2004 Posts

 12/13/2004
PESTS AND PETS

I’m not crazy about pets.  There, I said it. Maybe it was just that I was raised not having pets of my own, maybe it’s the fact that where I come from, the main reason for getting a dog is so it’ll bark when there are strangers around your property. But the fact remains that some people shouldn’t have pets.

We have a dog, a cat, and a lizard.  We used to have a bunny, but it died of starvation. The cat is Ms. Perfect’s…so was the bunny. The lizard belongs to the youngest.  The dog is everybody’s pet. If it were up to me, I’d say get rid of the cat and the lizard. I can state at least 2 reasons for thinking that way.  One is, their owners can hardly spare the time to take care of their needs.  Two, the money spent on them can be spent on other more pressing stuff, like bills.

So, why do I say their owners can’t take care of their needs?  Don’t get me wrong, they have time, they just don’t pay attention. The boy has to walk by the lizard’s terrarium everyday at least twice, and it beats me why he can’t remember to clean out his excrements or feed him or give him water everyday. The thing is undersized, needless to say. Of course any living thing that’s nourished maybe 30% of the time can’t possibly reach its full potential. As for the cat, all his stuff is in the laundry room, but considering that a cat doesn’t need to be taken out to do its business, there isn’t a lot of demand for attention. All that needs to be done is feeding and an occasional litter change.  Of course that doesn’t happen regularly either. Most times the cat drags clothes from the laundry room floor into the litterbox to cover his mess. Naturally that means that there are clothes that smell like cat pee. I don’t need to tell you that that just smells really disgusting.

And just lately, Ms. Perfect was bugging her dad for another dog.  Hello?  First off, this dog we have is not even 3 years old and she’s very demanding.  Secondly, her cat is getting neglected by her, and most of the time, her dad takes care of the litter box (usually after the cat has dragged some of his stuff into the box). And she wants a dog???  I don’t think she has any idea what she’s asking for. We all know that some other people are going to end up having to care for her dog. We know that she won’t have the dog sleep in her room because it might eat off of the dirty dishes and food she leaves laying around on her bedroom floor. We all know that she’s not about to give up part of her social life to pay more attention to the dog.  We all know she’s ditzy and she’ll get tired of the dog sooner or later.  Just like the cat, there will come a time when it will like someone else better because this someone else pays more attention. The cat now usually attacks her. I’m not surprised. I would attack her if I were her cat.  And she wants a dog…when she can’t even take care of a not-too-demanding cat.  That’s just a pile of horse manure.

I think there is a concept from the movie 28 Days that should be explored. One of the rehab residents asked how long he should wait after he is discharged to get into a relationship.  The guy in charge said something like “Get a plant. If it is still alive after a year, get a pet. If the pet is still alive after a year, then you’re ready.”  I think that should be done here. Let her take care of a plant, and I don’t mean cactus or some other thing that requires minimal care.  Maybe some flowering plant she can keep in her room. And if it’s still alive after a year (which I highly doubt) she can keep her cat.  And if she has 2 different plants with very different needs, and they both stay alive for a year, then maybe she’s ready for a dog.

Also her dad pointed out that the cat will most likely be left with him after she goes off to college. She hopes to be allowed to bring it (highly doubtful) or if not, it can stay with her mom. Of course, most likely, the mom has no idea she might have the cat.  And I don’t really see it happening.  We’ll see.  If it were up to me, this cat would be in a more suitable home…where the owner actually takes care of it.

If I were to choose a pet, it would probably be a fish in a not-so-big container.  Feed, change water, ignore. No petting, no taking out, no fear of getting pricked by spines on its skin, no nothing.  But I still would rather not have a fish.  I do well without the responsibility of having a pet. I can tolerate all the pets we have here.  The bunny’s gone but I still think we have 2 too many.  The lizard’s cage/terrarium is taking up precious space which can be used for storage or display.  The cat sheds all over and it’s hell getting all the fur off of clothes.  The cat’s owner has asthma and she probably is breathing in some cat dander.  I know I start sniffling and sneezing after the cat’s been on the bed. So it just can’t be good for her.  Of course, talking anyone into giving the cat away is out of the question.  The only way the cat is leaving is if it’s on its way to be cremated when it dies.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Ms. Perfect also wishes we lived out in the country so she can perhaps have a horse!  Gee, you think you’ll have time for a damn horse? There’s grooming, there’s feeding, there’s walking…and I don’t think she’s seen the size of its waste.  Who on earth is going to clean up after it? I bet she again expects other people to step in. Now there’s a responsible animal owner for you.  Get a clue! You can’t take care of a cat, what makes you think you might be able take care of a damn horse? I swear she’s the most clueless person I’ve ever met.

I know what will shut her up about getting another pet.  If her dad tells her she can get another pet only if she takes all the dirty dishes out of her room once she’s done with them, keep her clothes in the closet, keep her room all clean and organized and make sure their PC is spyware- and virus-free, I bet she’ll just say “screw it”. She has so many things she needs to do that she just wouldn’t make time for…and she thinks she wants another pet.  Someone please knock on her skull and ask if common sense is somewhere in there, because I can’t see it through the windows.

Another pet MY ASS!
 
 
 12/13/2004
LETHAL COMBINATION

This here is about something I love and something I’ve come to dislike, and why they shouldn’t mix.  Internet and kids; and it’s the internet that I love, make no mistake about it. I’ll whap anyone who thinks it’s the other way around. Oh, and when I say kids I don’t mean 3- to 10-year old ones. I mean 11- to maybe 20-year old ones.  And also, do exclude the geeks (I love geeks…I think I’m one) who actually have some idea about how to deal with the dangers of going online.

Personally, I don’t think kids should be allowed on the computer if it has internet access.  I wouldn’t say I think they should be supervised, because I wouldn’t want to be the one assigned to the boring task. I think every kid needs to go to some class, like The Internet and Privacy Protection 101, before they can even go online. I think if they’re going online, they should be well aware of what to watch out for.  If there were such a class somewhere, I’d gladly pay for my stepkids to attend so I won’t have to try to clean their PC for 2-3 hours each time.  Well, perhaps I should give such a class, because I’m sure there are other kids (and adults) who just don’t know what they’re letting strangers access simply by going online unprotected.

Before I go on ranting, here are the necessities, and I don’t mean choose one. I mean get all, or at least all of the free ones if you don’t want to pay for anything. Never go online without a firewall; ZoneAlarm is a very dependable one and it’s available at ZoneLabs.  They have a registered version and a free version.  As with most things, naturally the registered version has better features than the free one but the free one is good too. Also, everytime they update, you have the choice of sticking with the free one or trying out the Pro trial for 15 days. If you choose to try the Pro version (I do recommend it, even if only to use the cache cleaner) you can revert to the free version after the 15 days expire.  I have my computer in stealth mode all the time, that’s the highest security level and you are well-hidden. You get significantly fewer invasion attempts from somewhere else that way.

As for AntiVirus, there are a lot of people who will swear by Norton.  That’s fine.  As for my experience, there was one time when I had my hubby run a scan using AVG Free Edition after he’d run Norton.  Guess what, it caught something that Norton overlooked.  Now, considering that AVG is free and Norton is not, I’d say stick to AVG.  AVG is made by Grisoft.  Again, there’s a free version and a professional version, but the free is good enough.  Their newest version (AVG 7.0) is much better than the older ones (AVG 6) and they’re discontinuing support or updates for the older one by the end of this year. So if you have the older version, it’s time to switch over.

