A View from A Broad

Username:	Password:
Forgot your password?	Remember Me

Dear Sci Fi channel
It's Snake Day on the Sci Fi channel, which means hours of cheap entertainment, and I do mean cheap. Crappy CGI, crappy acting, crappy everything, with an occasional grade Z actor popping up. Dude, what's the budget on these things? $2.99?

Anyhoo....just a tip. When you title a movie Boa versus Python, my first mental image isn't snakes. Well, two snakes. I think of a feather boa and a snake. I do not need this mental image. It's just too bizarre, even for me. And even worse, it leads to thoughts of Jesse Ventura in the boa. Now, do you wnat to do that to me, huh?

Would it be too much to do a new film about zombies? Huh? Do you guys have a suggestion box, or did you blow it all on whatever chemicals you use to think of movies?

I'd advise better chemicals---or less.

Morgie is weird
Morgie has a fascination for plastic. He also has an unusally expressive tail. When he flirts with you, his tail curls back and forth while he cocks his head at you.

So he just stole something plastic from the old lock, and slunk off with it, looking incredibly guilty. He couldn't bear to wait to chew on his trophy, though, and after looking around with I swear embarrassment, he put it down to gloat. Then he slithered away, staying close to the ground, the very definition of a low profile. It was there that I caught him and took it away. Cat spit, yuck. Then he came over to me and flirted, head butting, head cocking, tail curling, and nose kisses. Oh, yeah, and flying clumps of fur.

He's probably cruising internet porn for...pussy.

Prize winner stupid
So the people across the street were accosted by a bunch of neighborhood troublemakers about the car in their rear parking space. "Sure, you can have it," they said sarcastically. To their astonishment, the kids---none of them over fifteen, and their number containing some of the most disrespectful little shits in the neighborhood----smashed the car window, and began to push the car away. A struggle ensued, and K sided with the little shits. The mother appeared, demanding to know why the family had given her precious babies a car and then charging them with theft. By this time the cops had arrived, and the woman demanded that they pay her son's bail. I could hear her yelling across the street.

The kids pushed the car a block away and there the cops caught them, taking three kids wiht them and trying to calm down the mom, who was getting up in the offers' faces because she dared take her precious special snowflakes.

Gah. I think they're putting stupid in the water around here instead of flouride.

City Inspection
The city inspector told us that the City Attorney almost never pays claims on damage caused by police raids, and that sheriff's office won't either. Well, fuck that. They broke three doors and one window on her house, and they damned well will pay for it if I have to get everybody from the ACL to the Southern Poverty Law Center involved. This lady works seven days a week.

She won a seven-day reprieve, which is much more workable than the stupid weekend period they were going to give her. I swear, I think the city inspector liked to fuck with her; when she talked about how the police didn't have to fix up their damage and the city attorney almost never paid out, she looked almost smug at the little poor people.

The house needs to have mold scrubbed away with bleach, there's plumbing problems, and electrical problems. She's got all stuff that she needs to do and she works seven days a week. People are cleaning now, but it's hot and muggy. I'm dead. I still haven't slept. Hopefully I'll get to Animal Ark today.

So T and I went to do some errands last night, continuing on in our quest to drop stuff off at Animal Ark but just missing. The air was like soup and I still had that Seroquil hangover.

The ride was interesting, in that T kept yelling at J, who kept punching K, at whom T kept going off. I still don't know what I'm going to do there. I pointed out to T that K had improved noticeably, cleaning her room without being asked, while C tries to skate off whenever she gets the chance. We were on a quest to get cleaning products and appropriate things to put in a care package, plus getting keys copied. First we stopped at a dollar store, then went to Home Depot, where I was much taken with those sheds they have. Then I forgot to have the keys copied and we went home, at which point I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. I gave permission for K to sleep at R's house. I and her mother both warned her that if she was running around in the street after dark she'd get sent home.

When I went in the door, I found a blue card from a church in the door. Having made myself clear on that subject to everybody who'd come to the door to convert me, I tossed it away and went into and laid down. I was asleep when someone pounded on the door.

