Life is RANTastic!

Movin' On Up!

2009-05-17T19:50:00.005-05:00

To a deeee-luxe apartment in the sky!!

Life is RANTastic! has relocated to http://jessicasieghart.com

Please update your bookmarks and follow me over there!

Life Is A Highway

2009-05-14T10:09:00.006-05:00

I had the best intentions of writing this post yesterday, but I was so excited to finally have a locksmith show up with a key to my Jeep that I decided to celebrate by taking it for a ride around town. I was enjoying a warm, spring drive with the windows rolled down when my wardrobe malfunctioned and the wind blew the handkerchief I was wearing as a top right off my body! OH NO! In a frantic effort not to expose myself to the Windy City, I grasped for the fluttering garment and accidentally knocked my shiny tiara right off my head. It landed resting on my nose and the sun glaring off the glistening diamonds had me seeing spots for several hours. I couldn’t see clearly to write my post. A CATastrophe, indeed.

Things like this should not happen in America! I tried to call The Wiseman Donald for help, but he was otherwise occupied determining the 21st century’s definition of pornography. This is great news because I think the Hysteria Lane red light camera caught the whole incident and I’m running for “Miss RANTastic America” next week. I’d hate for those pictures to be released for publication and ruin my chances. My platform is “CatBoots For Everyone!” I’m really excited about it.

Seriously, I’m finding the coverage of the Miss California USA debacle absolutely hysterical. Major news networks interrupted normal coverage to air the decision regarding Carrie Prejean’s pageant fate to the universe, even though she didn’t win the bigger title and really, would probably be only appearing at local charity functions and at schools giving children important lessons about the US Constitution. Like this:

Ummmmm Carrie, darling, sorry to be the one to burst your bubble, but the First Amendment protects your right to freedom of speech from government interference and constraint. It does not protect you from beauty pageant judges, Satan, bloggers who scribble often funny, but, yes, sometimes obscene words over celebrity pictures, the paparazzi and sometimes even worse, it does not protect you from a response to your words from the general American public, like me. Who, by the way, really thinks you lost not because of the content of your answer, but because you didn’t answer the question posed to you and decided to take advantage of an opportunity to express your personal opinion when it wasn’t even asked. (I know, phew!)

All that matters is if the government is interfering with your right to free speech, so unless some secret government faction whisked you off in the night and threatened, tortured and/or imprisoned you, you are not being punished for your statement, you are learning a valuable lesson that freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequences. Life is a highway, my dear, not a one way street.

Imagine that you just steered your car off that one way street and are now driving down a major boulevard through the United States of America. The traffic is not just moving freely in opposite directions, there’s a whole lotta stuff going on in those intersections, as well. That’s why they have red lights on occasion. They force you to stop, pay attention to what’s going on and give people who are traveling in a different direction the ability to move forward at times. Sometimes this happens without incident and other times, there are major crashes.

On the road of life, some of the drivers passing you will give a friendly wave and some will give you the finger and that’s ok. It does and should happen in America, no matter what you look like.

Phew! Now that that’s done, I’m free to tackle other important issues like tongue lashing both Jon and Kate Gosselin.

Cuckoo's Nest

2009-05-09T09:16:00.009-05:00

Yesterday I told you about one of the JessiCATastrophic events that happened this week, my missing key. Before I go continue, the law requires me to post the following notice:

Dear Mr. Bon Jovi,

No worries, it was just me who rode my bicycle past your window last night and roller skated past your door at daylight. Unfortunately, the locksmith didn’t show up with my Brand New Key so I ride my bike, I roller skate and don’t drive no car. I don’t go too fast, but I go pretty far.

Pursuingly, The Rock Chick

Yeah. Seriously. He didn’t show, (ARRRRRGH!) but he did call in the evening and told me that I get to wait for him all day on Wednesday now. The economy sucks, businesses are closing or filing bankruptcy day every day and yet, I can’t seem to get anybody who advertises themselves as an “emergency auto locksmith” to work and I’m just supposed to accept that, I guess.

This is exactly the opposite mentality of my job. My customer service job has become nothing short of a freak show featuring me, center ring, standing on my head and attempting to pull all sorts of things out of my ass in order to please our customers.

Because insurance is an intangible item and hopefully, one doesn’t find the need to file many claims, many people believe that they give their insurance company money for nothing. I hear this day in and day out and I try my best to explain to the customers that they are purchasing protection in case “shit happens”. The economy is tight, I get that. People don’t have money and I can’t say paying my insurance premiums is high on my list of enjoyable activities, either. Then again, neither is dealing with buttholes and they all seem to be out these days, forcing me to want to scream “Holy Bat Shit, Batman” and hermit myself to the comfy and safe nest I’ve assembled in the CATcave.

Disclaimer: Unlike my caped crusader friend, I really don't have a animalistic alter ego, I just pretend I do online.

This past week alone, I have been called very, very bad names (Perez Hilton, was that you?), sworn at and threatened with physical harm over customer’s insurance premiums. I had a spat (spit?) with one customer who came into the office wildly upset that his neighbor is receiving a multi-car discount and he is not. He only has one car policy, which I might add to this story had lapsed a month prior for non-payment of premium. He demanded a single car discount, which of course, doesn’t exist. (The whole point of multi-car or multi-line discounts is so that you bring all of your policies to one company.)

Red faced and hands flailing, he insisted I add the “single car discount”. I couldn't because it doesn’t exist. Then he demanded that I remove whatever commission was factored into the premium. I couldn't do that either because a) I have no idea what that is, b) it would be considered rebating and it’s illegal and c) insurance agents are supposed to work for free now?

I was very nice, even apologizing that I could do none of these things for him when he pulled the old standard, “Let me tell you, I’ve shopped around and found way better rates someplace else”. I hear this day in and day out as well and while it does happen sometimes (not often, really), it’s normally because all insurance policies and companies are not created equal.

Butthole: "So you WILL do something for me or I will take my business elsewhere."

At this point, I really wanted to tell the guy that technically, he didn’t even have any business here. His one auto policy has lapsed over a month ago, but I’m a nice person so I offered to look over the quote he was given by this other insurance company to see if we were looking at something even comparable. Of course it wasn’t, but even worse, this guy was considering leaving the pleasantness of his good neighborly type insurance company for THIS place. Enjoy.

Perhaps this gentleman and The Eagle Man both share a love of blowing smoke out their ass, I don’t know. I question the judgement of anyone who would actually call that company after seeing that commercial. That’s just, well, freakin' cuckoo.

Butthole demanded the same rates. I showed him that they are only offering him the state minimum coverage and if that’s what he’d like here, he can have it (and for less money, too!) but I couldn’t recommend that because I knew this guy owned a house insured with another company. Driving is very risky! If he’d like to leave himself open to losing his home as a result of an accident, then by all means, go with the state minimum coverage. If not, then I would recommend him leaving his policy as it is. Well, except for the lapsed status.

Spat ensues. More of a spit, actually. He screamed, he yelled, he flailed and demanded I give him the higher coverage for the lower rate or I’m not going to like what happens. The only thing I told him I was about to do at that point was to call 911 and ...

There is was. He wasn’t only blowing smoke out his ass, he was spitting right at me. As I picked up the phone to call the police, he fled and I cursed, “swearapy style” and sprayed myself off with Lysol straight from the can.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!swineflu.swineflu.
SWINE FREAKING FLU!

The best part about this story is that the guy called back the next day wanting to know if I would write his homeowner’s insurance policy so he would be eligible for a multi-line discount.

WTF? NO you freak and I’m telling you, if he comes in again, he’s going to find out what “I’ve got something for YOOOOOOOU!” actually means.

Surgical removal of a Catboot heel. Not pleasant at all.

I hope he has insurance for that.

June Is Bustin' Out All Over

2009-04-29T13:04:00.005-05:00

One April may have cried and stepped aside and a May might not have kept her promises, but a certain TV “June” is bustin’ out all over!

It isn’t June Cleaver, but close. It’s Shirley Partridge! Shirley Jones, the Flower Power TV Supermom, always there for her children with a smile, a song and a stenciled school bus, will be appearing topless (at age 75) in an upcoming episode of A&E’s “The Cleaner”.

Jones will portray a “washed up, alcoholic chanteuse” (it’s ok, I had to look it up, too) who attempts to convince her husband that they should go to an AA group or rehab or something. He feels he is too old, so she throws open her bouquets and asks if he’s too old for...well, her buttercups. OK? No, not with me! That's definitely not OK!

I admit, I might just be a little jealous since nobody is blowing 76 trombones over my own AA (size, not group) cups, but why, Shirley, why would you do this?

Did that Bratt Benjamin only offer the part as All Er Nothin?
You definitely weren’t the girl who Cain’t Say No!

You don’t know what you’re up against
You don’t know what it’s all about
You’ve got so much to think about...

Are you trying to shed your Marian The Librarian image? You already did that, Mrs. P, when you won an Academy Award for your performance as a prostitute in Elmer Gantry.

You’re an icon to many of us so called Rock Chick’s (who also adore musical theater and Partridge tunes), but never mind me. What will your children and grandchildren think? Their hearts might just stand still and not in a Da Doo Ron Ron way.

Shirley, please reconsider. I KNOW I Loved You when you were worried that people would even say you’re in love. I can’t even imagine what they’re going to say about this!

Culture Club

2009-04-25T16:38:00.004-05:00

I have some exciting news! No, Boy George didn’t ask me to sing with him on a remake of Karma Chameleon. Even better!!! I’ve been asked to be a regular contributor to a blog I much admire...Diversity Ink. I can’t even tell you how excited and honored I am to be asked to write with this group.

Earlier this year, my friend Malcolm of Pop Culture Dish opened Diversity Ink along with several other top notch bloggers. His hope for Diversity Ink is as follows:

“One of the reasons the racial divide continues is that members of a particular ethnicity may talk amongst each other about race issues, but not to members outside their race. Also, because race is such a sensitive issue, people are reluctant to come out in the open with any of their views, questions, etc. My hope is that Diversity Ink might lead to the bridging of the divide and the breaking down of some of these walls.”

My first contribution to Diversity Ink is entitled Black and Blue and it's about the traffic stop involving Ryan Moats and a Dallas police officer. Head on over there, check it out and let me know what you think!

Breaker, Breaker

2009-04-24T08:37:00.003-05:00

A long, long time ago my sister and I were given a set of walkie talkies. They were blue and had a distinct plastic electronic smell. We used to use them when we were “out in the field”, either attempting to solve neighborhood mysteries Nancy Drew style for our make believe police department or seeking information to write up in our self-published newspaper, The Eyeball Gazette. Based on that title, you can tell we had the imagination and the determination thing down, but the creativity skills were admittedly a little lacking.

One day, my sister and I were talking and somehow we crossed signals with another kid who probably had the same set of walkie-talkies. He couldn’t have been far, but for some reason I was thrilled with the thought of picking up some sort of device and being able to talk to someone like that. Yes, the telephone had been invented at that time! It just didn’t have the same appeal. You knew who you were talking to on the telephone. It took the mystery right out of it.

I soon learned of CB radios. I remember playing with one with my dad once. We had made a list of all of the cool CB talk we had heard on TV shows so we didn’t sound like dorks, although, using a CB in your basement was probably dorky. I was like 10. What did I know? It should come as no surprise that once the internet made it’s appearance, I was hooked. I loved chat rooms, particularly one called Moms Online on AOL. I chatted for hours with other moms from all over the US, Canada and England. Not only did I meet new people, it was so much easier to stay in touch with old friends via email. I still enjoy e-mail. I like that you never catch anyone at a bad time and even though few share my appreciation of forwarded jokes, I like them because it means someone thought of me. I’m sappy that way.

When I got my first pager, I was thrilled. Now anyone could get me anywhere at anytime, no matter where I was or what I was doing. My husband used to send me cute little notes via the pager sometimes. I adored it. All of this led, of course, to the modern day cell phone, my iPhone, complete with apps that let me access all my favorite social networking things like blogs, Facebook and Twitter. I love that I can snap a picture and send it to anyone in an instant. Text messaging? LOVE IT!!!

To me, these are all wonderful things and used with good intentions, like I use them, they are. Lately, though, I’ve been witnessing a lot of just plain bad and unacceptable behavior happening with these things and I find that terribly sad.

One of my daughters got into a little spat with a friend and the next thing she knew, there were a barrage of text messages from this friend saying a lot of terrible things and calling her names. It then spread to Facebook. My daughter responded probably much more brazenly than she would have, as well, had this conversation taken place face to face or even over the telephone. It’s hard to undo those fighting words, especially when they’re in print and like a thousand friends have read them, as well.

I remember the shock of a “Sex And The City” episode where Carrie’s boyfriend, Berger, broke up with her via Post-It-Note, the non-technical equivalent of today’s mainstream “breakup via text message” phenomenon. Of course, Dear John/Jane letters have been in existence forever, but at least they provided a lengthy explanation of the heartbreaker’s reasoning. But to end a relationship in 160 characters or less? Disheartening, disgusting and despicable and rather cruel.

It seems as though it’s more commonplace that I had thought. Researching this topic a bit, I learned that a lot of people think this is an “ok method” to ending relationships and that Britney and Kevin Federline broke up via text message, along with Carrie Underwood and Chase Crawford. Even Jessica Simpson has been dump via text. A Saudi Arabian man was granted a divorce after notifying his wife through a text message that he no longer wished to be married to her. All he had to do was text this desire to two other people and POOF...it was over.

No one seems immune to this. The Real Housewives of NYC’s Countess LuAnn de Lesseps recently authored a book about Good Manners and Etiquette. It seems her husband, The Count, must not have read it because he told her about his affair and ended their 16 year marriage via e-mail.

I'm curious. Have any of you ever broken up or even ended a friendship with someone via email or text messaging or know anyone who has? Have you ever said something to someone in a text or an email that you would not have said having a face-to-face conversation? Have you ever written something on a social networking site, like Facebook or Twitter, that you now wish you could take back?

I think if I ever did, I would stop using these things. I think they are wonderful if used positively, but if I personally experience the negative side, I’d be shattered and probably want to stop using them. It would be a deal breaker, for sure.

Is This Thing Loaded?

2009-04-23T12:26:00.002-05:00

Because I’m so late in writing this post, I’m sure you’re already familiar with the new reality saga (appearing on TV and Twitter messages everywhere), Blogger vs. Beauty, starring Perez Hilton and Miss California USA 2009, Carrie Prejean. If you haven’t, you can watch the clip below.

Perez posed to the following to Miss California: “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit, why or why not?”

And Miss California replied: "Well, I think it's great Americans are able to choose one or the other," she said. "Um, we live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think that it should be, between a man and a woman."

This response drew a most loaded look of disgust from Perez Hilton, who proceeded to give her a score of 0 on the interview portion, which some speculate cost her the crown. He has since shot himself in the foot by calling her a dumb “b-word” while admitting he was thinking “c-word” at the time. Not, not, not acceptable, Perez, and firing off derogatory names and insults is not going to enlighten anyone to your point of view. Get your finger off the trigger.

Interview is a big part of the scoring process, though. No doubt, it’s nerve wracking and there’s also no doubt that the bullets loaded into those questions are not always the same caliber. That being said, I do not think she lost that crown solely because of her personal opinion. Her response was poorly worded, didn’t really answer the question and was wishy-washy.

Slide up and re-read the question that was posed to her. She was not asked if she supported same sex marriage. She was asked if she thought every state should follow the decision already made by four states. That’s not the same thing.

This is an equality question. Marriage laws and definitions are decided by each individual state and states do not have to recognize marriages that do not coincide with their own marriage laws. The Defense of Marriage act Also states that the federal government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages, even if it is recognized by any of the states. So, basically, even if you reside in a state that considers you married, good luck trying to file a joint tax return.

She has the law and the Prop 8 decision (from her very own state) on her side to answer this question “No”, which is according to her beliefs. Instead she chooses to answer that she thinks “it’s great” that Americans can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage, (a term I admit I’ve never heard before) and then completely 180’s and says that in her country and in her family, she thinks she believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

In order for it to be great that people can choose, the option has to be available, no?

So, she agrees that the other states should follow suit? It sounds like it. Oh wait, here comes the next sentence. She thinks she believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Well, do you or don’t you? Even if you do, do you still support the choice for others statement that you just made?

Does she think that other states should legalize same-sex marriage? I don’t know. I’m thinking not, but she never answered the question and her statements contradict each other.

I’m willing to bet that she received lower interview scores than did the winner across the board. Miss North Carolina, who won, was asked a question regarding bailouts. Her beliefs were in direct contrast to current policies set forth by the government and in opposition to the President. I didn’t necessarily agree with her response, either, but she answered the question posed to her and didn’t fire a blank or worse, miss the target. Miss California lost because of the way she answered the question, not because of her personal opinion.

Pretty Ugly

2009-04-19T11:46:00.009-05:00

There’s a part of me that will always remain forever young. I’m admittedly fickle and I like trendy things, except for tattoos. (not for the fickle!) I can’t help it. My favorite song changes from week to week. I don’t want costly furniture that I could never part with because of price and other than The CatBoots, I don’t want classic, timeless clothing that supposedly will “never” go out of style.

Like this...

Egads. Is this what Huey meant by “Hip To Be Square?” I adore yellow, but Holy Big Bird, Batman! Was this family portrait taken at a desperate Stepford Wives fundraiser benefitting public television? I’m wondering how the mom’s dress will hold up after the trendy moms beat her silly for dressing her kid in that outfit. Hopefully, the dad wasn't too seriously injured during the Easter egg hunting accident on the golf course at the country club, either. He appears relatively unscathed except for the obvious PTSD that would cause him to appear in public in that getup.

I’m getting off topic. Anyway, (since I like trendy), I know what’s happening with my kids and the things are lame, way cool items and those they must have to prevent ostracism from society. Having four trendy kids, my house is exploding with an accumulation of trendy crap from over the last two decades.

So imagine my surprise when I asked my niece what she would like for her birthday and was told an “Uglydoll”. An uglydoll? WTF is an uglydoll? A sense of panic overwhelmed me. My kids don’t have uglydolls. I feared we missed a stop or something!

I was told that they are dolls that are so ugly, they’re cute. Ok... I get it...like cabbage patch dolls, pug dogs and E.T.!

Ummmm, no. I arrived at the specialty toy store selling these things and was grossly disappointed. They’re not so ugly that they’re cute. They’re just pretty ugly. Soooo not the same thing.

These dolls (I use the term loosely) reminded me of a t-shirt I sewed in my 7th grade home economics class. Besides being about three sizes too small, I didn’t cut it correctly so the arm holes didn’t line up. The blue thread I chose rather clashed with the pink stretchy material, too.