Space Odyssey should get back those megs or gigs that you badly need for other more important stuff. What it does is it takes out most of the crap you have on your PC.  It’s tedious doing that on your own, folder by folder, plus there’s a lot of stuff that you just can’t see even if you have your folders showing hidden files. So this takes care of that for you.  Just do the express clean, select all (or not, if you see something in the list that you want to keep), check, then eliminate. The author of the program apparently doesn’t have the site anymore, so therefore there is no more support for it, but it’s still a nice thing to have.  You can still get it free here.  I’m probably going to try other disk cleaners, and find something safe and effective for Windows XP.

I use 2 free and 2 pro spyware cleaners. I probably don’t need all of them but I don’t see the harm in making sure that nothing is missed.  The free ones are Spybot Search & Destroy made by Patrick Kolla and Ad-Aware SE from Lavasoft.  Spybot S&D is totally free, although you can donate some money to the author if you feel like it. Ad-Aware, I think has a pro version, but again the free version works well enough. Most people don’t realize it but sometimes all these adware/malware/spyware that get installed in their computers are acquired by simply going to some websites, or by installing some programs (mostly freeware) and ironically, by installing some programs that claim to get rid of spyware in your PC.  Yes, there are those fake cleaners…maybe they do clean some spyware, but at the same time they install more.  So that’s not really helping anything or anybody. My advice, if you see ads on the web for spyware cleaners, don’t go to their homepages because they’re naturally going to have nothing bad to say about the software. Go look for reviews elsewhere; maybe Google the software name and the word “review”. I bet you’ll come up with some other sites telling people to stay away from these things as they are fakes.  I use only those that are tried and tested.

The 2 other spyware cleaners I use are not free. One is PestPatrol from here.  Actually I got mine for free. ZoneLabs once sent me an offer (back when I had ZoneAlarm Pro) to get PestPatrol and get full (mail-in) rebate for it. So I jumped on the offer.  But it’s worth the money if you buy it. I bought another license and installed it on my father-in-law’s computer, which I use for doing the payroll. Sometimes the free spyware cleaners I have miss one or two items, and PestPatrol takes care of that.  Usually though, PestPatrol catches nothing after I’ve run the other 2 before it. Like I said earlier, I probably don’t need all these at the same time but it makes me feel good to have them anyway.  The last spyware cleaner I have, I’m still using on trial (30 days) but intend to buy later on. It’s called SpySweeper from Webroot.  It takes care of spyware and also traces left after the other spyware cleaners are done with their jobs. The traces might or might not be harmful, I don’t really know, but it still feels good knowing they’re gone.  PC Magazine has raved time and again about SpySweeper and they do have reason to do that.

Another (not free) product from Webroot that I’m trying out for 30 days is called Window Washer and it’s supposed to clean out the Internet Explorer cache and other useless stuff.  It seems to be working great, too.  I’m thinking whether I should get it or not.  What’s stopping me from getting this, SpySweeper and ZoneAlarm is the fact that they’re not asking for a one-time payment. Instead, it’s a yearly subscription allowing customers to get free updates for a year after which they will need to renew.  I would happily do a one-time payment, I’m not so keen on getting a yearly subscription. But we’ll see.

Lastly, I don’t use Internet Explorer. I use Opera from Opera.com and SlimBrowser from FlashPeak.  I would prefer to use Opera all the time but sadly a number of sites just don’t display correctly in Opera. Opera, being entirely different from IE, is not subject to attacks directed at IE and its security flaws.  Also, Opera allows you to open multiple sites in one Opera window so you don’t have all these browser windows on your taskbar.  It can be annoying when you’re in half a dozen sites and you can’t make out the names anymore because all these windows are cramped in your taskbar…and you don’t feel like moving the taskbar up a bit to give them more space.  So for those websites that won’t display correctly in Opera, I use SlimBrowser. SlimBrowser is dependent on IE, meaning you have to have IE to run it.  Thus, I am guessing it probably almost as vulnerable as IE, although if you look at their homepage, you will see a lot of features that IE doesn’t have.  And like Opera, you can browse many sites in one SlimBrowser window.  I find that really useful because I love multitasking and at any given time, there are an average of 4 or 5 programs on my taskbar. If I have Outlook, Paintshop Pro and 2 folders open, and I’m browsing 6 sites, I’m just looking at 5 items on my taskbar instead of 10.

MOST importantly, all the protection you can get won’t work as well as they should if you don’t regularly update them. Most of them have automatic updates as an option, some of them you have to update when you remember to do it.  Also, besides ZoneAlarm and AVG, the others don’t normally start up with Windows.  I think some of them have the option of doing that, and some you have to run every now and then to scan for malicious stuff. Basically, I do scans maybe once a week, although if there are multiple users and some are not that computer-savvy, I would suggest maybe twice a week just to cut down on potential damage.

Okay, now that I’m done enumerating what I do to protect my computer, I’ll go on and rant. And just in case you’ve forgotten what this is about, it’s about why I don’t think kids should be on the Internet. The basic fact is this: KIDS DON’T CARE!  Oh, sure, they do…they care about being able to play/download games, play/download music and videos, chatting with their friends, and if they’re older, getting all the free porn they can. A popup window comes up saying “You need to install this to run that”, they just automatically click Yes most of the time, without thinking about the effects of their impulsive action. It’s like, OK, OK, yes already, just let me at that game NOW.  They don’t care…they don’t care to read what that software they’re installing is, they don’t care to read whether the default homepage of the browser is going to be changed, and they probably won’t care to read it if it said that every keystroke from now on will be monitored so they can get passwords and such.

I’ve cleaned the kids’ PC maybe 3 times so far…why am I ranting about this just now? I’m ranting because we got a letter from our ISP saying that someone in this household just violated copyright laws by downloading some movie through Kazaa. It stated there the username in Kazaa and the file in question.  And it’s Ms. Perfect from my previous rant.  She’d been told time and time again, don’t use Kazaa…”well, I’m using Kazaa Lite now, it has no spyware”. SURE!  Maybe she’s right, but they’re not exactly careful where they go online and they just pick up spyware elsewhere. And guess what…someone somewhere found out she downloaded something she shouldn’t have downloaded…how do you suppose that happened? And she thought she was safe with Kazaa Lite because (I think) her mom uses it too. Give me a break! Kazaa is “hot” now and users all over are being tracked down and sued. And the music and movie industries don’t really mind suing and fining minors.  If they take her to court, who do you think is going to have to pay the fine? Her dad. And of course, if they’re going to sequester the kids’ computer, what’s to stop them from sequestering the other computers in the house? Plus, what if our ISP decides to stop providing service to us? If my computer is taken away from me, or if we lose cable internet service, someone is going to get strangled with a USB cord, I swear.

It wouldn’t be so bad, not being careful where they go online, IF they remember to update and run the stuff I installed on their PC for their protection.  But guess what, they don’t update the things. What good is it, running them, when their databases are out-of-date?  You’re not going to catch the new virus or spyware that way.  You’re not safe at all, and all those programs are virtually useless.  They only get updated when I go and clean up their computer messes.  It takes me so long to clean everything…most of the time there’s a handful of trojans, about 40 registry entries, hundreds of cookies, and half a dozen malicious installed software. And everytime I clean the PC, I give their dad the totals of what I got out of the system.  The last time was last week, and this is the result of my labors: Ad-Aware took out 19 registry keys, 32 registry values, 91 files (cookies, software, etc); AVG caught 4 trojans; Spybot S&D got rid of 14 more files, mostly cookies; SpySweeper removed 66 items and 272 traces.  There were a couple of fake spyware scanners, a couple of IE toolbars, a couple of web optimizers, some files that have something to do with “bargains” and something that was labeled as a transponder.  I just looked it up and this is what I found: “Transponder is an IE Browser Helper Object. It monitors web pages requested and data entered into forms, sends this information to its home server, and opens pop-up advertisement windows. It also has the capability to update itself and install other software.” I don’t know about you, but I find it scary that it can update itself and install other software.