It was C., wanting to know if I'd found the card. "Yes, I did. I'm trying to sleep."

Ten minutes later, it was C., again pounding on the door. "What?"

"I need to go the bathroom."

Oh my fucking God.

K came in to tell me that her mom wanted to talk to me, so I went outside, by now so tired my brain wasn't fully alert. I asked T where she was taking C and she said she was taking her to her uncle's house for something. "God, I'm trying to sleep. I'm going to have to get up to let her in."

T smiled. "You know those keys you got copied? Give her one and she can get in that way."

With visions of C turning on the lights and stumbling around, I gave her one, but T took it and said, "Oh, no, C, I'm holding onto this." Which was a relief. Oh, and did I mention K was there the whole fucking time? "Where's C going?"

T grinned at me. "You must be tired. I already told you and you asked me like three times already."

"I'm whipped," I said. "I'm going to go conk out."

"Get some rest."

"Drink some water," I said back.

So I went back into the house and laid down and turned off all the lights. I was just nodding off when the phone rang.

It was K. "What?" I demanded.

"Can I come over there and get some food?"

"No. I'm trying to sleep."

"BUt..."

"No."

"But whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....?"

"Good bye."

Thirty seconds later somebody pounded on the damned door, and the phone rang again. "WHAT?"

"I want to get some foooooooooooooooooood." (She hate at her grandma's. "R doesn't have any. THe cops took it all."

"I'm trying to sleep. Go away."

Five seconds later, she pounded again.

Jesus Fucking CHrist. "Go away. NOW."

I called T to tell her this, and she said, "Then tell her the sleepover's cancelled. It was really simple."

So I called K and told her to come home. There followed one of the most frustrating conversations I've ever had. The kid has selective memory and all the excuses down. "But I didn't mean to!"

"Yeah, well you did. IF you didn't mean to, you wouldn't have done it."

"But I said I was sorry!"

"Sorry means bullshit. It doesn't make it okay."

"I didn't know you were asleep! You answered the phone! You always turn the phone off!"

"Except when I hvae to get up to meeting code enforcement people for M. YOu were siting right there when your mom and I talked about this. You knew I was going to bed."

"Well, you answered the phone!"

"Yeah, and then I went back to sleep."

"I can't fall asleep that fast!"

"I'm not you," I said icily.

"But I didn't know you could do that!"

"Then you shouldn't have tried it in the first place."

"But I knocked quietly!"

She pounded on the damned door, not once but twice.

"No, you didn't. And now I'm REALLY FUCKING PISSED OFF, which is sure going to make going to sleep easier. Go your room and don't make any noise."

I knew I wasn't going to get any sleep after that. She cried and whined and kept going to the damned bathrom every thirty seconds to blow her noise---loudly----till I finally told her to take tissue with her into her room. I didn't feel any sympathy whatsoever. I defended her in front of her mom, I listen to her when she talks about boys, and she just doesn't give a shit when I'm trying to get any sleep. Cry your eyes out, I just don't care right now. Oh, and did I mention that her door shrieks when it's opened? Yeah, I don't think the constant movement in and out was accidental either.

C came home and yelled something to her mother from the front step, thereby negating the whole key thing. But I was impressed that she made her way through the darkened living room without one 'ow!' Then she got to K's room and they proceeded to have a talk in normal speaking voices till I yelled at them for that. By now it was eleven, and I'd been trying to sleep since nine o'clock. To say I was in a bad mood would be severe understatement. I told C to go to bed, at which point she called out to me, "One of the cats peed on my pillow."

"Put it in the dirty laundry basket."

Which, as I found out this morning, she didn't do. She put it in the hallway.

I also discovered that despite the forgoing events, K was not happy enough with bugging me repeatedly, she also texted me at midnight to ask about a midnight snack. I might have dozed off. If so, that's the only sleep I got at all last night.

In a few minutes, I'm going to wake them both up to give them a taste of their own medicine. I didn't get one fucking minute of sleep and I have a blinding headache, and I have to be on my toes this morning so I can avoid that city inspector finding out where I live. Then I have to run some more errands. Let's see how they like getting woken up. K sleeps till noon and shouts at C for waking her up. C sleeps till ten and isn't exactly quiet while she putters around the house.

