I will be your worst nightmare if this happens again...

What do you say to a early 20 something male who thinks he is invincible, despite evidence to the contrary all around him? What do you say to this boy who came within a very slim margin of killing his close friend, your 20 something son, due to his illusion of immortality?

This past weekend, my 20 year old son was traveling in a car driven by his long time close friend. They were entering the highway and another car was trying to enter at the same time, coming from the other side of the entrance ramp. My son's friend had the right of way, although the other driver didn't care. He attempted to cut them off and get ahead of them on the entrance ramp. Thus began a short, but almost deadly, episode of road rage. As the cars merged onto the highway, both cars were jockeying to get ahead of each other. Finally a short distance before the next exit, the rival car swerved in front of the car driven by my son's friend, and jammed on his breaks. Yup, he jammed on his breaks in the fast lane of an interstate highway for NO REASON other than to piss off my son's friend. As a result of this break slam, my son and his friend careened into the back of that car.

My son and his friend were in a good sized Volvo luckily, but going 65+ miles/hr and slamming into the back of a Nissan Murano will do considerable damage to any car. The Volvo sustained significant front end damage and a cracked windshield. Both front air bags deployed. The Nissan didn't fare as well. The back end was wrecked, the back axle gone. The driver of the Nissan decided, as many amoral people do these days, to flee the scene. Karma bit him almost instantly however. His car broke down on the exit ramp, a very short distance from the accident scene. A state trooper was interviewing my son and his friend about the incident and got a radio call that the missing car in question was less than 1/4 mile away from where they were. The other driver was driving a friend's car and was on an expired license. His bad. And he almost killed my son. HIS VERY VERY BAD. He better not meet me in a dark alley. My former kick boxing skills might come into play on his face. Oh and did I forget to mention, this man is 75 years old? Some body's grandpa almost killed my son on purpose!!!!

Back to my son and his friend. Both of them were ok. Neither one was injured although they were shaken up. To that end I say, GOOD. They needed to be shaken up; my son's friend especially; he should not be getting into these skirmishes on the highway or in the car at all. These days, you just don't know who you are dealing with on the road. It could be that other teen driver that has been playing too many video racing games, could be that person that just can's stop texting no matter what and is not even looking to see where she is going, could be that person that has nothing to live for and has his hunting rifle on the front seat of his truck. It is really a crap shoot when you engage anyone on the road in this way.

I am angry that anyone would willingly choose to endanger others or not even think about the fact that they are endangering others while they are indulging their inner warrior. This man could have killed not only my son and his friend, he could have hurt other drivers around them that had nothing to do with the whole incident. I am really mad at him for that.

I am irate at my son's friend. He has not grown out of that teenage mentality that you can do anything and never get hurt even though he and my son were acquainted with a co worker that died in a senseless car crash 2 years ago. They saw first hand that you can't always do anything. What do I say to my son's friend to express my outrage that he would put my son's life on the line so callously? Is that a real friend? I thought a friend is someone who helps you, who bolsters you, who protects you if they can? And how do I insure that he won't take this same kind of chance the next time someone pisses him off in the car?

My worst fear has been realized and luckily for us, it did not have a disastrous end. I had been constantly worried about my son being in a car when this friend was the driver. My instincts told me that this boy was taking senseless risks all the time and that my son could be caught in the crossfire. Parents, trust your instincts. If you are worried about your kids hanging out with certain kids, you are probably right on target. You have strong protective instincts. You can't protect them from everything, and you can't pick their friends for them, but if you are concerned about a similar brand of behavior, i.e. the immortal teenage boy mentality, it is for good reason. These boys have to actually survive their own poor instincts until they are 25 or 26, until their brain development is complete and this attitude begins to die down. Accidents are the leading cause of death for males in this age group and it is no wonder why. If you think nothing can hurt you, you will speed, drive aggressively and show off until you are shown otherwise.

So to answer my own query, what would I say to my son's friend If we were face to face?

* If you are really a friend, you will never put (my son) in danger because of your carelessness or your ego again

*If you cared about your parents and your brother at all, you will never do this to them again

*If you cared at all about innocent bystanders you would never engage in this behavior again

*If you want to live to see 25, you need to mellow out, get a better life plan, and realize bad things can and do happen and they will happen to you more if you are reckless.

*If I ever find out that you knowingly put my son in danger again, I will be your worst nightmare. I didn't raise him for 20 years just for him to die because he chose his friends poorly. I do care and I will haunt you for all of your days if anything like this ever goes down again.
Hopefully he will then run from me, scared and repentant. That is what I would like to see. But, I would settle for my son to decide not to be a passenger while his friend is the driver anymore. In reality, I am probably going to have to continue to worry about this after the friend replaces his car. All I can do is hope is that he has learned some degree of a lesson here.

The Ultimate Adversarial Situtation

Today I experienced yet another version of the ultimate adversarial relationship--trying to buy a car at a car dealership. I have experienced this relationship many times in the past and have never considered it fun, easy, or even neutral. I hate it each and every time I choose to do it.

I guess part of my problem is that I detest feeling that I have been ripped off. Buying a car is an experience in which you are almost guaranteed to be ripped off at one end of the deal or the other. You will either pay too much up front for the car, get stuck with hundreds of dollars in "document fees" read: added dealer markup, get a low-ball amount for your trade in and then watch as the dealer tacks on thousands of dollars when he puts your old car out on his lot to re-sell, or you will find out after the sale that the dealer has a fat cash incentive coming his way from the manufacturer that you were not aware of at the time of the sale. GRRRRR. I am breaking out into a mild sweat just thinking about it.

My latest version of car shopping started a few months ago. I am trying to downsize from my Mommy-mobile, (minivan) to a sedan. This is a strange thing to me to start out with. I am tired of being a boat captain. My van is very large and we have an SUV already so we need one smaller car.

With all of this in mind, I had decided to try to buy a used 2008 Acura TL this time around instead of a new sedan. I had not found any new sedans that rated high enough in reliability and safety to fit my needs and I really like the looks of the 2008 TL. The TL changed in 2009 and looks like it is smiling at you from the front. The 2008 is the last model year when it was not smiling. I have been to several Acura dealers over the last few weeks. I definitely want a white TL with under 30,000 miles on it. I have seen a few. We went out of state 2 weeks ago to see one white TL. It was called "pristine" on the internet and had 17 thousand miles on it. Pristine did not come to mind during the test drive. The dog slobber on the back of the front headrests along with the torn leather on the door and the grease stain on the pillar really made me wonder what goes into a "Certified Pre Owned" inspection. Apparently cleaning and repairing is not part of that. That car was out. Then I saw one that was not white, it was dark blue. The inside was pristine but the outside had several prominent scratches on it and it was not white. Not my car.

I also need for any new car I buy not to have been a smoker's car. I have had asthma since I was a young child and any smoke, even old smoke smell bothers me. Every time I have inquired about a TL, I have asked if it were a smoker's car.

This morning, I called Bernardi Acura of Boston to ask if the White 2008 TL they had listed was a smoker's car. The salesman said he would go outside and check and call us back. He called back a few minutes later and said there was no smoke smell, it was not a smoker's car. So, off we went to Boston (50 minutes away from home). We got to the dealership and saw the car from the outside. It was perfect. It even had a spoiler on the back and a cool pinstripe. Hooooahhhhh! Let's take this baby for a spin. The salesman went to get the keys to open it and bring it around front. He brought it around, opened it up, I stuck my head in to look at the interior and guess what? I was assaulted by the smell of smoke!! The liar!! We had driven all that way to find that yes, this was a smoker's car. The salesman either thought I would not notice the smell, or care that much about the smell, or they thought maybe they could get me there and then sell me something else; the old bait and switch. They have NO IDEA WHO THEY ARE DEALING WITH!!

I hate car salesmen. I hate car salesmen. I hate car salesmen. In case you have not guessed, this is my new mantra --really just my old mantra that I have not had to use since 2005-the last time I bought a car!!