Had I the foresight, I could have just stuffed the shirt and bedazzled on an eye or three and be taking $20 a pop from the parents of tots and tweens. I could be living in my hermit cave surrounded by plush pink shag carpeting, disco balls and Bon Jovi posters, watching laserdiscs of “I Love The 80’s” on my gnarly 70” HDTV while tweeting my peeps on my iPhone. Sweet!!

All this got me thinking that perhaps I’m a little to eager to follow the trend when perhaps I should be seeing about setting some myself. Perhaps something is in order to celebrate my upcoming blogiversary?

I’d like to sleep on it, but I can’t. One of the kids popped a hole in my waterbed with an American Girl doll clothes hanger. What a mess!

Where’s my ShamWow?

Bungle In The Jungle

2009-04-16T15:50:00.007-05:00

As you may have noticed, I’ve been refraining from poking fun at celebrities lately. It’s not that I’ve been trying to become a nicer person or anything, it’s just that they haven’t been doing anything all that funny. Simple as that.

Britney never goes out without underwear and jail must have reformed Paris because she’s just not all that fun anymore. Nicole has a baby now and Lindsey Lohan appears to be spiraling so badly out of control that it’s reached non-joke-able territories.

Thank goodness for Rod Blagojevich, that’s all I have to say.

Blago, Illinois’ hair brained, bungled governor, just can’t seem to stay out of the spotlight. Facing almost fingers and toes worth of federal charges (including trying to sell Barack Obama’s open senate seat) that could probably land him several hundred or so years in prison, Blago has decided to use his last few months of freedom to appear on a reality show under the pretense of raising money for his defense, but we all know what a publicity whore he is. Who's he trying to kid?

I’m not even sure he could assemble a “dream team”. (We’ve all heard the bleepin’ tapes, Blago.)

Anyway, he is asking a judge permission to appear in “I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!”. They will drop off Blago in the heart of a Costa Rican jungle along with 9 other celebrities "to face fun and comedic challenges designed to test their survival skills." No word on the other celebrities yet, other than rumors one is Olympian Nanc-Knee Kerrigan. Seriously, to win a competition like that you need to be cunning, crafty and devious. The jungle in Costa Rica is home to a whole bunch of undesirables like biting ants, venomous spiders and poo slinging monkeys. How could anyone be expected to compete against Blago who works with exactly that for a living? It's really not fair.

Understandably, people are upset about this. Maybe he won’t return? Why should he get special passport privileges?What's going to happen to his hair with all that humidity?

Am I upset? Not so much. The only thing I’m really upset about is that there’s been a show called “I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!” and I didn’t know about it! (How could this happen?)

There will be plenty of episodes of “Locked Up: Governor’s Edition” coming up soon. In the meantime, if Blago wants to go bungle in a jungle while awaiting trial, well, that’s all right by me.

Tweedle-lee-dee-dee-dee

2009-04-14T10:27:00.006-05:00

Tweet, Tweet!

Because I SO rock the treetops AND my all-day-long iPhone chirping on Facebook just isn’t enough, I also hopped on the Twagon (Twitter Wagon) and am starting to master flappin’ my wings in 120 characters or less. I know, I know, you get 140, but I learned you’re supposed to limit it to 120 in case you write something so fascinating that someone would want to “RT” ( re-tweet ) it. Needless to say, I am very #wordy and while that flies in the blogosphere, in the Twitterverse, it's more akin to being a duck on the wrong side of a 10 gauge shotgun. Thud.

I totally suck at Twitter, but I’m determined.

In order to experience Twitter to its fullest, you must follow others and be followed. I currently am following 115 people and have 69 followers. This seems to be a sufficient number for social networking and RANTastic possibilities, but it’s not.

Why? (No worries, I’ll tell you.)

1. I’m following people (ok, celebrities) who are not following me. (Except for Yoko Ono. She even sent me a message!) I can see what these celebs write, but they don’t see what I write. If I respond directly to them, they can see that, but, they probably have 800,000+ people sending them messages. I say the chance of conversation is pretty nil.
2. If I’m being honest, the vast majority of people I’m following are just not all that interesting.
3. Even worse, a lot of the people following me couldn’t care less about anything I’m tweeting. They want numbers, so they are just following people in the hopes of being followed.

I’m finding Twitter to be like every little swallow, every chickadee and every little bird in a tall oak tree are singing away and wondering if anyone is really listening to anybody else? Sometimes it seems kind of lonely.

It’s not all bad, though. The top celebs on my Twitterlist are Michael Ian Black (hysterical!) Ashton and Demi (who are actually entertaining), along with Perez Hilton, Dr Drew, Soleil Moon Frye, one of my favorite authors, Jen Lancaster, and blogger extraordinaire, Dragonblogger. I can always understand what these people write and they usually come up with something clever, funny or endearing to say....err, tweet.

The least interesting person I follow is Office Chair who reports on his farting activity. Yes, it’s true. The only reason I followed him was because I was relatively certain I could understand what he was talking about, which, for me, is problem #4 a lot of the time.

Still, I am determined to master Twitter and hopefully, one day all the real tweeples of J-Cat street and the celebs...Crystal, Dustin, Shelly, Damien, Malcolm and Rex... will love to hear The Rock Chick going tweet, tweet, tweet.

Just a Little Smile

2009-04-11T10:25:00.002-05:00

This made me smile ;)

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

2009-04-09T11:59:00.006-05:00

Make me a match!
Find me a find,
Catch me a catch!

Misunderstood loser, 52, miserable, broke, apathetic, tired of TV and watching my cellmate’s hair fall out ISO financially secure, entrepreneurial, non-drinking, non-smoking, no drugging, virgin supermodel, 18-22 with green eyes. Must love NASCAR and ferrets and be excited to serve beer topless to my good pals, Dangerous Dan and G-Ride. Pole dancing experience and Mensa member a plus!

Ok, I totally made that up, but you get the idea. Dating! We all have a few dating horror stories under our belts, don’t we? I realize that I am one of the fortunate ones. I met the love of my life on school bus in 7th grade. Of course, I didn’t realize this back then, so I subjected myself to dating your basic string of idiots until it finally dawned on me.

Anyway, like I said, I was lucky. I hear stories from some of my single friends about how hard it is to meet people and I thank heaven that I don’t have to deal with that. I wouldn’t even know how to go about it these days. I rarely go anywhere anymore that I actually meet new people and I think if I were seriously manhunting and mentioned that I have 4 teenagers, that alone might just scare off the best of the bunch...no matter how much they liked my shoes.

I would probably end up ISO love on online dating sites. For me that would be really hard because I don’t even know what most of acronyms mean. SWM, SDF, BBW, MILF.....(WTF?) and frankly, even though I am one of the nicest and most generous people I’ve ever come across in my life, I don’t think I’d match anyone’s “wants”. I’m sure they’re not all like my fictional “Miserable Loser” above, but even Chava in Fiddler on The Roof had some stipulations. She’d bring the veil if her sister, Hodel, brought a groom “slender and pale”. It’s not all that surprising that some people spend night after night in the dark all alone. I’m just saying.

In the spirit of online matchmaking, I’ve decided to play “Yenta” here, not in the dating sense, but it the “bloggy buddy” sense and introduce you all to my friend, RamblingRex. Rex stepped up to the blogosphere with his new site “The Life and Times of a 40-Something Gay Man” and knocked one out of the park with his first post, “Online Dating Sucks”. He is open, he is funny and while he may be seeking is not something everyone agrees with, that’s irrelevant. I don’t think there’s anyone out there who won’t be able to relate to the humanness, humor and frustration in Rex’s post.

I first met Rex (ok, that’s not his real name!) back in high school and I guarantee that if you like me, you will like him. Rex is RANTastic and while he doesn’t wear Catboots (at least not that I know of ;), we always get the same score on Facebook quizzes. That alone should be proof enough that our compatibility is without question, but further references are available upon request, if needed. If not, head on over there, check out his blog and leave him a comment and some link love.

While you’re doing that, I’m going to biddy biddy bum to “If I Were A Rich Man” because I now have these songs stuck in my head.

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. To Life, my bloggy buddies, L'Chaim!

Let Me Whisper I Love You

2009-03-29T09:21:00.005-05:00

We have a new family member! Her name is Lulu and the lady at the shelter said she is a 1 year old Pastel Tortie. I have no idea if that’s true of not. I know absolutely nothing about cat colors or markings. (Perhaps one of you cat fanciers out there would know!!) All I do know is that she is wonderful and I’m head over heels in love with her.

Even though I call myself JessiCat, I’ve never considered myself much of a cat person until I met my cat, Jovi, in a pet store one day. Jovi has pretty much bonded like super glue with me. He’s friendly and he will play and occasionally even cuddle with the kids if I’m right there. If I move, Jovi goes where I go. Middle Daughter suffers from a lot of depression issues and just loves cuddling and nurturing animals. Jovi won’t quite let her do this as often as she'd like, so I thought hmmmmmm.....pets are very therapeutic and perhaps a cat that super glues itself to her might be a good idea!

Our first stop was a shelter very close to my house. The second we walked into the cat room, a beautiful cat named Natalia found my daughter. Middle Daughter sat on the floor and played with her and within minutes Natalia The Cat had climbed into her lap and fallen asleep. So cute!!! A few other cats walked up to her, but they didn’t connect like Middle and Natalia did. Natalia had been an owner surrender and had been there well over a year. I couldn’t believe it. She was a playful, loving and beautiful cat! Why hadn't anybody taken her home? It seemed, well....odd, considering this cat's personality.

I filled out the adoption papers and was told that there was nobody there who could approve adoptions. What? It is a weekend! They said we would be told by Tuesday or Wednesday if we could take Natalia home. OK, whatever. We decided to wait and before we left, checked out the other cat room where a different volunteer was working.

He wanted us to check out a certain cat and Middle Daughter told him we already applied for adoption for Natalia. He slipped me a secret that the director is very fond of Natalia and probably wants to keep her around, because nobody that’s ever applied for Natalia actually gets to take her home, so we should check out this other cat.

WHAT? I didn’t like what I was hearing. If she likes the cat that much, then the Director should take her home and give her a home. If she can’t for some reason, then she should want a family that loves her to give her a home. She shouldn’t want to keep her in a shelter! Pffffffffffft.

I didn’t want Middle Daughter to be waiting for a cat I was pretty sure we wouldn’t get, so we checked out another shelter called Orphans of The Storm. We had adopted my beloved doggie, BAILey, from there many years ago. This place was much larger than the first shelter, too.

I was astonished at the number of cats that needed homes. There were hundreds, I swear. Enormous rooms just filled with cats. Middle Daughter looked a little overwhelmed and I told her to just sit on the floor and first, see who comes to her and then see how the connection feels.

The volunteer working in that cat room said to me “Oh, you’re a cat whisperer!”

I am? I didn’t know that. Probably because I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but hey, it sounds cool, so maybe I am!

She explained that cat whisperers are people who innately understand the behaviors and nature of cats without any sort of training. It’s just natural to them. That’s me! JessiCat, the cat whisperer!

What does one do with cat whispering skills? I looked through Hotjobs and it’s definitely not a marketable skill in the lucrative, "great! I'm going to hire you" sense. I see books written by fellow cat whisperers divulging secrets of how to talk to your cat, but I don’t know if I have anything to offer here, either. I just talk to the cat. I don’t whisper to it.

Some of these “cat whisperers” are also cat therapists. Cat therapists? My innate, catlike instincts tell me that if cats could speak, “take me to therapy” would not be something they would be likely to say. Cat therapy has to be a human idea developed by cat whisperers trying to make a living using this whispering skill.

Perhaps my cat skills are derived from the years I have spent studying human behavior. Just a guess, but I’ll let you know what I’ve decided to do with my newfound talent. In the meantime, shhhhhhhh, I’m busy whispering to Lulu ;)

This Is How It Works (My Neck Of The Woods)

2009-03-23T14:45:00.009-05:00

I haven’t blogged in ages and I’ve been craving getting back into the game and the sweet taste of reader comments. It wasn’t lack of desire that kept me from the blogosphere, it was a lack of words. When some people get stressed, they eat. They devour those feelings and pour their souls into producing books, articles or posts worthy of a Chicken Soup comparison. Not me. I turn to the more chicken nugget style of social networking like Facebook and Twitter.

So when my bloggy buddy, Shelly, told me about her new Saturday meme blogging idea, “My Neck Of The Woods” I was excited and determined to participate. I know, it’s Monday. (Better late than never???)

My neck of the woods is the Chicago area. I don’t live in the city (as we call it) any longer. I live in a suburb located about three miles north of “the city” and sandwiched somewhat loosely in between landmarks like O’Hare Airport and Northwestern University. A common misconception of the Chicago area from people who have never been here is that there are Al Capone style gangsters running around smuggling, bootlegging and shooting people all over the place. While I certainly won’t deny that Chicago does have some seriously troubled gang-ridden neighborhoods, the only gangsters remaining seem to be our local politicians who rob us blind with sales tax rates upwards of 10.25%. I haven’t heard of anyone ever caught bootlegging, but I did see a guy in a store once take a flask out of his boot!

The Chicago area is loaded with restaurants and while I think most would say the culinary claim to fame here is our deep dish pizza, I think few people outside of the area understand the savory deliciousness of a Chicago Style Hot Dog. In fact, the Chicago area has more hot dog establishments than McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s combined!

While I don’t walk around the streets in fear of gangsters in pin stripe suits, I will say that perhaps one of the scariest places I do go regularly is a local dive called “The Works”. The Works is your typical, run down hot dog establishment. It’s been there forever and it’s claim to fame is the Gyros Sandwich they serve. Even though, gyros has been a Chicago favorite since the late 60’s or so, I can’t stand it, but I seem to be alone in my thoughts on it. I know people who have moved away from the area and will drive many, many miles to get gyros from The Works.

Whether your wanting gyros, hot dogs, italian beef, or burgers, in my neck of the woods, The Works is the place to go. So why does the place scare me? Well, it’s the owners. I think everyone is scared of them. They are rough and gruff (think the Saturday Night Live “cheesebooger, cheesebooger” skit) and if they are busy they will swear at you in Greek if you order something too complicated. I waitressed myself through college and although I’m familiar (not fluent) with three languages, my knowledge of Greek pretty much consists of being able to yell obscenities at people and muttering the always startling “I know what you’re saying”. I did that once here after an exceptionally vulgar outburst after my order. I got a free coke out the deal.

When you enter The Works, you stand under the “Order Here” sign until the gentleman to the left in the picture here is good and ready to take your order. One should expect to be completely ignored until that time. I usually watch the other guy shave thin slices of gyros off the rotisserie or drool over the hot dog picture until my turn comes.

A hot dog true Chicago style is yellow mustard, chopped onion, pickle relish, tomatoes, kosher dill pickle and celery salt on top of a steamed or boiled all beef dog and served on a poppy seed bun. It is delicious!!! While some people will add peppers on their hot dogs (not a fan, personally), putting ketchup on an official Chicago Style Hot Dog is a no-no and prohibited! Of course, The Works will put ketchup on a hot dog if you so wish, but the devourer is just denying themselves the true experience.

After you pick up your food that’s been served in a plastic little basket lined with wax paper, you have your selection of tables. Trying to find one that doesn’t rock is a bit of a challenge, but part of the fun of the place. There are no windows so for scenery you have your choice of artwork that is hand painted on the walls and then trimmed out to appear framed. I watched the artist painstakingly paint these odd collaboration of portraits over a period of months and was fortunate enough to be there when he finished. The owner told him the paintings sucked and didn’t want to pay him. Along with the food, I’m sure the entertainment value is a draw to the restaurant, as well. You just never know what’s going to happen.

The only wall that isn’t painted is the “Wall of Fame”. Here hangs pictures of local and nationally recognized celebrities who have visited the restaurant. Forgive my blurry iPhone photography, but perhaps the best known of people on the “Wall of Fame” is Academy Award Winner Marlee Matlin, who grew up across the street from this place.

So, if you’re ever in my neck of the woods, be sure to stop on over at The Works. Don’t speak until spoken to and don’t complain about the food, ever! Just order Chicago style and grab a chair and enjoy the meal and the atmosphere. It sounds like a plan for disaster in the restaurant biz, but not for this place. Whatever they do there...it WORKS!

AAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHHH!

2009-02-07T09:33:00.003-06:00

This is long and I apologize, but I think I may just lose what little sanity I have left. I don’t even have a song title to describe it, that's how you know how bad it is.

My daughter is back in the hospital. We have not had any success in treating my daughter’s Bipolar Disorder and Eating and Self-Injury Disorders despite almost two years of medications and intensive therapy, individual and family. There’s been talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, music therapy and art therapy. There’s been ANAD support groups and self-injury support groups. We have been to and through numerous psychiatrists, psychologists, inpatient programs, out patient programs and partial inpatient programs at 5 different hospitals.

When I put my child in a treatment facility, she doesn’t get better, she just gets better and more skilled at being an anorexic or self-injurer.

We have completely exhausted our private mental health care coverage and have had no option but to turn to Medicaid for hospital admissions. When this happens, the family is assigned a caseworker who always seems to be a very nice person, but also one who is obviously just overworked and bordering on burn out. It also seems that when you go from private insurance coverage to some sort of assistance, the social workers in the hospitals can’t bother keeping the parents informed of anything, because they are too busy reporting directly to the state caseworker.

Yesterday, I was becoming increasingly frustrated as my daughter had been admitted for 53 hours to an inpatient psychiatric facility and despite all the messages I had left, I hadn’t received one phone call back from anybody to let me know how she was doing.

As I was pacing my living room floor, our caseworker called wanting to know if I could FAX him copies of our latest paycheck stubs because the ones I had previously submitted had been misplaced. I said “sure” and he asked how the doctors thought my daughter was doing. I said I didn’t know because I had yet to hear from anyone despite leaving messages. He thought that was “strange” because he had already received four updates on her condition.

The caseworker must have contacted the social worker assigned to my daughter on the unit because amazingly, she was in contact with me a short time later. This was around 10:00 AM and she wanted to know if we could come in for a family session with her at noon.

I told her that I could be there, but my husband was at work. She said that was fine and I arrived at the hospital at 11:55. She finally let me in to the unit at about 12:30.

At times, I feel like I really need to learn to be more patient with people, but that’s beside the point.

I asked why it took so long for her to contact me and she said it was because my daughter had previously had an extended admission to this hospital and she needed the time to review all of the charts and notes, etc.

Breathe. Ok. Would it really have taken too much effort to just call and tell me that?

After answering the standard questions about my drug and alcohol use, she wanted to take some time to “delve into our home life” because the previous social worker had in her notes that she believed my husband was “not on board” with our daughter getting better.

WHAT? Did my daughter say something like that?