I can understand how my hubby doesn’t want to share his computer with them.  They tend to screw things up for him. And I wouldn’t suggest he take away their PC and share his so he knows what they’re getting into.  I wouldn’t want to give him any reason to tell me to share my PC too. I alone use this one, and that is why I’ve stayed as safe as possible. I know what things to avoid, I know where not to go, I know which programs to run every now and then to make sure I am not letting hackers and other strangers see the stuff they’re not supposed to see.  Still I don’t think they should have their own.  Or maybe if they keep their own PC, they should have it out here with the other 2 so in case I’m looking over and one of them is just about to click Yes to some untested download in a popup window, I can whap him/her and tell him/her to think or ask first.  No, I don’t whap them for real…in my mind I’ve delivered thousands of whaps.

That last time I cleaned their PC, I uninstalled Kazaa and Kazaa Lite which she was supposed to remove right after she was told about the letter. I don’t care if it’s not running at the moment…she was told to uninstall.  Keeping it closed and uninstalling it are 2 different things.  I took them out.  Then I went looking for the “hot” file, which she was supposed to remove from the PC too.  She claimed she wanted the song, not the movie. If that was so, how come she didn’t delete the movie upon finding out it’s a movie? It was there, and I got rid of it. Like her dad said, the mere fact that it was taking much longer to download it should’ve been a red light…it’s not just a song.  There’s a considerable difference in file sizes there. A typical MP3 file would be around 3 to 6 megabytes for a standard length song at 128kbps.  If something is bigger than 100 megs, it must be a whole damn album or a different file type.

Sidebar: while I was looking for that folder with her downloads so I can get rid of the offending movie, I saw the folder that had the user names for AIM.  I don’t know who among her friends get to use that computer but someone apparently logs on as givinheadgirl10 or something like that.  Now, she and her friends are all around 15 or 16 years of age. I don’t think it’s sending a good message, logging onto AIM with such a name.  That’s like screaming “I’m a slutty teenager, screw me!” at a crowded party. What the heck? Are you trying to invite pedophiles and other pervs to contact you? If it’s her, then she’s obviously clueless about the implications of such a user name. If it’s one of her friends, whoever it is is just as clueless and should just go and screw up their own computers at home and not bother to bring trouble to the one here.  If they don’t have computers at home…well, I think that should be a relief for their parents.

A lot of times I have half the mind to just say “To hell with it, I’m not cleaning that PC anymore”, but it just eats at me, knowing there is a computer in the house that’s full of the crap that otherwise bright people create to make going online less fun for everyone.  It’s like doing the dishes, it’s a thankless job. No matter how fast you do it or how well you do it, you know sometime soon you’re going to have to do it all over again and it’s not going to go better than the previous times.

The eldest stepkid now stays at his grandparents’ house and used (yes, past tense) the computer there. His staying over there coincided with the appearance of a trojan virus.  I didn’t have to wonder where that came from. Mom doesn’t use the computer and Dad does only to do business…I use it for the payroll.  So, none of us 3 would’ve downloaded that from somewhere.  Dad knows not to open emails from unknown sources.  Heck, he even deletes those from ZoneLabs sometimes. At the time that that virus appeared, or rather, at the time I found it (since I use that PC maybe twice a month) IE was not set to keep any history at all.  But I wanted to know what was going on so I set it to keep history for 14 days.  That way I can check things out everytime I do the payroll. One time when I turned the PC on to do the payroll, I noticed that the icon for Windows Media Player was different.  It used to be this round and colorful thing, and it had become on of those rectangular icons that usually tell you that the program the shortcut is for has changed or been removed. So a red light came on in my head and I heard sirens, LOL. I told Dad I’m going to run tests before I start working, because something was definitely wrong.

First thing I did was to check the IE history. I was used to the stepkid being a hypochondriac and I’ve seen entries like sites on MS and some other neurological diseases that he visited. This time was different though, there must have been about 30-40 PORN sites listed in the history. And without mentioning the names, I’ll say that some of them are pretty sick. Dad had a popup blocker installed and I could block those sites, but it meant visiting them one by one so I can block them.  And I knew better than to do that.  Any one of them could’ve changed Windows Media Player, why risk doing more damage?  If you’re wondering why I haven’t recommended the popup blocker at the start, it’s because I found that if you are too quick to click, you just might block stuff you didn’t mean to block. I once accidentally blocked My Documents so everytime I tried opening it, it closed on its own.  I don’t want to be blamed for anyone having such a problem, and it can be a problem when you have to go through so many other blocked sites on the list to find out where you messed up.  So I didn’t block them.

I ran all the tests, got rid of a virus, a great number of cookies and registry entries, and a few files and folders.  However, the Windows Media Player stayed screwed up. I went to the folder where the exe file was, found wmplayer.exe, and thought it was too damn small to be the right thing. I did try to open it.  It didn’t open a Windows Media Player window; instead it opened an IE window and proceeded to load a porn site. I didn’t stay long enough to find out which one it was.  One look at that little box on the upper right, below the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons did it for me. I had to delete that folder, go into the registry and delete all entries pertaining to the media player, and download and reinstall Windows Media Player again. That wasn’t fun.

Now, I knew that this particular stepkid is Dad’s favorite grandkid. I also know that my hubby had a hard time sometimes telling Dad about this kid’s latest mess, because Dad tends to defend him. So I thought if I was going to tell him what happened, I had better be well-armed.  I didn’t think he’d blow up in my face; he usually only does that with my hubby, and he’s usually very nice to me. Nonetheless, I thought I had to show him just how grave this thing was. So I printed out an article that said that 98% of porn sites have one or more spyware running on their sites.  I also printed out an article about what spyware can do. And then I included a screenshot of the IE history with me labeling which sites are porn…although that was totally unnecessary for most of them.  Well, I got no rebuttal, no violent reactions, no denials. Then the next time I was over there, he asked me to put a password on the PC.  With Windows XP, there is a way to do that after Windows has loaded.  I have this PC done that way, not that I think anyone would try to use this…and I set it so the screensaver has a password too. Dad’s PC runs Windows ME, so I just made a password on power on. So if someone turns the PC on, the first thing to be done is to type in the password, even before Windows can load.  I guess what I showed him got to him, and he knew if nothing was done, I was probably going to have another tiff with the kid sometime and that’s not good. We already hate each other, but I’m pretty sure we can hate each other some more.

I’m guessing the kid got on the computer once since then, and it’s probably after Dad left it on or something. At least that’s what I’m guessing from the IE history.  Just one porn site and no spyware or anything big.  After that, when I went to do the payroll again, I found that someone’s already powered on the PC…I’m guessing that was him because it was still on the Power On Password screen. He probably tried to type in all the passwords he could think of and got nowhere. Good.  These kids have been told time and again that that is a business PC, and for some reason that’s just not getting through to them. Just in case one of them manages to get on that PC, I still run the tests when I’m over there. Nothing wrong with making sure everything’s fine.

In this day and age, one would think kids would be more aware of the cons of the Internet. But I guess it’s easy to forget all about the bad things when you’re having or looking for fun. I don’t get it though, because I would think they’d want to keep themselves safe. Or maybe kids have changed that much over the years. I just thought if there’s something or someone that they cared about, it would be themselves.  I don’t clean up their mess because I care about them, though.  I do it because I care about my hubby and me. I don’t want the kids screwing up enough that it’s going to affect us as well.  I don’t really care if something happens to them after they screw up; I think that just might teach them a lesson…”might”. But if there’s any chance of my husband or me getting sucked into their troubles, then I guess I should step in and do something about it.