We decided, as we left Acura of Boston, to test drive a new Honda Accord, since we were making no headway with used TL's. We went to a Honda dealer on the way home. We test drove a 2011 Honda Accord EXL-V6 and I did not care for it as much as the used TL. The inside was not nice and the dash and other interior parts felt kind of cheaply made. During the test drive of the Accord, my husband got a call on his cell from an Acura Dealer that had been looking for a car for us for a couple of months. He was calling to say he had my perfect car and it had just been turned in this morning. It was a white 2008 TL with 16 thousand miles on it. We were close to where this dealership is so decided to leave Honda after the mandatory "check out with the Honda manager." This is a new development at car dealerships. Every time you even inquire about any car with a salesperson, you get this BS. They have to bring their manager over to find out if the salesperson "answered all your questions." Translated this means the manager is coming over to try to strong arm you into test driving, purchasing, giving your contact info or giving up your first born. This is a new and very annoying change that I really don't dig. If I want to leave, let me leave for heaven's sake. I don't like to wait and be manhandled if I am not interested in what you are selling.

We headed over to Prime Acura of Walpole. As we arrived, our "friend", the car salesman we had been dealing with approached us and told us, oops, this was not a 2008 white TL, it was in fact a 2007 white TL with 16 thousand miles on it. Although I was not philosophically opposed to a 2007, the body style is the same, I had not considered that there would be one with such low mileage. The price should be lower because insurance wise, if you crash and total it, a 2007 will fetch you less that a 2008 will. There is also less time left on the warranty, etc. OK, we will take a look. So we looked. It was very nice. Clean in and out, but had not been gone over yet, since it had just been traded today. We were happy enough to consider this one if the price was right.

By then it was 1:30 PM and we were starving. We told the salesman we needed to eat and we would discuss the 2007 over lunch and then be back to test drive. We ate next door and while dining, used the Blackberry to try to ascertain the Kelly Blue Book value of a 2007 TL, the Edmunds True Market Value price and what other dealers were asking for a 2007 TL with low miles. We came up with a figure that was reasonable and we were ready to deal and buy this car.

We came back from lunch with a plan: test drive the car, look at the Carfax and then make a deal for this car. We were planning to buy it as long as the price was fair for a 2007. To be fair, it had to be priced lower than all of the 2008 we had been looking at. We did take the 16k miles into account but even that level of low mileage it doesn't add more than about $1,200 to the value of the car. They had not even put this through the Certification process yet.

We offered our price and our "friend" made a funny face. He went to our other "friend" (NOT) the manager with our offer. The manager came out and told us we were way below what he had planned to ask for the car. Prime Acura had another 2007 TL on their lot and it was priced at 21,888. It had 45k miles on it. When you add the extra $1200 that Edmunds gives you for low mileage, we were in fact exactly in that ballpark. The manager informed us he planned to ask $25k or $26K because it would be Certified. When I asked what they would do to Certify this car. He replied ,"not much!!" All they would do is change the oil and fluids because of the low mileage. And they were expecting to get an extra $2,000 for the car because they slap that "Certified" tag on it. We were clearly at an impasse. Our 2 "friends" walked away for a moment.

I suggested to my husband that maybe we should try to buy it without them Certifying it. After all, he always changes the oil in our cars and we have our own mechanic if we needed to change any other fluids we couldn't do ourselves. According to Edmund's if the car was not Certified, it's True Market Value was $22,800. That is approximately what we offered them when we said we would take it without the Certification. They did not go for that either. They would sell it Uncertified but not at Edmunds True Market Value even though they had used Edmunds to show us how much it would cost with the Certification -$24,800.

It was at this point that I read between the lines. They wanted to slap the Certification on the car as an added dealer markup. They would spend MAYBE $100 on changing the fluids and would pass along a $2,000 premium for doing so!!

Certification would only extend the warranty 1 year on a car that only had 6 months left on it's original warranty. So for an extra $2,000 that was not worth it. As I mentioned that for insurance purposes if I drove it off the lot and crashed and totaled it, I would only get $17-19k for it, an asking price of $24K or $25K sounded pretty inflated for a 2007. The manager tried to tell us that if it was Certified insurance would give you more for it if you crashed it. I thought sounded wrong and kind of stupid. Certification is an intangible thing. Insurance does not CARE about that; they want to give you as little as they possibly can because they are out to screw you too!

I even called my experts in the insurance field who confirmed my suspicions that insurance companies don't offer any higher compensation for a car that was totaled and had been Certified. Another lying car salesman.

To put an end to this miserable process, we left Prime Acura after that negotiation ended. The manager told us he was sure he would sell it and quick for $24K or $25k. Meanwhile, there are several 2008 TL's out on the internet in our area that are listed for between $23 and $25. Most have mileage between 17k and 25k. But, I think there is a 50% chance I will hear from this dealer again. If the car does not sell in a few weeks, our "friends " will be barking up a different tree. This tree will be tipping a little more in our direction, however.

I loathe the idea of having to go through this again in this car buying cycle. The whole process of buying a car could be fun but instead is one of the worst forms of business dealings we humans have to endure. These are people working on commission that will tell you anything to sell you anything. There is almost no other example of purchasing that we regularly engage in (except for maybe buying a house) that is more frustrating, and aggravating. After you make your deal, they still try to get more money from you. They try to add on a bunch of crap you don't want or need....VIN etching, seal coating, extra warranties, and on and on. They put you through the wringer over and over until you cry UNCLE.

Yet, still we buy new cars every few years! Under these harsh sales circumstances it really takes 4 or 5 years to store up enough energy to go into this battle again.

I would love to be able to walk into a dealership, try out a car, like it, offer a reasonable price, get a reasonable price for my trade and walk out with a smile instead of a grimace and a headache.

If such a car salesman exists and has a non smoker's white 2008Acura TL with less than 30k miles on it and is willing to make a fast deal, please contact me! I am waiting to change my mind about your ilk!! Until then, I will continue to despise most of you and the process.

Rachel's Challenge--My Impressions

I am now employed at our local High School, and because of that, this week I had the privilege of attending a presentation that all of the students were attending. The presentation was called Rachel's Challenge. I was told I would need to bring tissues with me to the presentation. OK. So off I went with my coworker and my Kleenex. Several hundred of the high school students were in attendance for the time slot I attended. Beforehand, I read a brief description of what we were going to see and hear, but had no idea of the depth of emotion that went into putting together this presentation.

Rachel's Challenge is now an international program that was spawned out of the Columbine High School massacre of 1999. "Rachel" is 17 year old Rachel Scott, the first student to be shot and killed that day at Columbine High School. Are you getting any goosebumps yet? I was.

Her family knew how wonderful Rachel was but had no idea how many people's lives she had touched inside her high school during her time there. After she died, her parents found an essay that Rachel had written that was stuck under her mattress and six journals that she had written and kept, to herself. In the many journal entries, Rachel had formulated her own theories about life; she dreamed of a Utopian world in which everyone was kinder to each other and everyone was able to succeed in meeting their personal goals. Rachel practiced her kindness theory every day. She went out of her way to perform small random acts of kindness that touched people's lives and even led one of her classmates to decide not to commit suicide because of the kindness Rachel had shown him. She changed his outlook and his life's path. She felt that if one person performed some small act of kindness for another person, that person would in turn do the same for someone else and it would have a ripple effect all over the world. She called this her chain reaction of compassion and kindness. A pay it forward, if you will. She dreamed of the impact her idea would have on the world.

