Let The Games Begin

My family is coming to town!!!! Yipee!!! Well, my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew that is. My parent's live up here. I haven't seen my brother and his family in over 2 years when I went to Texas to bury my ex-husband.

They are coming up for my youngest daughter's graduation party on Saturday. I am so excited to see them.

The kids are going to stay for a week or so then I will take them home (and do some antiquing while I'm on the road). I will probably take my granddaughter with me. I need to get out of Kansas, even if it's only for a couple of days. This godforsaken place will suck the life out of you. It's like living in the Twilight Zone.

I adore my family. I have always been a big family person, no matter where I was or what I was doing in my life I stayed in contact with aunts and uncles. Whenever we would travel, we had to go to East Texas and Louisiana to see my relatives. I am so very glad that I did this because now they are gone. I still have a couple of my Daddy's siblings left but everyone else is gone and I miss them terribly.

On the other hand you have families like my husband's. He is the oldest of 7 all of which live within 20 miles of each other except for one. They never talk, they never get together. He does talk to one of his brothers' every now and then and we stay up on each others lives. But if any of the others show up for the party on Saturday I will be very surprised..... shocked is more like it. When their mom passed away some years ago several of the sister's were all mournful because they had been feuding with her, they hadn't talked to her in months. I don't think that they have forgiven themselves to this day for that.

Well I got off track from my original thought. Let's all pray for my brother to have a safe trip up from Texas and a good time to be had by all.

Graduation Season

Everyone is graduated. My youngest daughter graduated from High School... and received her diploma. My granddaughter graduated from pre-kindergarten.

While their graduation ceremonies couldn't have been more different they were of equal importance.

The high school ceremony was filled with straight faces, seriousness and tears. Out of a class of 500 students, 19 were singled out over and over again for their academic achievement. The sports team members were singled out for, I guess being on the teams. There was no mention of community service, arts, journalism or other school involvement. But I guess in this day and age it is all about test scores and winning teams.

The pre-K ceremony on the other hand, was a joy. They entered to auditorium with their little caps and gowns on as well as plastic sunglasses singing "We Will Rock You." As they received their diploma, each child was allowed to say what they had learned in pre-K and why it was important to them. Their answers ranged from learning to tie their shoes to learning to read (my grandbaby).

They sang songs about us all being equal, like a rainbow, and heard from their peers about what to expect in Kindergarten.

Both nights of graduation filled me with great pride for these amazing girls. I also went through enough tissues to stuff a king-sized quilt.

Next year is my only nephew's graduation....

Why Can't I Be Tolerant & Patient?!?!?!?

I must have been absent the day the Supreme Being gave out the tolerant gene. I do fine with children and teens.... they don't know better. It is my job as an adult to be patient, tolerant, loving and kind to those under the age of 20. But when it comes to adults, forget about it, my level of tolerance is zero.

I think that I am a good person, I volunteer in my community. Not just a hour here and another there. I'm talking 20+ hours a week for over 15 years. I have raised good kids, one of which is one of those see the beauty in everyone people. I have a good marriage, love my pets and family. Take pride in my home, I vote and I think I contribute to society. But people get on my last nerve.

We went out to dinner the other night and I was facing a table with 3 adults. They chewed with food falling out of their mouths, they did not know how to hold their fork and knife to cut their food, elbows on the table, gesturing with the knife in their hands. They were well dressed and looked like they should have table manners but they were pigs. It was bad. These folks will never attend a formal dinner I can tell you that much.

When we attended my granddaughter's pre-kindergarten graduation the adults were making so much noise that you could not hear what the kids or teacher were saying through the microphone. I did ask those around us to shut the f**** up so that I could hear but the point is, they should have known better.

I have real issues with cell phone use in my space too. Movies, restaurants, Post Office. I was in K-Mart and heard an attorney talking to a client on his cell phone. This was not a conversation that needed to be held in a public place and he was talking as loud as if he were in his office with no one around.

This is a problem I have been working on for sometime but can't seem to make any progress on. People are getting ruder when in public which makes conquering this demon really tough.

I'm not don't hold back either, I approach people if their behaviour is really offensive and rude.

I will continue to work on this, I guess the first step is recognizing your problem... which I have done. I will continue to think positive, good thoughts and maybe one of these days I will be a new me.

Reality TV....The Loser Women of Orange County

I remember the good old days when reality TV consisted of Survivor and America's Most Wanted, it wasn't so bad. I enjoyed Survivor mainly because I would squint my eyes and envision myself laying under the palm trees reading a good book on whatever island they happened to be on. Of course I had plenty to eat, lots to drink and a nice tanned, muscular guy catering to my every whim.

In truth no reality television was the ultimate... ya see, I don't really like people all that much. I find the majority of folks to be rude, self-centered and out for themselves. These are traits that I abhor and they come out in force in reality TV.

I work from home so the radio is on more than the TV during the day, but the other day I was tired of listening to the crap about immigrants, the songs were on their 3rd go round, classical didn't suit me at the moment and I don't do sports radio at all so I flipped on the TV. A show came on "The Real Housewives of Orange County." A woman was picking her child up from "juvie", another just got diagnosed for the 5th time with melanoma, 1 chippie is "engaged" to a man named ... I don't remember but it sounded like something out of a bad western but she's out partying instead of home taking care of his kids from a previous marriage so he is breaking up with her and there are a couple of other women.

I ended up watching, more or less, a few episodes of this pathetic show and it went from bad to worse. I could not believe the waste, the excess, the mistreatment and negligence of the children. The one attempt at volunteering was actually self-serving. It was all so sad

I realize that this is mostly scripted, edited, cut and re-cut. But truth is still revealed and their truth is sad. It is my hope that these folks get a reality check and soon. Maybe a huge earthquake will come along and drop California off into the depths of the ocean.

These people are breeding a generation as self-centered and wasteful as themselves. I don't think that folks like this contribute anything of any significance to this society.

If we are going to continue with reality television we need to demand that it serve the greater good. America's Most Wanted does just that, they take criminals off the street which makes us all safer. But pampered, over spending women in a gated community does nothing but inflame my anger.... send their day spa asses to Dufar.