No, I was told our daughter actually speaks quite highly of both of us, but my husband had missed several family therapy sessions before and he absolutely refused to attend these required so-called support groups and well, she can’t help but notice that he isn’t here now, either.

I was insulted. After ignoring all of my messages, she called me to schedule a family session on two hour's notice. My husband was at work. We have no insurance, somebody in the family has to work to pay these idiots for all of the non-help they provide. We’ve repeatedly asked to have these sessions during evening hours, but evening hours aren’t available because, you know, the social workers only work 8 to 4.

Ok, then. I told her I was insulted and she said that perhaps she could have asked that question “a little better”. I said you didn’t ask a question, you made a statement. A question involves raising your voice a little bit at the end and suggests that you need some further information.

Not that I feel the need to defend myself, but we used to go to these “support groups”. The last one I went to a woman was whining and crying because her anorexic daughter, who you could tell was really trying very hard to recover, became upset with her over a comment she had made.

Even if anyone hasn’t witnessed an anorexic struggle trying to eat food, it will be simple to comprehend the insanity of the story I am about to tell you.

The daughter, who was nothing short of skeletal, was released to home and trying to follow her meal plan. She became upset with her mother who said (while she was eating)...and I quote....

“It’ll be a shame to waste your current clothes when you gain weight and we have to throw out the old ones and keep buying new.”

I looked at my husband and I’d say dumbfounded described what we both felt.

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and just said...”WHAT?!?!?!?!” That called for an interrobang.

This woman was so idiotic that even the mom who thought that mental health issues were ridiculous and that all her daughter really needed was some more “retail therapy” looked at her cross eyed.

Apparently, the woman’s hatred of waste is more important than her own daughter wasting away. I suggested that perhaps she could donate the clothing and then it wouldn’t be “wasted”. She didn’t seem too keen on the idea, but then again, I was speaking to a woman wearing a POLO SHIRT WITH A SWEATER tied around her neck.

Even in the height of it’s popularity during the “prairie, punk and preppy” days of the 80’s, this was such a bad look that I am unable to locate an image of anyone even wearing this on the entire internet. The style is mentioned, but it seems that all photos showing this style have been destroyed. Understandably so.

It’s WAY time to chuck the sweater, Buffy, and get a clue.

Anyway, these “support groups” made me want to strangle people and swallow Xanax and I have much more patience than my husband does with the general population.

When the therapist leading the session asked the woman “How do you think words like that make your daughter feel?” and the woman asked for some time to think about it, we had both had enough. Good God. Just let me choke Buffy until she can no longer speak. Problem solved.

I also have an extremely hard time understanding the anger that some of these people have at their children for symptoms of an illness...OMG! If parents want to be angry that their child has an illness, fine. That’s probably good, it makes you a better advocate, but to be mad at the child and develop this “me and against them” mentality and to speak badly about your children regarding their being sneaky or manipulative in order to find ways to injure themselves as if it’s a personal attack against the parents is nauseating to me. That is a symptom of the illness!

So...no, I am not taking away time from my other children nor is my husband taking off of work and losing money to listen to that crap. It’s no wonder these places are just revolving doors with the same kids going in and out all the time.

I was told by the social worker that it would be best f we just put her in a long term residential facility which, affordably, vary in cost between only $8,000 and $50,000 a month.

Ummm, hello? I don’t make $50,000 a year and did I mention that we have no health insurance for my daughter any longer? Not that they would pay for that beyond like 28 days, even if I did.

Today the hospital is telling us that they are not equipped to handle her because it’s impossible for them to watch her 24 hours a day (why?) and she is still finding ways to injure herself on the unit. They can’t transfer her to a hospital more equipped to handle her because she is a Medicaid patient and that hospital won’t deal with Medicaid.

They don’t want me to bring her home, because they can’t fathom a way that I could watch her 24/7, either, and if something were to happen the social worker said she would be devastated.

THE SOCIAL WORKER would be devastated?

Her only suggestion is to put her in a long term facility. The one relatively near my house is almost $30,000 a month. I called and this place requires a minimum three month stay commitment (with two months payable in advance) and she’d get the same seemingly ineffective therapy we’ve been doing non-stop for the past two years, but, they do have cameras in the rooms and a lovely garden area for journaling and socializing with girls with similar issues.

She means socializing with other teenagers who have self-injury problems who teach each other ways to hide it better and different methods to use when their parents discover one of them and prevent them from doing it.

Seriously. Did you know a pencil eraser could cause serious friction burns and scarring? Neither did I, and neither did my daughter until she began self-injury treatment.

I don’t know what to do. I’m tempted to have her released and handcuff her to me until I can find someone that actually knows what they are doing and can help with this. This doesn’t seem to exist in the greater Chicagoland area.

My daughter may have a serious mental illness, but, it’s no wonder she is not getting any better because the entire treatment system is insane.

Sick, Dirty and Mean

2009-02-05T11:26:00.002-06:00

Once again, I’m apologizing for not blogging on a regular basis. I’d like to say it was because life was tossing me a few lemons and I was busy testing lemonade recipes, but it isn’t quite as simple as that.

The Rock Chick had a BAD 2008. I know a lot of people who did. It seemed contagious. I was hoping that the calendar change would make a difference and it didn’t, so, I’m thinking a rant is in order. Since I am not independently wealthy and can not retreat into the hermitlike status I know I would be comfy in, there are some changes that must happen if The Rock Chick is going to be forced to maintain contact with human civilization. It’s only fair, people.

I have HAD it with most of the people I’ve been encountering in the mental health community while trying to receive treatment for my daughter who suffers from Bipolar Disorder, Anorexia Nervosa with Purging and Self-Injury problems.

First, I can’t tell you how many of these “professionals” I have encountered that should immediately have Clinton and Stacy from TLC’s What Not To Wear come ambush them and cart them off for a more appropriate wardrobe and maybe even, oh I don’t know, a bath.

The night before last, I had to take my daughter to the ER to have her admitted to the hospital and, we were greeted by a psychologist, who was just.... filthy. Slimy and dandruffed hair, bloated, cracked and disgusting looking feet and toenails stuffed into some kind of sandal (ummm, hello, it’s below zero outside) and some loose hanging clothing that I think even the stoned beatniks of the ‘60’s would have refused to don.

And, (I know I’m going to get in trouble here, but let me finish first), morbidly obese. So heavy that she could not even sit down without hiking up her skirt and spreading her legs as far as they would go before she tipped herself over backwards into a chair.

I’m sorry, but when I see someone so blatantly unconcerned about their own health, safety and even basic hygiene, how am I supposed to be even remotely comfortable about having them treat my child, who, (let’s be real here), I am admitting to the psychiatric unit for treatment of the same?

This is unacceptable and if it were just a single incident, I wouldn’t be ranting about it as crudely as I am. I can’t tell you the amount of mental health professionals we have encountered in the last two years that appear like they are in need of one much more urgently than my teenager.

To top it all off, the woman wasn’t even pleasant. She seemed pissed off to even have to deal with anyone’s problems. I had brought my daughter to the ER because her purging was completely out of control. Purging is extremely dangerous. Heart failure can easily result from a loss of vital minerals and nutrition or electrolyte imbalance.

After talking to my daughter, she informed me that she didn’t believe my daughter was suicidal at that moment and was not going to qualify for an admission to the unit. I said I disagreed, but would bring her back home and just not let her out of my sight and find another place to treat her. What was I going to do? She just said they wouldn’t freakin’ admit her.

And she said.......and I quote.....

“Your choice. If her purging and the fact she could drop dead at any given time doesn’t bother you, go ahead and take her home.”

Doesn’t bother me? Excuse me, what-the-fuck did I just tell you I brought her in here for? The woman received what I like to call InstaCatboot. I don’t even think she knew what hit her, but I think she got the idea after I offered to wheel her up to the unit because I think she’s on the wrong side of the door.

Which leads me to my third rant of this series...why the heck is it automatically assumed that because a child has a mental illness, the parents did something to them or are falling down drunks or complete incompetent morons or something? WTF?

I can not even tell you how many times I’ve been asked about the number of drinks I have per day. My answer, as always: none.

I always get the eyebrow. None? You never drink? Did you have an alcohol problem at one time?

Ummmmm noooooo, I have a Bipolar teenager and three other extremely active and athletic teenagers to care for 24 hours a day. I don’t have the luxury of kicking back a few cocktails, because Lord only knows what could happen at any given time. Perhaps when they are out of the house and on their own, I’ll consider tequila shooters now and again, but right now, it’s just not a possibility.

Mrs. Rock Chick, do you own a handgun???

My answer: My husband is a police officer and he has his duty weapons.

Eyebrow up. You lock them up, don’t you Mrs. Rock Chick?

Arrrrrrgh!!!!! Of course we freaking lock them! We have not only my four children, but umpteen others in the house all the time. What do you think? My husband just tosses his duty weapon any old place and we just hope to God that nobody, including a bad guy who might burglarize our home, gets a hold of it?

I know they have to ask, but I could do without the eyebrows and the second guessing of my answers. I understand that they probably do deal with a lot of shitty parents, but that certainly doesn’t mean they all are.

And finally...because this is already longer than I expected it to be....family therapy and these freaking mandatory support groups for the parents.

When I say I have no interest in going to a “Bipolar Mom” support group, I get the eyebrow. I don’t need outside support from strangers, I have a fabulous husband and an extended family that would help with anything at any time of day.

And then there’s the “family therapy” to work out the supposed anger issues I have toward my Bipolar teen. Believe me, we’ve been to a lot of family therapy and I’m still not seeing what we’re supposed to be angry about. When I ask, they look at me like I’m a doorknob or something.

Your daughter injures herself, you aren’t angry at her for that?

Ummmm, seriously, I’m not and I think if I were, I'd be getting help for myself. My daughter is ill and what she does are symptoms of her illness. Do moms get pissed when their child has the flu and they get a fever? If their child has strep throat, do they get irritated because it’s painful to swallow? Why on earth would I be angry at her for having a symptom of an illness? I guess somehow this is supposed to be different, but it isn’t.

What I am angry with is what appears to be a complete lack of help out there for children and their families who are having to deal with things like this. It seems even a lot of the professionals have trouble getting past the stigmas associated with mental illness. The way the families are treated, kept in the dark, dismissed as losers, talked to like they are idiots and having no choice but to deal with people who obviously have serious issues of their own is....despicable.

And, there doesn’t seem to be a support group for that.

The Rock Chick is feeling like she needs to put her Catboots to good use and find a way to change this. I don’t know how yet, but there has to be a way.

It's Hard For Me To Say I'm Sorry

2009-01-26T08:36:00.005-06:00

You know why? I rarely say anything I don’t mean. I’m thoughtful, sensitive to the feelings of others (ok, except for Paris Hilton) and I’m not racist, sexist or intolerant of most things...except racism, sexism and intolerance.

I’m interested in my readers’ thoughts on a current incident with Tom Hanks apologizing for a statement he made regarding Mormon supporters of Proposition 8 being “un-American”.

I admit, I’m torn in two. To me there is nothing more American than voting your opinion and yet, I honestly believe that not allowing gay marriage is absolute discrimination. Somehow being able to cast a vote in favor of inequity just rubs me the wrong way. It seems Tom Hanks feels the same way.

What do you think? (you don’t have to agree with me, of course)

Teen Age Crush

2009-01-21T23:19:00.004-06:00

Something amazingly fabulous has happened to The Rock Chick. Alright, it’s not all that amazing, but that was a good attention grabber, no? Hang in there, it is a cool story.

I am fascinated by celebrities. I don’t know why, but I always have been and in my youth, I had some heartaching teenage crushes on several heartthrobs like Shaun Cassidy, Erik Estrada, Mark Harmon and Gregory Harrison.

In my early high school years, Gregory Harrison was starring on a show called Trapper John MD. He played the offbeat Dr. Gonzo Gates and his curly brown hair, dark eyes and charming good looks had me crushing on him....bad! So bad, in fact, that I put pictures of him on the inside of my school locker.

Don’t believe me? Here’s proof.

Yes, you are looking at a picture of The Rock Chick (although, I was The Choir Chick back then) circa 1981, posing in front of her locker and showing off her Gonzo Gates picture along with a cast picture of Trapper John MD.

Seriously? How dorky can one be? I don’t even know how I opened my locker in public.

I recently came across this picture of myself and my sister found it hysterical. She found out that Gregory Harrison had his own website and his e-mail address was posted. He loves to hear from fans, I guess. Who knew?

I’ve never been much of a fan letter writing person, but once when my sister and I were young, we wrote fan letters to Mr. Rogers. I received a record back in the mail and my sister's letter went unanswered. She said that I had to email that photo along with a little note to Gregory Harrison because I’m lucky that way.

I, being completely bored out of my mind recovering from back surgery, agreed to do it. I had nothing else to do.

Well, to my surprise....HE E-MAILED ME BACK! Yes, it’s true....here’s what he wrote!!!

Dear Jessica,
Thanks for the email and the good laugh. I appreciate your attention now and I also appreciate your attention way back in the old days. I have to say you were a great looking high school girl, and I'll bet you are still lovely. I hope you will enjoy the AU PAIR 3 movie that is coming out in March on ABC Family Channel. I look a little older, but so it goes.
Thanks again,
Gregory

Darn tootin’ I’m still lovely! Not only is the man gorgeous, he’s smart, too! And Gregory...I’m on a first name basis now with Gregory Harrison. I officially have a celebrity BFF! Cool, right?

Riding in a limousine with Paris Hilton can’t be too far off after all!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

2009-01-20T23:54:00.012-06:00

I’ve revealed to all of you before that I am a weeping willow. Sad, worried, injured, angry or full of hope, joy and pride...all are expressed by me through water works. I can’t help it, I’ve inherited that from my mother. It’s genetic, people.

Watching the continuing news coverage regarding today’s presidential inauguration, I found my eyes quite teary as certain images projected onto the TV screen. Earlier today, after President Obama was sworn in as our 44th President, he, Michelle and The Bidens were photographed walking down the steps of the US Capitol building and it caused my heart to leap!

I have long been a supporter of Barack Obama and today, my fellow Americans, we not only have our first African-American president in the White House, we also have Catboots.

Yes, that’s right. People may have questioned President Obama’s experience with foreign policy and for that reason, Vice President Joe Biden was a wise choice as a running mate. Barack Obama is a man of words. I believe in his words and that his gift of speech will be an effective tool in dealing with foreign policy issues, but it’s comforting to me to know that if words alone should fail, Jill Biden can get in there and kick some ass.

In all seriousness, today was really an emotional day for me. As I was readjusting to getting back to work after my back surgery, I watched the news coverage of the inauguration on the small set we have at work.

The image of Barack Obama standing to be sworn in as President of The United States in front of The Capitol Building, a structure that slaves help construct, his right hand in the air and his left on the very same bible that Abraham Lincoln used, was too much for this blubberer to bear without waterworks. By the time he spoke to the words “So help me God” and the massive crowd, bursting with an energy I’ve never seen before, starting cheering, I was dripping just like the leaky faucet in my bathroom. The only difference is that I don’t have a handle to jiggle to get it to turn off. Once I get going, I’m like Niagara Falls. I was sniffing all morning talking to customers on the phone.

There may be a new face in The White House, but Obama’s ideas are nothing new to me. I was raised by very Kennedy-esque parents, who believed in service, giving back what you can and working with others towards greater goals. My father was very active in Kiwanis (the name is taken from an American Indian expression meaning “we share our talents”) and from little on, he had my sister and I out there on “Peanut Day” helping to raise funds for future projects servicing children and our community.

I remember as a young little rock chick going out to dinner with my family one evening. As we walked toward the restaurant, a woman approached us and said that she had run out of gas and had no money on her and was wondering if we could help her out. My father reached in his pocket, took out $5 and handed it to her without batting an eye. This was shocking to me because I think was earning an allowance of fifty cents a week and I had to work for it.

I remember asking my dad how he didn’t know she was lying and just wanted our money? My dad said that he couldn’t be sure, but he’d rather take the chance of giving the money to someone who was misleading him, than being cynical and suspicious and not helping someone who really needed it.

My dad died when I was young, but he didn’t leave this earth before instilling his values in me. I have never forgotten those words, nor the lesson I learned from him that day and every day I got to spend with him.

Barack Obama speaks the lessons I grew up with. People see him as many different things, and he is much more than this nation's first black president. He is also hope, perseverance, kindness and magnaminity. What I see is a man who, through his God given gift of speech, is able to speak to people of any color, any economic level and any background. He doesn’t speak to any "type" of person, he speaks to the heart and that’s why he has captured America’s like he has.

I was able to contain myself for most of the afternoon until I saw the live coverage from The Neighborhood Ball this evening. Beyonce sang one of my favorite songs, “At Last”, as our new President and First Lady took to the dance floor. I think the only thing stronger than this nation’s Obama-mania right now is the love they obviously have for each other. It was so sweet and sincere, I cried again.

Today I am so doggone proud to be an American and I am in awe of our new President. God bless him and all Americans as we open this new chapter we are so fortunate to get to experience. I’m praying that his wisdom and words can bring peace all over, but if not, I’m grateful to have Jill’s catboots at the ready.

The days was wonderful to watch and as the coverage and the balls come to a close it’s official. He is signed, presidentially sealed and delivered, baby. He’s ours!

At last! I'm so excited, I could cry!

Guilty Pleasures

2009-01-20T02:37:00.004-06:00

We all have them. I don’t care what anybody says, I believe that everyone is hooked on something. Some thing..THAT thing that is so tempting that it just can’t be resisted. An addiction, almost. Is this inherently bad? Why do we have to feel guilty because we enjoy something?

I’m not talking about the obvious destructive addictions like drugs or alcohol. I’m referring to other entities to which one can add an “aholic” suffix, like chocoholic, workaholic, online pokeraholic or maybe even, Facebookaholic.

Shelly wrote a post today about how I got her hooked on Facebook. I am completely enamored with Facebook. I find it quite enjoyable to get reconnected with the people I’ve lost touch with years ago and I’m interested in their status updates. Facebook, to me, is kind of mini-blogging and the fact that I can take it “to go” on my iPhone only makes it more appealing to me. It’s different every time I check in and I’m crazy about it.

I’m not going to apologize nor feel guilty. No one is suffering because I check Facebook during TV commercials.

Segueway to my second “aholic” confession....TV. I adore television. I also confess that I will pretty much watch anything, including The Real Housewives of Orange County, which I think is one of the worst shows ever along with Dog The Bounty Hunter, but I keep tuning in to both for reasons even unknown to me. Feeling guilty, though? Nope.