As I stood with the teachers and administrators, I felt many emotions. As a matter of fact, as soon as the speaker began to show us actual video shot during the Columbine shooting, I had a rush of sadness. I remembered watching that footage on TV that day as it unfolded and wondering how those parents didn't go mad worrying if their children were safe or dead inside their school. I remembered thinking that the parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Kleebold had to have their heads in the sand not to know anything was wrong with their sons; not to know their sons were obsessed with Hitler and had stockpiles of weapons, and bomb making materials they were working with; not to know they had for a few years posted violent photos and writing in their personal blogs. I got choked up in the first 5 minutes of the presentation. Every time they showed baby pictures of Rachel, or photos of her smiling with her brothers and sisters, it caused a Kleenex moment. As I glanced around the field house, I saw tears on cheeks of both teen girls and teen boys and many of the staff. I was clearly not the only one brandishing a Kleenex.

Throughout the 1 hour presentation, we saw videos, photos, and heard the Scott family friend give us his impressions and Rachel's family's impressions of the events of Columbine and how it affected their family and community. It was very powerful. He focused on Rachel for most of the hour. She was a kind girl and she also seemed to be psychic. The last year of her life, although not at all suicidal, she told friends and siblings that she knew she would die at a young age. She also wrote in her journal and on the wall in her bedroom behind her dresser (her family found this months after she passed away while moving the furniture in her bedroom) that although she would not live long, her life would touch millions of others.

Her family decided to make Rachel's wish or premonition a reality by starting her foundation and challenging others to live in the way that Rachel hoped people would choose to live- to set goals for themselves and to be kind to others, not to prejudge anyone by looks or disability; to treat everyone they way you would like to be treated.

For such a young person, this is a grand idea, a John Lennon-esque idea. The song "Imagine" comes to mind when you think of the world Rachel wanted to create. The Scott family wanted to make something good come out of the tragedy of their daughter's death and they have presented Rachel's Challenge to thousands of schools and businesses all over the world in the last few years. I give them a lot of credit for honoring their daughter in this way. I am sure many people in similar circumstances would have trouble simply getting out of bed every day after being hit with a horror of this magnitude. They not only get out of bed, they are living a continuous tribute to their daughter and have made this their life's work. The whole Scott family including siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and close friends are all involved in their organization because they believe it can help to put a stop to bullying, improve grades, improve our children's lives, improve the atmosphere of a work place and in general, help the world at large. These are lofty but not unattainable goals.

I urge you to view a Rachel's Challenge presentation if you get the chance. It will make you think twice the next time a stereotype pops into your head when meeting someone for the first time. It will also make you go home and hug your family members tighter. Just the thought of what the Scott family and the other 12 families that lost loved ones at Columbine High School had to cope with is enough to make you want to accept Rachel's Challenge. In the words of the folk singer Jewel, "only kindness matters."

For more information on Rachel's Challenge, visit their website:
www.rachelschallenge.org

Daily Double, or Should I Say Double Whammy?

This was my first normal day back to life after vacation. It was supposed to be uneventful and calm. Ha! Says who? Today I experienced the daily double of frustration and anger. For today I had to deal with issues with my health insurance company (Aetna) and on the very same day, had to contend with the idiotic Mass Registry of Motor Vehicles. My 16 year old son wanted to apply for his learner's permit since his 16th birthday was yesterday, a Sunday when our beloved RMV is closed.

This morning, after sorting through a pile of unopened vacation mail, I found a claim form from our insurance company. It was curious. There was a very large charge (over $1,100) for some medical supplies that I knew about, and there was a column that listed the "negotiated fee" that Aetna had supposedly negotiated with this medical supply company. The negotiated fee for this order of supplies was listed as #23.50!!! I am quite sure the supplier did not agree to get paid $23.50 for over $1,100 worth of supplies. So, because I expected to get a bill for the balance of the cost of those supplies, I phoned Aetna to get clarification and hopefully correction.

Surprisingly, I reached someone on the other end of the line (after many many menus of options with Mrs. Telephone-Computer Lady) with a strong Indian accent. I was dumbfounded. Had our health insurance company actually outsourced it's American health care plan customer service line to India? That seemed outrageous. I am still not sure if I just got an Indian representative working in an American call center or if I was actually speaking to India.

The rest went as you can imagine it went. I explained the claim situation, he had it on the screen in front of him and I asked him some questions. It was as if we were speaking 2 completely different languages. I would ask a question and he would respond by telling me the limits and details of our coverage. The problem with that was--That Was Not What I Asked Him. It was like he was reading from a script.....a script from a completely different situation. I was getting very frustrated. I asked to speak to a supervisor. He had no illogical rejoinder statement for that so he sputtered and then put me on hold telling me he was going to research my claim. He came back after at least 10 minutes and once again, told me about our plan. ARGH!! Was he trying to piss me off? Was he hoping I would just hang up? If so, he was doing a good job! I again asked him why the supplies were not covered, he mentioned the co pay and deductibles again and then put me on hold a second time...tick tock.... tick tock.......

Since we were forced to take this insurance in April after my husband's company forcibly switched all of us from Blue Cross tho Aetna, we have not had a need to call Aetna up to this time. So, I am not sure if this is the way they handle everything or if I was just the unlucky schmuck to get a Bozo on the line today. When he came back and gave me no answers at all, I did what I never do. I hung up on him. I am usually polite even if I am pissed off, but I was beyond pissed so I just gave up on him.


This afternoon, my plan was to take my son for his learner's permit. In preparation, I looked on the Mass RMV website to find the application he needs to fill out before the test. They allow you to fill it out online and print it out. Great!! I filled it out SS number, Birth date, name, address, driving history, health issues, etc. I got about the 10th and final screen and hit SUBMIT and got an error message that it had "timed out." OK, I went back and filled it out in a fraction of that time and again got that message. I did it 5 more times and every blasted time, it gave me that error message. Obviously that RMV web application works as well as everything else in this state. Meanwhile, my son slept until a teenagery 12 noon today. I looked online to see the wait times at the local RMV and at that point they were about 50 minutes. We decided to go anyway and just wait. However, I forgot one fact. The RMV has closed many branches around us and so this one branch in the area that actually does the permit testing has been extra busy ever since. They also have a parking lot not built at all to handle the overflow. There are no other places to park when they are full, either. You guessed it; we got there and there was not one open parking space. As a matter of fact there were 2 or 3 cars double parked waiting for someone to leave a space!! We opted not to stay and came back about an hour later. It was even worse than before. We will try again tomorrow when they open. We will be one of those losers in line for the opening!!

I fear that this is how our world is going to be from now on. The idiots are running the asylum. In an effort to save money health insurance companies are raising copays and deductibles, not covering a lot of services and supplies and are outsourcing their customer service to India. Great! They must want to go out of business and let our Government run health care. That is where we are headed at this rate.

If the cost of insurance keeps rising and we get less and less coverage for our money all of the insurers will all go out of business and our incredibly inefficient and corrupt government will take over our health care! Old people--you will not get those knee and hip replacements, those open heart surgeries, that Chemotherapy anymore. That will not be cost effective. Middle aged women--you will not get your annual mammograms, pap smears, and if you get cancer good luck getting any cutting edge drugs to treat it. Men? Well, actually since things are still predominantly run by men, Viagra is probably here to stay for now. No worries. But, if you have a preemie baby, forget all that costly care in an incubator for a month or 2. You will be told to take the baby home and hope for the best. And my son who has had Juvenile Diabetes for over 12 years will probably be told that insulin pump supplies are too expensive so he will have to go back to injections 6-10 times a day. We will all pay dearly if the government gets more involved in our health care. Look at the mess they already have with Medicare!

As for the RMV, it is bad, it has always been bad and it will always be bad. I don't see it getting better ever. They have no reason to improve. We all have to get a license, we all have to register our vehicles; they have a captive audience and we are stuck with them!

Back to me...how much frustration can a person be expected to take in one day? The RMV and a Health Insurance kerfuffle are about all I can take. I think I need a Calgon bath and a martini...and although I do take baths, I do not drink, well, hardly ever. I may have to make an exception today! Cheers!!

On The Precipice.......