I am not in a good mood.

ETA: I am in even a worse mood now that I've been up and around and discovered that C did not lock the fucking front door last night. "I didn't," she asked. Now, how could you forget that? You unlock the door, you come in, you lock the door.

Wow
After making about twelve phone calls to lawyers and the Sheriff's office, I finally got the City Inspector. We didn't discuss the idiocy of her conducting the inspection after the Sheriffs had been through; I'll save that for later. She protested that she had been totally clear in her explanations, but not according to M, she wasn't, who---hours later---was still shaking and angry.

At one point in the conversation, she snapped at me, "Well, where do you live?"

I had to laugh. "Are you going to harass me now?"

That conversation after that could best be described as uncomfortable. But I want to put that here, to show that they actually do that kind of thing.

If I get a notice from the city, you heard it here first.

I need a scorecard
Sarcasm works with kids.

C., however, needs something else.

She merrily took off today, saying something about going to church. She did this twice. It did not occur to me, however, to check and see if T had approved that. She couldn't be so brazen as to lie to me, could she? Just toddle off without telling either me or her mother? Without seeking approval? Just...."I'm going to church." The lady seems nice, by the way, just...kind of.....you know.....determined.

C had an 'accident' and left her shit-smeared underwear in the bathroom, along with her PJs. You know, one of these days instead of yelling out the door for the kid to come home, I'm going to take her ear and use that as a handle.

So, C is grounded tomorrow, which means somebody will have to stay with her. She took off without permission, whined about it besides----"But you said it was okay!"-----and then sulked so badly I sent her to her room. She's so passive that I have to check her every move. Sweep the kitchen floor? She does part of it and says there's 'stuff' there or that she can't find the dustpan. Clean her room? That means.....I'm not sure what it means, but there's shit all over the floor. "But it's not mine!"

"It's dust, it's in your room, congratulations."

K was really upset today over how C. 'gets away with shit all the time.' This was the first time I realized that C had taken off without any permission at all. Oh, and in doing so, she screwed up K's chance of getting to go to the lake, because---duh----she didn't check with anybody before she took off. This meant K was stuck at home in the humid neighborhood while her BFF's house got raided. So I can understand her point. K gets stuck with all the responsibilites, but gets few of the rewards. C seems to have no responsibilities and gets frankly spoiled. However, cries tonight that C 'gets to sleep over every night!' were not greeted well by me because what happened was that C had diarrhea, at which I throw up my inexperienced--and squeamish----hands.

So, before I go to bed---after showing K part of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (----like, is there some other R&J out there?)----I have to write down a conversation we just had.

"I heard a noise."

"Where?"

"In the bathroom."

"What did it sound like?"

"I don't know."

"OMG."

"Like a cat scratching?"

"In this house?"

"Oh, shut it."

"That's....twenty two seconds of my life I won't get back."

"C'mon, will you look?"

She followed behind me and I checked the window, the screen, and the tub. "Oh, God!"

"What?!"

"You didn't rinse out the tub."

She punched me, then kissed me goodnight. Ah, kids.

Tomorrow we'll be making water balloons out of condoms, and C will be finishing her chores and learning the difference between telling the truth and....not saying anything at all.

ARgh.

I've shaved down the evil seroquel to about one-thirty secondth of a pill. We'll see how it goes. Ugh.

Civil rights issues
My neighbors across the street were raided by the Sheriff's office. K came running up to me to ask me about warrants and stuff like that, and after a while the whole family came over. The cops raided her house based on the word of a guy who was a big guy in the coke foodchain.

They've raided her house or that of relatives at least three times.

1. In one raid, a five months pregnant woman was thrown to the ground on her stomach.

2. In the second raid, M's husband's ribs were broken.

3. In this raid, three exterior doors were left damaged---by which I mean, yanked out of their frames or hinges--and the home owner---M----and her daughter, R, were tossed to the ground and handcuffed. Her daughter is twelve.

The cops come with drug dogs and everything. They have never once found anything. The family does not know their rights and is afraid of further harassment. The cops call them 'illegal' but that's bullshit. M works her ass off.