Why is it that when I mention I enjoy playing online poker to people that they give me that “look”? Despite the government’s belief that if people are allowed to play online poker, they will lose their cars, their homes and their families, this is just not true. I’m not saying that this won’t happen to some people, but it won’t happen to me. I play low stakes games and I don’t play with my grocery money or my car payment. I also win a lot which means I’m not losing anything. I enjoy the game of poker and in order to play, you must buy into the game. That’s just the way it is. It’s a lot of fun and I like it.

Still not feeling guilty.

My name is Jessica and I am an enjoyaholic. I make no apologies for my guilty pleasures and I don’t need any twelve step programs. Life would be no fun without these things.

Who are you and what’s your guilty pleasure?

Life Is A Highway

2009-01-18T23:51:00.005-06:00

If there’s one thing I really like to do, it’s drive on the highway. I should probably clarify. I enjoy driving on the highway when there’s not a lot of other traffic, traffic jams and construction. Living in Chicago, that doesn’t happen often, but late at night and sometimes on the weekends it can be accomplished. I’m not a speeder, but there is something very soothing to me about going about 60 without having to stop and just cranking up the radio until you can feeling the beats pulsing through your body.

I must say, I’m really enjoying doing this is our slightly used/new-to-us Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. That ride is sweet! And the stereo, well, lets just say it does Bon Jovi proud and my ears are still ringing from my trip today, which is somewhat of a miracle because I thought for sure they had fallen off from frostbite somewhere near the alligator swamp.

As many of you know, I have been in the house for months. Not even "the house", I’ve been held hostage in my bedroom because I can’t seem to sit on any of my existing furniture since my back surgery. I’m a far cry from The Rock Chick prior to the herniatied disc. I’ve become freaking Goldilocks.

This chair is too hard. That one is too soft. I can’t sit on any of my dining room chairs, nor any of my couches. The only thing that is “just right” is my Tempurpedic foam mattress. (Seriously, if you don’t have one of those, get one!)

In a last ditch effort to maintain my sanity, I decided to seek out the advice of the only creatures I felt could honestly help me...bears, of course. Doctors seem useless at this point. In desperation, I, totally not a winter person, bundled up, got on the highway and shuffled through the zoo in search of the bear with the “just right” everything to see if he would loan me his chair. I wouldn’t have turned down his porridge if he offered it to me, either. It was 23 degrees while I was headed to the zoo. Balmy compared to the -23 degree temperatures we’ve been experiencing, but whether I’m Goldilocks or The Rock Chick, that is “too cold”.

Slipping on sleet, shivering through my layers of clothing and wiping my drippy nose, I found two polar bears who wouldn’t even talk to me. The one looked up at me and went back to knocking some old box around the exhibit. Bitch.

There were no other bears in sight and I know when I’m not wanted, so I headed over to one of my favorite places in the whole world to cheer (and warm!) myself up. The Western Lowland Gorilla Exhibit at Brookfield Zoo.

If you’ve never been, you are missing out. The gorillas reside in the Tropic House along with many other types of primates, including one of my other favorites, the orangutan. Brookfield Zoo, located right outside the city of Chicago is an amazing place and has gained international recognition for using moats and ditches instead of cages to separate the people from the animals.

One of the places you can get the closest to the animals is in the Gorilla Exhibit. Surprisingly to me, they completely ignore the people there gawking at them. Sometimes, they will look at you, but most of the time, they just rest on branches and scratch themselves. This exhibit made world wide news about ten years ago when a three year old boy fell into the exhibit. He was knocked unconscious and a female gorilla named Binti, with her baby on her back, cradled the child and picked him up and took him to the handler’s door where the trainers could retrieve him.

Even though sometimes the gorillas are just resting on branches, I love to watch them. I love how they interact with each other, how they play, how they care for each other and I especially love to watch the mothers with their babies.

I also fancy myself a gorilla photographer. Well, that’s my dream, anyway. In reality, I’m really more of a gorilla ass photographer because they always seem to move just as I’m shooting. They do this on purpose, I know it.

I did get a couple of good shots, though. This is Binti, the hero gorilla, with her three year old child.

This poor guy looks like he had a rough night.

Either that or he’s wishing we’d all get the heck out of his house, I don’t know.

One things for sure, I was happier than heck to get out of my house. Last year was a rough road to travel. I promised myself that this year, no matter what, would be better. I would make it better.

This year, I won’t allow time to slip by me without doing things that I enjoy, come hell or high water, heat waves or sub-zero temperatures.

Sometimes things will be too soft and sometimes they will be so hard that I wonder how I will pound through, but regardless, I’m going to keep pushing until everything this year is "just right".

Life is a highway and I want to ride it all night long!!!

Baby, It's COLD Outside!

2009-01-15T13:40:00.003-06:00

This is without the wind chill factored in. With the wind chill, it feels like 30 below zero in Chicago today!

It's A Miracle!

2008-12-10T23:29:00.002-06:00

Tonight I am writing my 500th “Life is RANTastic” post. This, my friends, is nothing short of a miracle because (as you may have guessed from any of the 499 previous posts I’ve written), I can be somewhat fickle with my interests. This is the reason I could never ever get a tattoo.

One day I am a belly dancer named Jesenia and the next a poker champion winning small fortunes by bluffing poker fish named OneBall. At one time I thought I wanted to be an A-List blogger who hobnobbed with the likes of Paris Hilton and then Technorati taught me an awful lesson and I learned to be content with my D list ranking. It’s quality, not quantity, people.

Since I started this blog, I’ve become an aquarium expert who made the mistake of putting a fun fair goldfish into her established tank and killed a whole lotta fish and now runs empty fish tanks as conversation pieces. I’ve lost a dog. I’ve gained a cat. I’ve cheered my kids on their successes and wept along with their failures. I've written and scrapped two different books and I've discovered I could be an excellent woodworker if only I had more patience.

Through tragedies and triumphs, panic, pain and pride and from snarky to sciatica, I have spilled my soul to anyone who was willing to come here and read about it and in doing so, have made the friendships of a lot of bloggy buddies that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. You all know who you are. I hope you do anyway. You should because I’m sure I told ya!!!!

Anyway, I have to get going because in the morning I am having surgery on my back and I can’t eat or drink anything after midnight. If I stay up, I know I will :)

Thank you all for sharing not only my 500 posts with me, but my life as well. I may be The Rock Chick, but my readers are the ones who really rock.

Love you all!

Jailhouse Rock

2008-12-09T23:53:00.008-06:00

Sometimes I miss the good old days. You know those long lost days, when corrupt politicians weren’t wiretapped and overheard trying to sell open Senate seats, they were intelligent enough to meet in parks and have secret meetings hiding themselves behind opened newspapers and whispering the details of their nefarious plots.

Can you believe this scandal with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich?

I think everyone knew something was coming because for several years he’s been rumored to be the infamous “Public Official A” in a federal investigation into corruption in the State of Illinois and this alias was confirmed earlier this year. (Before you ask, I have no idea as to the identities of B-Z.)

But trying to sell Obama’s open Senate seat? Attempting to shake down the CEO of Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital for campaign contributions in exchange for $8 million in healthcare funding? Calling the President Elect a “bleep” because he won’t appoint Blagojevich’s corrupt ass to the post of Secretary of Health and Human Services? Complaining that he only makes $172,000 a year? Poor baby. Why idiot would anyone choose public service if lots of money were their main objective?

As a citizen of Illinois, I would like to give Gov. Blagojevich something. I’d be more than happy to provide this dumbass, greedy bleeping jerk with free high security government housing for say, oh, 20-30 years. In the form of a cell.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitgerald commented that this conduct would make “lincoln turn over in his grave.” I think this behavior would even make Nixon turn over in his, too.

The audacity, I tell ya. Don’t drop the soap, Blago. “Jailhouse Rock” has more than one meaning, you know.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen

2008-12-08T12:15:00.002-06:00

Ice, Ice, Baby

2008-12-07T00:40:00.007-06:00

It’s late Saturday night/Sunday morning and I can’t sleep. In my last post, I described how I thought 2008 was the worst year ever and how I couldn’t wait for it to be 2009. I need to turn over a fresh page on the calendar year to break this cycle of Murphy’s law my family is experiencing. This year has been too much and with only three weeks left, an end doesn't seem to be in sight.

Early this morning, I got a phone call. It’s not a phone call any mother ever wants to hear. It was from a paramedic and my daughter had been involved in a serious roll over accident on her way snowboarding early this morning. It appeared that she hadn’t done anything wrong, she just hit black ice and lost complete control of our Dodge Durango. When she hit the guardrail, the momentum of the crash was enough to flip them over it somehow and the vehicle not only flipped forward over the guardrail, it rolled over twice down an embankment and landed in a creek.

Black Ice, in case you don’t know, is frozen ice with many air bubble strapped inside, making it transparent. It takes on the color of the material that it’s on and you can’t see it.

My baby hit Ice, Ice, Baby and lost control of the car. Miraculously, she and her three passengers were okay. They all walked away from this accident. The worst injury was a couple of stitches in the front seat passenger’s forehead.

It was a long drive to the hospital. She was over 100 miles away and it seemed to take forever to get there and as I drove I couldn't stop thinking about what I could have possibly done to have all of these things happen to my family in such a short period of time. As I drove, it dawned on me that sometimes bad things happen to good people and someone was certainly watching out for my daughter and her friends today.

I need to start looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty.

Tonight I am thanking God for miracles and for the safety of my daughter and her friends. My car, though, (yes, the one I just bought) didn’t survive, but I think it's sheer massiveness helped save my baby and for that I'm extremely grateful.

Tell those you love how you feel! Do it now!

Doctor, Doctor

2008-12-03T23:43:00.006-06:00

Gimme the news.
 I gotta bad case of ...sciatica blues

Warning: This post contains whining and possibly too much information. Sometimes you just gotta vent, you know?

I’m officially nominating 2008 as the worst year ever. I swear, since the first day of January, this calendar year has been nothing but dramas and traumas.

The latest incident is the excruciating sciatica pain caused by a herniated disc that I’ve been plagued with for the past 7 weeks. Despite two epidural steroid injections, oral steroids, anti-inflammatory drugs, antidepressants, a medication for nerve pain and Vicodin, no pill seems to cure my ills. I gotta bad case of sciatica blues.

I’ve been seeing a spine specialist and on Monday I had a follow up visit with him. He felt my condition was worsening and wanted me to see a neurosurgeon... pronto. He made a call to one of his colleagues and got me in yesterday.

After reviewing my MRI, poking, prodding and inflicting more pain than I thought possible, the neurosurgeon felt strongly that I should have a procedure called an Open Discectomy. This is a surgery performed to remove part of the damaged disc in my spine which will relieve the compression on the L5 nerve bundle, which is what is causing my pain.
Since I was ready to perform the operation myself, I agreed and surgery is scheduled for next Thursday. I’m looking forward to relief from this pain and from non-stop doctor visits, but I’m scared to death of anesthesia, surgery and hospital stays. It’s making me very nervous.

Of course,that can’t be the end of my story, right? I really thought I was feeling bad enough, but obviously whoever is in charge of these things decided that wasn’t the case. This morning I woke up with a fever, the chills and an absolute beast of a urinary tract infection.

WTF?

You know, it’s bad enough to have to try to get to a doctor visit with sciatica pain, but combine that with a urinary tract infection and you’ll understand why I was practically screaming in the parking lot while attempting to get into the doctor’s office. Besides being physically broken down, I thought I was going to have some kind of mental breakdown as well. By the time I got into the doctor’s office, not only was I screaming out loud, I was crying out loud, too.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

After two doses of antibiotics and some other pill that turned my pee bright orange, the urinary tract infection is feeling a little better, which is good, because I don’t think it’s possible to feel any worse than I did earlier in the day.

I am just wiped and ready to put this year, orange pee and the sciatica blues behind me. Is it 2009 yet?

Shake, Shake, Shake-uh-Shake It!

2008-12-01T12:02:00.009-06:00

I hope that everyone as a wonderful Thanksgiving. I did! The family came over and we enjoyed the full traditional thanksgiving dinner...mouthwatering turkey dripping in homemade gravy, freshly whipped mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing and sweet potatoes caked in even sweeter melted marshmallows. Add some sides of applesauce, cranberry sauce, cucumber salad and broccoli smothered in cheese and you’ll know why I’ve also been enjoying the leftovers most of the weekend, too. It gets me all aflutter!

Speaking of aflutter, if one can be in love with a thing, I am...my early Christmas present, an iPhone! I have to say, it’s my coolest toy since I got my iMac. There are just tons of apps that make it do all kinds of things and I’ve also discovered Scrabble and Yahtzee games that I can play on my phone. The best part? To roll the dice to shuffle your tiles, all you have to do it shake the phone. That’s right...shake, shake, shake, shake, uh shake it!

Speaking of shaking, Hysteria Lane was blanketed with several inches of snow overnight. UGH. I dislike winter, scraping snow off my car, slipping on ice and shivering in my shoes. I need one of those countdown clocks counting down the days ‘til summer! There's probably an iPhone app for that!

This weekend was also the countdown until Christmas. Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? I haven’t. I’m not one of those Black Friday shoppers. Forget it. There is nothing in Wal-Mart I am willing to freeze my ass off standing in line for hours and risk getting trampled to death to get. I’d rather wait until the last minute than deal with that mess. But, I did put up the Christmas tree that I got on clearance last year. I like to shake things up a bit, so I didn’t go with the traditional green tree. My tree is copper colored and this picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s so beautiful in person, it gives me chills!

Today is also World AIDS Day and HIV and the AIDS virus need to be shaken out of our lives. As most of you know, my brother passed away from he AIDS virus back in 1994. He likely contracted it before anyone had even heard about it and I wouldn’t wish that hell on anyone. Today 33 million people are living with HIV and AIDS took the lives of 2.1 million people including 330,000 children in 2007 alone. Worldvision has tons of information on AIDS, including ways you can help. In the Chicago area, there is a wonderful organization called BEHIV, whose dedication and assistance helped my family get through one of it’s toughest times. If you are in a position to help out with either of these organizations, please do.

Until next time, keep shakin’ it up everybody!

With This Ring

2008-11-25T23:12:00.007-06:00

I am cringing. My beautiful 15 year old daughter is walking around with one of these nose rings. This is not my daughter. It's just an example of another pretty girl who should not have a ring like this in her nose.

It’s fake (thank goodness, because I’d have to tear it out otherwise), but I can’t even look at it without thinking of this.

Does anyone really think this is an attractive look? I like to consider myself open minded and for the most part, I think I am. I let Oldest Daughter get her bellybutton pierced and I let Middle Daughter get the side of her nose pierced and I think they both look really cute.

However, not all piercings are “cute”. Tongue rings, bull-like nose rings, eyebrow, lip and ear cartilage piercings make me want to gag. Seriously. I can’t barely even look at them. When I hear of people piercing...let’s just say the more sensitive areas of their bodies...I want to pass out. WHY would anyone do that?!?! ACK!

While Middle Daughter is trying to persuade me to get a permanent septum pierce (not gonna happen, but it might be fun to let her try), I have to go iron my matador outfit and and get ready to wave my red silky cloth around the living room. Olé! You know, just for fun ;)

OY!

Pop Quiz!

2008-11-23T01:04:00.009-06:00

Yes, it really is a pop quiz! I was just reading Yahoo News! (I really have to stop that. Really!) and was frightened by a story. Maybe "mortified" is a better word, but at least this is more interesting than Adam’s Block, which I told you about yesterday.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) complied a 33 question test designed to measure the level of a typical American’s civil knowledge. They surveyed 2,508 people and 164 of those 2,508 people said that they have held an elected office, so they divided the results into two groups. Those who had been elected to public office and those that hadn’t. Easy enough.

Apparently, though, the questions are the test weren’t as easy as making to categories of respondents.

The average overall score for people who have never held an elected office: 49%
The average score for the 164 people who said that they had been elected to a public office: 44%

“NO WAY!” I said to myself, “ That CAN’T be right. Just where exactly is this test and how can I take it?”

I found it here. 33 questions. It took me just a few minutes to complete this test and I should tell you, I am smack dab, halfway between doses of my extra strength Vicodin, too. I wouldn’t operate a motor vehicle or a power tool, but I did take the test.

And what did I score? Well, lookee here.....87.88%.

It’s 1 AM, I’m in terrible pain and stoned on Vicodin and I still scored and 87%.

How the heck can the average of the general public be 49%. That’s frightening to me. Since I know my readers are people of superior intelligence and are always teaching me new things, I am conducting my own study and challenging you to take the quiz and share your score.

No cheating, of course. If I see notes written on anyone’s hand, I’ll have to send you to the principal’s office and whack you with a ruler. Unless, of course, you'd like that and then I'll have to think of something else.

Block Party

2008-11-22T01:34:00.006-06:00

As you know, I’ve been housebound with terrible back pain. Worse than the back pain is the boredom that comes with not being able to do pretty much anything.

In the last month, I’ve become addicted to Facebook and chocolate chip pancakes slathered in whipped cream. I’ve written, dumped and rewritten five chapters of my book and I’ve seen more episodes of Law and Order than I care to count. My DVR? It’s actually empty because I’ve had time to catch up on the shows I tape.

I’m not tired because I haven’t done anything so I end up staying up at night when everyone else in the house has gone to sleep. People, I am bored!

Anyway, tonight I was going through Yahoo News and one of the headlines was a horrible story about a young man who had committed suicide on a live web stream at Justin.tv. I learned at this site that you can stream video through your webcam and have a chat room right next to it. People can watch your live video and comment to you.

I had never heard of Justin.tv before so I took a look-see over there and discovered this site called Adam’s Block. it seems this guy Adam just hangs a webcam out his 6th floor apartment window. Adam’s description leads one to believe that perhaps this might be a seedy neighborhood in San Francisco.

I watched for a few minutes and realized that there were almost 200 other viewers, too! Some of the regular chatters were talking about things they had seen happen on the block like car crashes, prostitution and a drunken little person laying in the middle of traffic. Before I knew it, I had watched for almost 30 minutes. There’s something hypnotizing about it, I guess.

So, if you’re really bored (and I mean really bored) head on over to Adam’s Block and check it out.

You can watch it right here or you can go to the site if you care to chat with the somewhat obnoxious chatters.

Watch live video from Adam's Block (San Francisco) on Justin.tv
There’s something very strange about 200 people watching a video feed of an intersection on a Friday night. And, yes, I was one of them! I told you I was bored!

Sex, Lies and Videotape

2008-11-20T13:11:00.006-06:00

If anyone is looking for someone to cozy up with this holiday season, you might be glad to know that sex taping Paris Hilton is back on the market. Yes, she and Benji Madden, brother of Nicole Richie’s baby daddy, have split. Sad, right? I’m not even sure I’m not even sure I’m going to be able to get out of bed tomorrow.

