Thor's Day!

I was going through Man-Child's old clothes to sell at my yard sale and I found a pair of khaki shorts that I thought might fit me. They did, so I kept them. Tossed them in the wash today and found a guitar pick in the dryer.

Laughed till I about, well, it made me laugh.

You'd have to be the mother of a teen age guitar player to fully understand. But let's say that guitar picks are the legos of teen years.

Thor sez: Hey! This is supposed to be about me.

Twosday!

Holy cats, batman. I actually have to go to work tonight. Not sure if I remember where it is.

Two projects I'm working on:

1. Getting stuff ready for a yard sale.
2. Putting together information for a donation drive for the local domestic abuse shelter.

Two things I should be doing:

1. Taking a shower. Ugh. But I was going to get all dusty digging through yard sale stuff.
2. Folding laundry. But I'm too nasty to mess with clean laundry.

Two things I'm wondering:

1. Do as many people as I hope see what this current congress is doing to the middle and working class, but just aren't speaking out?
2. Does JAZ have any double cat pictures on this laptop?

Just one.

Blechy Monday Morning

Monday musing.

Does that GOP dude from Florida realize how Dickensian his proposal to eliminate taxes for millionaires and billionaires (so they can continue to give to charity) sounds? Oh please, sir, may I have another?

Ya know, my ancestors sort of got into leaky ships and crossed the ocean to get away from the feudal lord/serf/peasant type society. Now these newly elected GOP tea bag types want us to return to it?

Hey! Where'd Spring go? What's up with this cold, gloomy, rainy stuff? I planted flowers and herbs already for Pete's sake!

I have got so much that I should be doing, but instead am wasting my time planning fantasy trips to Prague. Seriously, though, one of the things I should be doing is digging out the grout in the master bath shower and replacing it. I know how to have a good time, huh?

I have an ad placed for a yard sale this coming Saturday and everything is still in a giant pile in the guest bedroom. I need to start sorting through it.

I need to put together the information poster for the charity drive I'm doing at work.

And yet, somehow, the most constructive thing I've done so far today is be a cat pillow.

Thor sez: But I'm still sleeeeeeppppy!!!

Loki Sunday

Rainy Sunday. Loki is upset because I was upset with him last night. But he was being rude and a rude, walk all over you cat who wants to lay on your chest while you are having hot flashes at two a.m. shouldn't really expect a "warm" reception.

Loki sez: I'm still mad. I think I need more treats. And some nip. And a second supper.

We All Have Our Little Things

Anyone who has ever seen me more than once is aware of the fact that I'm a jeans and t-shirt kinda gal. But I didn't realize how much of a t-shirt collector I've become until I needed a separate dresser drawer for my "cool" shirts.


I'm seriously addicted to the LOL Vintage line from Target, but their Stranded line is a close second. I can't get out of Target without a new shirt.


But I'm not too picky. I've even purchased a Walmart Miley Cyrus line shirt because I liked it (I think it's the "Hope" shirt).




There seems to be an old hippy theme to my selections. Hmm.

Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!!

This is the exact kind of accomplishes absolutely nothing, closes off discussion, false knowledge implanting BULLSHIT that has got to stop!

And I had some serious respect for Tim Scott until I saw this in an email from his office:

"On the one-year anniversary of the 2,700-page $2.6 trillion government takeover of health care, Rep. Tim Scott (SC-01) issued the following statement: "

Quite simply, Mr. Scott, that is a big fat LIE. Government has not "taken over".

And it wasn't so much as health CARE reform as health INSURANCE reform.

I refer to my friend and her family who lost everything simply by having a child born with a disability before the health insurance reforms went into place. I defy anyone who knows their story to still say that the reforms were wrong.

Mr. Scott, sir, in the sending of this falsehood to the people of your district, you have branded yourself a liar. Your base of rabid tea drinkers may allow themselves to fly into foaming frenzies when they see things like that, but trust me, there are many, many more of us who aren't so ready to leap up and react like the puppets you seem to think we are when you plant falsehoods like that in your statements.

