Conversation overheard between my four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter:
Adam: Stop chattering.
Kayla: You’re not the daddy or the mama, so don’t worry about me, worry about yourself.
Adam: Sometimes I can’t.
Kayla: Sometimes you can.
This story is an outrage.
Ruling that juries cannot turn to the Bible for advice during deliberations, a divided Colorado Supreme Court threw out the death penalty for a convicted murderer because jurors discussed Bible verses.
What? The? Fuck?
Now, let’s be clear. I am not a Christian. I do not believe the Bible is The Truth (though, like most religious texts, I believe it does contain some truth). I do not believe that elected or appointed government officials should refer to the Bible (or the Koran, or the Torah, or the Psalms, or the Book of Mormon, or the Lotus Sutra, or ANY other religious text) as a basis of their opinions. But we are the product of our teaching. We cannot separate who we are from what we know. We CAN’T. And we simply cannot limit what jurors may or may not consider in deciding punishment for convicted criminals.
Death is a viable punishment in the state of Georgia. Were it not, the jury would not have had that option placed before them in deliberation. They ought to be able to consider anything and everything in making their decision (outside of legal evidence excluded from court proceedings and reported elsewhere, like in a newspaper). The law SHOULD be their primary consideration, but you simply CAN NOT start the precedent of overturning a decision made “by a jury of his peers” simply because they considered and discussed religious doctrine along with the evidence presented them in court.
Look, the whole point of having “deliberations” is to discuss possible verdicts and punishments. Ever seen Twelve Angry Men? Classic movie. Should be required viewing for all students of law. The point is, jurors are people. They DO influence each other. They DO pressure each other to come to one or another conclusion. That is their PURPOSE. If everyone just stuck to their initial impressions, we’d have a whole helluva lot more hung juries than we do.
I can’t say it any better than this:
But [Jay Horowitz, a former assistant U.S. attorney and former University of Denver law professor] noted it was unreasonable to expect [jurors] to set aside moral standards when they step into a jury room, though there must be limits. “In fact, people do bring their background and thoughts and impressions, and you can’t separate from that, and shouldn’t try to,” he said.
I was just chatting with Mike about my in-laws’ upcoming 50th anniversary party, and the clothing and shoes I’d need for it.
Dana: SexyHusband just told me he can’t believe I need more shoes.
Mike: Well, they do have to match the dress. Besides, I have a formula… a woman needs her age squared in shoes…
Dana: Her age squared?? So 900 shoes for me?
Mike: Yeah.
Dana: And Kayla gets 4 shoes?
Mike: Yup. See, it’s math.
Dana: OK, so she has 28 years to buy 896 shoes. That’s…32 shoes a year. 16 pair. Or about one every 3.25 weeks. That’s do-able.
Mike: Yeah. That’s why I’m against polygamy…. no single house can contain that many shoes.
The longer I live, and the more people I meet, the more I become convinced that when it comes to disputes - especially marital disputes - there are always, always three sides to every story: his side, her side, and the truth. Unfortunately, it’s that third side that no one ever hears.
E had me stumped, so I skipped to F in my “ABC’s of Me” book. The picture’s in the extended entry. For those who don’t know what I mean, you can see previous pages: A, B, C (February 10th entry), and D (March 6th entry).
Another day, another interview. These questions are for Daisha of Where’s the Love?
1. If you had to be reincarnated as a bird, what kind would you be?
2. Describe your favorite meal.
3. Have you ever tried to take your two kids to a country club? If so, how did that go?
4. Which invention do you think the world would have been better off without?
5. Did Forest Gump have it right? Is life like a box of chocolates?
Now just post your answers to your blog, and I’ll update this post with a link to it. Don’t forget to post the rules, and solicit five other people to be interviewed. Thanks for playing!
Update: Daisha has posted her answers to these questions and is soliciting interviewees.
Time for my first victim interviewee for The Interview Game (March 23rd entry). The first respondent was Rose of Miniature Rose.