Oh wait, I can’t get up anyway because my back hurts so bad. Darn it!

This isn’t my only gossip. Hysteria Lane is in a tailspin and they all know I'm trapped in my house so I can't even hide from them. Not that anyone is innocent in the following story, but I have changed the names to protect the guilty. You know, so nobody comes after me and drowns me in a bathtub or disappears me or something sinister.

Guess who else has split? You’ve all heard me talk about my friend, Cami, right? Cami (that’s my nickname for her-short for Camilla Parker Bowles) has been having an eighteen year affair, as well as a secret love child, with a married man. Long story short, Cami found out (after quite an extensive surveillance project, I must say) that Prince Charming was not only two-stepping on his wife, he was two-timing Cami, too.

Is that three-timing? I don’t know. What I do know is that there was some 22 year old girl who was recently diamonded by this serial shyster.

I say “was” because Cami went berserk. Downright bonkers. She called the fiancee. She called Prince Charming’s current wife, one of his ex-wives and the rest of his babies’ mamas (there’s five mamas in all) and told them about the previously secret sibling of their children.

It seems that unbeknownst to Cami, current wife (we’ll call her Diana for simplicity's sake) was becoming suspicious. Not suspicious of Cami, but of the new chickadee. She said she tried to toss him out on his dupa (my grandmother’s favorite word) now that she’s finished nursing school and has a steady job of her own. A violent fight ensued and she says Prince Charming threatened to kill her, so she let him stay.

A call to the previous ex-wife revealed that shortly after their divorce, Prince Charming wanted to reconcile. He wooed her non-stop, but neglected to tell her that he had already married Diana at that point and was sleeping with Cami, too. When she found out and threatened to tell Diana, Prince Charming threatened to kill her, too.

YIKES! Can anyone say Drew Peterson? I have got to stop answering my phone and I have got to help Cami find a job so she has something else to do. Better yet, if I found a way to fix my back more quickly, I can return to work so I won’t have time to listen to all of this!

Anyway, all of Prince Charming’s baby mamas are meeting for pizza on Saturday night so that all of the siblings can meet. I told Cami that I don’t think it’s a good idea. Prince Charming obviously isn’t all that charming and let’s face it, Cami is a hoochie mama and a little bit sleazy, too. If he doesn't try to do her in, one of the baby mamas just might.

I used to work with Cami at the police station and when she got pregnant, she had slept with so many of the guys there that somebody made a mug shot lineup of a lot of the guys with “Whose The Baby’s Daddy?” written on the top. I have zero doubt that Prince Charming is the father of her baby. One look at her will tell you that. She is like a mini carbon copy. Good looking is the only admirable trait I can use to describe him.

I wish I had the skills to make this shit up, people. I’d have my NaNoWriMo novel written in no time, right?

Away In A Manger

2008-11-19T14:36:00.001-06:00

Since I am going out of my mind because I can’t do anything with this back pain, I got a wild idea to go out into my freezing cold garage and make a nativity scene.

I don’t know why. It just came to me.

Anyway, I spent all morning with my scroll saw making the manger and the Jesus, Mary and Joseph figurines. I stained the manger, but am doing some funky painting on the figures before I stain them. Will it work out? I don’t know. If not, I’ll just re-cut them.

I still have to make all of the wise men, angels and animals, of course, but here’s a sneak peak just in case it turns out really cool!

I apologize for the crappy pic. I had to take it with my cell phone camera because I can’t find my expensive digital camera anywhere! Hmmmmmmmmmm. Sounds like a search of the kids’ rooms is in order, don’t you think?

Eye Can See Clearly Now

2008-11-17T23:27:00.003-06:00

Ok, it’s not me, it’s Little Daughter. She can see clearly now!

It seems, with everything that’s been going on around here, I’ve spent the better part of the year in doctor’s offices, hospitals and waiting rooms. Today was no exception, but I am pleased to say that the doctors we’ve been encountering lately have been wonderful and have been restoring my faith in the medical community. I didn't think this was possible.

Little Daughter has been complaining of headaches for a long time. She does get migraines, but these are different. She always passed her vision test with flying colors and the doctors could never find a reason other than simple stress and anxiety. (We do have a lot of that going on here.)

All of a sudden though, Little Daughter complained that she can’t see the chalkboard at school. Again, I took her for a vision test and again, she was 20/20, but this time the optometrist we met with wanted us to see an opthamologist because he was suspicious that she had something called “latent hyperopia” (farsightedness) and she would need special drops to paralyze the focusing muscles in her eye or something like that. This way, she wouldn’t be able to do whatever she was doing to correct her own vision and the farsightedness would be revealed. It was true!

Little Daughter is extremely farsighted and she also did need a very mild correction for farther away as well, so the doctor prescribed bifocals for her. This vision problem didn’t appear to just start either. She’s 14 and in hindsight, I think it’s always been this way, but she’s always passed her vision tests at 20/20. Very bizzare, but she can now see all obstacles in her way!

I had never heard of hidden prescriptions before, but of course if they exist, they’d happen to one of my kids. It’s just the kind of luck we seem to have.

Now if we can just get Middle Daughter fully recovered, my back fixed and my husband’s dizzy spells gone, we’ll be all set.

Sigh. I’m hoping for a bight, sunshiny day. Very soon.

Seven Deadly Sins

2008-11-17T03:38:00.007-06:00

It’s 3:39 in the morning. I have insomnia and I just committed the cardinal NaNoWriMo sin. Since I'm confessing, I have actually broken seven, to be exact, write-yourself-a-novel-in-thirty-days sins.

(1) I second guessed myself and tried to make changes in my predefined storyline. I then proceeded to scrap my first idea (2) and run amok with the idea number two (3). I drank coffee and I keyboarded over 11,000 words into a word processor. I then did something I probably shouldn’t have done. Far short of my 50,000 word goal, I stopped my writing at 11, 473 words (4) and read them (5) and let me tell you folks…it was crap.

I may not know how to get to be an A-List blogger. I’ve long given up trying to figure out how I can be a rock star or even Bon Jovi’s webmistress, but, one thing I do know is crap. I had four kids in four years. That’s a lot of diapers and a lot of crap. My book was stinking worse than the cat’s litter box.

So, I did what everyone does with their crap. (No, I didn’t stash it in the garage. That’s what I do with my good crap.) I selected Edit>Select All>Delete (6). I contemplated for a minute over the “Undo” feature but chose File>Save instead (7), sending hours of work spent writing all those individual words that together amounted to (yes, you guessed it) crap straight into the recycle bin. Actually, I sent it somewhere into hard drive hell with a waving flag just begging to be overwritten by something else. Regardless, my file that was secretly codenamed "Book" is now a blank page.

I was writing a memoir and factually it was exact, but it read like a textbook. The words didn’t seem honest as they were too void of emotion. There seemed to be no point to the story and no sense that sharing this story would help or inspire anyone else. I didn’t even know how I was going to end this story as I don’t have a resolution completely in sight yet.

I thought about these things as I read what I had written and realized that I had no purpose yet of telling this story other than trying to write a book in thirty days. It could be that perhaps you shouldn't try to write a bestseller while experiencing excruciating sciatica pain from a herniated disc. Maybe I shouldn’t tell my story while taking painkillers. Maybe I’m just not ready to tell that particular story as of yet…I don’t know. I do know that nobody would want to read that and I’m not sorry I committed the seven deadly sins of NaNoWriMo.

I’m not giving up. Tomorrow, ok in a few hours when dawn breaks and the kids are doing the mad scramble to get to school, I’m going to swap out the hot tea I’m currently drinking for a steamy cup of hot coffee and start another story. I’ll probably never make 50,000 words in the allotted thirty days of November, but that’s ok, too. I have other stories to tell and a vivid imagination and I want to be a paperback writer. I want to hold a copy of a book with my name on it, but even more so, I want it not to be crap.

Anybody can write crap and The Rock Chick is not just anybody. She may or may not be a lusty glutton of a greedy sloth wrathed with envy, but she’ll be proud of the book she’s signing at a Barnes and Noble near you. That’s for sure.

Vertigo

2008-11-15T01:55:00.002-06:00

Unos, dos, tres, catorce [1,2,3,14]

So as usual in The Rock Chick household, when it rains it pours.

My sweet hubby is so dizzy, his head is spinning. I wish it was because he is swooning over me, but alas, he’s found himself at place called vertigo. (hola!) We don’t know where this dizzyness comes from (¿Dónde está?), but every couple of years it just keeps coming back for him. I’m guessing Murphy and his laws have no one else to bother because....(well, geez!) This has been a dizzying, spinning, twirling tornado of a year.

I guess the saying “Life happens while you’re making other plans” has some truth to it.

Injection

2008-11-13T11:25:00.004-06:00

After a reschedule from earlier in the week, The Rock Chick is finally having her Epidural Steroid Injection this afternoon to help alleivate the pain caused by a herniated disc.

Not that this sounds pleasant, but it sounds amazingly better than the lumbar discectomy the doctors believe I will need based on my MRI results.

Even though the articles say only 50% of patients get relief from this ESI procedure, I am trying to feel hopeful. I’ve been researching and the majority of people who do get relief are the ones suffering from radicular symptoms, like the sciatica pain that I am experiencing.

I’m also a little bit (ok, a lot) scared. I’ve been on the end of when common “don’t worry, we do these every day” procedures go wrong, at least twice.

Long story short, I suffered a long lasting nerve pain condition resulting from a misplaced c-section incision, among other things. The pain was bad, a little worse than I am experiencing now and they decided to do some sort of spinal nerve block at the pain management doctor.

That, unfortunately, was on a Friday (which is why I will never have anything done on a Friday again) and I was left for the entire weekend with what they call a post dural puncture or spinal headache. These spinal headaches are horrific and the reason I was left with one was because the doctor insisted there was no way that could happen based on the procedure I had and that it must be a migraine.

Yeah, it wasn’t. It was a spinal headache and they did fix it for me with a blood patch.

I intended to swear off things like this for the rest of my life, but that’s easy to say when you’re not in excruciating pain. I can’t walk, work or function like this, so I have to do something.

Anyway, I am wishing, hopeful, nervous, frightened and anxious today. Hopefully, they will have some type of medication available to relieve some of those symptoms, too. Wish me luck! I’ll let you know how it goes!

The Name Game

2008-11-11T14:40:00.003-06:00

According to Yahoo! Buzz, the code names for the new first family have been released. As you may (or may not, I don’t know) The Secret Service uses code names for The President, The First Lady and their children as well as for other other prominent persons and locations. From TV shows and novels, you are probably already familiar with POTUS (President of the United States) and FLOTUS (First Lady of The United States), but each person also gets their own monicker, too.

This time they’ve chosen “Renegade” for President Elect Obama, “Renaissance” for Michele Obama. Daughter Malia will be known as “Radiance” and little Sasha is “Rosebud.” No idea what the future First Puppy will be named or code named, for that matter, but if it were me, I don’t think I could resist getting a pit bull puppy and calling it Lipstick :)

During the election, John McCain was “Phoenix”, well because he’s from AZ and Cindy McCain, “Parasol”. Sarah Palin was called “Denali” after Alaska’s highest mountain peak and Todd Palin was known as “Driller”.

I don’t know why the Secret Service uses code names because they really don’t keep them a secret, but I always think it’s interesting to see what kinds of names they come up with. Just in case you’re interested, here’s a list of some of the code names for Presidents and their families over the years.

Dwight Eisenhower - Scorecard or Providence
John F. Kennedy - Lancer
Jacqueline Kennedy - Lace
Caroline Kennedy - Lyric
Lyndon Johnson - Volunteer
Lady Bird Johnson - Victoria
Richard Nixon - Searchlight
Pat Nixon - Starlight
Gerald Ford - Pass Key
Betty Ford - Pinafore
Jimmy Carter - Lock Master / Deacon
Rosalynn Carter - Dancer
Amy Carter - Dynamo
Chip Carter - Diamond
Jack Carter - Derby
Jeff Carter - Deckhand
Ronald Reagan - Rawhide
Nancy Reagan - Rainbow
Doria Reagan - Radiant
Maureen Reagan - Rhyme, Rosebud
Michael Reagan - Riddler
Patti Davis - Ribbon
Ron Reagan - Reliant
George H. W. Bush - Timberwolf
Barbara Bush - Snowbank or Tranquility
Marvin Bush - Tuner
Neil Bush - Trapline
Jeb Bush - Tripper
Bill Clinton - Eagle
Hillary Clinton - Evergreen
Chelsea Clinton - Energy
George W. Bush - Tumbler
Laura Bush - Tempo
Jenna Bush - Twinkle

Line In The Sand

2008-11-08T11:48:00.005-06:00

This morning I was working on my NaNoWriMo novel and having some difficulty in a scene with my main character, Cat. I decided to write fiction based on reality and I had two ideas for a story, one more autobiographical and the other based an event that is happening to another friend of mine. I couldn’t decide which path to take so I opted to take both, to have both scenarios happening to Cat simultaneously. Which believe me, would be more than most people could take, but it makes for a good story.

I was having difficulty determining where Cat, since she’s not entirely me, would draw her proverbial line in the sand regarding a certain situation, when I decided to take a break and go visit my bloggy buddies.

I stopped by Shelly’s blog and in true "Great Minds Think Alike” fashion, she posted a link to an awesome site where you can play with sand! It’s fake sand, but it’s still fun. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to Shelly and I. We’ve often thought of similar blog posts at the same time, but she generally beats me to the sandbox....errrr, punch.

Anyway, if you find yourself with a spare hour and need some zone out and/or creativity time to contemplate your own lines in the sand, head over to This Is Sand and make yourself a sand painting.

This is the one I made:

I call this piece "Geometry" by Jessica The Rock Chick. I know, not all that clever but I'm only 6500 words into my 50000 word NaNoWriMo challenge and I need to save all my creativity for that.

Just a warning, This Is Sand is like quicksand, once you step in, you’re stuck.

I Get A Kick Out Of You

2008-11-07T11:58:00.004-06:00

OK, everyone, sit down and take a deep breath because the news I am about to share with you is nothing short of shocking and I don’t want you to fall over and hurt yourselves.

Ready? Ok!

Are you sure? Alrighty!

After a study at the prestigious University of Chicago, it was learned by top researchers that.....

Bullies may get a kick out of seeing others in pain.

I know, take a moment to catch your breath because the concept is a lot to take in all at once time.

While the article says that this news may come as no surprise to those who have been victimized by bullies (no shit!), this actually was not what the researchers expected. (huh?) They said that the “prevailing thought” was that bullies were cold and unemotional in their aggression.

How could they think this? Aren’t the kids who end up being scientific researchers the ones that were bullied on playgrounds? You’d think they’d know better ;) This is why people have to think outside the box in order to help people. Sometimes, the “prevailing thought” is crap and I would hope educated people could recognize crap when they see it, hear it or smell it.

Now, I’m no psychiatric expert (although, I could be, believe me) but why would anyone think that bullies got nothing out of their behavior? Few people, if any, do anything without a reason or purpose. Serial criminals and killers have motivation and get something out of their behavior, so why wouldn’t playground bullies?

A friend of mine and I often laugh about these “breaking news” studies and have often thought about starting a business called “We’ll tell you whatever you want to know for half the price.”

I’m thinking I'm going to give her a call and get ourselves incorporated. We’d be rich in no time!

Paperback Writer

2008-11-06T16:23:00.002-06:00

I’ve decided that since my back hurts and it’s not like I can work, walk or go anywhere, that I would take the plunge and participate in this years National Novel Writing Contest Month, better known around the blogosphere as NaNoWriMo. The goal is to write 50,000 words between November 1 and November 30, 2008.

I mentioned a while back that I was itching to be a paperback writer. Writing a novel is always something that has appealed to me, but I, like a lot of people, am an equally fabulous procrastinator and always keep saying “one day”.

The beauty of NaNoWriMo is that “one day” is here and now. I didn’t start my novel until two days ago, so I’m a little behind in the word count, but I’m sure I can catch up.

I can’t wait until you all meet my main character, Cat, and see just how she uses those boots of hers :) Wish me luck!

Yes We Can!

2008-11-04T23:16:00.002-06:00

I am positively ecstatic!

Free!

2008-11-04T16:02:00.003-06:00

I came across this site today while browsing through the internet. It lists all kinds of freebies that national chains as well as more local independent stores are giving away to people wearing "I voted!" stickers.

There's some pretty sweet deals (including a free cheescake!)....check them out!

Rock The Vote

2008-11-04T12:15:00.003-06:00

I voted! And, provided you are already registered, so should you!

If you’re in Chicago, there is no excuse not to do so. It is a beautiful day here and at my polling place, there was no line to vote unless you were adamant about using a touch screen machine. Why there is only one machine available, I don’t know...but there was about an hour’s wait for that.

I chose to not wait for the machine and use a paper ballot instead because my herniated disk and subsequent sciatic pain is excruciating. They even provided me with a chair to sit in and all I had to do was literally connect two dots with a special pen they provided in order to cast my vote.

I was in and out of there and hobbling back to my car within 10 minutes.

Illinois' “big thing” was whether or not Illinois needs a new State Constitution. I voted “no” because, well, I think we can find better ways to spend $80 million dollars and our constitution already allows for amendments.

One item that is not on the Illinois ballot, but is on California’s ballot is Prop 8, which would eliminate the right of same sex couples to marry in California. I’m curious to see the outcome of this.

Personally, I think same sex couples should be allowed to marry anywhere and I can’t see why this is of issue to anyone.
My friend Cami, who is absolutely against gay marriage and/or civil unions, says it’s because the bible says that marriage is sacred and between and man and a woman. Cami didn’t like it when I asked her if she believed that, then why did she have an 18 year still on-going affair and a baby with a married man?

Not only didn’t she like it, she got downright mad at me and said that that was none of my business and that I didn’t understand that they were in love. Really? Two people are in love and their relationship is none of my business? Hmmm.

With all of the people out there committing adultery, marrying for money, for citizenship status, for pregnancy, for insurance and/or because they were drunk in Las Vegas and wanted to see what being married “felt like” (a la Britney Spears), I hardly think that we should be forbidding two people who love each other and want to make that commitment and share the rights and protection that marriage provides simply because they happen to be of the same sex.

Just my opinion, of course. Your opinions are all welcome, too, and I would love to hear them if you care to share.

Baby Got Back

2008-11-03T15:55:00.000-06:00

Troubles, that is.

Last night after spending 30 minutes in a too warm, coffin like tube that made more noise than Metallica, it was determined that I have a herniated disk that is compressing my sciatic nerve. This explains the excruciating pain I am experiencing through my backside, down my leg, through my calf and into my foot.

Not that it’s good news, but it’s good to know. I guess. Right?