The cops broke windows this time, broke doors entirely, ripped ceiling tiles down, and left the house insecure. They posted the house as 'unfit for human habitation'---but that was after they rampaged through it.

One cop's name keeps coming up. And like I said---they never find anything. Never. You'd thikn they'd question their informant's reliability by now, don't you think?

I have one feeling, too: this is what Iraq is like. You give the cops an anonymous tip, they do a raid, and then what? Do they check out if there's enmity between the tipper and the tippee?

Another one
This time, the female soldier survived---her own husband. Her husband kidnapped her, raped and stabbed her, and then she managed to persuade him to go back and turn himself in. That's a courageous woman.

Meanwhile, three have been or will be tried for the murders of their wives. One wife died from drinking anti-freeze; the defense is trying to say she killed herself. For months. Leaving a quarter of a million to her hubbie. Another was Brit Neil Entwistle, the guy who murdered his wife and baby daughter.

Another link on that site asks, "Was NC soldier murdered?" I dunno-----did she kill herself and set herself on fire? Or what?

Timing is everything
Dear God,

I know you and I chat a lot these days, but I just wanted to express my sincere appreciation that the sheriffs and the cops and the K9s didn't get here till after I helped that lady break into her car. Also, it's nice to know my skills are, uh, still skillful.

There's ten sheriffs over at R's house, the little girl who so torments K with her on-again, off-again friendship. These guys are all wearing plain clothes and bullet-proof vests and white latex gloves. IF they'd gotten here about five minutes earlier I'd have had to explain why I was fishing around in that lady's car door.

Looks like it's going to be a coke bust, too. Yikes. Still, could have been a lot worse.

Hey, wait a second. How come when that lady locked her keys in her car I was the first person she thought of?

Oh, and to complete my day, there's a creepy guy in the hood who's got cameras set up all around his perimeter. Except they're fixed in such a way that he's really looking into peoples' yards and windows.

Ah, my neighborhood.

Oh, God.

C is trying to convince me the house is haunted. "I keep seeing someone go out the door. And when I pass by a mirror, I see someone."

Oh, Gawd.

"You know that brush for the cats? Is there one for dogs?"

I asked her to unplug the computer cord and bring it over to me so I could plug it in to a closer outlet. "What's that?"

"What?"

"What's that?" She was pointing at the cord, acting like she'd never seen one before.

"Well, what do you think it is?" I held up the plug in end.

"I dunno," she said sullenly.

"Think."

"I dunno."

Gawd.

She's going to church with a friend of hers. I saw this friend. She's ten years old, wears stacked platform shoes, and walks a huge pitbull around. But---heels? Really? The hell?

In other news,

ambitious_wench really sucks. Just so you know.

Okay....
There's a rooster crowing in my neighborhood. Er...huh? I hope the Hmong family that got foreclosed on didn't leave a rooster behind.

Oh, God, and Morgie is indulging his passion for plastic bags. God, what a weird cat.

The girls and I picked a whole bunch of pearl onions and lettuce last night and today I'm going to make meatloaf, which will become sandwiches. Yum.

Care package schedule
Here's the page for the care package schedule: http://carepackages.wikispaces.com/

We want him to get packages regularly, not all at once and then nothing.

He might be in transit, but even so, I think his packages will get there, even if it takes a bit longer.

I'm still waiting to hear from him.

I'm going to the VA today.

Oh, parenthood! My first embarrassing moment
God, I'm officially a parent. I've had my first embarrassing pseudo parental moment.

K found my vibrator.

She's already found my condoms.

Say it with me, parents. Her reaction was, "EW!"

I came out firmly in favor of masturbation, telling her there was nothing wrong with it, blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I tried to stay blase, but I was squirming inside. She was skeptical, but the talk then veered to periods and sex and boys. I explained what menstruation was, how the female body worked, and that she should wait till she was ready. Boys who try and blackmail you into sex are not your friend. That's a message I keep reiterating.

I realized I was having 'the talk' with a twelve-year-old girl.