I have to thank an ex-BF for the info on online safety.  He was a lousy BF but he sure knew a lot of useful stuff. He made me aware of all the dangers lurking on the web. And I guess I have to thank myself for loving to tinker with stuff. Back in the Stone Age when we were using Windows 95, I went into every folder there was on the hard drive, and I learned to delete all the stuff in the Temporary Internet Files folder, because back then, Windows didn’t try to hide them. This might also be the first time my parents will learn that I had to reinstall Windows half a dozen times at least when my tinkering resulted in something tragic…not that anyone could notice after Windows had been reinstalled.  Sometimes though it’s a curse knowing all this.  You know at least this much, and everything just sucks on your brain all the time.
 
 
 11/17/2004
THE $50 SWEATSHIRT

This rant is going to be pretty obvious, as far as who it’s about, but right now I don’t care. But just so there is no reason for anyone to go ballistic on me I’m not putting the person’s name in here; we’ll just call this Ms. Perfect.

Here’s the thing.  I do think people should indulge sometimes, buy something special once in a while.  However, there is also this thing about living within your means.  If your dad is earning $3200 a month and there’s a home loan to be paid, some belts need to be tightened. A $50 sweatshirt should be automatically out of the question.

What is so special about this sweatshirt?  Nothing.  Okay, fine, a team logo, a high school team logo to be exact, not NBA, NFL or anything big like that.  And just why did she have to have this, considering she just bought something like it a few months ago and it still fits perfectly? Because her friends have the same sweatshirt and she NEEDS to fit in.  When asked by her dad if it’s at all possible for her to buy sweatshirts in the future that are not through the school or this city so it will cost less, her answer was no.  She didn’t want something that “a million other people” have and she wants one with the team logo.  I’m sorry but that doesn’t quite strike me as reasonable. Actually, I take that back, I’m not sorry…it’s just plain unreasonable bordering on really stupid.

What the hell is it about having the same things your friends have?  And man, the inconsistency of it…she buys a cell phone model because none of her friends have it and it’s cool to be different. And then she wants the same sweatshirt that everyone is wearing. And $50??? I could get a whole bunch of stuff with $50, I can’t imagine spending $50 on one item except maybe if it’s computer-related, like software or a memory card for my digicams.  In the right stores, $50 could go a long way but of course she is not about to go to the stores I go to.

It’s really getting tiring, all this crap she’s giving her dad about stuff she wants that she thinks he should pay for.  As far as I know he’s responsible for the necessities.  A $50 sweatshirt is not a necessity, neither is spending $20 at least on every friend’s or acquaintance’s birthday gifts, neither is a halloween costume.  For some reason she thinks he should shoulder the expenses when she wouldn’t even consider going to places where these same items would be a lot cheaper. Screw that!  She wants it, she can buy it. She should get her head out of the clouds and see the reality of budget being tight. She’s not the queen or some deity, nobody deserves to be expected to follow her every whim.  And she’s too damn far from perfect to be rewarded with these things.

The problem is Ms. Perfect thinks she’s just that…perfect. “Why did I have to have siblings”, she asks. Hell, you’re not even the firstborn, so don’t even freaking go there! And imagine her being the only child, her head would be so far up her ass it’s never going to come out no matter what.  She thinks she’s so cool, and she tends to look down on people who are not in the same clique. You know the type of clique I’m talking about, the uppity girls who talk of nothing but shopping, makeup, trends and probably exchange tales of when they gave their boyfriends blowjobs and how they think it’s not considered sex.  That’s not cool, that’s superficial, that’s shallow, that’s meaningless…and a total waste of time. She thinks she’s so smart because she’s an honor student.  I hate to say this but the American school system is so lax. I’ve seen far smarter kids back home who get average grades. She wouldn’t live a day in a Philippine private school…I don’t know about public schools, I never went to one.

There’s this attitude that she can live without, really. And the sad thing is I don’t see it going away real soon.  She talks of living with her mom once her mom moves back to this state, and probably this neighborhood.  A lot of times now I think that’s a good thing. Go find someone else to bug and don’t expect your dad to come running anymore when you call, you spoiled brat.  Let your mom know finally just how horrible it is to be around you. Let’s see if she sees you the same way after a year or so. Hopefully this will teach you to be grateful for all the things your dad did for you or allowed that your mom just won’t say yes to.

Oh, and then of course she still stacks up dirty dishes in her room, and spills food on her mattress too.  I’ve never seen a more slovenly person in my life. The word “icky”, if it’s in a dictionary, should come with a picture of her room.  So anyway, her dad tells her that he’d brought out these dirty dishes and that she should keep it up. Flashback to several months ago, when she said she’d do the laundry and the dishes for extra money. To make a long story short, she wasn’t willing to give up part of her social life to keep either up, so after a short while no one was doing them. It’s not like she did them regularly either, or that she did them satisfactorily. The dishwasher can only do so much, you still should scrub stuff that’s stuck to the dishes before popping them in the machine.  And that goes especially for those dishes she kept in her room forever.

So anyway, her dad says to her, it’s unfair to me to be just done doing one load and come back to the kitchen to find the sink full of stuff from her room.  And then Ms. Perfect puts on this “unappreciated slave” thing, like “you seem to care more about stuff piling up in the sink now that Anna’s doing the dishes than when I did it”.  Let me point out the obvious differences. I do the dishes regularly. I find stuff in the sink, I wash them out with soap, I put them in the dishwasher, and the sink is empty again. I do this until there’s enough to run a full load, and I put the dishes away in their proper places right after the load is done.  There is never anything piling up in the sink unless she just brought out stuff from her room. That’s the first difference. The second one is, I probably use the least number of dishes and utensils in this house and I don’t let them pile up elsewhere before bringing them to the sink.  I wash them out with soap, a scrubbing pad and feel the dishes with my hands to make sure there’s no food stuff left.  Ms. Perfect on the other hand, insists on wearing these gloves and “washing” them out with a brush. I’m not saying the brush is ineffective. I’m saying she’s not putting enough energy in cleaning with the brush because stuff still gets left on the dishes.  And if it’s bubblegum or yogurt or some other sticky stuff that’s been stuck on the plate for a week, common sense will tell anyone that more effort has to be put in scrubbing.

So, really, that short stint of her doing the dishes was mostly her cleaning her own mess up.  No one is worse than her in that department, and there’s no one else to blame for the piling up of dishes since about half of it has to be hers.  Her dad got the impression that she had this “well, someone did it to me before, so I’m doing it to them now” mentality, which was totally unfair because I never use so many things and I always clean them afterwards.  I wash them with soap, they’re practically ready to be eaten out of again.  She can’t possibly say that about the stuff she uses. So there! Heck, I’m not even asking her to rinse the things out anymore. I would just rather think she’s too dumb to figure out a way to make time (like a couple minutes a day) to bring dishes out of her room everyday.  That way I don’t get pissed off.

Anyway, I never did think she was smart to begin with. And everyday that I live in the same house just strengthens that belief. Maybe if she restructured her list of priorities and she got her head out of her ass so she’s not this pompous bitch who needs to get everything trendy even if it is beyond the family budget, I might think about changing my mind about how dumb she is.
 
 
 11/07/2004
OF THINGS REMEMBERED

Just in case 1) someone decides I need a lobotomy, 2) I get injured and have amnesia, 3) I grow old and my mind quits on me, 4) I grow old, my mind still works but the rest of me quits, 5) whatever other reason there might be…I thought I should start writing down things I remember from way back, while I still remember them.  So here goes…

I remember…

- in nursery (one level below kindergarten), learning to write my name on yellow legal pad.

- as a kid, looking forward to sometime between my birthday and Christmas, when my grandpa and grandma (mom’s parents) took me to the bookstore to buy whatever I wanted.