Thor's Day!

Thor faces:

Odin's Day

Random funny kittens for a world gone entirely too unfunny:




Early sign of the approaching zombie apocalypse:

Zombie: it's not just for humans.

Twosday!

Two things I regret:

1. Trying to cut a tomato in a bowl so I wouldn't dirty up the cutting board.

2. Having to explain the above to the nice people at the emergency room. I'm sure somehow a notation has been made on my employee file: "too stupid to really work here".

Two things that I enjoyed watching:

1. My mom springing into SUPERMOM mode when I asked her for a ride to the emergency room.

2. The look on the nurse's face when she came to see what size band aid I needed.

(Hey! It bled like a mo-fo for TWENTY minutes! Every time I let up pressure, blood would pour out. How was I to know it would begin to clot off in an hour? Except for that being a nurse part. Sorry, but my own blood freaks me out. Your blood I can handle, my blood, um, not so much.)

Two rewards I gave myself:

1. Hello Kitty bandaids.
2. Jelly beans.

The two reasons you keep coming back to my prattle:

Monday Morning Musings

Planning a small charity drive/raffle. Never done that before. Hm. Need a poster, a box and some organizational skills. I think I can handle that.

Got a bad case of spring fever yesterday and now have four new azalea bushes, some yellow daisies and a yellow carolina jessamine. Had to force myself to leave the garden center. Seriously. Force myself.

Getting stuff organized for a yard sale. Missed the deadline for ad placement so it will not be this weekend, but next. Sigh. Maybe I should get some help with this whole organization stuff.

Trying to get part one of the new manuscript re-keyed and edited by May. I'll start shopping it then, while I re-key part two and rough draft part three.

Thor sez: Can I help you organize your outline this time also?

Loki Sunday

Random Loki:

Breaking News!

In other St. Patrick's Day news:

The Man Child popped The Question to The Girl last night and The Answer was yes!

Congratulations Danny and Erin!

Hugs and lots of jumping up and down, clapping of hands and general freaking out of cats happening here.

Love you both!

The boyz say: About time, dude.

Happy Thor's St. Patrick's Day!

How fun. Two reasons to celebrate on one day!

Thor sez: I didn't get a leprechaun!

Priorities

The other day, while discussing the appallingly, obviously slanted for the wealthy and anti-family, anti-woman, anti-child sit-down-and-shut-up policies of the recently elected Republicans, I said, "Anyone in the South who walks into a voting booth in the next election and pushes any button with an "R" on it, is a pure-d fool."

To which, the logical come back I got was, "well, the "D"'s aren't so great either."

Here is how I see it, in light of recent political events that, unless you are being willfully obtuse, are very very clear in the intent to benefit the extremely wealthy and corporations first and foremost and you middle class people just deal.

You have two children. You walk into a room and one is stealing a cookie and the other has a lit match and is setting the curtains on fire.

Which do you discipline first?

The Republicans are burning down the house, people.

The Democrats are trying to steal the cookies from those making more than a million dollars a year.

Loki sez: Scallywags! Let's make them all walk the plank!

Let's Think About Actions and Consequences

It is one of the basic lessons that we teach our children: actions have consequences.

So, let's all please step back from the hate-the-tax-sucking-poor rhetoric we've been spoon fed all our lives.

Now, I have some inside information on this issue because, as many of you may know, JAZ is one of those evil, money grubbing public servants who are living high on the hog off your tax money. Hahahaha.

Now, he doesn't complain about the money (although he should), because he loves his work. He likes that, as he was taught in his Catholic education, he is actually, hands on helping the poor and those who have the least. Guess that's what makes him a bad American, more interested in serving the poor than kicking them when they are down. What's next?

So, not to get into too many details, the clinic where he works provides low income working poor with reproductive health care. Pap smears, gyn exams, mammograms, STD diagnosis and treatment, birth control. (no abortions).