This time of year, and this year in particular, I feel as if I am on the precipice of a new time. My youngest child is about to start driving -God help us all! :); my older son will be starting at a new college, I am going to ramp up my job search, and the summer is coming to an end.

School buses will be running again, the alarm clock will be cajoling me out of bed at 6 AM once again. Ugh! At least I have kept up with going to the gym since I joined. I am proud of that. As a matter of fact, I don't think I would have made it trudging around the Disney parks if I hadn't gone to the gym for a month to increase my cardio strength and would not have been able to lug that luggage as easily if I had not used resistance machines.

Watching one's child learn to drive is as nerve wracking as it gets. I have been through it once and I am not looking forward to a repeat performance. It is not that I don't have faith in my sons abilities to learn to be good drivers. I do. It is that they have to share the road with a host of knuckleheads and idiots and that is what worries me more. If they were going to be on the road alone I would have few worries. Nowadays, drivers are so distracted that each and every time you go out driving it is like playing a video game; things jump out at you, people cut you off, people stray into your oncoming lane, people end up off the road altogether if they have been texting, etc. ....only in this game, you don't get to restart your life if an accident occurs. I know once again, I am just going to have to suck it up and hope for the best.

There has not been much good news on the jobs front lately. Most businesses have been hunkering down hoping to ride out the recession and remain intact. Not too many are adding to their staff. So, it is a tough job seeking market out there. I will find something at some point, I know, but it may not be the ideal situation. I will have to accept that fact before I start looking.

We went through the College Freshman year with my older son last year; he went to a large state University out of our home state; this year he has transferred to a different school and will be commuting to it from home. This will present him with a host of new challenges, I am sure. All will be fine, but as a family, will have to help him through the adjustment period yet again. I hope it sticks this time!

Finally, on the slow HOT ending to summer....this year it will be a more than welcome sight to see the calendar turn to September. That will mean cooler, drier air is around the corner. This has been one brutally hot and humid summer. It has been atypically hot and humid for almost the whole summer. It has been far less enjoyable than usual. I hope next summer is more tolerable. I can deal with 80, even 90 degrees if it is not humid. That humidity makes you want to sit down and do a whole lot of nothing. My lovely garden for which I had such high hopes at the beginning of the season fizzled mid July due to not enough rain and way too much hot sun. My favorite shrub in all of my garden (Lace Cap Hydrangea) actually died a slow and agonizing death due to a fungus brought on by uneven watering conditions. That was hard to watch. I finally cut it all back today. I could not stand that drama for one more day. There were a mere 3 live branches left and they were not looking very well. I decided to put both of us out of our misery and give it a dignified burial in the compost pile.

So as one chapter of our lives starts to fade, (the summer, the childhood of my 16 year old, the unemployment of Ivy) another more interesting one begins. I am an eternal optimist; I do believe that old saying that when a door closes a window opens. My younger son will drive and I will survive watching him learn to do so. I may even get a night's sleep once in a while even if he is out with the car (yeah, right!!). I will find a decent job and start the work cycle once again. Maybe I will even get a boss that is human this time and not a troll. The fall will come and we will rejoice in the changing leaves (all the while cursing the raking and blowing of them). All good things will come to an end and then other good things will take their place. Such is life.

The Magical World of Disney

I am back from an 8 day adventure at Walt Disney World. I am tired, I am "out of it," and most likely broke after I get our credit card statement. I will share several observations about my vacation, vacationing with teenage sons and Disneyworld policies in general for those of you brave enough to attempt this with your own family.

For the most part our vacation was fun, exhausting, expensive, and it was good to get away.

I discovered something about myself while we were vacationing. I discovered that I am, in fact, a total and complete news hound. I don't mean I watch the news at night. No, I have taken news watching to a whole other level. I get up in the morning, check my Yahoo and Fox news sites to see headlines, I check Huffington Post to see what people are blogging about. Then I flip on the TV to see what the news shows are talking about and lastly, I listen to talk radio in the afternoon while preparing dinner to see what the local talking heads are tossing around that day. I didn't realize how fixated I was on news until I spent over a week without doing any of those news seeking activities. It was not a total news blackout, the hotel delivered USA Today to our room every day (we didn't ask for it, it just appeared outside the door every day) but I didn't read most of it. I did catch the major headlines about the oil spill and the awful massacre in CT. Other than that, I did not delve into anything newsworthy. As I have blogged before, the news these days is predominantly negative, and if you read or listen to it a lot, you will start to feel more negative and stressed. I decided that I do need to have a news blackout once in a while to decompress. But not today!! I have not seen any good headlines for a week so I am scouring them now.

Another discovery made on our Disney vacation was that the word "complimentary" is almost nonexistent in the Disney vernacular (save for that free USA Today paper!!) As my husband put it, "if they could figure out a way to charge you for the air you breathe while at Disney, they would." The $2.50 bottle of water, the $3.75 ice cream bar, the $10.00 burger and fries all fell into this category. The prices on snacks, Tylenol, bandaids, pins (pin trading is big business at Disney World) all are out of sight.

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was beautiful and a great place to stay. Animal Kingdom Lodge (Jambo House) has 3 restaurants; one is Mara, a cafeteria style, low key, lower priced food court. The next is a buffet style restaurant, Boma, very nice, very good food, fairly high prices for a buffet ($26pp for breakfast buffet, $34 pp for dinner buffet) and the third was a lot dressier and fancier so we opted out of visiting that one. The cafeteria style place, Mara, not only had breakfast and lunch/dinner food, they also had sections for those people who opted to "grab and go". You could get a pint of milk for $1.50, a candy bar for $2.00, a cupcake, $3,49, a bottled water for $2.75, ! When I think of how much I would pay for those same items at home it really ticked me off. You could get the same size Snickers bar for .50 cents at home and pay .35 cents for an equivalent sized water bottle. Why do these places feel they need to keep ripping you off endlessly? It is not only a Disney thing to do, but they seem to do it so well! Feeling ripped off puts a slight damper on the "Disney Magic."

One more observation about the way Disney does business is how it handles transportation issues. DisneyWorld provides shuttle bus transportation to and from any of it's parks and resorts for anyone staying onsite. Some of the resorts have other transportation options such as the monorail or boats in addition to the buses.

That being said, this was one of the hottest months they have had in Florida in years and we were lucky enough to be vacationing in it. The air temp. was in the mid 90's with a saturated heat index that put the real temperature feel up to about 115 degrees. It was HOT. On those days that we had spent the early morning and mid day at a park, we were totally ready to go back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for some R & R just to cool off and regroup. We would trudge in the blazing hot sun out the park exit and over to our Animal Kingdom Lodge bus stop and hope our bus was either right there or just around the corner waiting to pick us up. On several occasions, those plans were sent way off kilter however by a vacationer also heading to the Animal Kingdom Lodge who was either in a wheelchair or on a scooter.

I have NO PROBLEM with someone that has a legitimate reason for riding in a wheelchair or scooter. If you are disabled due to illness, injury, accident, or surgery, by all means, ride on the bus in your wheelchair or scooter. I will be happy to let you go first, etc. But there were a few occasions where someone arrived at our bus stop that happened to weigh about 400 pounds and was riding on a scooter; simply unable to walk due to their sheer size. I had no patience for those people. When any person was in a scooter or wheelchair waiting for a Disney bus, it meant that when the bus arrived and let riding passengers disembark, the bus driver then had to get out, let down a ramp, help the scooter or wheelchair bound person up into the bus, and secure their scooter with straps. This process took anywhere from 5-10 minutes depending on the bus driver's expertise in this area. Some were very obviously better and more efficient at it than others. Meanwhile, the rest of us weary park goers were forced to stand outside in the swelter waiting to get on the air conditioned bus. This happened over and over again. I simply had patience for the people who seemed to have a legitimate reason for being in a chair, and no patience for those who had eaten themselves into the position of holding up the rest of us.