1. Exactly how many ponchos do you think you’ll end up making before the obsession runs out?
2. Your son is seven years old now. What has been the hardest age so far, and why?
3. What did your family think of your moving to the United States?
4. What is your most embarrassing addiction?
5. Which children’s song did you hear and/or sing TOO MANY TIMES when
your son was little? You know, the one that if you heard it just once more you’d lose it.
Okie-doke, just post your answers to your blog, and I’ll update this post with a link to it. Don’t forget to post the rules, and solicit five other people to be interviewed. Thanks for playing!
Update: Rose’s answers have now been posted. And I must totally agree with her answer to #2, especially.
I’ll do the next set of questions tomorrow.
I *heart* e-commerce. Mommy’s new toy arrived today. w00t!!
Margi decided to play “The Interview Game” that’s been going around, and she answered some questions posed to her by Jim. She then invited others to be interviewed, and I hopped on board. My answers to HER questions asked of me (all of which, she warns, are Harv Bait) are below, and now it’s my turn to interview others. So, first, the rules:
Leave me a comment saying “interview me”. The first five commenters will be the participants. I will respond by asking you five questions. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.)
Okley-dokley, now on with the answeravatin’.
1. What sense has the greatest sensual effect on you? Be very specific.
Touch. Touch really gets me going. It’s best when I’m blindfolded,
depriving me of the sense of sight and letting my body focus more on
the sensation of a feather being lightly dragged across my skin, or an
ice cube at the base of my throat, or a cotton ball gliding across my…
um.. wait. How specific is “very"?
2. What’s your idea of a romantic evening?
Almost any evening can be romantic. All SexyHusband
has to do is grab me as I pass by in the kitchen, press me against a
wall, and kiss me, while holding my hands at my sides, or (better yet)
behind my back. But a “great date” type romantic evening would be a
dinner together at a nice steak-and-seafood place, followed by an hour
or so of looking at the stars (SexyHusband actually knows which is
which) and a long walk by the beach. After that, a couple of hours
sitting quietly together on opposite ends of the couch, each of us
engrossed in a book and occasionally playing footsie or sharing a kiss.
Culminating with. Well. See #1.
3. If you could have any superpower what would it be? How would you use it? How would you mis-use it?
I would TOTALLY choose to read people’s thoughts. But I’d want it to be
something I could turn on and off, since if people have thoughts that
are as catty as mine, I probably don’t want to know EVERYTHING they’re
thinking. But it would be nice to know if someone is uncomfortable, or
afraid, or excited, or lonely, and how precisely to make them feel
better or express themselves more easily. As for mis-use of the power…
I’d probably catch my kids before they even THOUGHT about getting into
something they shouldn’t, depriving them of the God-given natural right
to hellraising. And really, who wants that?
4. When did you first realize that you were in love?
SexyHusband and I were friends during the tail-end of my marriage to my
ex. When that relationship was breaking up, I was worried about the
remote possibility that I could be pregnant. I remember, I was walking
through Target, shopping for a CD-and-cassette player for my new
bachelorette pad, and talking to SH on my cellphone. I asked him,
“Ohmygawd. What will I do if I’m pregnant?”
and without missing a beat, he said, “Then I’ll marry you, and we’ll
raise the child together.” For once, I was rendered speechless, and
immediately I realized I wanted nothing more in this world than to
marry that man and make babies with him.
5. The Sims - enlightened escapism or crack for non-druggies?
Enlightened crack for non-escapists.
Wheeee!! That was fun. OK, who’s next? First five win! Or.. something…
A first, I’m going to “quote of the day” myself, in a conversation I recently had with Mike about my latest shopping trip.
“There is nothing like a room full of full-length mirrors and unforgiving fluorescent lighting to get your fat ass off the Doritos.”
And with that, I am back on my diet.
I have a great idea for a television show. In fact, it came to me quite literally in my sleep.