Now the House of Representatives (representing whom, I'd really like to know) has in their new budget to eliminate the tax dollars to pay for these services.

Well, peachy, that ought to teach those people to just go crawl in a hole and die of ovarian and breast cancer and the lack of free birth control will certainly cut down on unintended pregnancies, right?

Here is what is really going to happen my middle class people who work hard for everything you have and are tired of giving stuff to poor people:

They will turn to emergency rooms for their health care. Hospitals will not recoup the money from the poor, so they will raise their fees to you and your insurance company.

Your insurance company will respond by increasing your rates and decreasing the coverages.

So the only thing that will change is that instead of paying out some in taxes, the lack of health care for the poor will only result in YOU getting less health care and paying more out of pocket for what health care you do get.

It is cheaper to have a centralized point for the poor to get primary and preventative care rather than to treat in ER's.

So, let the fat cats at the top who get great benefits keep telling you that it's the poor who are causing all these problems.

Because it's them.

Not the grocery store cashiers and gas station attendants. Not the janitors, not the housekeepers. Not the gardeners.

Not the teachers or police or firefighters. Not the nurses or secretaries. Not the librarians.

Not really even those playing the welfare system for their own benefit. (Know why they play the system? No, not because they are lazy and don't want to work. Because they can. Because we suck at providing assistance in this country.)

It's them. The 2% of Americans who control almost all the wealth in this nation and have convinced us that giving them more money is good, but giving money to the poor and the near poor is bad.

This is bullshit. First they turned us against left and right. Then they turned us against poor and working class. Now they are turning the middle class against each other.

We all need to unite against them.

The people of the Middle East had to overcome crippling and real fear for their lives to stand and demand better.

Americans only need overcome their own apathy.

Loki sez: Stand up! Make your voice heard!

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Much of my life was spent under the nurture of my no nonsense, practical and logical German descendant family.

That's why too much discussion drives me crazy. Problem? Find most logical solution. Apply solution. Move on.

But I like to think it's that wild unknown streak of Irish in me that causes things to make me, (uh not crazy, what's a polite term for ranting like lunatic?) passionate, rather than remaining stoic like that other side of the DNA coin.

One of my favorite stories is about this lady:

That is my great grandmother Mary Elizabeth Tully Radigan, who left her home in Dry Mills, Mayo County, Ireland in 1894 at age 18, bound for New York and America, all alone except for her pet canary. She had seven children, including a set of twins, and was widowed young. She lived until age 80. Doesn't look like I'd get up to too many shenanigans around her!

(This is why I'm trying to find a way to get the boyz across the pond so I can do some travel nursing in the UK, it's in my DNA to bring the animals!)

I wish I had a picture of her in her younger years.

Thor sez: Mmmmm....canary.

Um, oops?

I thought today was Thursday. I blame night shift.

Once Upon a Time...

In a land far, far away, lived a people who used heroin every day. They used more and more and influenced their friends and families to use more, never less, always more, more, more.

Until one day, trouble and strife came to the place where the heroin was grown and processed. Suddenly, the people who brought the heroin to the land grew very stingy with their supply. They charged more and more for the heroin until people began to have a hard time getting enough heroin.

This made them very angry and anxious.

Then a young man stood up and said, "But, look, I have this idea. See, we have this substitute that, unlike methadone, actually eliminates the need in brain for heroin. It'll probably cost a lot of money at first, but after a few years, we won't need heroin at all anymore."

But the people said, "NO! It costs too much and takes too long! We'll just change the laws so we can make our own heroin here in our country. Then we can just keep on using as much as we want."

Silly people.

(Now replace heroin with crude oil and gasoline production.)

Thor sez: But what about cat nip?

P.S.
There is a new heroin replacement drug that is better than methadone, because, unlike methadone, it actually enables an addict to be weaned. But methadone clinics are private, for profit companies, so it is in their best interest to keep people on methadone, but that is a tale for another day.

Twosday!