So now I am waiting for The Spine Center to call me back in order to schedule some sort of cortizone epidural injection.

Sigh. It never ends.

It Hurts Like Hell

2008-11-02T08:47:00.005-06:00

¡Ay, caramba! The Rock Chick can’t win for losing. I think that's what I want to say, anyway. That phrase never made any sense to me.

As many of you know, I’ve spent the last several weeks kicking butt in my Catboots and hiring and firing psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and social workers in order to assemble a competent treatment team for my daughter, which, I believe, has been done with success.

One would think this wouldn’t be so difficult, but as always, I am amazed at the levels of incompetence, sheer laziness and dishonesty of people who I’m assuming went to school for all of those years in order to help people. I’m now rethinking my assumption. I really should know better than to think so logically. It gets me into trouble every time.

After weeks of getting rid of the pain in the asses, I now find myself smack dab in the middle of another predicament. This one is a literal pain in the ass.

Perhaps I should warm up a little more before doing my Mortal Combat-like dropping spin kicks on people because somehow I have injured my back. I have pain shooing down one side of my butt into my leg. Sciatica. To quote my friend Aretha, it hurts like hell. At first, the doctor thought it was inflammation and prescribed steroids and muscle relaxers, but they didn’t work and the pain became so intense that it is now difficult to walk. This is not good at all considering the level of care my daughter currently needs.

So, tonight I am going for an MRI to find out why I have a literal pain in my ass. I just can’t help but think that it’s a shame they don’t have a machine to screen out the figurative ones, no?

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T10:16:00.003-05:00

Sign of the Times

2008-10-31T14:54:00.002-05:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Another Update

2008-10-29T10:05:00.001-05:00

Hello bloggy buddies! I haven’t been blogging yet again, but I do have an excuse! I’m addicted to Facebook where I’ve not only reconnected with some long lost friends, I’ve become quite a successful fake farmer.

It takes a considerable amount of time to fake farm and earn my fake Facebook money. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. It's keeping me sane.

Speaking of “gotta do”, three days after my last post, my daughter ended up hospitalized again. Not that she needed to be hospitalized, in my opinion, but her therapist (who I’ve been wanting to fire for months, but was afraid to) went overboard, crossed not only professional, but personal lines and put my daughter back in the hospital.

When a therapist does something this, you have no choice but to comply.

She is coming home later today. We’ve found a new therapist for her and this one seems to have a treatment plan that’s positive, unlike the other one who felt the situation was “hopeless”.

Ridiculous! Which... is also another reason that I haven’t been blogging. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in my catboots kicking ass and attempting to eliminate too many cooks in the “treatment team”.

The irony of the “treatment team” is that there seems to be a serious lack of communication between the members. Considering that all of these people are therapists of one sort or another, it just floors me.
One says one thing and then someone does something else or forgets to do something or is too lazy to do something and my kid gets stuck in the middle.

I will be fixing that. One way or another.

Back to blogging soon, bloggy friends! Thank you all so much for your words, prayers, gifts and friendship!

Update

2008-10-21T08:56:00.000-05:00

I haven’t been blogging because I’ve been superbusy Catbooting people, but I just wanted to leave an update. My daughter came home from the hospital yesterday and so far, so good!

Thank you all for your notes, thoughts, prayers and good wishes. They are appreciated. I’ll be back to blogging real soon!

Chaos and Disorder (Thursday Thirteen #40)

2008-10-09T11:04:00.010-05:00

Since it has stormed into my front door, I’ve been on a mission to raise mental health awareness. October 5-11, 2008 is National Mental Health Awareness Week and today, specifically is Bipolar Disorder Awareness Day.

Bipolar Disorder, along with the following disorders, can cause chaos and disorder not only in the lives of those that have them, but as well as in those that love them. Formerly called Manic Depression, Bipolar Disorder affects more than two million Americans, and both adults and children can be affected. People who have this illness experience extreme mood swings varying between mania and depression. It is a very serious illness and can cause risky behavior and even suicidal tendencies.

My friend Damien Riley, author of Postcards From The Funny Farm, has written a top notch series of articles about Bipolar Disorder. You can read them here.

I invite you to join me in walking across blogs all across America in order to raise awareness for mental illnesses. Please just take this button and link back it back to my Walk This Way post. The more people that know what these things are about, the less stigmas there will be and more people will seek help.

Today is Thursday Thirteen....and here's mine!

Thirteen CATEGORIES OF MENTAL HEALTH DISORDERS

1. Psychotic Disorders. The major symptom is psychosis or delusions and hallucinations.
Examples of these types of disorders are Brief Psychotic Disorder, Delusional Disorder, Schizoaffective Diorder, Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform and Shared Psychotic Disorder.

2. Mood Disorders. The primary symptom is a disturbance in mood and having inappropriate, exaggerated and an extreme level to your feelings.
Examples of Mood Disorders are Bipolar Disorder, Cyclothymic Disorder, Dysthymic Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder.

3. Anxiety Disorders feature abnormal or inappropriate levels of anxiety.
In this category are: Acute Stress Disorder, Agoraphobia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Phobias and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

4. Somatoform Disorders include those where symptoms suggest a medical condition, but no medical condition can be found by doctors.
Disorders in this category are: Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Conversion Disorder, Hypochondriasis Disorder, Pain Disorder and Somatization Disorder.

5. Dissociative Disorders involve a disruption in consciousness, memory, identity or perception.
Examples are Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Depersonalization Disorder

6. Sexual Disorders, Paraphilias have distressing and repetitive sexual fantasies, urges and behaviors.
Such disorders include: Exhibitionism, Fetishism, Frotteurism, Pedophilia, Sexual Masochism, Sexual Sadism, Transvestic Fetishism and Voyeurism

7.Sexual Disorders, Sexual Dysfunctions cause an impairment in normal sexual functioning and include Dyspareunia, Female Orgasmic Disorder, Female Sexual Arousal Disorder, Gender Identity Disorder, Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, Male Erectile Disorder, Male Orgasmic Disorder, Premature Ejaculation, Sexual Aversion Disorder, Vaginismus.

8. Eating Disorders are characterized by disturbances in eating behavior. The disorders in this category and Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.

9. Sleep Disorders, Dyssomnias relate to the amount quality and timing of sleep and include Primary Insomnia, Primary Hypersomnia and Narcolepsy.

10. Sleep Disorders, Parasomnias are classified by abnormal behavior or physiological evens that occur during the sleep process. Such disorders include Nightmare Disorder, Sleep Terror Disorder and Sleepwalking Disorder.

11. Adjustment Disorders are when someone has a difficult adjustment to a life situation than normally would be expected considering the circumstances. There are many types of Adjustment Disorders combined with Anxiety, Depressed Mood or a combination of the two.

12. Impulse Control Disorders are characterized by the failure or extreme difficulty in controlling impulses despite negative consequences.
Examples are: Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Kleptomania, Pathological Gambling, Pyromania and Trichotillomania.

13. Personality Disorders involve thoughts, emotions, interpersonal functioning and impulse control. Some examples are Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Whatever the disorder, putting an end to its' chaos isn't all that likely without the proper treatment and/or medications. If you or someone you love is struggling with any of these disorders, there is help, and hope, out there. We're learning that firsthand in my house.

Be sure to check out my related posts this week: Rainy Days and Mondays, While Shivering In My Shoes and Walk This Way.

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

2008-10-09T08:40:00.002-05:00

Sure, 'tis like the morn in Spring.
 In the lilt of Irish laughter 
You can hear the angels sing.

You, too, can hear some angels sing! Shelly over at This Eclectic Life is having a contest and wow, it just tickles my blarney stone!

She is giving away FOUR pairs of tickets to see Celtic Thunder at a concert of your choice between October 23rd through December 2008. They will be performing all over the country so there’s a good chance there’s a show near you! I was planning on going to see them anyway, but pass up a chance to win tickets? No way! I’m in!

In case you don’t know who they are:
Celtic Thunder is a new group and concert special featuring five Celtic male vocalists: Paul Byrom (age 28, Dublin, Ireland), George Donaldson (age 39, Glasgow, Scotland), Keith Harkin (age 20, Derry, Northern Ireland), Ryan Kelly (age 28, Moy in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland) and Damian McGinty (age 14, Derry, Northern Ireland). From rousing ensemble numbers to solos showcasing each members’ vocal style and personality, Celtic Thunder performs powerful ballads, popular hits, and heartwarming songs of love and loss from across the Celtic music spectrum—Irish, Scottish, traditional and contemporary.

I’ve chosen to share this a cappella version of “Danny Boy” they performed at New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I’m crazy about a cappella singing and one of my favorite songs ever is “Danny Boy”. Put them together and, for me, it’s hard combo to beat. These guys have my Irish eyes a-smilin’!

Don’t wait! Head over to Shelly’s contest right now for your chance to win a set of tickets to see Celtic Thunder when they come to your area and get you’re Irish eyes smiling, too!

While Shivering In My Shoes

2008-10-08T01:16:00.016-05:00

Today I’m going to continue my series of articles spreading the word about National Mental Illness Awareness Week. Yesterday, I talked about depression and invited you to join my "Walk This Way" campaign. There is nothing funny at all about depression, but you might get a chuckle or two out of this article.

Now we're going to talk about anxiety. Shivering in your shoes anxiety. One that no pose around in existence is going to convince anyone that you’re not afraid.

Anxiety disorders affect approximately 40 million adults in this country and are highly treatable, yet something like only 33% of people seek treatment for them. Many people mistake the physical symptoms of anxiety for something else and of course, there’s the worry about what people will think. (Who are these thinking people anyway? Pffffffft.)

It can be embarrassing to admit to someone that the sight of a cotton ball will send you swooning, weak in the knees nauseous and willing to risk life and/or limb to escape the sight of it. But, there you go, I just did it, so now you have no excuse. I know it seems amusing, but once, while going to Parent Teacher conferences at my kids’ school, I walked into a hallway where the kids’ latest art projects were being displayed. They had drawn eskimos and had outlined the hoods of the parkas in...cotton balls. Shiver me timbers, there was no striking a careless pose that time. I fled, screaming and when I told the teacher why I had to miss the conference, she laughed uncontrollably.

It is kinda funny, I guess. I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it. It’s a true, honest to goodness, phobia. And in case you were wondering, no I don’t like cotton candy or insulation, either.

Anxiety disorders are categorized as follows:

Generalized Anxiety Disorder which is characterized by excessive and unrealistic worry that lasts for a considerable length of time. Or, in my case, like 40 years ;)

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which causes persistent, obsessive thoughts that often lead to its sufferers performing rituals or routines over and over.

Panic Disorder characterized by severe, well, attacks of panic. These need no explanation for anyone plagued by them. If you haven’t ever had one, be glad.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder usually follows an extremely traumatic event, like a sexual assault, witnessing a murder, natural disaster or war. It doesn’t have to be these things, though, it just has to be traumatic to you. Being kissed on the lips by a Santa Claus with a beard made of cotton balls for me, was a traumatic event, but that one’s not included on any of the lists I’ve read. To each his own.

Social Anxiety Disorder is also known as social phobia and is characterized by an extreme fear of being judged by others or doing something that would cause you embarrassment.

Specific Phobias are an intense fear to a specific object or situation. Some, like heights, do seem to be more logical than perhaps my fear of cotton balls. There was a waitress on Maury Povich once who was afraid of lettuce. The sufferers of phobias realize that their fear is completely irrational, but have no control over the way their mind reacts to the object. This fear kept me out of pharmacy school. Seriously. How would I open the medicine bottles?

These disorders can cause a whole slew of physical symptoms that are sometimes mistaken for other illnesses. Anxiety disorders are highly treatable through different types of therapy like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for example and the use of medications.

Anxiety and depression, more often than not, go hand in hand. Most people who have symptoms of one, will also have symptoms of the other. Anxiety disorders also seem to coexist with bipolar disorder, sleep disorders, eating disorders and alcohol and drug abuse.

So what’s a person to do if you have one of more of these anxiety disorders? See a therapist. Whether or not you require medication depending on the severity of your symptoms and the effect on your quality of life because of these disorders, the therapists can teach you some incredible relaxation and breathing techniques that can stop some of these things in their tracks with a little practice.

While you're waiting for your appointment, just be glad you’re not that waitress ;)

Related posts: Walk This Way, Rainy Days and Mondays

Walk This Way

2008-10-07T13:58:00.010-05:00

In celebration of Mental Illness Awareness Week, I’ve decided to do a little “Hands Across America” thing here. (do you all remember that? It was awesome!) Best of all, I won’t even charge you $10.00 to participate like they did.

We will be spreading the following message:
As much as the evil depression monster would like to convince people that they are alone, they aren’t.

The Rock Chick is inviting you (yes, you!) to join hands with me and walk this way! Let’s walk our way onto blogs across America to get the message out to that people who are suffering, that they are not alone. Hopefully, the message will help people get the help they need and finally put an end to the unfortunate stigmas involved with any mental illness.

I have already grabbed Shelly’s hand, so I need someone to grab onto her other hand. I would do it, but I need to carry the big stick I’ve sharpened to poke the monster in the eye. When it’s blinded, we can collectively Catboot the beast.

What? Don’t have your own Catboots? No worries, you can borrow a pair of mine. No blog? That's ok, too, but you should really get one! Just leave a comment with your name or your nickname.

So, come on now! Add your name/nickname to the comments section to grab hands and then take the little graphic and post it on your blog sending people back here to grab someone else’s hand. Let’s see how far we can walk together in spreading the message on blogs across America (or the world!!)

Jessica The Rock Chick has grabbed Shelly’s hand. Who else next? Keep checking back here to see how far we’ve walked!

Deborah s-a grabbed Shelly's hand! And now Kentucky Gal grabbed Deborah's! And now Dustin has grabbed Kentucky Gal's Hand! Woo Hoo! Jen grabbed Dustin's hand! Crystal jumped in to grab Dustin's hand!

Related Mental Illness Awareness Week posts: Rainy Days and Mondays

Rainy Days and Mondays

2008-10-07T11:46:00.008-05:00

What I've got they used to call the blues
Nothin' is really wrong
Feelin' like I don't belong
Walkin' around
Some kind of lonely clown

Karen Carpenter sang how Rainy Days and Mondays always got her down. As we are all sadly aware, Karen’s “blues” were far more serious than simply bemoaning a day of crappy weather or that Monday morning chaotic feeling we sometimes experience at the start of a work week.

Something was really wrong with Karen Carpenter, even if she articulated it as “nothin’”.

Karen Carpenter is singing about depression. Karen passed away on February 4, 1983 from complications due to her struggle with anorexia nervosa, a relatively little understood illness at the time of which depression is a strong underlying component.

It is now 2008. It's twenty-five years later and tremendous progress has been made in the understanding and treatment of many mental illnesses, depression included, and yet so many myths about depression are still in existence. The problem with these myths is that they imply that somehow depressed people are just whiny or worse, weak and that prevents people from seeking treatment.

Depression is not a weakness. It is a serious medical illness that can happen to anybody and it can be treated.

Talkin' to myself and feelin' old
Sometimes I'd like to quit
Nothing ever seems to fit
Hangin' around
Nothing to do but frown

It’s hard to imagine the depths of sadness, hopelessness and despair that accompanies depression if you have been fortunate enough not to have experienced it. It rips you of your personality, it strips you of enjoying anything and it fills your mind with desperate, terrible and horrifying thoughts.

It’s feeling stuck in a deep hole with no way out and not having enough energy to get out even if someone tossed a ladder down to you. It’s a feeling of hopelessness that just voids you of everything that you were, are or had ever hoped to be.

As if being stuck in a hole alone isn’t bad enough, just to torture you further, there’s a window in this hole. A window where you can watch everyone going about their lives seemingly unaware and uncaring of the pain you are experiencing. Seeing people laughing and smiling and going about their day with other people will make you weep, triggering a sense of loneliness and isolation that is indescribable. Everything, even good things, somehow manage to trigger and tangle themselves around the worst of memories. The monster has taken over.

It is ugly, it is painful and it can totally be treated.

Common depression symptoms include:

• Persistent sad, anxious or "empty" feelings
• Feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness and/or helplessness
• Irritability, restlessness
• Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex
• Fatigue and decreased energy
• Difficulty concentrating, remembering details and making decisions
• Insomnia, early–morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping
• Overeating, or appetite loss
• Thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts
• Persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment

If you or someone you love is dealing with the above symptoms, get help. Call the doctor and get an appointment to discuss options including therapy and/or medication if necessary.

If you (or someone) is feeling suicidal, get help immediately. Get to the emergency room, call 911 or call 1-800-SUICIDE, where live counselors are available 24/7 to help those in immediate distress.

There is hope and there are people who care. Don’t surrender to the depression monster. Gather up every bit of strength you have left and start kicking it in the ass. You can win. I did it, I've known a lot of people who've done it and you can, too.

October 5-11 is National Mental Illness Awareness Week. I am hoping that by getting personal stories and information out there, people will see that mental illness is not something to feel shameful, hopeless, embarrassed about and to seek the help that they need. I am welcoming guest bloggers ,so if you’d like to contribute a post or have me link to a post you’ve already written, please just let me know.

Things That Make You Go

2008-10-06T04:20:00.014-05:00

HMMMMMMMM. I don’t normally write random posts, but for some reason, I’m feeling compelled.

My daughters went to Homecoming on Saturday and they looked absolutely gorgeous. Stunning! I would happily show you just how gorgeous they looked, except that the pictures I took didn’t seem to write to the card in my camera. You know, it’s bad enough that my external hard drive failed and I lost all my previous pictures, but now I can’t seem to take new ones either. Grrrrrrrr.....

I’m probably the last person on the planet to join Facebook and at first, I truly thought it was just plain dumb, but the more I play with it and find people I know or used to know, I find I’m really enjoying it. I'm still not getting the "poke" or throw gummy bear feature, but I'm confident I will figure it out.

I took a quiz (several, actually) on Facebook and one said in a former life. I was Pablo Picasso. In this life you continue to be revolutionary, stubborn, an active lover, enjoy breaking the rules, and you react poorly to heartbreak, apparantly, just like Pablo. I’m not really a rule breaker, but the rest is acceptable!

I had to go the laundromat today because my wash machine broke. Sigh. It’s flashing some secret code that’s informing us it can’t drain. I’m sure the expensive repairman will be able to straighten it all out for me when he comes on Tuesday. Whatever! I hate doing laundry at home, but I discovered that I really like going to the laundromat. Weird, right?

I replaced my son’s cell phone today. His old one is in his school soaking in asbestos tainted water along with our acoustic guitar and his backpack containing all of his school books! We had some bad storms here during Hurricane Ike causing massive amounts of flooding. I don’t know where the asbestos came from, but he’s been going to school in a trailer at an elementary school in our district and it will take months to re-open his school. Lovely.