A sitcom centered around a traditional military family!
You know, Dad’s in the military, Mom stays home with a few kids*. Dad could get deployed from time to time and Mom has to deal with raising kids alone, he has to deal with missing them. Then when he comes back, they all have to deal with re-integration. Think of the storyline possibilities! Military balls, shopping at the commissary, frustration with long deployments, etc. Military families would identify with it, so THEY’D watch it. Non-military families are (I think) fascinated with all things military, so THEY’D watch it (I know I would!).
Alright, so all you television executives who regularly read Note-It Posts, get busy on that, k?
* Before the femi-Nazis come out of the woodwork screaming at me for assuming the Dad would be the one in the military, YES I know that there are women in the military, and that they often leave home husbands and children, but that is not the most common configuration, plus the whole “Mr. Mom” thing has been done to death.
I have a massage scheduled for 10:30 tomorrow morning, my first (by a professional) in over ten years. I am long overdue. The past two weeks have been very difficult, and this week won’t be better. But for one, glorious hour tomorrow, I am determined to let it all go.
Sometimes I wonder why it is that I never seem to get anything done. I feel like I’m always doing something, so it would seem I would accomplish a lot, right? Wrong! Today I identified the problem: interruptions. Example: part of my business is to send a daily mailing to a subscriber database on behalf of an advertiser, then bill said advertiser for the mailing. That used to go like this:
11am: Start mailing.
11:03am: Mailing ends.
11:04am: Run credit card for cost of mailing.
11:05am: Address envelope and mail receipt for cost of mailing.
Today, it went something like this:
11am: Start mailing.
11:03am: Mailing ends.
11:04am: Change diaper for child #2.
11:06am: Rescue child #3 from the plastic bucket on his head.
11:07am: Start a load of laundry.
11:10am: Right upturned bag of garbage, retrieve spilled cupcake wrappers.
11:11am: Wash hands, notice mountains of dirty dishes.
11:12am: Start load of dishes.
11:25am: Finish load of dishes.
11:26am: Break up fight between child #1 and child #2 over a Lego block.
11:28am: Carry armload of dirty Kleenex out of the “master” bedroom - “It’s on my way.”
11:30am: Rescue child #3 from the plastic bucket on his head.
11:31am: Bathe child #3. Toss out bucket.
11:45am: Dress and diaper child #3.
11:50am: Break up fight between child #1 and child #2 over who “got there first.”
11:53am: Run credit card for cost of mailing.
11:54am: Help child #1 with his cards for his recipe swap.
12:10pm: Jump into the shower.
12:15pm: Shoo child #2 out of the bathroom, start getting dressed.
12:20pm: Change diaper for child #3.
12:25pm: Start another load of laundry.
12:30pm: Have lunch.
12:40pm: Start getting child #1 dressed and ready to go.
1:15pm: Leave for recipe swap.
5:30pm: Return from recipe swap.
5:35pm: Start another load of laundry.
5:40pm: Address envelope and mail receipt for cost of mailing.
See what I’m up against?
I took Adam and Kayla to see Robots last night. Another Disney/Pixar animated movie, and (if you ask me) the best one so far.
Turns out this one’s a Blue Sky/20th Century Fox collaboration. No
wonder it’s so awesome! The story is kind of over-the-top
anti-corporate “fight the man” empowerment bullshit (ironic,
considering the merchandising and marketing of this movie), but even
though I think the message is a load, the storytelling is pretty damned
impressive. Robin Williams, as usual, steals the show, but the other
characters are still well-acted, well-animated, and engaging. The
action scenes (like the “Midtown Express” sequence) was jaw-droppingly
masterful.
Loved it. Buying it. Go see it.
A very dear friend of mine died today. The world is a poorer place without her. I’m ambivalent about the existence of an after-life, but on the off chance that there is one: Vicki, I love you. I miss you. My life will never be the same without you. God blessed me with the knowing of you, and with being witness to your strength, courage, and grace. May your soul rest in peace and eternal bliss, and may your sons know your presence, even in your absence.