- as a kid, going to the movies to see local slapstick comedies with my grandparents.

- on my first day in kindergarten, upon getting to school, thinking that telling my grandma I have a toothache will save me from having to go to my classroom.

- in kindergarten, my grandma taking me everyday to this bakery to pick out snacks for recess.

- in kindergarten, getting bonked on the head by a classmate after I refused to share my snacks.

- in kindergarten, with 4 other classmates, pretending to be Voltes V, each of us a different part of the robot.

- seeing The Rescuers in an open-air theater.

- in prep (one level above kindergarten, before 1st grade), the kids in my class not talking with me because I spoke only English and they of course spoke Tagalog…they thought I came from the US.

- trying to get into the new school for prep, being too shy to recite the alphabet without my dad in the room.

- my dad bathing me and making sure I know my parents’ names, my address, my grandparents’ address and phone number.

- one of my uncles recording the audio of  soap opera on a cassette tape and narrating what people are doing at the same time, so my grandma (who was in church) won’t totally miss an episode of her beloved soap.

- my grandpa doing a wiggly butt dance on request.

- my grandpa trying to teach me how to swim, letting me pinch my nose and duck my head underwater…but I only dipped my nose in the water and not for more than a minute.

- the first Kris Kringle gift I remember getting was in 3rd grade, a Peter Pan game board.

- doodling on a blackboard with my sister, chalk in one hand and sandwich in the other…and my grandma telling me I just bit off part of the chalk…oops, wrong hand!

- waking up to the smell of bacon, mostly while in grade school.

- buying my first Barbie doll with my own Christmas money…although my parents did chip in for the one set of clothes for my Barbie.

- in 1st grade, making a classmate cry after scolding her for kicking my Thermos and breaking the glass inside.

- in 1st grade, my sister in kindergarten appearing outside my classroom to tell me of a classmate who was giving her a hard time.

- having recurrent dreams about falling down the stairs in my grandparents’ house for the longest time, only to find out later that my dad fell down the stairs at a mall while carrying me when I was really young…therefore I think that’s where the dreams came from…and the fear of stairs too.

- having black-and-white dreams…of dancing with flowers that have feet on a stage…of falling through what seemed like sheet after sheet of tissue paper or really thin cotton candy.

- being appointed class vice-president by the adviser, in 2nd grade…listing the “noisy girls” on the blackboard while the teacher is out.

- in 3rd grade, learning the multiplication table really quickly out of sheer terror…my teacher Ms. Sarmiento had really long fingernails and she liked poking the heads of the students who can’t give her the right answers.

- my “best friend” in 3rd grade saying we’re not best friends anymore…she asked me to nominate her as PR officer of the class, I did…but she lost because I was the only one who voted for her.

- discovering in 3rd grade that I’m afraid of heights after being on top of the ferris wheel just once.

- being the passenger of one of my uncles when he clipped the gate backing into the driveway.

- our first maid, Luisa, and how my sister always cried when my mom left for work…she always got spanked by Luisa.

- Luisa pronounced “milk” like “melk”.

- my grandpa always singing along everytime the Star-spangled Banner is sang or played on TV.

- laughing as softly as possible with my sister when we spent nights at my grandparents’…we were on a mat on the floor with my grandma and my grandpa slept on this big wooden (no mattress) bed next to the mat…my grandpa snored and each time he did, we laughed.

- my sister falling asleep while chewing her food…lunch at home…at the table…sitting up…go figure, LOL.

- my sister punching my loose tooth out…maybe 2nd grade.

- my sister still sleeping in a crib, getting hold of a pair of scissors and cutting her bangs…she must’ve been in kindergarten.

- sitting in on my sister’s nursery class…playing with their toys, sharing their snack, using the playground…in my panties.

- from 4th to 6th grade, having fist fights with and throwing stones at a boy who lived 2 doors down…I had a big crush on his older brother who was really nice…my nemesis later turned out to be gay.

- my sister eating tomatoes right off the plant outside our living room window.

- our house getting extended, and the carpenter who pronounced “thirty” like “tarty”.

- after my 2 other sisters were born, resenting it that the Christmas money had to be divided in 4 instead of 2.

- getting a minor electric shock while plugging the TV in…damp fingers from licking chocolate off of them…bare feet on marble…maybe a finger touching the metal part…whatever it was, it kept me away from electrical outlets for at least a year.

- my grandpa “battling” a feisty rat in the kitchen…rat was the size of a small cat.

- maids quitting because I was a mean little brat.

- yelling at an uncle because I didn’t want to go to bed until my grandma came home…I think I threw a Barbie doll at him one time.

- the same uncle taking off with a friend to trek up the mountain visible from our big arched window in the living room…and him coming back with one of the knees of his jeans ripped after he fell.

- a bird pooped on my head on my graduation day, after 6th grade.

- my grandpa buying up all the raffle tickets I’m supposed to sell for my school.

- freshman year in high school, there were so many small people in my class we decided to be known as the “bonsai family”.

- in 1987, on my youngest sister’s 1st birthday, my right knee got dislocated for the first time.

- the second time my knee got dislocated, in 1989 or 1990, I actually saw the dislocation…the horror at the sight was greater than the pain.

- sophomore year in high school, getting dumped by my “friend” because I was too quiet.

- still 2nd year HS, having a crush on my classmate (Catholic, all-girls, private school) because she was smart, artistic, humble…and she looked like a boy.

- the first gift I ever got from a boyfriend: a fuchsia Garfield trinket box.

- my crush of 4 years, from 1984 to 1988, answering “secret” in every “autograph book” under “who is your crush?”…except mine, where he told me it was one of the girls who lived at the other end of the street…still boggles me why he chose to tell me.

- our next-door neighbor’s nieces spending too much time on OUR phone…it was the start of the deterioration of our “friendship”.

- at 4 or 5, developing a fear of dogs after maybe half a dozen started charging and barking at me while I was on my way home from a neighbor’s house…screamed for my dad, who carried me home.

- laundrywomen taking our laundry down to the river, all wrapped in one of the bedsheets.

- developing an unhealthy fear of emergency rooms and hospitals after one of my sisters had convulsions and was rushed to one when she was a baby…they were giving her a shot and she was crying her lungs out…I had to cry along.

My brain is aching, LOL. I’ll be back with more sometime.
 
 
 11/07/2004
LEAVE ME ALONE!

Certain people annoy me the most…it’s the kind that’s too stubborn, too ignorant and too full of themselves to accept that you are different.  In their tiny little minds, they are always right and you just have to know what they’re like and why you should be like them. Since when did it become wrong to be different?

And for the most part these people have the tendency to really love to discuss religion or politics. And that makes it doubly annoying to me; those are the two things I’d rather not discuss because I think they’re overrated and they get way more attention than they deserve.  I don’t care much for either and that’s that.

I have seen people go ballistic upon finding out that others have a different religion or no religion at all.  Sadly, these people tend to be “Christian”. I’m sorry but it seems to me very “unChristian” to go around condemning people who are not Christian. If I remember my bible correctly, Jesus wasn’t mean to the Gentiles. Yes…I am a lapsed Catholic and therefore I do know a little bit of what’s in the bible. But that’s the last I’ll mention about that book until people can explain to me why dinosaurs are nowhere to be found in there.

Anyway, I believe that people have the right to choose their religion or choose not to have one. I totally respect someone’s right to worship the spirit that lives in the tree in their backyard…I totally respect someone who thinks of life as purely scientific, 0% supernatural.  To each his own.  I am not one to judge, except when people start acting up and as far as I know going against the very religion they try to defend and spread.