The system for transporting disabled persons at Disneyworld needs to be reviewed. Disney should possibly have a special bus that is adapted to handle several chairs and scooters and transport these visitors and their aides separately. It would be more efficient to do it this way and it would inconvenience the masses a lot less. Maybe if the weather had not been so unbearably hot, I would not have even noticed this situation, but my brain would be frying while watching a "jumbo" person roll up the bus ramp and make the rest of us wait in the heat while they got secured into the bus. This happened many times over the course of a week. I noticed the frustration on the faces of the other riders as well.

Going to Disney is never a relaxing vacation, well, maybe it is if you don't go with kids. We took our 16 and 20 year olds with us. It seems, all they cared to do was find the biggest thrill rides. Really, that is all they cared about. They did not want to see animals, they cared not about the countries of Epcot, and really were not concerned with characters, shows, or exhibitions. All they wanted to do for the whole time is get jostled, spun, shot into the air, and twisted around. And believe me at their age, I was a lot more concerned with those things too.

I decided to "go along to get along" for the first few days. I rode on Expedition Everest in the Animal Kingdom with my men. Oh boy! I am not a thrill ride lover, or even liker. I am not in any way thrill seeking by nature. I love to stay on Terra firma. Flying in a plane to Florida was enough thrill ride for me. I hate flying, I hate feeling any G forces, I have a fear of heights, and don't like going fast. Are you getting the picture I don't usually do thrill rides? I did it for them. I really hated it!! I was screaming and cowering the whole time and got a stiff neck to boot from the G forces that push your head toward your knees. I can't imagine how anyone finds this fun! But they sure did!! I also rode Splash Mountain, a lot tamer, Thunder Mountain Railroad-not as tame, but G forces were only side to side so easier on a middle aged body, Tower of Terror-I was not loving that free fall, and Space Mountain. You might wonder why on earth I would ride Space Mountain after going on Everest? I had ridden Space Mountain with my brother as a teenager and made it through unscathed so figured I would be ok. It was not as bad as Everest, but I was not loving that one either. My boys were amazed I went on any of those rides at all. They did a lot of the rides more than once. They rode Everest 3 times. They even rode on Rockin Rollercoaster. I drew the line there. I refuse to go upside down for any reason. Period. That was their favorite ride of all. They were talking about that one all day and laughing at the expressions on their faces in the photo they take of you mid ride.

My conclusion: if you want to go to Disney and relax, don't take kids. If you want to experience the shows, the cultural diversity of Epcot, the beauty of the grounds, the rides that try to educate rather than thrill, don't go with teenage boys!

By far, one of my most favorite rides was in the Land pavilion, Living with the Land. It really looked lame at first but I had read in a guidebook it was worth seeing. It was really cool and I would have liked to have ridden that one again. It was an exhibition about alternate forms of farming and gardening. It was fascinating. My kids even liked it although they would not admit it.

Having taken our boys to Disney when they were 5 and 9 we had a totally different experience this time. We didn't have to worry about nap times, strollers, scary rides, scary characters wandering the park and stopping to say hi while your child freaks out. We were able to find out via text where they were in the line, and find out what the wait time was for the rides (via Disney text) before we arrived at the parks.

Something I found to be disappointing was that it seemed like with the exception of Epcot World Showcase, all of the stores and shops in the parks and in Downtown Disney had pretty much the same merchandise. There were pins, t shirts, kitchen stuff, clothing, Christmas ornaments and toys all with Disney characters on them. It felt like 11 years ago there was a much more diverse variety of souvenirs. Downtown Disney to me felt like a waste as far as shopping. Other than a couple of independent stores that sold cigars, legos, candy, and magic supplies, most of the retail stores were Disney themed merchandise. Boring!! And worse, it felt like a whole lot of shameless self promotion on the part of Disney. Also, everywhere you turned they were trying to get you to consider Disney Vacation Club. There was a DVC kiosk at every turn. Sorry!! I am not going to think about booking my next vacation while I am still on this one. It is like asking a Mom who is in the midst of giving birth when she will have her next baby!! A little less self promotion, a little more variety in merchandise would be a nice change.

All in all, it was great to get away, the boys had a blast, and best of all they are old enough to remember it this time! I remember it too and will remember it over again when that credit card statement appears in my inbox in a few days. Sigh!

Another One Jumps the Shark

Several years ago I heard an expression that has stuck with me. That expression is "jumping the shark." According to Wikipedia, Jumping the Shark means the moment of downturn for a previously successful enterprise. The phrase was originally used to denote the point in a T.V. show's history where the plot spins off into absurd story lines or unlikely characterizations. These changes were often the result of efforts to revive interest in a show whose audience had begun to decline, usually through the employment of different actors, writers or producers. It is often extended to people, particularly actors these days.

Many, many examples spring to mind immediately as we get older and as some Hollywood types and sporting figures begin to Jump the Shark on the way to ruining their legacy.

One star in the news currently is Mel Gibson. He has had a stellar acting career, a large family, a marriage of 29 years; everything seemed rosy in Mel's world. We have since discovered that Mel's world is far from perfect and he is not the nice guy that he once seemed to be. He is an alcoholic with a DUI offense in 2006, and one back in Australia in 1984. He has been through "recovery" more than once. He divorced his wife (and mother of his 7 children, & 2 grandchildren) and took up with his new "girlfriend" and mother of his newest child. He has recently separated from the new girlfriend under a cloud of suspicion of physically abusing her while she held their baby and verbally threatening to do her harm. There are audio tapes of him threatening her. There are also tapes and witnesses to his many racist rants and remarks that he has made over the years. All of this from a man who purports to be so religious that he built a Church on his property!! What a crock, what a hypocrite.

Then there is of course, Tom Cruise. Once again, he seems to have it all. He has a powerful career in Hollywood, more money than he could ever need, he has had 3 wives, the latest, Katie Holmes, is many years younger than him. He went so bonkers over landing Katie Holmes that he humiliated himself while doing an interview on the Oprah show. The infamous "couch jumping" was to show Oprah how in love he was with Katie Holmes, whom he had dated for about a month at the time!! This incident was a major downfall in his career. It made him seem less stable and a lot more bizarre. Magazines began digging into all that is Tom Cruise. What came out of the digging was his intense devotion to the odd religion of Scientology. Apparently he is one of the higher ups in this cult...er...um... I mean religion. After the info about his Scientology ties became public dialogue, his career fell down more. At this point in time, he is not who he once was in Hollywood. His latest film struggles at the box office as of today. He jumped the shark by jumping on the couch and acting very unstable. He did himself no favors.

The next in a long line of oddballs and morons is Tiger Woods. Wow, he really Jumped it bad!He was on top of the golf world, on top of the heap of millions of endorsements deals and dollars. He had a beautiful wife, 2 young children, multiple houses and the respect of anyone in the golfing realm. Then, poof, his reputation and credibility is gone. The true Tiger showed it's ugly teeth and we were all shocked to see what a moron he really is! Why did this man ever get married? If he catted around and knew he wanted to continue catting around ad nauseum, why involve an innocent young woman and deceive her from day one? What purpose did that serve? I am sure any one of his bimbos or ho's would have carried a child for him (a la Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe) for a price. It is amazing how much he carried on and for how long without it ever coming out. He was on top of the world, thinking he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do and get away with it.

That is what these shark jumpers have in common. They get so famous, so fast, the people around them treat them like a deity. They can do no wrong, say no wrong. What they decide goes even if it is a poor decision. Nobody wants to tell them the truth for fear they will not be on the payroll anymore if they do. So the famous person gets a god complex and pretty soon, they fall off of their ivory tower. When they fall, they fall hard.

Brittany Spears is a female Shark Jumper. She was on top, looked great, had tons of money, had a hot music career although she was not a good singer by any stretch of the imagination, and poof. She attained her god complex, her posse fed into it and she suffered a breakdown of mammoth proportions splashed all over the tabloids. She is just a cut above trailer trash these days with her Dad as her "supervisor." Why didn't he supervise her career when she was on top or headed up? He was only there to take care of business when she was down and out.