It’s our turn to bring snack again this Thursday. Normally, this means Mike (over-)cooks for the “moms” (he’s the token Dad), and I cook for whatever class we have. This time, it’s the 2- and 3-year-olds, Kayla’s class. I had planned to make them Blue’s Clues cupcakes, and peeled apples. The snack coordinator (yep, our preschool has an official “snack coordinator") called today and tells me that class has 19 kids in it, and that they tend to eat through all of their snack. I don’t want these kids to be hungry - it’s important to me that they are all full and satisfied. I have enough “gear” to make 27 Blue’s Clues cupcakes, and I have seven or eight apples. I need to make something else, preferably from things I already have here at home so I won’t have to make another trip into town tomorrow. I have a pretty fully-stocked pantry, but specialty items and packaged crap isn’t readily available.
So, got any ideas? All I can come up with are graham crackers (yawn!), chewy bars (do they really NEED another sweet thing?), and carrots (they’re TWO-YEAR-OLDS; I might as well feed them dried horse turds, since they won’t eat THAT, either). I need help.
Certainly, by now, everyone has heard about the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, whose car was fired upon when it tried to rush a coalition checkpoint in Iraq. Sgrena and another occupant were wounded, and Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was killed. When I first saw this story, it was as a CNN headline: “US fires on Italian journalist” and my reaction was “Oh, shit.” Then I read the article (since scrolled off CNN’s site), which stated that the car was part of a motorcade that was speeding toward a coalition checkpoint. Soldiers manning the checkpoint apparently tried to use hand and arm gestures, flashing white lights, and even warning shots to get the car to slow down, and it didn’t. That’s the US version of events, anyway. Sgrena, naturally, disputes that account.
I listened to BBC on the radio the other night, and the announcer declared, “And, of course, at the very least, this is a cause for embarrassment for the Americans.” This, before the refutation by Sgrena came out. I was dumbfounded. Embarrassed about what? A procession of cars speeds toward a checkpoint in a warzone, ignores repeated signals to slow down, and expects - what? For coalition forces to toss candy at them? If this thing went down the way the military is reporting it, then those soldiers acting entirely properly, and it’s the Italian driver who should be ashamed for endangering the lives of the vehicles occupants.
The latest page in my “ABC’s of Me” book is in the extended entry.
So I’m back to work on the re-construction project. You (8/25) remember (1/9) that (11/16) project (11/9), right (8/30)? Thought so. Anyway, today I framed the wall. Got it all done, except the door (I need more wood). I have come to the conclusion that, while I am a bright girl and a quick study, the rules of architecture will not naturally come to me. Either I need to be explicitly told by Mike that something needs to be done (like a notch cut out of a stud to carry electrical over from an existing wall), or it MUST be in the book. Otherwise, I’ll just have to figure it out when I screw something up. Since there are probably lots of others out there in the same boat, I thought I’d share a few tidbits of varying importance I learned the hard way.
1) Two nails should go in each end of each stud, not one.
2) No matter how inconvenient it seems, choose your own lumber. If you
let the lumberyard/building center choose for you - particularly if you
are a girl who accidentally refers to something as a “shiv” instead of a “shim”
- they will send you the shitty, warped, splitting, knotty wood they
can’t sell to more sensible people. This is not real conducive to
building a square wall.
3) Take off your toolbelt before you go sit down to pee.
Got an email from a friend, entitled “You were a little girl in the 70’s if…” I was born in 74, so I was a very little girl. My comments are in italics.
1. You wore a rainbow shirt that was half-sleeves, and the rainbow went up one sleeve, across your chest, and down the other.
Gawd, I think that’s the shirt I was wearing at my 10th birthday party.
2. You made baby chocolate cakes in your Easy Bake Oven and washed them down with snow cones from your Snoopy Snow Cone Machine.