I went to physical therapy for my jaw hoping that it would get better. With all the exercises, my jaw is moving better. What I didn’t expect, though, would be that my neck and back would go into spasms. Yeah, not what I wanted. It’s much easier to function with a sore jaw than a back spasm.

My daughter made a family tree for her German class. She was supposed to use real names of her family members, but instead of pictures of the actual people, they were to use pictures of celebrities. (no idea why). She picked Denise Richards to represent me.

Denise Richards? She reproduced with Charlie Sheen (I’m sorry, I have to question the judgement of anyone even willing to sleep with Charlie Sheen, let alone reproduce with him), and then she dated Richie Sambora, her best friend Heather Locklear’s HUSBAND. Skank ho. (my opinion, of course)

“I don’t want to be Denise Richards”, I said, “Why would you pick her to be me?”

“’Cause she’s cute.” Answered my darling daughter.

Compliment accepted :) I decided to quit while I was ahead.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

We The People

2008-10-03T10:09:00.016-05:00

In my previous post, I was (rather sappily) reminiscing about high school. I loved the free-spirited, albeit self-centered, teenage years and I wouldn’t change my experiences for anything. Well, ok, I do wish I had had a better car than a rust bucket 1974 Ford LTD that refused to start when it rained, but it’s always good to want for the better. It keeps things moving forward.

During that time period, I also had the privilege to sit in the classroom of someone who I consider to be one of the greatest teacher’s ever. I’ve never encountered another like him. His name was Dr. Paul Carlson and he taught US History and Government. He recently passed away after teaching for 50 years at the same school from which he himself graduated. He was brilliant, dedicated and unlike anyone I’ve met before and he kicked Hillary Rodham (future Clinton) out of class once. True story. Why? I don't know, but the man had the patience of a saint, so she musta done somethin'. Just my opinion, of course.

Dr. Carlson adored baseball, treasured every single one of his students (to the point that at our 20th reunion, he not only remembered mine and everyone else’s name, he told me where I sat in his classroom), and he revered United States History and Government.

To say his teaching style was a gift would be to understate it. He had one that broke right through the self-centered/day to day/ who cares/ this is boring mentality of the typical adolescent. He got through and what he taught has stuck with me (and I’m sure the thousands of other students fortunate enough to have learned from him) for life.

Why do I bring this up now? Well, I was feeling a little sentimental yesterday at Homecoming and I had just commented on my friend Damien's blog about the importance of good teachers. Also the other day, I was snooping around the neighborhood in search of two double compound leaves for my daughter (that's another story) while wearing my Barack Obama button, and one of the Desperate Housewives spotted me and my button and told me that she doesn’t vote.

"Why don’t you vote"? I asked. Are you a convicted felon and forbidden to do so? It’s always raining too hard on election day? You hate standing in line to wait your turn? Too busy mini-vanning the kids around? Can’t figure out how to completely punch a chad?

Why wouldn’t an American citizen who has the privilege of voting, not do so and on purpose, nonetheless?

She said she would vote for Obama, but since her husband is going to vote for John McCain, it would just cancel her vote out anyway, so why bother?

I was floored. Why bother participating in something that is a cornerstone of freedom, liberty and democracy? Hmmm.....Geeee......yeah, that’s a stumper, indeedy doo!

First of all, no one’s vote “cancels out” your vote. Your vote counts toward obtaining a majority. It's teamwork, but there’s no way to truly know what the majority of the team believes and wants if the individual players don’t speak.

Secondly, if that’s what you are worried about, inaction is certainly not the answer. If you, like my neighbor, believe in one candidate and you (and everyone else who thinks this way) don’t vote for him, how is he going to get a majority of the votes? The inaction of not voting has just given her husband’s vote, (a vote she doesn’t agree with and may indeed be the minority opinion), more strength because now that candidate is one step closer to majority.

The United States is republic. We elect people to speak for the individuals. But, if individuals don’t vote, how are the people elected going to be representing the majority of the people?

I found this statement in someone's comment section, written before the 2004 election:
Last time around, everything came down to Florida, where Bush's official margin was 537 votes. If any one of Florida's 6 million voters had stayed home, Bush's margin would have been 536 or 538 votes, and he'd still have won. Even if you voted in the most hotly disputed state in the mostly hotly disputed election in American history, your vote did not change the outcome.The writer then compares the chances of your vote "counting" similar to winning the lottery or being murdered by your mother. Well, good or bad, we all know those things happen, right?

The Rock Chick votes on this opinion: ridiculous and shallow. Yes, if one voter stayed home, it would have been 536. But what if those 537 people, or the millions of other individuals who did vote and let themselves be heard, all decided to stay home because they believed their vote didn’t count?

In case you’ve never seen Schoolhouse Rock, The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America goes like this:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I know it’s a lot of words, ideas and goals in one little paragraph, but there are three words that are more important than any of the others.

We The People.

Three little words that mean that the people were creating this Constitution, this government, this set of ideals and beliefs. The United States of America. It is not handed down by God, kings or tyrants. It is ours. It belongs to each and every one of us. The people.

I know at the time of the writing there’s a lot of people that weren’t considered “people” in the minds of our founding fathers and I’m not even going there. You know it and I know it and one day, I truly hope that there is a time in this country where the words of Martin Luther King, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” will not only ring with absolute truth, but our posterity, our future will even wonder how mankind could have so been so shallow to require anyone to make a statement as powerful as that in the first place.

The point I want to make about the words is that the beauty of the words in The Preamble to The Constitution is that they go and grow with us, through incredible shallowness and stupidity but also in moments of great triumph and inspiration.

How can we strive toward a consistently more perfect union if we the people do not participate in voting?

At VoteForChange.com, you can register to vote, request to vote absentee and/or check your voting status and locate your polling location. The site is paid for by Barack Obama, and while I’m not denying that I think he is the best candidate, I’m not telling you to vote for him, if that’s not what you believe. I’m just telling you to vote.

Your opinion doesn’t have to be the same as mine. You are entitled to your opinion and, through voting, you are given a way to express that opinion and that, my people, is truly awesome.

Thank you, Dr. Carlson for sharing your wisdom with me. This Senator is indeed not only proud to be an American, but also grateful to understand what it is to be one, thanks to you. And yes, I'm still singing along. Always.

High School Never Ends

2008-10-02T22:52:00.007-05:00

Well, it doesn't for me anyway and I'm glad. I loved high school and everything about it. Being goofy, dancing in the hallways, leg warmers over jeans, punk hairdos, crushes, dances, freezing football games, pompons, decorating lockers, face painting....you get the idea. It was all good. High School was so cool, well, somebody should make a freakin' musical about it.

Oh, they already did? (darn! why don’t I think of these things?)

Anyway, this year I have been graduated from high school for (gasp!) twenty-five years! (oh, get up, it’s not that bad). We were supposed to have a big reunion and since I am the self-designated Miss “Class of 1983”, I was supposed to plan it, but life happened this year and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t do it. Nobody else wanted to do it, so we’re not having one and that makes me kind of sad. Tomorrow before the football game, the school is having a special “alumni area” set up and I’m going to stop by and see if I know anyone. It will have to do for now.

JW and I both graduated in the same class and while we weren’t exactly (not even close!) what you’d call high school sweethearts, we sweeted up a little later on and had four babies, three of whom now attend that exact same high school! My “baby” will go there next year.

Cool, right? I love it because I get to go back there and “see my kids”. No, really, I do go to see my kids, but once I hit those stands in the football field, I am 15 years old again, wanting to bop around and start some “Hey You, yell GO BIG BLUE” cheer. Such temptation, and it takes everything I have in my to hold back so I don’t, you know, embarrass my teenagers. It’s a tough call. It really could go either way.

Tonight was the start of Homecoming Weekend and The Firelight Rally. It’s where they showcase the Varsity level athletes, pick a Homecoming King and Queen and light up a big “ME”, the school’s initials.

This year I have 3 Varsity Cheerleaders! I think that has to be a record of some kind. Unfortunately, Middle Daughter is battling blue demons of another kind and isn’t in this performance, but my other two daughters sure are! Which two are mine? Why, the prettiest two, of course! Seriously, I couldn’t even keep track of them, but be assured they’re in there and Little Daughter goes “up there”, too!

Please forgive the videographer in advance :) She normally has a steady hand, but in her rapidly increasing old age, consistently forgets how cold it can be sitting on metal bleachers for extended periods of time.

RAH RAH!

Hand(bag) Jive

2008-10-02T09:17:00.005-05:00

I was over at Shelly’s blog this morning. Shelly is a captivating storyteller and after I read about her hawk scootin’ boogie story, my hands were flailing and jiving about and I thought “hmmmm...if only I had something I could hold and carry around to help weigh them down....”.

What could I carry around that that would keep my hands occupied that is not only useful, but super attractive, as well? I know.... a purse, a handbag!

Imagine my surprise when Shelly’s next post described not only a purse, but a free purse giveaway! On October 15th, a new site called “Handbag Planet” is launching and to celebrate, they are giving away a different handbag every hour for 24 hours.

All you have to do is sign up with your first name and an e-mail address. You don’t have to give them a credit card or any other information. Once you do, the computer selects a handbag for you, but you are also free to select a different one, if you’d prefer.

This is the one it picked for me.

That, my friends, is a total Rock Chick bag! It’s almost as if it knows me like the back of it’s hand(bag)! :)

So what are you waiting for? Go on over to Handbag Planet and enter!!!

Sock It To Me

2008-10-02T00:50:00.009-05:00

I haven’t Catbooted a celebrity in a long while. Things have been dull in Hollywoodland since Britney and Paris have started behaving themselves somewhat. It’s a bore having to cut your own nails simply because there is nothing available to scratch.

Angelina has more babies? Yawn. A Wal-Mart employee steals pictures of Jamie Lynn Spears breast feeding? Nah. (Who does that, anyway? No, not breast feed. Who sends pictures of their naked boobs to Wal-Mart to be developed by pimply, hormone surging teenagers or worse? She is a freakin’ celebrity! Doesn’t she have a printer?)

So yeah, I’ve had nothing to work with....until now!

It seems that the karma crackpot, Sharon Stone, has misplaced her basic instincts and is taking a lot of heat (from a judge!) for wanting to take her 8 year old son, Roan, (Roan Stone? Can’t be. Too good to be true.) to get Botox shots in his feet in order to cure his foot odor problem. yeeeee-ouch!

Roan Stone’s father suggested less invasive procedures, like changing his socks and perhaps buying an alternate pair of shoes and using foot deodorant. Hey, that almost sounds like something we regular old Earthlings might try and certainly, Roan’s father has appreciate to feet. He almost lost one of his after he went barefoot into a Komodo Dragon enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Yep, the wack-a-doodle-doo went from smokin’ hot Sharon Stone to definitely smokin’ something Sharon Stoned, I think.

I’m wishing for the sake of all of her kids, that this insanity is temporary. Maybe she just mistakenly bummed a cigarette from Amy Winehouse and the effects will wear off as quickly as little Roan now changes his court-ordered socks.

We can only hope.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

2008-10-01T12:46:00.012-05:00

Yesterday I ranted about the lost art of listening. Today, I am going to attempt to locate another seemingly lost concept (I have a whole list, people!) which may or may not be located somewhere near Atlantis and headphone wearing monkeys. It’s hard to know for sure.

Today’s RANTastic topic: Respect. But, you probably already guessed that from the title.

Respect for other people, their beliefs, traditions and ideas and last but not least, respect for what is important in life. I’ll give you a little hint... A elementary school trophy, while nice, is not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

Last night, my son and I were in the car on the way to the mall to buy jeans. He outgrows his clothes and shoes about every two weeks now, but that’s ok. We both dislike shopping, but it gives us some together time to chitchat.

He reminded me that he had a soccer game today and I promised him that I would come see him play. He said I didn’t have to because they would probably lose due to a lot of the kids on the team not attending school. It is Rosh Hashanah and Eid ul-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan.

Side note #1) We live in a very diverse area and a lot of the kids on the soccer team are probably observing one of those holidays and #2) It's nice to win, but I don't care if they lose.

The diversity here thrills me because my children have grown incredibly respectful of other’s beliefs and cultural traditions. My son's mind is growing as fast as his feet and he has noticed that while on the surface these things may appear incredibly different, they really aren’t. Like me, he is finding people as a whole to be quite similar despite superficial differences and recognizing that it's in individuals where there’s a whole lotta “assing” going on.

Back to the story....My son then said that there was a chance the kids might show up because the coach told the kids to ask their parents if they could go to school instead of observing a religious holiday. You know, so that they could be allowed to play in the soccer game and then they would win.

Wait a minute! The coach wants the kids to ask their parents to interrupt a religious holiday and precious time spent with extended families and close friends for an 8th grade soccer game? (sigh. these things never cease to amaze me)

My son said yes, but...(ahhh, there’s always a butt) only because they are undefeated.

Of course! What was I thinking? An undefeated 8th grade soccer team certainly should take precedent over thousands of years of faith, tradition and family. Now I know what is wrong with me and why things get under my skin like they do. I’ve had my priorities completely ass-backwards all these years!

First thing Christmas morning, I’m going to drop my son off on the field. I’m sure the coach will be there, right? Nothing could be more important than winning a game, kicking each other in the shins and time spent trash talking another team.

Some people might see the coach’s request as a silly, maybe even thoughtless little slip of the tongue. I wish I did, but I don’t. I see that kind of request as a total lack of respect towards anything that he personally doesn’t believe and that is interfering with the school's desire to have boast an undefeated soccer team. More than likely, someone above him is rolling a marble down his butt crack to make sure it happens. They put signs up on the street for these things around here. It’s like a badge of honor or something. Too bad so much disrespect goes into getting it.

I see it all the time. My daughters’ egocentric jackass of a coach doesn’t care who’s feelings he has to hurt or anything about the insane demands he makes on the kids so that the school can make Nationals.

This one is my personal favorite. It came home on the “cheerleading expectations” agreement form. “You are allowed to miss one and only one practice during the year for a family event.”

I don't know about you, but I would be so proud to have one of my children, years from now, say something like “I missed being at my grandmother’s 97th birthday/Cousin’s First Communion/Niece’s Baptism/Sister’s Wedding/Uncle’s Funeral/Brother’s Graduation/Fill In The Blank, BUTT it’s totally ok, because instead, a group of kids tossed me up into the air and I didn’t fall on my head and just look at this shiny ribbon they gave me!” (just to clarify, yes, I am being sarcastic.)

It’s easy to manipulate children into thinking something is more important than it is, but why can’t some people see how just ass-inine (yes, this word is intentionally misspelled) this is?

I’m mortified by the moronic and disrespectful ways people act in so many ways (making disrespectful requests and not listening are just two) that I’m thinking of having a contest which hopefully, might make people think a bit.

It will be called: Just how self-centered and disrespectful of an ass can one be?

I guarantee fierce competition and I haven’t quite worked out all the details yet, but I have selected the following prizes:
Third place will be awarded a “fanny” pack.  
The second place winner will receive a “rump” roast.  
The ultimate “Hot Patootie” winner will receive a BUTTon with a big, red letter “A” on it.

No, not A for adultery, A for ass. Sometimes I think it’s a shame they stopped doing that whole scarlet letter thing. At least you’d know who you who you were dealing with right up front.

It certainly would make life a whole lot less complicated, no?

Listen Up

2008-09-30T12:39:00.011-05:00

Among other emotions, The Rock Chick is extremely pissed.

Why? I’m soooo glad you asked. It means you are listening. (I know, I know, you are actually reading. Semantics.)

Have you ever felt like you’re talking to someone and they don’t hear you? You are using clear, concise words that your average third grader should understand, so why isn’t this person comprehending or acknowledging what you are saying? This makes me want to rap my knuckles on their forehead and inquire if there’s anybody in there. I don't do that, of course, because that would be rude, but this happens a lot and I can’t understand why.

Maybe they don’t like what I'm saying? Could be they’re distracted? Perhaps they are just self-centered assholes thinking about what they are going to say, I don’t know, but today, I’m ranting about something known as “the lost art of listening”.

When and how did listening became an “art”? Is the ability to listen really something that needs to be practiced or studied? How did it get lost and where would it go?

Communication is necessary to human survival. You don’t believe that early man wandered around all by his lonesome, producing random groans and grunts that had absolutely no meaning at all and yet, managed to survive all of these years, do you? (I hope you don't.)

Humans are social creatures. The ability to communicate is not only pleasant (or annoying, depending on who you are talking to), it is necessary to survival of our species. Together we work and persist by communicating in order to meet life’s challenges. Speaking and listening are innate and essential. Intrinsic, one might even say.

So, why the heck is it so hard to get anyone to listen to you? Why aren’t people doing it? Why in God’s name is something basic to human survival now a “lost art”?

This has been a rough week in the Rock Chick Household. Despite all of our efforts and many different doctors, my daughter was not winning her battle with the eating disorder. From day and doctor one, I have insisted and told everyone (that wouldn’t listen) that while my daughter may have an eating disorder, something else is wrong.

Something else is wrong. Something else is wrong. Something else is wrong.

HELLO!!!!! SOMETHING ELSE IS WRONG!

I sat with the social workers, the therapists and the psychologists and psychiatrists. I sat in groups with other families and I listened to these other girls and I listened to my daughter and I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t right.

Did anyone listen to me? No. Oh, I’m sure they heard me speak these words, but nobody listened. What is particularly nauseating with all of these doctors and therapists is that I was paying them to listen. If it were up to me, they’d all be in handcuffs charged with Theft of Services and subsequently doing community service donned in orange jumpsuits and picking up trash with little sticks on the side of a highway somewhere. Lucky for them, it's not up to me.

When I spoke calmly, my words were tossed aside by the supposed experts. If I yelled and screamed (because nobody seems to listen when one speaks in a calm tone), clearly I was the dominatrix of a mother trying to control every aspect about my daughter’s life.

One psychiatrist actually spoke these exact words to me “You just don’t want to believe your daughter has an eating disorder, because that probably doesn’t fit in with your perfect plan.”

Perfect plan? Who said anything about a perfect plan or a perfect child?

Look at this:
Although there is a broad range of symptoms, personality styles, precipitants, and outcomes that characterize anorexia nervosa, there is no simple explanation of its origins. In one widely accepted conception, the illness is viewed as a desperate struggle by the vulnerable female adolescent to establish a sense of identity separate from that of her domineering, overbearing, controlling, and intrusive mother.

I can not even express how “widely accepted” this conception is and I’m not saying there isn’t validity to it in some cases, I’m just saying it isn’t true in our case. Psychology isn't like physics, but sometimes I do think some people actually need that apple to fall from a tree and hit them in the head before they get a clue.