It's times like this that I'm so grateful I worked in a dirty bookstore and got used to seeing the human being and stuff like that.

What is it with me and vibrators? It's like the Curse of the Pharaoh. I think that's the third one that's caused me some sort of cringworthy moment. There's the one that was stolen, the one that I think got recycle----my theory is that Abbie thought it was her battery-operate mouse toy----and now this. Gah.

And not to mention the wandering panties in my yard. They've pretty much traversed the entire yard. If the cops come out to the house again, I'm sure the panties won't convince them at all that I'm a child molester. Argh.

Uh, kids? When you do your chores and make a huge mess, that IS part of the chore. Who do you think sweeps up all the shit? And don't try and whine and get out of doing your chores. I'll check.

Here's a tip: Leaving clothes and the detritus of sweeping on your bedroom floor is not 'clean.' Leaving a mess on the kitchen floor is not finishing your chores. Whining that you couldn't find the brush and dust bin is not an excuse. Go look for them. Also? Leaving a pizza, a pizza pan, and an open container of yoghurt in your room does not qualify as 'clean.' I will check.

I'm going to make up a fucking list for each of them to check off stuff they must do before they leave in the morning. Even so I'm sure I'm going to have to check.

Argh.

Still have to find a way to get the house re keyed. VA appointment tomorrow; no news from ride people. VA closes at four. Great job, guys. Argh. T's trying to get a new alternator for her car. I have no ride anywhere except for the VA and I have all this stuff to drop off at various charities.

Argh.

This is for MRAs who think it's okay to exploit Russian women by buying them
Every year, 14,000 Russian women die at the hands of a family member. And American men offer a way out just by not beating them, a standard that American women are no longer willing to accept.

ell, an NPR report that aired this morning shows a sobering reality of Russian womanhood that's so far from Plastinina and her rancid materialism as to be rendered absurd. Gregory Feifer reports from Moscow that 14,000 women die each year in Russia at the hands of their male partners. What's more: wife beating is not considered a crime, and 50% of women in a recent survey say they have been physically abused by their spouses. "The real number of victims is impossible to count as [domestic violence] is seen as a private matter, not to be aired in public," Feifer said. In fact, Feifer notes that there is an old proverb that many Russian women seem to have internalized: "If he beats you, he loves you."

American men who to Russia typically complain about how uppity American women are, what with their demanding rights above and beyond 'not getting beaten.' And to add to the awfulness, these same women won't even kiss American male ass, do all the housework, and pump out baby after baby. They expect men to do half of that stuff, despite they're being, you know, men---the pinnacle of creation, the center of the universe, the superior gender. So, in order to find non-beating men, they go to a country where half the women have been harmed by domestic violence, where almost five times as many women are murdered by men as in America, and offer themselves to women who want to get away from all that.

"The Russian Federation does not have a specific law on violence in the family," and NPR reports that for the police to intervene in a domestic violence situation, the injury has to be so grave as to "prevent you from work for two weeks."

Number of women's shelters in Moscow: 0. Number of beds in the nearest women's shelter to Moscow: 7. Because housing is so expensive in Russia, many women, like one of the women interviewed by NPR, have to go back to living with their murderous ex-husbands because they can't afford to go anywhere else. Amnesty International tells almost the identical story, one of a woman named "Anna."

In December 2003, after her husband had threatened to set her on fire, Anna finally decided to file for a divorce. Incensed at her action, her husband destroyed the family’s possessions, including dishes and clothes. In March 2004, a week after the couple had been officially divorced, she returned with her older son to the flat, as she had nowhere else to go. Her ex-husband told her that he did not recognize the divorce and that he was going to have sex with her. During the incurring argument he doused her with inflammable liquid and tried to set her alight. While Anna had witnesses who could confirm what had happened, the police told her they could not do anything, because he "had not committed a crime". According to Anna, the police did not pay attention to the fact that he had a lighter nor did they check her coat which was soaked in the liquid.

One caveat: Russia has a larger population than the United States. It is, however, the center for the trafficking of women and girls. American men just practice a slightly more acceptable form of trafficking.