Cherry snow cones, no less. And those fudge
chocolate cakes were the bomb! But those light bulbs could give you a
third degree burn if you weren’t careful.
3. You had that Fisher Price Doctor’s Kit with a stethoscope that actually worked.
For some value of “worked", anyway.
4. You owned a bicycle with a banana seat and a plastic basket with flowers on it.
Banana seat, yes. Plastic flowery basket, no.
5. You learned to skate with actual skates (not roller blades) that had metal wheels.
Check. They were white, and had pink pom-poms on them.
6. You thought Gopher from Love Boat was cute (Admit it!)
I almost never watched it, and couldn’t even remember who Gopher was. After a Google search, I have to say: Uh. No.
7. You had nightmares after watching Fantasy Island.
Yes!!
8. You had rubber boots for rainy days and Moon boots for snowy days or just moon boots.
Maybe Northern little girls had these boots. We Texan girls had flip-flops, white sneakers, and gellies.
9. You had either a “bowl cut” or “pixie,” not to mention the “Dorothy Hamil” because your Mom was sick of braiding your hair.
And I thought I had sufficiently repressed this particular trauma.
Yes, I had the bowl cut. Daddy gave it to me. He made me sit on a big
stump out back of my Papa’s house, and he cut all my hair off. I was
mad at him for a month.
10. People sometimes thought you were a boy.
See #9, trauma. MOVE ON.
This stuff is yummy, nummy. Expensive, but worth it!
I went today to get my hair cut. I wanted something semi-radical, but without coloring (too much maintenance). My stylist chopped off over 6", layered, and “end snipped” it, making it look pretty darn different than I had before. I like it.
I came home. My family’s reaction.
*crickets chirping*
They didn’t even notice. Honestly, I could be bald as the Mr. Clean man, and SexyHusband would notice no difference. *sigh*
UPDATE: As requested, a picture of the new ‘do (as well as the FunDip-covered face of my beautiful daughter, and various scrapbooking paraphernalia) in the extended entry.
“I used to think I was serving humanity … and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it.” - Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land
You know, it’s very stressful to make an offer of help to someone, then to have it rebuffed in such a way as to make you feel you’re imposing by even making the offer. But that helpless, I-know-what’s-best-for-you feeling is pretty damned awful, too.
*sigh*
Newest country music singing obsession: Jeff Bates. With that voice, I could just close my eyes, but he’s purty to look at, too!
These things should only be sold with a prescription.
SexyHusband doesn’t dance. Doesn’t like it, doesn’t miss it. But for me, he agreed to a “First Dance” at our wedding. I even got to pick the song! I chose “I Do (Cherish You)” by Mark Wills. The words are as true today as they were almost six years ago. I love you, baby.
All I am, all I’ll be
Everything in this world, all that I’ll ever need
Is in your eyes, shining at me
When you smile I can feel all my passion unfolding
Your hand brushes mine
And a thousand sensations seduce me ‘cause I
I do, cherish you.
For the rest of my life
You don’t have to think twice.
I will, love you still, from the depths of my soul
It’s beyond my control.
I’ve waited so long to say this to you
If you’re asking do I love you this much, I do.
In my world before you
I lived outside my emotions
Didn’t know where I was going
Until that day I found you
How you opened my life to a new paradise.
In a world torn by change
Still with all of my heart, until my dying day
I do, cherish you
For the rest of my life
You don’t have to think twice
I will, love you still, from the depths of my soul
It’s beyond my control
I’ve waited so long to say this to you
If you’re asking do I love you this much, yes I do
I’ve waited so long to say this to you
So, if you’re asking if I love you this much, I do
Oh, I do
Another day, another scrapbooking layout. This one has pictures taken last March (was that really almost a year ago?) when Kayla and I were in Texas visiting my family. It was the very last day before we left, as a matter of fact. Photos in extended, of course (click “Read More").