In one of the Yahoo groups I belong to, people started talking about their plans for Halloween, and of course other things popped up here and there. Someone casually mentions she’s pagan. Someone said she hasn’t been in church in years. The pagan lady said she had to delay her marriage plans because of health problems.  AND THEN…this Christian person goes “So you’re pagan, you think you’re cool?” and “There is no better time than now to go back to church” and “Maybe you had health problems because you’re pagan” and “You should spend more time in church than trick-or-treating”.  And I was thinking, WHAT THE HELL is your problem?

I just couldn’t pass that one up.  I had to say something and I said my piece as far as people having a choice and everything being fine for as long as we’re all doing good. Then I signed it, stating I’m a lapsed Catholic, currently an agnostic and a non-believer in hell and that that certain person can tell me to go to hell and it won’t bother me. Later that day, the two people that were the subject of the Christian scolding said they’d join me in the picnic in hell because apparently they’re headed that way too.

I mean, come on! In this day and age, people are so diverse, and in this country people are free to choose. What is with the “you’re different, therefore you’re doomed” thing?  No one can truly be sure they have the “right” religion or that there is even just one “right” religion.  Why should anyone feel more superior to others because they’re in the “right” one? And if the person they’re trying to emulate wasn’t mean to non-believers, why should they be?  What is considered a “sin” might differ from religion to religion, but I do know that discrimination is wrong however you look at it.

And just what makes it so necessary for people to go ranting and telling others how to live their lives, and how and who to worship?  Frankly, I think if someone’s religion is as good as they want people to think, then there won’t be any need to rant or try to convert people. If it’s so good, everyone would go that way. But some people are happy where and how they are…why ruin that?  It’s like they never heard of co-existence. Heck, there was even this person who jumped into the lion’s lair at a zoo in Taiwan to try and convert the lions into Christians. Just how far would people go, really?  And again, what is so wrong about being different?

Now, this Christian, after getting a barrage of tongue-lashing, tried to pull the “persecuted Christian” thing, asking why pagans and other non-believers are free to talk about religion and when a Christian does it he/she gets told to shut up. It just further proved my impression of “how dim the bulb” was.  DUH, the other people weren’t bashing Christians, that’s why.  It’s amazing and pathetic at the same time, how some people’s minds work…or don’t work. This person saw absolutely no difference between someone stating casually that they’re pagan and him telling the pagan she has health problems because she’s pagan and that there is no better time to “come back to the fold”. The pagan didn’t say anything about how everyone should be pagan, now did she?

I appreciate the efforts of missionaries everywhere…but I have to question why they think other people should give up their beliefs in exchange for new ones.  Why not just accept that people are different, and that all the differences make life more interesting?  I would understand why people would want to discourage cannibalism, sure…but to change their whole outlook after they and their ancestors have had the same beliefs, rituals, traditions for centuries?  That’s like erasing a whole different culture for the sake of conformity.

I just really think the world would be a much more peaceful place if everyone could accept that others have different beliefs…and not try to eradicate other religions as long as there is no harm done in the name of the god/gods of the said religions.

Politics…I don’t think there is a right or wrong party to belong to, just decent or unscrupulous politicians.  I don’t really dig the whole party thing.  And I especially don’t dig all the rambling about the negatives of one party or the other. No political discussion stays calm…at one point people just start yelling and arguing at the same time so no one’s really hearing what the other one’s saying.  I see it everyday at work and I am so sick of it.

I don’t understand how people can’t just say “oh, okay” after learning someone has a different party affiliation.  I don’t understand why they have to go and start a whole argument about what this politician did wrong, what that politician can change, why this party sucks, etc.  They are NEVER going to agree anyway, so why even start talking?  It just ruins people’s days, and sometimes it gets in the way of an otherwise nice relationship.

Here’s something that’s sort of political…why do some people feel that democracy will work for every country in the world? Why do they feel the need to go into another country and try to establish a democratic government there when the people did NOT ask for it? Don’t get me wrong, I think democracy is a good thing, but I also think it’s not for everyone.  For all we know, it might just go against other people’s cultures and religions.  Some cultures like to have kings, some prefer tribal chiefs…why go to so much trouble introducing elections and presidents and mayors?

I think there are people who need to be more exposed to life as other people know it.  I think some people need to be sent somewhere they know nothing about with just a few items of clothing, maybe not even that. They need to see how other people live, how their days are spent, what they believe in. Too many people in this country have this “We are so great, you have to be more like us” attitude that makes people elsewhere hate America. And I don’t blame the latter one bit because that attitude is pompous, shallow and groundless.  Tell me this: why should people whose ancestors came over from other countries a few centuries ago and whose culture is a mishmash of those from the countries they originally came from feel superior to people whose ancestors have lived on the same land for a longer time and whose cultures have been around for maybe a millenium? Shouldn’t it be the other way around, if it has to at all be a certain way?

It’s just strange to me how people can feel superior that way and, when you really think about it, they don’t have anything to back that “superiority”…not even their obviously bigger risk of getting skin cancer. And again, what’s so wrong about being different? Why can’t everything be on the same level? I don’t think any one culture, religion, form of government, etc is better than another.  There will always be flaws somewhere, there will always be downsides, there will always be something else out there.  And I don’t see what’s so hard to accept about that.

Okay, I think I’ve pretty much expressed my thoughts on the topic. In closing, I am a lapsed Catholic and I’m not shopping for another religion. I believe there are supernatural beings out there but I don’t know if any one of them created people.  I don’t have any thought on how life started…I want to know why the dinosaurs weren’t in the bible. I don’t believe in hell (I am leaning toward karma and reincarnation). I don’t have any party affiliation.  I think different cultures/religions make life interesting and I think they should be preserved and not erased.  I don’t expect people to agree with me, as I think people should have their own opinions. I don’t aim to change anyone’s way of thinking, just as I wouldn’t want anyone to try and change mine.

So to those who can’t just let people be themselves…to those who think everyone should go in just one direction (boring!)…I have three words for you…LEAVE ME ALONE!
 
 
 10/15/2004
BASIC RESPECT, OR SO I THOUGHT

I thought that there were things that everybody learned in kindergarten or in grade school.  I thought I wasn’t the only one who was taught that anything you borrow from someone else you have to take better care of than you do your own things.  I thought everyone was taught to return the item as soon as they’re done with it so as not to inconvenience the owner, in case he/she needs to use it too. One of the easiest ways to piss me off is to refuse to grow up and take responsibility for items borrowed from me, as I tend to be careful with my things and I pretty much keep track of what I own.

I’m going to be ranting about 2 people here, whose names I will not mention, not because I don’t want to embarrass them but because they’re minors and I’d rather not have an issue with their mom; I have enough trouble with them, I don’t need more problems.

Person #1…impression I got from other people was that she’s responsible…not what I found out.  There was this one pair of black pants she kept on borrowing from me, and I most of the time had to fish out from the dirty laundry pile to wash myself after she was done. Like, I said, I sort of expected my things to be returned to me as soon as the borrower is done, and in a condition not worse than when I lent it out.  So that in itself was a pain, but I didn’t say anything about it. And to digress, I don’t know why on earth she can’t buy herself a pair like it if she needs it so often, considering that she spends hundreds and hundreds of dollars shopping at the mall for clothes…while I browse the clearance and secondhand places for mine.  Go figure!

So, to go back to the topic, I decided the last time she borrowed it that I wasn’t going to ask for it back anymore so that I don’t have to be always thinking of this one item of clothing that’s not in its place.  That way, I thought, it’s not my problem anymore.  Owning it wasn’t worth the trouble of having to look for it everytime I wanted to use it. Well, wouldn’t you know it, one day she comes to me and asks if she could borrow it. And I told her, she hadn’t returned it.  That was the end of that.  Of course I was even less impressed with her then.  It was one thing not to give it back to me clean as soon as she was done with it.  It’s another to lose it.