Lindsay Lohan seems to be following in Brittany's footsteps. Another case of girl did well as a youngster, and it all spun out of control.

What is it about fame that makes these people rise and fall so spectacularly? There are leading men and ladies in Hollywood that have not suffered this fate and end up growing up and growing old gracefully. Think of Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, think of Meryl Streep, Michelle Pfeiffer. They have been in scores of movies and have mega money and yet have seemingly normal lives.

There are some who have teetered with Jumping the Shark and still may. Madonna seems to be one of those. She continues to dress and act as if she were 25. She is in danger of becoming a caricature of her old self. Russell Crowe has had enough physical outbursts to cast himself in a shark like shadow. Lady Gaga has gone from a nobody to the most friended person on Facebook. She can only go down from there!

There are SO MANY professional sports figures that jump the shark and do it quickly. We are not talking about decades long careers like Mel and Tom, no, we are talking about NFL players who get giant contracts and a couple of years in they still act like they are living in the "hood." The go to strip clubs, get involved in murder for hire plots, carry firearms with them while going out with friends, have DUI convictions.MLB Baseball has had all the steroid scandals to contend with...I am great, I could be greater....let me just do this 'roid and maybe I can set some records and even more millions. NBA Basketball seems to be full of huge egos, LeBron James is a good example! All of these nitwits who are good at hitting, catching, or throwing a ball are being paid multi millions for doing so and have thus gotten a little god complex of their own. As an NHL hockey fan, I don't see this as much there. What you see is players who abandon a beloved team because they can't be the head honcho, the team captain, or the team they would love to stay and keep playing for cannot afford to pay them what they think they are worth, due to salary cap restrictions. In hockey it is part ego, part economics.

Very few people ever attain the wealth that a Mel Gibson, LeBron James, or Madonna have. And thank goodness they don't! Most people cannot deal with all that comes along with that money. The lack of privacy, having your every act scrutinized, your every move photographed can get out of control. But it is a trade off. They do have the option of walking away from the movie, the music or the sports and still have a pile of money to live on. They usually choose to keep being famous and some eventually become infamous because they cannot live without the adoration that goes along with the title of superstar.

In conclusion, people are jumping the shark left and right. It will continue to happen as long as we put them up on a pedestal. From that pedestal they ultimately have 2 choices. They can stay up there or they can fall. Mel and company have fallen and it is not a pretty sight!

A Funny Thing Happened on The Way Out of the Gym Today...

I felt the rush today. It was just a tiny hint of a rush, but a rush nonetheless. It was something I have not felt for a very long time.

Let me back up a bit. I have always been,throughout my life, a person who works out. I belong to gyms, I go to fitness classes, I walk, I do exercise videos at home. This has been my way of life since I was a young teen going to Anne Marie's Figure Forum in Westport, CT with my sister. That was where it all started. From there, I moved on to doing Jane Fonda exercise albums at home with my Mom. At college, I ran for one year, and then worked out on and off at the fitness center on campus. After college, I had an apartment and joined a fitness and raquet club and so on and so on. I have done kickboxing, high impact aerobics, (thank you Sue Lestage), walking workouts, weight training, step aerobics, pretty much all of the fitness class crazes up until 4 years ago.

Four years ago, before I had gone back to working outside the home, I was at the Y most weekdays working out for usually an hour and a half. I would do 45 minutes of elliptical/exercise bike, then do some weight training, then I would see a friend and walk on the track and chat for another 1/2 hour or more. Before I knew it, I had been working out for much more than an hour. During this time, I developed a pain on the arch of my right foot. I figured I would need to exercise MORE to stretch this out. I increased my time on the elliptical, Stairmaster, and arc trainers. I was up to about 50 minutes 3-5 times a week when I " hit the wall."

This wall was huge and excruciatingly painful. It had a name. It was called Plantar Fasciitis. It is an inflammation of a tendon that runs from your heel, through the arch of your foot. When you wake in the morning after not using your feet all night, it feels like someone is stabbing the bottom of your foot with a sword. It is very sharply painful to get up and start walking around. All day long I had that pain. The pain was always much worse after not walking for an hour or more.

The Plantar Fasciitis brought my exercising mania to a crashing halt. Not only could I not use the elliptical, the stairmaster, the bike, the arc trainer or take classes, I could barely walk at all without horrific pain. I sought ever increasing levels of treatment. I went to a podiatrist, who sent me home with some stretching exercises and a recommendation to soak my foot in a bucket of ice water. If you have ever soaked your foot in a bucket of ice water, you know what a level of commitment to a cure that takes. It was awful and neither the ice nor the stretching helped. I then progressed to physical therapy, including Iontophoresis where a medicated patch is put on the affected area and an electrode drives the medication into the area in tiny increments using electrical pulses. This also did not work.

I went back to the podiatrist for an injection of cortisone directly into the area....you guessed it. I did not work, well, it did work for about one day and then it wore off and I was back to limping and making awful faces anytime I had to move my foot. The coup de gras was that I had to wear a walking cast for a month...mind you this was in mid July. It was hot, it was heavy (not to be confused with hot-n-heavy, trust me) and it kept my foot absolutely frozen in one position for a month. I was allowed to take it off only to drive and shower. After one month, in mid August, I took it off and thought, hmmmm...maybe this did the trick. I started walking around on it again and after a few days, that dreaded pain came right back. By that point, I had experienced this pain for almost a year. To be completely clear, I had ignored the pain for the first 6 months but it had been with me for almost one year. My only option at that point was to have surgery to sever the tendon. The sad fact though was that the doctor would not guarantee that surgery would make the pain go away and that tendon would be permanently severed. I opted not to have surgery.

At that point in time, I had gotten a job and began to work. I was wearing heels most of the time at work and I sat for many more hours of the day than I used to sit when I was not working. Something weird started to happen when I started my job, my foot began to feel better magically. I was not working out, I was not standing all day on my feet, and I was wearing heels instead of flat shoes. The heels seemed to ease the strain on the tendon...due to the angle my foot was in while I wore heels. I gradually began to gently work out at home...a little walking, a little short exercise video, etc.

That is the fitness situation I have been in ever since 2006. I have not been able to work out strenuously for fear of the return of the dreaded PF. But as a side effect of not working out as much, I have noticed my muscles are not as firm and flab is taking over formerly tighter areas (groan). So, it is with a little trepidation that I strode back to a gym last week. I saw my arch nemeses--the arc trainer and the elliptical. This gym did not have a stairmaster...probably a good thing. I got on the elliptical and did 15 minutes. I could have done more but opted not to push it. I also used the treadmill and exercise bike.

A funny thing happened today on the way out of the gym. I got that feeling. I had forgotten about that feeling altogether because it had been so long since I had experienced it. It is that rush of endorphins you get after you finish a workout. It is subtle to be sure, not like what a long distance runner gets...that is anything but subtle. This is subtle and yet I felt it. It felt great to have a 45 minute workout under my belt today. It felt good physically and mentally. And all in all, that feeling was what I have missed the most.

I am both committed to regain a fitness routine I left behind 4 years ago in hopes of firming and toning, yet at the same time, I will listen to my body and understand that when your body gives you cues that it is hurting, you need to heed those warnings instead of being stubborn and hoping you can will them away. There is a balance to be struck here and I am determined to find it.

By the way, is anyone with me? A lot of friends and acquaintances have told me they are members at Planet Fitness, but do not go very often; you know who you are. LOL Who wants to join me in this quest?

It Will Be OK, No Really!

Another news cycle has floated past. Morning always brings a news revelation. It may be something we would consider unimportant, those usually happen on a "slow news day." Or it may be something of great consequence; the latest natural disaster, tornado, hurricane, mudslide, sinkhole, flood. It could also be a political disaster or scandal.