Two cats, one new bedroom.
Thor, the project supervisor:


A few pictures of the new stuff:





Loki sez: Get down? I barely got up here!

Thor sez: Whew! That was work!

If You are Going to Wrap the American Flag In Something, Mr. Demint, Don't Use Bullshit

The reply I received from Senator Demint to my letter:

Dear Ms. Nye,



Thank you for contacting me to express you concerns with funding levels in the fiscal year 2012 budget. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.



As you are aware, our nation's fiscal state is in a dire situation. Our nation's debt totals nearly $14 trillion, and according to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, an additional $1.5 trillion will be added this year. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen said, "The most significant threat to our national security is our debt." When our debt poses a threat to our country, it must be addressed.



You may also know, our nation is approaching the congressionally-set debt limit. Over the past decade, there have been ten votes to increase this debt limit so Washington can continue spending by borrowing from future generations. I am against raising the debt limit and stealing from our nation's future without addressing the root problem of our fiscal crisis.



I believe Congress must address the fiscal crisis by passing a Constitutional Amendment requiring a balanced budget, which would do away with deficit spending. Additionally, I firmly believe balancing a budget should never imply raising taxes to match exorbitant spending. It is critical for Congress to prioritize where Federal taxpayer dollars are being spent. Delaying will only make the process of reconciling our nation's debt more difficult for future generations.



As our country prioritizes federal spending and begins the process of reconciling our nation's budget deficit, we will be faced with difficult choices on ways to reduce government spending. While I understand that many worthwhile efforts in communities across our country rely on federally-funded programs, we must drastically reduce the size and scope of the federal government in order to save our country.



Please feel free to contact me in the future about anything important to you or your organization. It is an honor to serve you and the people of South Carolina.





Sincerely,

Jim DeMint
United States Senator

The answer I sent back: (Interestingly enough, cough cough, the link to reply did not work)

Dear Senator DeMint:

I too understand the impact of our national debt.

What I want an explanation for is why you and others cut tax revenue from the very wealthiest of Americans and corporations and now have the audacity to say that the poor, the working poor and the struggling middle class must make the necessary sacrifices.

If there are to be sacrifices made, ALL should equally sacrifice. And this is the mess that you have created by cutting tax revenues from those most able and now you say that those least able must pay the bill?

Why does the Army need $45 million to fund a NASCAR car?

Why do large oil companies, with huge quarterly profits year in and year out, need tax payer subsidies and tax cuts to the estimates of $45 billion a year?

Why do those whose earnings are in the top 2% get tax breaks? (And please don't trot out the "they create jobs" line, if that were true, why did our nation lose so many jobs in the 10 years since President Bush first put those cuts in place?)

Why don't the budget cuts include the waste within the military that Donald Rumsfeld himself, pointed out?

My friends and co-workers sometimes call me the Smurf, because I'm the only "blue" person they know. And here is something that you and Mr. Graham may want to start paying attention to: Every single person I know, down to the reddest of tea party member is FURIOUS about the cuts being made in services (which will put hundreds of thousands out of jobs) and wondering the same things I am.

Why are the rich and powerful getting a pass in all this "sacrifice" and "difficult decision" making?

Thank you for your service, but please stop pretending we don't see what is going on.

Janet L. Nye

Loki Monday

Yes, I know I once again missed Loki Sunday. We were putting together the bed, the final bit of furniture in the bedroom makeover and then I had to put all the new stuff in the room.

Perspective

Jason was doing his taxes yesterday and I tried to cheer him up by pointing out that, yes, Paris Hilton was probably going to pay less in taxes, thanks to the Republican Congress holding middle class tax reductions hostage until the wealthy got their tax cuts extended, but he was just going to have to realize that Paris EARNED her millions.

She earned those millions by being the by-product the collision of a Hilton sperm and a Mrs. Hilton egg, don't ya know?