Same person has lost at least 2 cell phone chargers…and together with person #2, maybe 3 or so.  Personally, I think if someone loses more than 1 charger, that person doesn’t really deserve to have a cell phone. Oh, and did I mention, person #1 once dropped a friend’s cell phone in the jacuzzi? And so…they ended up having to keep on borrowing the charger of my cell phone.  Of course, like usual, I had to go find the charger when I needed it because they don’t give it back or they keep their phones plugged in way after it’s been fully charged.  That got tiring too.  So I thought I’ll be nice and give that one to them, to share, and I got myself a new one. Given their track record I would much rather trust them with the slightly older one.  Everything went fine for a few weeks, and then…guess what?  Someone brought their charger out of the house and person #1 had to borrow mine.

Man, was I incensed. I mean, come on, I get them their own so they can stop bothering me already and so they can maybe learn to share and be more responsible.  And well, that didn’t really work.  They got theirs back in the house, with a lecture from someone else about not taking it out of the house anymore. Hopefully they learned something, but I’m really doubtful. I was so pissed I thought I’d get another charger and give it to one of them for Christmas, so there won’t be any bickering about who used it last and where. I did get another charger just today, make it my backup charger.  In case the other person who did the lecturing earlier softens up again and thinks I should let them borrow mine, then I’ll have my backup. Or in case I decide to strangle someone with the cord of my older one. Sometimes it’s just so unbelievable how dense some people can be.

Anyway, as for person #2, he’d borrowed and ruined at least 2 really fine paint brushes. I love having those really fine ones, for detail work, and one of them was a chinese brush that I loved.  Well, he needed it for his model cars.  And then he neglected to wash them off and return them to me.  I just saw them in the bathroom, caked with paint that won’t come off.  Now, I’m sure there’s some liquid out there that’s designed to deal with that, but you know what? If the paint was washed off the brushes as soon as the painting was done, then there wouldn’t have been any problem.  And if the brushes were returned to me at once, even without having been washed off first, I would’ve taken care of that and I’d still have those 2 brushes. After that I decided, no more lending paint brushes. These things cost quite a bit and I’m not willing to keep buying the fine ones only for other people to ruin them. I think that’s pretty unfair.

And there are a number of other miscellaneous things…colored pencils (found later all scattered on the bedroom floor), scotch tape, etc.  Little things, sure.  But it’s the idea…of respect for other people’s belongings. I myself hate having to borrow things because I don’t want to be an inconvenience to anyone.  And borrowing things implies a responsibility for the items borrowed.  I thought it was common sense that things borrowed are things to be taken care of and returned as soon as possible.  Well, maybe it is and they just don’t have common sense.

I don’t really think I’m asking for too much here. But then again, now that I think of it, they can’t even take care of their own stuff. And I know they spend more on their stuff because they like trendy designer stuff and I don’t. Yet, with such expensive gear, in a week those things can be seen laying on the floor getting stepped on. Really careless and really thoughtless.  I’m sorry but if I spend more than $20 on one item of clothing, that thing will be taken care of like it should and will last me a long time…probably because it’s not a fad that’s going to go out in a month.  I guess there is an underlying problem with the respect for other people’s stuff…there’s the problem of lack of respect for their own stuff. I mean, of course they treat other people’s stuff poorly, they don’t know how else to treat ANY stuff.

It’s a pity though…that they can’t see how lucky they are to have the stuff they have and just be happy with it and take care of it. They keep buying more and trendier and costlier…and they don’t seem to learn to take care of anything, no matter how expensive. I guess when you’re so used to getting stuff so easily it just doesn’t matter to you.  I would love to see person #1 and person #2 grow up and learn to value things around them, but I really, really am doubtful they will.  They just don’t have it in them…I don’t think it’ll happen even if I try to hammer it into them literally…I’d love to try but that’s a no-go.

So anyone out there reading this…basic rules of borrowing stuff:

1. Don’t keep the item longer than you need to. Be aware of when you no longer need it, then return it promptly to the owner. This tells the owner you’re a responsible borrower, and will encourage the lender to let you use their stuff again.

2. Always return the item in a condition the same as or if possible better than when you borrowed it. Again this is to impress the owner and increase the likelihood of you getting to borrow stuff again.

3. Be considerate.  If you know the owner uses it too or might want to use it soon, don’t borrow unless it’s urgent.  Don’t inconvenience people, it’s just not nice.  And if you have the money or will have the money to buy the item that you wanted to borrow, consider buying one yourself especially if you’re going to be using it again and again.  It might not be the fun way to spend your money but it’s worth it in the end.

4. TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOUR OWN THINGS. That way you don’t have to borrow from other people and risk being such pains in the ass.

Getting off my soapbox now.
 
 
 10/15/2004
MY LIFE 101

An assortment of things I’ve learned not too long ago:

1. Kids who have their own TVs in their bedrooms will always fight over what to watch when forced to be in the same hotel room.

2. Sharing the same satellite/dish network with kids in the house means that at one point someone will lose their remote control and someone else’s remote control will periodically disappear.

3. Two bathrooms + one teenage girl = one bathroom you can actually have access to…not to mention countertop space you can use.

4. One trip to the mall + one teenage girl + $300something shopping money = one teenage tantrum right after getting home, for any one of a million (invalid/non-existent/trivial) reasons.

5. One dad with an early morning 4-hour job = a full time chauffeur the rest of the day.

6. One kid + a permission to have one of something = more than one “something” gone.

7. Dislike for reading books and nerds who love books = high school reports with “arn’t”, “havn’t”, “entirly”, “extremly” and the improper usage of “your” and “you’re”.

8. One teenager + a washing machine and dryer = having to pull things out of (or move things around in) one or the other or both to do your own laundry, half the time.

9. Two teenagers + a washing machine and dryer = having to pull things out of (or move things around in) one or the other or both to do your own laundry, ALL the time.

10.  One teenage girl + an overly full social life + a cat = things getting dragged into the neglected litter box.

11.  A newspaper business + a cat + a dog + someone who reads newspapers on the floor = a carpet of newspapers.

12.  Kid + portable CD player = AA batteries missing from remote control = “I can’t hear you, Dad”.

13.  It’s not funny when an American kid’s almost an adult and actually thinks a meadow is a big lake.

14.  One trip to the mall + one teenage girl + $300something shopping money = 10 items at the most + “Dad, there’s this one more item that I wanted but didn’t have the money for.”

15.  One teenage girl + one trip to the mall “because I need jeans” = 8 shirts, 1 skirt, 2 pairs of shorts and NO jeans.

16.  One kid + one friend = mild headache in the car during a trip/commute.

17.  One kid + 2 friends = migraine in the car during a trip/commute.

18.  Volunteer chaperone + one bus full of 5th graders + Christmas not too far off = chaperone getting brain cancer + eternal hatred for Christmas songs.

19.  Teenage girl + cookie dough + brownie mix = 2 sinks piled high with everything from the cupboards + big bowl of cookie dough sitting in bedroom (unbaked) for a week.

20.  Grocery list totalling less than $10 + coupons for things not on shopping list = $25 spent on groceries.

21.  Need to look for something in a teenage girl’s room = 1 jungle safari trip.

22.  Teenager + dishes = science fair projects sitting on the dresser in the closet. IGOR, IT’S ALIVE!!!
 
 
 10/12/2004
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

On the last day of June this year, I lost my grandpa.  Which one, you might ask. It’s weird…maybe it’s because my other grandpa had so many grandkids and we never really lived with him for some time that I never really bonded with him. So when I say “my grandpa”, that would be my mom’s dad.  Likewise with my grandma. My other grandma (my dad’s mom) died when I was a toddler so I don’t remember her at all).  It was my mom’s parents that seemed to always be there.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Why do you think you feel guilty about not doing more for someone after he/she passes away?  It’s human nature, I guess, to take for granted that tomorrow that person will still be there doing the same old things that they always did for you. Hence, the feeling that you were too mean, you didn’t thank them enough, you didn’t say all the things you wanted to say, after you realize it’s too late.  I went through that both times I lost my grandparents on my mom’s side. I lost my grandma in March of 1998.

