the ponds, this time with little brother in tow.

My son's teacher called later in the day to say, "Thanks". He said he'd had some training, but nothing close to what I had. My son said he was glad I went with the class today and that I was "cool" because I didn't freak out, just wrapped up his classmate's arm and helped get him back to school. That's one of the nicest things I've heard in a while.

What's A Mother To Do?

I'm watching some tv, and for giggles decided to flip over to VH1 to see what was on. Turns out it was a commercial, but the cable display on the bottom of the screen read, "Flavor of Love 3: Casting Sp". My older child child reads it and out of nowhere says, "Great, more whores on tv".
I'm not sure if:
1) I should be shocked at his language, or
2) Be proud that he recognizes what money grubbing, back-stabbing, low-life, and just generally icky women they are.
Either way, I must say that I was laughing my ass off inside where he couldn't see it!

"What Weapon You Should Use/ What Weapon Are You" quiz

what weapon should you use. sniper rifle you like to keep your distance and pick off your enemies from far away Take This Quiz Again

What Gun are you? Part 3

50 caliber sniper rifle

NICE!!!! Power to take down small airplanes always come in handy.

Wow, 2 of those funny little quiz things you do for laughs came up with similar answers. Me as a sniper rifle twice...I can live with that.
Gee honey, kinda makes you glad we get along so well, doesn't it? ;-)

Military Aircraft

What military aircraft are you?

F/A-22 Raptor

You are an F/A-22. You are technologically inclined, and though you`ve never been tested in combat, your very name is feared. You like noise, but prefer not to pollute any more than you have to. And you can move with the best.

I tried this quiz a few times and kept coming up with this as my answer. Pretty sleek.

Does This Make Me A Conservative Liberal, Or Just Fed-up?

So here's the latest from Berkeley, the city I spent the first almost 7 years of my life in. I spent a chunk of my teens roaming through it with my friends and thinking we were more worldly and knowledgeable than we were. But don't all teenagers? I digress, here's the article from the SF Chronicle:

As the right-wing blogosphere railed and a U.S. senator vowed financial retaliation against the Berkeley City Council for its effort to boot the Marine Corps out of town, three war protesters ratcheted up pressure from the left by chaining themselves Friday to the front door of the downtown Marine recruiting office.

The demonstrators snapped their locks shut at 7 a.m. and spent the next 7 1/2 hours blocking the door, waving and chanting as hundreds of cars driving by honked in support. Finally, at 2:30 p.m., police snipped the chains and arrested them.

Two of the three were cited for blocking a business and released, and the third was booked into jail on an unrelated traffic warrant, police said.

The demonstrators promptly said they will keep protesting outside the recruiting station at 64 Shattuck Square until the Marines leave Berkeley - which is what the City Council advised the service to do in a vote Tuesday night that called the Marines "unwelcome intruders."

The council also voted to allow members of Code Pink, the protest group that helped organize Friday's blockade, to park at a designated space in front of the recruiting office every Wednesday afternoon and operate a loudspeaker.

The council's action apparently made Berkeley the first city in the nation to call for the ouster of a military recruiting station from its borders.

"We made really great statements by blocking the door," said one of the three blockaders, 64-year-old Mary Ann Thomas of Oakland. "It's time we became more articulate about what we're doing."

Conservative bloggers and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., also believe more articulation is necessary - from the opposite side of the political spectrum.

DeMint began drafting legislation Friday to cut $2.1 million in federal funding to Berkeley in a current congressional budget bill and transfer the money to the Marine Corps. The funding would include $750,000 for prospective ferry service, $87,000 for the Berkeley Unified School District nutrition education fund and $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation, which promotes nutritional awareness in school lunch programs.

"The First Amendment gives the city of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money," DeMint said in a statement.

He called the council's vote "a slap in the face to all brave servicemen and women and their families."

Conservative blogs blasted the council and Berkeley in general all day with comments such as one on "Gathering of Eagles": "These cretins disgust me."

Members of the council who voted to condemn the Marine Corps station were unbowed.

"I guess they've never heard of free speech," Councilwoman Dona Spring said. "I've had a lot of nasty phone messages today, threatening me with things like saying, 'I'll take you out.' But they can go ahead. I don't feel scared."

Code Pink said it has begun to circulate a petition calling for a Berkeley ballot measure that would make it more difficult to open and operate recruiting stations. The measure would be modeled after anti-pornography laws, organizers said, mandating that - like porn shops - new recruiting offices be subject to public hearings before they would be allowed to locate near homes or schools.

The Marines, meanwhile, were not ready to back down.

"It's just another protest," said Marine Corps Capt. Richard Lund, head of the recruiting office.

As he spoke in the early afternoon, with the protesters still chained to his door, a small band of demonstrators on the sidewalk shouted at passing cars and students at Shattuck Square: "Marines out of Berkeley! Marines out of Iraq!"

Heated words were exchanged whenever people tried to enter or leave the office, but the protest was peaceful.

"You guys are just cannon fodder!" the chained protesters shouted at three teenage boys who walked past the office and said they wanted to go inside. "They want to train you to kill babies!"

The teenagers turned around and left.

At one point, UC Berkeley student Kyrolos El Giheny walked up to the front door and tried to go inside to talk to Lund about a possible Marine career. He was unable to get past the chained protesters.

"They told me, 'No business as usual today,' " El Giheny said. "It's kind of nutty. It's really an infringement on my rights."

Make yourself heard

To contact members of the Berkeley City Council:

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil

(510) 981-6900

To contact Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who wants to pull federal funding from Berkeley:

demint.senate.gov/public

(202) 224-6121

To contact Code Pink:

www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?list=type&type=3

(415) 575-5555

To contact the Marine Corps headquarters in Virginia:

www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/homepage?readform

(703) 614-1492

E-mail the writers at srubenstein@sfchronicle.com and kfagan@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

And here was my response to it:
First, let me state I consider myself to be a liberal. I am against this war- both in Afghanistan and Iraq. I DO , however, support our troops who are there, and their families that are here trying to cope.
Why did it take 7 1/2 hours for the police to remove the protesters from blocking the door to the recruiting office? At the very least, they could have been cited as a fire hazard. War stinks, and war for dishonest reasons REALLY stinks, but if people decide they want to go, for whatever reasons, do the protesters have right to block the door to them? No. Plain and simple, no.
The protesters have the right to free speech, they are guaranteed that by law. But to give them a FREE parking space, and sound/noise permit is ridiculous. In all fairness, and I doubt the majority of the City Council is interested in fairness, they need to give the same privileges to one group in support of the Marines. Note I stated the Marines, and not the war. I think others will agree.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I sure hope some other group demands the same privileges Code Pink is getting. And then when they get refused, haul the city into court so fast their collective heads spin. And, yes, I was disgustingly polite when I called them last night. Why give them any thing of anger to use, there's enough anger, when you can be polite and stay polite,(and smile), it really spins 'em out.