I mean, seriously, you don't think her granddaddy just gave her that trust fund, do you? No! She worked her ass off. Getting a good education, proving herself to potential employees, working harder than everyone else so she could earn more. No-one gave her nothing! Right?! Well except for that trust fund that financed everything.

What does Jason do? Work a full time job five days a week serving the working poor and then he comes home and spends, what? Another 5-6 hours doing freelance work? What a slacker.

Thor sez: Will you go take some drugs or something?

We Come From the Land of Ice and Snow

As Jason and I contemplate a relocation in the next few years, I've been having flights of fancy about doing a few years in Europe before settling down again.

I've looked at travel nursing in the UK, specifically Scotland.

Recently, I've been looking into what I've termed the return to my genetic homeland.

Scandinavia. The earliest known location was Denmark. The rumor is the first Danish Nye came from Sweden.

So, I've been looking at Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway.

I like Denmark because, if you get a work and resident permit based on being offered a job there, your "spouse, registered partner or cohabitating partner" is also given a work and resident permit.

See, they don't care HOW you make a family, they just care about keeping your family together.

When I read that, it made such sense to me on a level that goes deeper than mere common sense, more into basic humane common decency.

I know, it's a silly little thing, but I liked it.

Now, I need to learn to speak Danish.

The boyz say: And they will understand our names, unlike many Americans.

Thor's Day!

Letter to Senator Graham

Dear Senator Graham:

There has been much talk of the pending federal budget, not only in Washington, but it seems like everywhere I go around Charleston.

Many people are wondering why, if we all must share in the pain of reducing the budget, that the very wealthy, foreign countries and private corporations don't seem to be making the same sacrifices that poor women and children and our veterans are being asked to make.

I have a budget for you.

Take the 2010 Federal budget and leave it in place. For the next year, take 10% off every federal check written, 50% to non-government corporations and foreign governments.

See what that does? Allows essential services to continue with some belt tightening, doesn't cause massive job losses in the public sector, and makes the middle class and working poor happy that they aren't the only ones feeling the pinch.

What about them apples, huh?

Oh, yeah, you can't score political points and demonize the "other side" if we are all really interested in what is best for Americans.

Oh, well, it was a thought.

Now, Where Did I Put that Soapbox?

I'm rapidly becoming depressed with this subject. No, strike, that, I am rapidly becoming completely flabbergasted by meanness and ignorance.

Look this up for yourselves if you don't believe me.

Here we go, frequent readers may just want to skip down to the cute kitten picture at the end:

The human brain. It determines everything about us. From the first two cells that collide to eventually become a grown human being, the brain controls it all.

And the brain needs things. Water, sugar, proteins, fats, you know, more commonly known as FOOD.

If the brain does not get these things, the human with that brain will not be able to reach its full potential.

While a woman is pregnant, she needs proper nutrition to provide her growing baby's brain with what it needs to develop.

After a baby is born, the brain is not finished. The brain has another two years of optimal growing time before settling down and being whatever it's going to be.

If a baby does not get proper nutrition (among other things) the brain will not develop properly.

If a child does not get proper nutrition, their brains do not develop properly.

WIC was created with these biological facts in mind. It is a forward looking program. If we can intervene prior to and just after birth, we give the brains of at risk populations a fighting chance to not have the next generation be at risk.

WIC only allows healthy foods to be purchased, unlike food stamps that you can spend on anything.

WIC promotes breastfeeding and assists mothers with this.

WIC is primarily for the working poor. Check out the income levels on the link above.

Military families, families of police, fire fighters, teachers qualify. My nurse friend with a disabled child who needed a specialty formula qualified. The woman ringing up your groceries probably qualifies.

I do not, cannot, fathom the things I hear against this program.

Not when big oil gets more in your tax dollars by way of federal subsidies. Not when multi millionaires get tax cuts. Not when foreign countries get billions in aid.

Save your vitriol and loathing for that.

Leave the damn poor working families alone.

Loki paraphrases Congress: Soldier's babies eat cat food, oil executives' children eat caviar!