Thursday, August 26, 2010

Input Please

I had training today, this place is a huge fan of 'training'.  I guess my problem is that there is nothing new under the sun,and the woman did not present one single thing that I have not read, heard or studied before.  Not that I'm all that great, I'm not.  It's just that I've been doing this for about a 1000 years.Thank God, I took my latest Quilters' Magazine.

  One thing she did mention that I knew, but hadn't thought about in a while, was that we all make decisions in different ways (This was in the context of a discussion on learning styles, you know, auditory, visual or kinesthetic learners).  After a survey, I was reminded that I make decisions by gathering the consensus of friends, relatives and colleagues, and then after due consideration, make a decision.  Those who thought I did not listen when they advised me to retire were quite wrong.  I listened and considered and then decided that if G-d blessed me with a job offer when others in their sixties were being passed over due to their age, I should take the job.  Besides, I have saved less than no money for retirement, and while I do not aspire to taking it with me, I do want enough to get there.

After the training,  my bra had started to cut into that spot right under my boobs, and in the heat,  I was beginning to think I was going to bleed,  It hurt like hell.  So,  once I got into the truck, I  reached under my blouse and pulled the bra up and off , thus stopping the pain.  Just at that moment, the sliding door to the van next to my truck started to slide open.  Oh my gosh, one of the teachers' kids is  in the that car, and I have just warped  the child for life!  But, no.  The guy had a remote control and was heading out of the building.  No one had seen anything. Not on the subject, just a little aside.  At any rate,   that's when I decided to take a short drive, and no, I didn't put 'the girls' back in their house.  I just drove .  Didn't see anyone but horses, anyway, if you don't count the young woman at the drive up window of the Burger King who handed me my large unsweetened iced tea.  I hunkered down, though. She was saved from being struck blind.  While driving,  I got to thinking. 

I have signed up for a certificate course in Behavior Management at Northern Arizona.  It's a year long course.   And, while it's popular to make fun of education courses, (and in truth, quite a lot of it is absolute bullshit), the truth is, this is going to be tough.  I'll have to do case studies up the ying yang, gathering of data, getting into some kid's head to find out why he/she is doing self-destructive nonsense, and finally, trying to convince the little toot to stop it.  That's not easy, and I know a little about that.  I worked for seventeen years in a prison and have lost count of how many times I would say to a guy, ' When your cell door clangs shut every night, do you get a clue that you are making bad decisions?  Why is that?'  At that point, they would spill forth with the most heartwrenching crap you ever , ever heard.  Enough  of that, and it takes it out of a person.  Do I really want to go back to that?

The job I have now, I am qualified for.  I do not need a new skill set. I figured that out this morning, before my boobs started to hurt.  I'm good at what I do, and I can get it done within a normal work day.  That frees me to either take this course or ....or what?  As I was driving, I was thinking about that.  I have re-discovered photography. I'm beginning to enjoy some travelling, and  I used to love to quilt.  I have had no time for any of those activities for the past thirty years.  The few things I wrote or quilted or photographed when the kids were babies have long since been lost.

If I don't take this course, I can do the job I have now and have time to take pictures, finish the stupid book I've been working on for years and maybe take up quilting again.  Can't I just continue to do what I do and reach a kid or two?  Is this course going to teach me that much?  And am I gonna make enough more money to make it worth it on that level?  And, why the hell do I feel that if I'm not plowing forward towards some greater good, I'm wasting my time? 

Input anyone? 

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

And just when I thought the little fellow wasn't too bad.

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/NYC-Rally-101322549.html

I am so very disappointed in Mayor Bloomberg, and I had been so proud of the way he backed the mosque.  Oh, I forgot.......It's the money, stupid.  The people who want to build the mosque are going to provide services to New York's needy, thereby relieving some of the city's burden.  In the case of the Native Americans, he wants to tax the cigarettes as money for the state.  As they say, 'money talks, bullshit walks'. 

I'm getting settled in.

The new people are very nice.  Also friendly.  Every Wednesday is pot luck lunch, and all staff takes turns bringing the main dish.  When I came, they were eating in the copy room combination staff break room, sitting on  the file cabinets.  I invited them into my room, as I have lots of chairs , a stove , a frig and a sink.  Can;t think why I backed into such a cool room.  When I was working in the penitentiary, if you wanted a nicer room or more supplies, you had to send you inmate parateacher to play 'let's make a deal' with whoever had what you wanted.  That's how I got my coffee pot back then. I'd tell you what I traded, but I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is on that stuff.  Suffice it to say , it was not my virtue!  That's been gone for quite some time.

At any rate, today it was my turn to bring the main dish, and I made lasagne, Beth's recipe. They all acted like they loved it, but who would not live my youngest's lasagne?  Problem is the new math teacher , who is from India, can't eat cheese (that cow thing), and is allergic to wheat.  Since we are becoming friends(she taught in Ohio before coming to the rez, and I always loved Ohio. Hell, I'm still a closeted Cleveland Browns fan).  Anyone have any suggestions for what I can make next time?  A recipe that has no wheat and no dairy products?  Get back to me on this. 