I guess I just never really imagined any of them dying.  If I remember correctly, they brought my grandma in for a checkup after she got dizzy and collapsed, or something like that. I wasn’t living with her at the time, so I don’t know the specifics. Next thing I know, she was confined in the hospital and she didn’t like it one bit.  I don’t blame her, I hate hospitals myself. I don’t know why, but I sure as hell better not get in a situation where I need to be confined or operated on.  So far so good, I haven’t had the need to be in a hospital unless it’s visiting someone.  Anyway, she hated it when they had to put a tube down her throat to suck mucus out of her lungs. Someone had to be holding her hand through that. A few times it was me…not that I was in any position to comfort her, that scared me too.

I always thought she was going to come out of that.  But day after day after day, she didn’t really get better.  Then they had to move her to the ICU. That was really tough on her…and me. Her being in a private room was bad enough…the ICU was just something of a nightmare.  Once she was conscious and I was in there.  She was crying, she couldn’t talk because she had some tube in her mouth, but she made hand signals.  And she wanted to go back to her private room.  That really really hurt me so much, because I knew I couldn’t do anything, and I didn’t like it either that she was in the ICU.  At that point, I had my sister go in there to comfort her.  I wasn’t going to be of any help, I was crying myself. It was scary and sad, seeing her so helpless and not being in any position to help.

After that day I basically dreaded being there when she was awake. I didn’t want her asking me again to please have someone get her back to her old room.  But she was unconscious most of the time then.  It just looked bleaker and bleaker as the days passed.  The night before she died, I was supposed to stay there, outside the ICU, but for some reason I don’t remember I didn’t.  The next day, I was eating a late breakfast I think, and someone called, my dad answered.  And we learned she was gone.  Although she’d been in the hospital for a month, it still came as a shock.  And then I felt so guilty for not being there; it just really felt so bad that I wasn’t there.

I never really thought about how dependent I was on her and just how spoiled I was till she was gone.  Immediately I regretted the times when I got a bit upset after she “saved” my brother from being punished by me. The funny thing about it was when she was upset with him, she’d use me as a sort of threat to him. She always made sure that there was some supper left for me if I was coming home late. She refused to let me do the dishes, and she sometimes did my laundry too. I got off easy with her around and I didn’t even know it.  She was just always there and I didn’t really pay attention.

When my grandpa died, I’d been away for about 1 1/2 years. And he’d been sick for more than a year when I left. He just gradually got worse. I thought it would be special if I got married on his birthday…although with his memory failing him, I doubted he’d remember.  I just wanted his birthday to be my wedding anniversary, that was sort of a little tribute of mine.  That way everytime Scott and I celebrate our anniversary, we celebrate my grandpa’s birthday as well. I had hoped to have a ceremony here sometime, have my grandpa walk me down the aisle.  I thought that would be cool…but it was not to be.

I felt so bad when I learned that my grandpa misunderstood the plans.  I left the night before my flight out, with my mom, to pick up Scott at the airport (he came so I don’t have to fly to the US alone)…and we also had to pick up my dad (who cut his Italy trip short to see me before I go).  The plan was, we pick up the guys, and my parents drop Scott and me off at the hotel where we spend the few hours between his arrival and our departure.  When they got home, my grandpa was still up and it seemed he expected us back there.  That really broke my heart.

The first few months here in MN were depressing. There was the weather and climate to get used to, new people, new everything…and there was this thought that I probably won’t see my grandpa alive again.  I cried about that a few times…well, that and some other things, it just got all mixed up it was hard to tell them apart. I did manage to write a letter to my grandpa telling him the stuff I can’t possibly tell him face to face. I’m not a verbal type of person. If there’s something really serious I have to say I just have to write it down…I’d cry before I can say it out loud.  And my grandpa wasn’t really the expressive type either. The only time I saw him and my grandma kiss was on their golden anniversary, I don’t remember them hugging, I don’t remember him saying “I love you” to anyone.  But he showed it in other ways.

I will always be grateful to him for all the summers when I was a kid till I was in college that he paid for workshops for us.  I learned to play the organ and the piano, learned to speak English better, learned to paint (quite well if I may say so myself), because he had us enrolled in summer workshops.  He and my grandma always took us shopping sometime between the birthday and Christmas, and it was always at this one bookstore where they said we can pick out what we want.  I kept coming back to that bookstore for years after that.  My grandpa loved learning…he read a lot, he watched TV a lot, he was great with trivia, he had a great memory and lots of stories to tell.  He was just amazing.  I remember when we were kids, we’d call him up for help with homework because he was so knowledgeable about so many things.

I appreciated him more after my grandma died.  Suddenly he was the only grandparent left and suddenly there was this awareness that he wasn’t going to be around forever.  And there was this sadness in the thought that he was alone and he probably wasn’t so happy with that, having gotten used to having my grandma around.

I know it as hard on him after he got sick.  Someone so independent and active like him, suddenly can’t go places alone, or even do the usual things he does at the church. Someone who had great memories of things past, suddenly can’t remember the names of everyday things, like bananas. I know it frustrated him no end, and he probably got even more frustrated after I left. When I left he was still walking, he was still somewhat fine.  After I left, he got worse, he needed a wheelchair, and there was the occasional transfusion made more complicated with his blood type being so rare and his sickness having to do with blood. I knew it just really upset him that it had to be that way.

I can’t imagine how hard it was for him the last few months, having to depend on people to feed him and dress him. And it didn’t feel so good at all being so far away. He wasn’t even gone and I was already having that guilt thing about not being able to do anything for him…not that I would’ve been of any help.  I probably would’ve broken down just seeing him so helpless.

I had the most wonderful dream one night…I was at a party, and my grandpa dropped in.  We didn’t speak, we just waltzed. It was so nice…realizing he didn’t get to do that at my 18th birthday because I ended up not having a party, and he didn’t get to do that either when I got married because it was a civil ceremony and there wasn’t a proper reception afterwards.  That was such a nice dream, but scary at the same time. I wanted to tell Scott but someone told me before, if you have a nice dream don’t tell anyone about it or it won’t come true. So I chose not to tell.  I woke up, we went to work, right after we were done that morning, my mom called and told me my grandpa was gone.

I was afraid of that…in the back of my mind, that was why the dream scared me a bit. Knowing he wasn’t doing so well, I thought maybe that could be his way of saying he’s going.  And I blocked that out, at least till my mom called.  And then I knew that was it. In a way it felt good to know he didn’t just go without letting me know in his own way.

I kind of feel sorry, that time I dreamt of my grandma shortly after she died. I dreamt I woke up and I turned and she was laying next to me on the bed.  Needless to say that really startled me and in my dream I told her not to appear like that again. And she didn’t.  When I woke up and realized it was just a dream…and that I might have just driven her away, I was immediately sorry I told her off.  She still appeared in dreams, sure, but more like an extra in the scene, not directly talking to me. I wish I hadn’t been such a scaredycat, maybe she wanted to tell me something.

They were really special people, and I consider myself lucky for having had them for my grandparents.  Pity my grandma didn’t live to see me get married, pity my grandpa didn’t get to walk me down the aisle. But that’s how life is.  Things don’t always happen the way I want them to…especially now I don’t have my grandparents to help me along.

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