This morning is no different; Senator Byrd died, no great shocker, he was 92, Supreme Court Justice Nominee Elana Kagan's confirmation hearings begin today amidst a cloud of ,"does she have enough experience to be on the Supreme Court?", The General McChrystal gaffe, and yes, still that oil.

Yes the oil that continues to flow out of the earth and into the Gulf of Mexico continues to plague us. It is still flowing, it has not been resolved and the massive amount of oil that has already flowed out into the water is looming over us like a serpent ready to strike the mainland in disastrous ways. There is the potential hurricane that could push oil far inland along the Gulf Coast, the prospect of floods of oil flowing into New Orleans after the floods of Katrina are still haunting the residents of the Big Easy. All of the wildlife will be dead, if not dead already. And where will this floating oil-berg go? The oil that is already out and floating around, will they be able to suck it up and get it out of the water? I don't think so, not all of it. It will be in the gulf for decades to come, it may move with the Gulfstream tides up the East Coast soiling beaches in it's wake.

I know this is the third time I have sounded the alert on the oil spew. But I feel that we are still not paying enough attention to it as a disaster. I don't have that reassurance that it, "will be ok" eventually. Nobody is even saying that, and they shouldn't say it. I don't think we have any idea what this is going to do to the US economy, the US ecology and the long term viability of the area. Can you say 2012? I know that is a bit over the top. Lots of doomsday believers think that natural and man made disasters will kill us all in 2012. I don't think this is part of that theory but I do think it is more serious and deserves more attention than our government is giving it.

The appearance of inaction seems to be linked to some political endgame. Let's not let other countries help us. If we do that, it appears that the government cannot take care of it's own problems. HA! I think it would serve the Democrats better and Obama better to bring in ANY help necessary to get this job done, no matter what the cost. Screw the stimulus, the bailouts, and all of the pointless Census jobs that were created. Our taxpayer money needs to go where it is needed most. We need to be bailing out the Gulf of Mexico, literally. We need as many boats, volunteers, experts from any country to be involved as will get the job done post haste. Why is this not the top priority second in line only to the troops at war in the Middle East? If it is, it really doesn't feel like it is.

Yes, there are other things going on. We have an immigration mess heating up like crazy. My simplistic solution to both the war and the illegal immigration problem is bring our troops home now and station them at our borders with orders to shoot anyone that tries to cross illegally. Period. We cannot have any meaningful legal immigration policy or reform without control of our borders, especially our southern border. We cannot allow drug thugs to control parts of Arizona. That is pure insanity. This is OUR COUNTRY, not theirs and we need to be in control of our own destiny. Arizona has done us a favor is forcing this issue to the forefront. Many previous administrations have pledged to reform our immigration system but none have addressed it at all. This administration may be forced to.

We also are at war in two countries that we have no business being in. I feel for those troops giving their blood, sweat and tears for this country and knowing that we are there for no good reason. Any of the good reasons to be fighting there have long since passed. We need to be bringing our troops home now, en mass. We are not supposed to be nation building. If we are, there are many other hot spots around the world that could use assistance and we have neither the money or manpower to help any of them.

Let's concentrate on our own country and let the chips fall where they may in Afghanistan. Our military was not permitted to fight with all of it's might in either Iraq or Afghanistan. We could have blown the Tora Bora mountains to bits to kill Bin Laden, the Taliban,and their ilk, but we didn't want to lose the"hearts and minds" of the Iraqis or Afghanis. We were too concerned about civilian casualties. You can't fight a nice war. War is ugly, innocent people die, that is how war is fought. Do Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring to mind a nice war? Does anyone think that because we spared civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, we now have the hearts and minds of the majority of Iraqis or Afghanis ? We may have some but by no means do we have the majority. They are countries of separate tribes that have no desire to live the way we live.

The economy rounds out the trio of other problems lurking over us this summer. It is an ugly summer to be sure. Not a whole lot to be cheerful about. We are all in a default position of keeping our heads down and hoping this all passes us over like a stray tornado. Hoping the oil stops flowing, hoping our troops can come home soon, and safely, hoping the immigrants stop flowing illegally into our country, and hoping we don't lose jobs, lose homes, lose our standard of living. All of these other crises are fueling the economic crisis.

The oil situation will cost the taxpayer one way or another, whether it be higher fuel costs due to slowdowns in oil production, or reimbursement of people in the Gulf region who have lost their businesses, homes, etc. BP will go bankrupt eventually and then we will have to shoulder the financial burden for their mess.

The war is costing billions of dollars a month. Those are dollars we pay to supply the troops, pay bribes to local tribesmen, and for logistical support. That can all be eliminated when we bring them home. It makes good economic sense.

The illegal immigration issue is costing us billions if not trillions in lost revenue every year. The wages that are not taxed, the jobs that are taken by illegals that could go to Americans that are collecting unemployment. The money that illegals make here and send out of the country. The amount we spend patrolling the borders but don't allow the border patrol to do that much to deter any further illegal immigration is money not well spent. The amount we spend in social programs for illegal immigrants, the welfare, the food stamps, the low income housing, not to mention the free health care for anyone coming into the emergency room. We all pay for that. That is a major contributor to our health care crisis.

The economy has been a mess on it's own as well. The banking crisis, the mortgage foreclosure disaster, the credit card mess, the American Automobile Manufacturers bailout. This list goes on and on. It is hard to believe we are in any kind of recovery. Pundits play with the numbers so it looks like things are better than they are. The jobs numbers are one area that are tampered with and spun a lot. The government hired almost 1/2 million census workers. Those Census jobs will not spur any other job creation. They are not producing any product that can be sold. And they are temporary government jobs. They are not helping anyone. Have you gotten a call from these people? I have gotten 3 calls and I sent my form back all filled out the day I got it!! They are calling me for NO GOOD REASON other than to justify their jobs!

The housing numbers continue to go up and down. More houses sold one month, less sold the next. There is a house in my neighborhood that has been for sale for months. My neighborhood used to turn houses over in less than 1 day on the market. That was the market a few years ago. We have one acre lots, underground utilities, desirable school district, and a cul de sac located in suburbia. Sellers here used to get bidders that got involved in bidding wars to buy. Now a house sits (albeit overpriced) for months unsold. That tells me the real story. There are houses selling, if the buyer is willing to take a big hit in price. There are loans out there if you have stellar credit only. There are cars selling but dealers are getting very low profits for these sales. There are a few jobs here and there but they are not higher paying permanent jobs. The employers are also taking a heads down until the crisis passes stance. Economically speaking, things are not really that much better than they were a year ago.

So what do we do with a summer full of bad news and worse news? We need to take a vacation! That could help do a little stimulating of the economy and get us in a better mood. It is really good to get away from reality once in a while. Go visit some of the lovely beaches on the East Coast while they are still lovely and before the Hurricanes start coming. Go see some historical locations and try to remember what life used to be like here in America; go to a theme park and ride some thrill rides to get some endorphins flowing again. This Spring has seen an endorphin drought of the first magnitude. Visit Arizona, if you dare, to thank them for trying to get us to focus on our national security. Visit Washington, well, maybe not!! We don't have a lot to thank them for lately!! Actually, we can thank them all in November! 8-)

Blind Leading The blind? Blinded By The Light? 3 Blind Mice?

Ok, in case you haven't figured it out, this is a tale of blinds. Window blinds, honeycomb/cellular blinds to be exact. I have had either the world's worst luck with ordering honeycomb blinds or someone up there is trying to tell me to deploy some other window coverings in my house.

It all started in December 2009. We had painted our kitchen, dining area and our old honeycomb blinds in our bay window were looking pretty dirty; suddenly one of them broke. So now I had to do something. It was not repairable. A friend suggested I try a company that supplied all the blinds for Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. A friend of hers had used them to outfit an entire vacation home with honeycomb blinds. OK, I got adventurous and ordered color samples from Select Blinds. They had a 30% discount going (which I now know is an all the time discount) so I ordered 3 honeycomb blinds for my bay window. They were in a lovely shade of light coffee.