I wonder if the MRAs will dare envy those seven beds. After all, Russian men get beaten, too. Supposedly. Based on this story, I'd have to say they deserved it. If the Russian police are as shitty as they seem---when I stayed there, they settled cases on the street by taking bribes-----certainly a lot of women are getting murdered and attacked without being counted. With a fifty percent abuse rate, that means Russian children have little to no chance of not growing up seeing some woman being beaten or otherwise attacked. That means Russian women grow up knowing their fate. That means American men find easy pickings without having to alter their behavior.

These guys frequently express contempt or hatred with uppity American women, wanting someone subservient, docile, desperate, and bought. Some of these marriages turn abusive. There's usually a substantial age and attractiveness gap. Sixty year old men with potbellies and combovers score twentysomething Russian women pretty enough to be models.

I remember when I was in Martinique with a group of other Americans, all of whom were horrified at the overt and horrifying racism on the island. They all congratulated themselves on how advanced they were; not much. Because there's just some standards that one should not slip below, and promoting a standard where women should be grateful just to not get beaten or murdered is far below that one.

During story on education, Faux News mispelled education
Oh, for fuck's sake already.

Goddam
One of the little fucking kids in this neighborhood stole my goddam door key.

No more little fucking kids in this house. I don't believe it's malicious----well, except in the case of the little girl who tried to start the fire-----but t hat's it. I have put off getting the house rekeyed but this is it.

I am so fucking sick of everybody in the whole fucking world right now.

Manbeast? Manbeast?! Round robin!
AFter reading

crevette's tale of the Man beast, I swear I saw what looked like a realty commercial with the guy intoning, "Have you been infiltrated by the man beast?"

To which one can only respond, "No, but I bet I know what's going to be the next Sci Fi made-for-TV movie."

Holy shit.

Weather update: it's hot and sticky and I really have no ambition at all. None. Zippo. And after reading this thread, all I can think is: He stuck his purple-headed ding-dong in her creamy hoo-hoo, and it was a taste explosion.

Round Robin, everybody! Let's do a romantic novel! With zombies and werewolves!

If I hear this myth one more time, I'll actually do it
Gah, what is about twentysomething ignorami (*tm everybody) who don't do their research and who like to promote myths and shit? For fuck's sake, nobody ever burned a bra, but thanks for looking it up! It's like the myth of war protesters spitting on the soldiers returning from Viet Nam---never mind that soldiers were heavily involved in the anti-war movement and were seen as potential allies. And never mind how the conservatives of the day---sometimes conservative soldiers or ex soldiers themselves---regarded the rebellious soldiers and hippies as traitors. Hm, logically, then who do you think would be doing the spitting? Say it isn't so! Could the same wingnuts who lie about everything, be lying again?

The myth of the bra burning is like the myth of Hillary Clinton crying, or how PUMA members are all old bitter women with dried-up pussies who are just going to vote for McCain out of spite, or how the flap over the New Yorker cover was not manufactured by the Obama campaign to hide yet another sexist gaffe on Obama's part. "I'm just messing with you, man," indeed.

The bra burning myth has been debunked repeatedly, but it's interesting how and what people cling to it, isn't it? In fact, women protested the Miss America contest, which even then was the patriarchy in high heels and with buttloads of hairspray. They took a bunch of padded bras and tossed them in a garbage can, then crowned a sheep Miss America.

Hillary Clinton didn't cry, either. She got choked up talking about her country. Oh, wait, I forget. That just couldn't happen. She doesn't love her country. (Obama does, though!) According to common knowledge, she's a bitch from hell who cynically wants only power so she can eat babies and emasculate some more men by reminding them of castrating bitches who force their husbands to do dishes and then have affairs. Because they're so unattractive and evil, like Hillary.

So my proposal is this: Let's get together and burn some and make smores over the irritating motherfuckers. It'll probably require gas because they're made up of unnatural fibers. Hell, they might even melt. Still, at long last the myth will become true. Maybe we can all write Hillary and persuade her to cry. Making Obama give a fuck about women is going to be a much more difficult task, so I suggest we stick to the stuff we can set fire to. Any other things you want to toss on the bonfire?