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Immigrants

I'm sitting here watching the television , CBS Morning News, regarding this issue. 

  According to the report, crime is, far from climbing, actually going down in border towns.  Illegal immigration is declining, not rising.

Given these statistics, I have to ask myself the following questions:

1.  Is this a 'faux' issue that the opposition party is throwing out  to keep us from remembering that the near meltdown with this country's economy was brought about by THEIR party's policies which ran rough shod over the working people?
     One of the lessons that I learned while working in the prison was that if a fight breaks out across the room, don't look at it.  Look at other surrounding areas, because chances are that's where the real crooked business is taking place.  So, is immigration serving the purpose that, I believe, the gay marriage issue served in the last election? 

2.  Is this  really a thinly cloaked racial issue?  I remember once when Michael Moore was doing some sort of documentary, and he was on the Canadian /U.S. border  The man  was running back and forth across the border like a nut, making the point that there were no volunteer border guards stopping Canadians from crossing the border.

3.  Isn't this immigration law a fairly new law?  I seem to remember that, formerly,   all an individual  had to do was to prove they either had a marketable  skill or enough money to ensure that they would not become a burden to society.  Why is it different now?
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4.  I have to ask myself is what is the responsibility of the Mexican government in all this mess?  The poverty in that country is so terrible that people are risking their lives, their children's lives, by placing themselves into the clutches of predatory individuals  who take their money and promise to get them across the border. People  are walking hundreds of miles across deserts to make a better life for themselves.  And yet, the upper classes of Mexico seem to be making it all right. Things are going so well that  Mexico is the new escape place for United States' retirees.  Why are the poor people living in such squalor in that country?  Don't we buy oil from Mexico?  Are we not , allegedly, friendly neighbors?  Why is the Mexican administration not being held accountable for the humanitarian issues within their country?  We sure point fingers at China, at Afghanistan.  Why not Mexico?  Could it be for the same reason that we never hear anything about Saudi Arabia and their anti-woman issues?  Oil, Perhaps? 

 I think we need to remember that this country is, with the exception of indigenous peoples ,  populated by immigrants.  The Central and South American people, when you get right down to it are direct descendants of the original inhabitants. Who, truly, are the interlopers?  OK, this country is over two hundred years old.  Still and all, two hundred years is, relatively speaking, pretty recent. 

Truly, I empathize with people who are concerned with this issue.  However,  when we deport people, we may, very well, be sending them to their deaths, either through starvation or actions by their governments.   I am reminded of the boatload of Jews who came to this country prior to World War II.They were seeking asylum.    President Roosevelt sent them back to Europe where they, mostly, died in the camps.  We put people into space, for crying out loud.  Is there not a way we can make this process fair, humanitarian and still protect our borders?

Monday, August 2, 2010

I'm here.

Moving was such a you know what!  For one thing, I have always cleaned my apartment thoroughly every year right before I leave for Pittsburgh.   Clean, as in move things, wash curtains, clean the oven.  You know, REALLY CLEAN!  This year,  I knew I was moving, and  I was ticked because I wasn't going to get to go home.  So, I really hadn't done a good clean since Christmas.  By the time I was ready to move, my old place was just nasty.

The night before I was scheduled to move I decided it would be a good idea to drive my 'chachkes' over to the new place myself.  On the way, the radiator sprung a leak, the truck overheated, and I was sitting by the side of a dirt road with no cell coverage.  Well, I was in cell coverage for a while, just long enough to call my poor brother, explain my situation and scare him to death.  OK, so from 5 p.m. until 10p.m., I would  pour four bottles of water (thank God I had just bought a 48 count of bottled water) into the radiator, drive til it ran out, wait for the car to cool down, pour more water into the radiator, repeat.  And repeat until I got back to my old place.  Next day, the guy who was going to move me took my radiator into Gallup, left it and  picked it up the next day.  I didn't actually move until Wednesday when I had planned to be out by Sunday.

I got here, the Direct TV man got lost, ended up in Red Rock instead of Rough Rock, the Frontier people lost my DSL order, and I spent four days with neither phone nor internet.  I had to drive out to the main road to get a cell signal.

Enough poor me?  OK, finally, after getting everything hooked up, all the boxes unpacked, I took a drive into Chinle, the nearest town.  I bought a  chili dog and an iced tea.  Driving back, my head hurt, my back hurt and to top it all off, the dumbie at the A and W had put sugar into my tea.  I HATE sweet tea!

Get the picture?  I'm feeling pretty low, missing my friends, pissed that I haven't seen my kids since Christmas and drinking tea with sugar in it!  And, I drive around the corner and see this.........

If that ain't a higher  power telling me to lighten up and that tomorrow will go better, then I don't know what is.