The blinds arrived, and we hung one of the small side window blinds, the middle large blind and then moved on to the 3rd blind, another side window blind. After installing it, we noticed it was at least 2 inches too short. Great!! I rechecked my order form, yup, I had ordered all the blinds to be the same length. I looked at the top to make sure the bracket was mounted in the same locale as the other brackets of the other blinds. Yes, it was. This was not our human error. I contacted Select Blinds and they made me wait a week to see if the blind "dropped down over time." It didn't. So about a month later, our replacement came and it was case closed. I really liked the outcome.

Fast forward to April. In our family room which is attached to the kitchen/dining area in an open floor plan, we have a set of french doors and a double window. The cord to the blind on one of the french doors broke. You see, all of our blinds in the house are about 12 years old at this point, thus many are beginning to fail. I was faced with the decision again. What to do. Do I order from Select Blinds again and hope this time it turns out for the best? I ended up ordering the same color blinds from them for the family room so the whole area would blend together. I ordered two corded blinds for the french doors and one cordless blind for the double window. The blinds came in about 3 weeks. When I opened the first box, the blind was fine. We installed it on one of the french doors. When I opened the box for the second french door blind, I saw that the end cap with the cord was detached, broken off, and we realized that no matter what we did, that was not going to work. I was pretty angry. I called Select Blinds right then and there. They told me they would send a replacement cord assembly and directions telling us how to tension it up. That arrived 2 weeks later. It worked fine, but the length of the loop cord on that french door blind was at least a foot longer than the other one that was already installed. It looks a little funny side by side but nothing can be done.

We had held off installing the double window blind, out of aggravation. When it came time, it installed nicely and worked nicely. That is for 2 weeks. Then all of a sudden, one day I went to raise the blind (this one being cordless) and I heard and felt a distinct pop inside the blind which no longer raised or lowered, but settled at a cock-eyed angle toward the top of the window. The cord inside had snapped. My goodness, our luck with blinds is amazing! After speaking with 2 customer service agents at Select Blinds, they agreed to make a new blind and have me send back the old one. I had decided at that point that I will not order from them again. Based on past experience, I suspect I will be waiting about 3 weeks or more for the new one to arrive.

Meanwhile, I just painted my dining room and put up new window treatments (curtains) but wanted some blinds for that room, and for the adjacent office. I was not going to order from Select Blinds, but had received a circular from JC Penney that had cordless honeycomb blinds in it. I took a chance and ordered 4 (2 for each room) and hoped for the best. The JC Penney blinds arrived yesterday. Two of the blinds were the blinds we ordered, the other two were some random other kind of window treatment, and not even close to the size I ordered.

Is this a case of bad (blinds) luck strikes again? Or is someone trying to tell me something about ordering blinds....like NOT TO!! Or a third possibility is that quality control is non existent these days! Even if you stick a sticker with your name on it telling the world you inspected this item, nothing happens to you if the item fails. What good is the sticker? Is there really even an inspector #432? Maybe nobody inspects these things and they just put a sticker on it to make you think they do! The fourth and most sensible option is not to try to save any money buying cellular blinds. Pay top dollar for the name brands, Hunter Douglas, Graber, Levelor and maybe you will have better luck. The thing is, the cost of a double window cordless cellular blind from one of the name brands is hundreds of dollars more. Is it worth it? Maybe the quality control is there with the name brands unlike the off name brands.

In any case, I phoned JC Penney, they put in a new order to replace the incorrect blinds and I have to haul the incorrect ones down to a Penney's store to get a credit. Fun fun fun. in the meantime, my cellular blind ordering days are over for now. I can't take any more of the drama. Summer is too nice to waste worrying about this minutia. If I need to re-blind any other room, we are going to have to pass a cooling off period first!! That means fall.

Like the Wild West Out There!!

What happened today was a perfect example of how driving in this country has gone terribly wrong. It is a dangerous undertaking every time you turn the key. I was approaching a highway entrance ramp, and a woman with Florida plates who was in the lane to the left of me began to drift toward me. I leaned on the horn and she just kept coming over. She was attempting to get into the lane that lead to the entrance ramp but she didn't ever signal, or look to her side for that matter. I was not at all in her blind spot. I was right next to her. She just came over willy nilly, the rest of us be damned. I slowed down and let her get over because it was obvious she was not stopping or turning back into her own lane. Once on the ramp, we accelerated, she in front of me. When it came time to merge into traffic already on the highway, she pulled into the slow lane and began again to drift. Only this time, she drifted toward the middle lane, never looking to see that someone was right next to her....there is no way she didn't see that car if she looked to her left. But she never looked and BOOM, she hit the car in the middle lane. They bounced slightly off of each other and kept driving.

A lot of things ran through my mind at that moment. One was to not panic and cause another accident in the process.There were a lot of cars around us and they were all going at very different speeds. The Boomer and the Boomee pulled over to exchange info. A quick glance told me there was no major damage so I continued on. But as I drove away, I couldn't help but think that this was either someone driving impaired i.e. drunk, medicated, low blood sugar, over 80 years old; or it was someone that was distracted by cell phone conversation or texting. Then I was really mad I didn't stop and see for myself and defend the poor boomee from this menace woman. It is hard to tell when to stop when there was no obvious damage.

The road is a dangerous place, at least in Massachusetts, these days. The throngs of elderly drivers that accidentally push the accelerator instead of the brake pedal are all around. There were many of these incidents last summer and people were hurt and killed in some cases. The Mass. state legislature has failed to pass any legislation on RMV retesting of seniors or a texting while driving ban. We are way behind other states on these issues.

Then there are the Camrys and Corrollas that are accelerating out of control. You never know when one of those will come up behind you!

Let's not forget about the teens and tweens and even twentysomethings that think they are invincible and are talking on the phone and texting to beat the band. PEOPLE, as I have said before, THAT IS A DANGEROUS AND DEADLY THING TO DO! Nobody's brain is capable of driving and texting at the same time. You don't usually read a book and drive, do you? I hope not! It almost never fails that when you see someone driving like a bonehead, they are either texting or talking on the cell phone. How did we get here? Just because it is possible to do something, does not mean it is a good idea. I am able to stab myself with a knife, but it is not advisable. This seems to be the standard people are using to determine that it is perfectly OK to text while driving. And the other argument I always here from people is,' Everyone is doing it," Wow, that one boggles me. Goes back to the old adage, " if everyone jumped off a cliff would you follow them?

Maybe I am glorifying the good old days, but I don't remember driving being this dangerous when I was a new driver in 1977. You were courteous, you stayed in your lane and signaled to change lanes, you had both eyes on the road at all times. In terms of driving in America, it feels like we live in the Wild West now. You never know what stupid maneuver someone is going to attempt right in front of your eyes. You are never sure what is going to jump out at you or into you. If you are not always on the defensive, you will get into a crash, for sure.

I had a roommate in college from Thailand. She used to tell me about driving in Bangkok; how there were very few traffic signals and even fewer traffic laws enforced; Intersections were a big free for all. She spoke of pedestrians being hit by cars and the cars just driving off. That was routine and it happened every day. That was the norm in Bangkok in 1982. I don't know if you have listened to the news lately but I have and I think that more people than not DO NOT stop when they hit someone with their car nowadays. It is immoral and it is infuriating. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions anymore. Sad.

Well, my advice is be careful out there. As Oprah says, take the "no cell phone zone" pledge not to use your cellphone in your car. Or at the very least STOP TEXTING while driving. There is NO EXCUSE for that. Watch for idiots doing just that and be ready for evasive maneuvers. I don't think anything in the driving realm is going to get safer for us until computers drive our cars while we just sit back ,text, talk, shave, read, eat, and sleep in our cars. I look forward to that day!!