You know what I want? I want my kid in school this week, painting her face with the Sophomore colors and crawling around on the floor pushing eggs around with her nose in Homecoming Week relay races believing that these things aren't rigged so the Seniors win. I want my kid to argue why it’s fine to wear Old Navy flip flops with a gorgeous Homecoming Dress that cost us several afternoons and a mini fortune. I want to find half empty bags of Cheetos in my daughter's room instead of bloodied razor blades.

I want the only blues and demons my child has to worry about to be the Blue Demon High School football team finally ending their five year losing streak.

THAT'S what I want and if that makes me any of the above listed things, well, then color me guilty, I guess. I don't know.

What I still believe might be blessing in disguise, though, is my daughter is hospitalized again and this time one thing is different. The psychiatrist actually spoke to my daughter for longer than five minutes and then actually called to speak to me.

After a lengthy conversation, the doctor completely agreed with me that, indeed something else is wrong with my daughter. Something that all the talking and therapy in the world wasn’t going to fix without the proper medication. It's Bipolar Disorder, A problem with the brain's chemistry. It is a medical problem and will require the appropriate medications to correct.

My daughter almost lost her life because nobody listened. So yeah, I’m more than a little pissed, but am also thanking God that finally, someone did. My prayers, my wishes, had been answered!

Full of newfound hope, JW and I met with the social worker assigned to my daughter’s case. She wanted the whole history, asked questions, nodded a lot and sympathized with the catch-22’s, the process of getting proper diagnosis and the frustration we felt because our daughter hadn’t been getting any better and we honestly did not know what else to do to help her. But, now, with this diagnosis, we knew why and we both were feeling a sense of relief. We were breathing.

Well, I was breathing until this social worker called our daughter into the meeting and flat out told her that your parents are frustrated and it’s time you tell them what is going on with you and why you are doing these things. GASP!

Again, lots of talking and lots of words were exchanged, but yet again, no listening.

Neither JW nor I are frustrated with our daughter, nor have we ever been and I have never said anything that anyone actually listening could have even remotely construed as such.

I AM FRUSTRATED (gee, I wonder why?) with a slew of supposed professional and well educated adults who not only accept money for pretending to listen, but who actually make things worse by not doing so and then opening their mouths to spew a bunch of crap that is not only untrue, it is hurtful and harmful.

We have to go have another session with this social worker again and I’m not only pissed, but I am frightened to even participate for fear that my words will be misconstrued or worse, misused.

I am frightened and I am angry. I’m frustrated, worried sick and mostly, I am saddened that in this awesome age of technology complete with portable, instantaneous communication devices at almost everyone’s fingertips, that it’s still almost impossible to get someone to listen.

I’m thinking if anyone wants to find lost civilizations like Atlantis, all they have to do is locate and follow a trail of ancient high speed cables to anything resembling cell phone towers. When they recreate the human remains using “modern technology” they will find something positively breathtaking. Everyone will look like this.

It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

If you do anything today, listen to someone. You never know what you're going to hear.

Keep The Faith

2008-09-26T11:19:00.005-05:00

I have found the events that have taken place over the last couple of days to be almost unbearable. My daughter, who I believed was making progress in her battle against TED (The Eating Disorder), was struck very quickly with a major depressive episode and she is hospitalized again.

She is safe there and she needs to be there and I know that. I don’t know what demonic thing is causing her so much pain and if I could, I would take it from her and carry it around myself. But, I can’t. It’s a helpless feeling and I despise that.

What I can do is be there for her, be her advocate and (according to a wise friend of mine-no, not Bon Jovi) keep the faith. When he said it, I knew that was right. Yep. I know you’re supposed to have faith. I just wasn’t sure I had any. The one-liners that people say like “God only gives you what you can handle” and “God is testing you” only leave me thinking why and for what? It's not even always true. Sometimes people are given way more than they can handle.

Little by little over the years, life events have chipped away at my faith. It was no longer a rock, the other day I was looking all over for it and could barely locate a pebble. I keep seeing bad things happen to very good people, myself included, and somehow decided that life was just random. It didn’t seem to matter who you were or what you did, if the shuffle left you holding crappy cards, that’s just the way it is.

I was wrong. Very wrong.

The other day I left my daughter alone for about 35 minutes to go see my son’s soccer game. Believe me, everything seemed 100% fine or I would have never left her alone. Everything, though, was not as it appeared and somehow in those few minutes, my daughter almost lost her own battle with her demons.

Yesterday, I had the weepies and was sitting on my living room couch with a pile of Kleenex when my neighbor, Lynette, came over and told me a story that immediately helped me locate my misplaced faith.

Lynette says that during that 35 minute time period, she was at her house cooking a roast.

Let me preface this story with one tidbit of information: Lynette cooks less than I do and I can safely say that’s almost never.

Since I’ve shared all my supreme culinary skills with my friends over the years, Lynette followed my method of cooking and put a roast in the oven without setting a timer or even paying attention to what time it was when she put it in the oven. Sometime later, she had realized what she had done and asked her daughter to run over to my house to get a meat thermometer.

Her daughter had peeked out a window and didn’t see any of our cars.

“Someone is always home over there, go and get the meat thermometer, please.” she had said. If, on the off chance that no one is home, Lynette has a key to my house that they are free to use anytime for anything, too.

Key in hand, Lynette’s daughter, Lulu, crossed the street and rapped her knuckles on the door in what she thought was a simple search of a meat thermometer. I adore Lynette's daughter. When I first met Lulu, she was 9 months old and she smiled at me with the face of a little angel. I remember thinking that at the time. This child looks an angel, a cherub. I was right about that. Not only did she look like one, she is one.

My daughter answered Lulu’s knock, and it was obvious she had been crying. Lulu asked what was wrong and my daughter told her that she had stubbed her toe while getting to the door. Lulu didn't believe her.

While they searched for the meat thermometer, Lulu told my daughter a funny little joke and my daughter, locating the meat thermometer said “Thank God you came here.”

Lulu left and within seconds my daughter was on the phone calling for help that saved her life.

There is no way this was coincidence. When I heard this story, there was no doubt in my (what I thought was faithless mind) that this was a divine intervention. I was right, Lulu was the angel I had always felt she was and I was completely wrong to have doubted my faith.

What are the chances that Lynette would ever need a meat thermometer? I think you’d get better odds on getting struck by lightning. When Lynette screws up cooking, she tosses it in the garbage. Never, not once in all of these years, has she been so concerned about a piece of meat that she has crossed the street seeking advice or an instrument to save it.

When I heard this story, I realized that I wasn’t looking at things correctly. God wasn’t giving my baby more than she could handle, He had just saved her from the demons that were.

I still have the weepies, but now, I also have found my faith and I intend on keeping it. Armed with it and my Catboots, this time I am going to kick that demon’s ass, and I am going to win.

Keep the faith.

I Write The Songs

2008-09-21T11:25:00.005-05:00

What seems like a long, long time ago (although it really wasn’t), one of JW and my closest friends was deployed to Iraq for a 15 month tour of duty. He knew that I had made some websites and he thought it would be a great idea to have his own website where he could write about his experiences and post some pictures so his friends and family could see what he was doing and know that he was ok.

“Oh, cooooool, you want a blog!” I said.

“A blog? What the heck’s a blog?” He raised an eyebrow.

Though I didn’t have one at the time, nor did anyone else I know, I explained what a blog was, but he wasn’t convinced. He thought the word “blog” sounded like I had made it up (I wish!) and thought the word was “kinda lame”. He wanted his website to be called an online journal.

“Call it what you want,” I said, “it’s a blog”. He didn’t believe me.

Obviously, he couldn’t talk about specific details and it started out quite simply, just little notes posted to his children, wife and close friends and a picture here and there. Within weeks, though, it had snowballed. The friends and families of those deployed with him were visiting and commenting on the site. There were thousands of hits a day.

There was nothing military related on the site other than the fact it was being authored by a soldier. It was just posts about how much he missed his family and friends and at the same time was filled with pride about being able to serve his country.

Within months, the blog/online journal had grown in such popularity that the U.S. Army gave us the option of password protecting the site, limiting access to only people we knew or take it down. (Talk about a marker of success, right! I know they would have preferred the latter, but up it stayed, anyway.)

When he came back, we took the “blog” (cough, cough) down, but it got me thinking about starting my own blog. I didn’t think, at the time, that I had anything interesting to talk about. Of course, that wasn't true. Everyone has something interesting to talk about. I just had to find my niche and hone in my own style of expression.

I’ve been reading some articles about the art of blogging lately. It started when my friend Malcolm posted his thoughts on comment moderation on blogs.

Personally, I don’t moderate comments and I really can’t see any reason to do so. People aren’t going to agree with you all the time and people expressing their opinions (no matter how crudely) is still what I love most about blogging. Why would anyone want to take that away?

The other underlying theme in a variety of articles I’ve read (mostly through my friend Damien’s blog) is the attempt to discover what I think is the bottom line of blogging. Why does anyone blog? Why put your ideas, opinions, dreams and life stories out there for anyone and everyone to see?

I’ve been thinking about this and my answer, truly, is I don’t know. I don’t think my posts speak to any audience in particular and I don’t believe for one second that anyone could take away any life changing advice from any of my blog entries.

I guess if I do anything with blogging, it’s to try to make people feel something. Whether they laugh, chuckle, cry, become angry-whatever- I do try evoke some kind of emotion with every post. For what purpose? Who knows? It appears one step less kooky than talking to myself, I guess.

Am I a successful blogger? I guess it depends who you ask. If you ask me, I say yes. If you ask the evil Technorati monster, I think you would get a “no” response. A while ago, one of my very first bloggy buddies, Shelly, tried to help me achieve A-List blogging status. I was within 23 (or something like that) links of earning that A-List graphic and being able to ride in limousines with Bon Jovi and Paris Hilton, but the blogging “approval” system is full of enough holes that you could drain spaghetti noodles with it.

You must gain all of these approval nods in a 6 month period of time or else you drop through the holes and back down the drain so far that you wish the big plunger would just come and put your out of your misery. Popularity is so fleeting. No wonder it’s so hard to maintain a show biz career.

Bottom line, if you’re happy with your blog and it’s serving some purpose to you, then you are a successful blogger. Like real life friends, it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality. (This goes for posting, too! Just my opinion!)

I found this quiz on Sassy Mama Bear’s site and when I took it, I think it’s totally me! I may use other people’s song titles as my post titles, but I definitely write my own lyrics. That’s what’s great about blogging, we all have a song to sing.

You Are a Pundit Blogger!

Your blog is smart, insightful, and always a quality read.

You're up on the latest news, and you have an interesting spin on things.

Of all the blogging types, you put the most thought and effort into your blog.

Truly appreciated by many, surpassed by only a few

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

What do you think? Is that me? Is that you? What kind of blogger are you? I'm totally curious!!!

Forever In Blue Jeans

2008-09-19T08:19:00.003-05:00

As I do every morning with my coffee, I click through articles on many different sites and blogs. One of them is AOL News. This morning Brooke Shields was being praised for supposedly still fitting into a pair of Calvin Klein jeans from an ad she made in 1980 when she was 15.

Here’s a quote from the article:

In 1980, when Brooke Shields was just a teenager, she did a few Calvin Klein jeans ads with the famous tagline, "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing." It appears the same has held true nearly 30 years later -- she showed up at a party for the designer's 40th anniversary wearing the same jeans. And yep, those are it in the picture.

And here’s the picture:

You all know I pride myself on my superior detective abilities, but I don’t think anyone has to be CSI certified to see that those are not the same jeans. They may be Calvin Klein jeans, but the whole cut, the rise and the rinse are completely different.

Nancy Drew votes: Brooke Shields may be forever in Calvin Klein blue jeans, but the pair she is wearing on the right is not the same pair in the picture on the left. Definitely not the same jeans.

Brooke Shields is now 43 years old and, my opinion, as gorgeous as ever. Since first wearing these jeans, she has earned a degree from Princeton and has maintained a lifelong show business career spanning print ads, commercials, movies, TV and live theater. Best of all, she publicly stood up to the superwacky Tom Cruise regarding getting appropriate help for depression issues.

After all of that, does supposedly fitting into a pair of 1980 jeans make her more attractive? No. Should Brooke Shields fit into a pair of jeans that she wore at 15? Probably not.

So why would anyone waste their time writing about this?

I don’t know. I got on a roll and it just took off from there! :)

Let's Get Physical

2008-09-12T08:11:00.003-05:00

Therapy, that is.

I’m succumbing to every treatment known to modern medicine in an attempt to avoid TMJ surgery. I am now adding physical therapy to my current list of muscle relaxants, steroids and a somewhat obscene looking mouth splint that prevents me from clenching my teeth.

Yesterday I went to my first appointment. Heidi, my physical therapist, was really nice, but also really needed to wash her hair. I don’t know how people can go to work like that, especially if they are touching other people, but whatever. If physical therapy eases my pain, I’ll try to look past it.

After putting me through all kinds of movements that hurt like heck, Heidi determined I do have a TMJ problem, which is also giving me some kind of neck and shoulder issues so I have a big list of exercises to do every day.

Since the one side of my jaw is so inflamed, Heidi thinks I will benefit from ultrasound therapy, too. I guess the sound waves increase the blood flow to the treated area which in turn will reduce inflammation.

It doesn’t feel any different today, but I don’t know if one treatment works or if it’s a process kind of things. I was too distracted by Heidi’s dirty hair to remember to ask.

Heidi then gave me a stack of rubber gloves and told me to fill them up with water and freeze them. I am then to break off a finger and use to it ice the inside of my jaw. She said a popsicle actually works better because of the stick on the end so I can, you know, move it back and forth in my mouth. Heidi demonstrated with a tongue depressor.

How cute! Between that and my splint with the phallic symbol looking extension on the end and my Angelina Jolie lips, I’m almost ready to change my name to something like... oh I don’t know, maybe Monica? Paris Hilton? No, I think my personality is more like a “CATarina Scratch-Fever”.

I’m trying all the suggestions because it’s still better, in my opinion, than having surgery. Having previously been severely injured by a doctor years ago during a c-section which resulted in twelve subsequent surgeries to repair the damage done, you can see why I’m a little hesitant to have more surgery, even though I’m living with quite a bit of pain.

OK, off to get physical! I’m supposed to do all these exercises while lying on my back. This horizontal position allows gravity to work with me. Somehow I don’t think this is what Olivia Newton-John meant when she sang “let’s get animal”. We’ll see!

Have a great day everyone!
Love, Cat :)

Apocalipstick

2008-09-10T08:23:00.008-05:00

Who knew something as harmless as lipstick could cause such controversy?

I am not a pitbull, I'm more of a catlike chick who also loves lipstick. I feel naked without it. I am pleading with our presidential candidates to stop this negative attack campaigning before I develop some bizarre pork related phobia and/or have to walk around with pale, lackluster lips because of the potential adverse connotations that might become associated with my precious glosses.

Since we actually have video of both of our presidential candidates using this expression and using it in regard to political beliefs and not individuals in particular, can we just call this a draw and move forward?

Please?

Here’s McCain:

And Obama:

NEXT!

Mad About You

2008-09-09T15:04:00.003-05:00

This morning I took a phone call from one of our “regular” customers.

I work in insurance and most people don’t contact their insurance agent on any kind of a regular basis.

Our “regulars” are a group of probably 100 or so people who we hear from at least once a week, unlike most people who rarely, if ever, contact their insurance agent.

We hear from them even more now that Allstate put out all these “Are You Covered For That?” commercials. This bunch calls to find out if they are covered and to wonder why their neighbor pays less for insurance than they do. They can’t remember if they’ve paid and what check number they’ve used or they’ve written the wrong policy number on the check and the payment’s been applied to the wrong policy. It’s always something.

Anyway, my “regular” for today is a psychologist. Unfortunately, she was late paying her bill because her dog has pee issues and she may have used it to clean something up. She thinks I am “sweet” (shows what knows, right?) and just blurts out that the last three times she has talked to me, she can sense tension in my voice.

I have been very tense lately, but I denied it and she said she was going to help me, anyway. I said that was not necessary and tried to steer the conversation back to insurance. No go. She said she wants me to stay up late tonight and write letters to everyone who angers me.

I told her I’m not angry, but she said to write the letters anyway. Oh, and I should put little post-its all over that say “Jessica, what angers you?” to trigger ideas.

I don’t have to write a letter. I already know what make me downright mad. People who bug me even when I’m nicely, politely and very sweetly suggesting that they leave me alone.

Back to insurance? No, not yet. She then gave me the phone number of some other psychologist who she said retired “years ago”. He’s 89. She told me that he would be glad to help me, too, but to keep in mind that if I talk to him and it seems like he doesn’t remember anything, just to keep talking because it’s all in there somewhere and will come back to him.

What? I repeated again that I don’t need help, (especially from someone who can’t even remember what we’re talking about) and asked again if she wanted to pay her bill, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“People don’t think about these things enough” she insisted. Personally, I think people think too much about these types of things sometimes. My daughter’s one therapist told her that for a while, no matter what anyone asked of her, she was to reply “I can’t, I’m focusing on myself right now”.

Huh? So I asked the therapist about “Sam, do your chores....Sam, do your homework...Sam, please pass me a fork”...and was told that Sam was to respond in the above manner to any request made of her.

I don’t know what lala-land that one lives in, but as an earthling, I have a little problem with that. As Gwen Stefani would say “That shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

My psychologist customer said she will call me tomorrow to discuss what I’ve learned about myself tonight after writing angry letters to no one. I guess I’ll have to call in sick or something because there’s some rule in business that says you have to be nice to your customers. Whoever thought up THAT rule didn’t think it entirely through. That’s for sure.

What do you think? Can you over think your problems to the point that the thinking about it becomes the actual problem?

I think so. And speaking of thinking, head on over to Malcolm’s and play this weeks Tuesday Trivia. That’ll get you thinking!

Into The Blue

2008-09-06T10:38:00.010-05:00

As we entered the stadium, a roar unlike any I’ve heard in a long time (maybe ever), spilled from the crowd. Screaming and stomping their feet against the metal bleachers, the flock of fans celebrated their high school football team’s touchdown within the first 12 seconds of the game. Quite unusual for these boys in blue.

My kids’ high school (and JW and my alma mater) is definitely not known for it’s football team. Why? I have no idea, but I do know they have not won a game in over four years. This year, though, is supposed to be different. The quarterback is supposed to be of exceptional high school talent and the school finally has some experienced players with some physical size to them.

As we entered I noticed how much physically larger the football team looked this year, too. Maybe they are right. Maybe this is the year!

I’m not a mom to a football player, but to two Varsity cheerleaders. Unlike the football team they cheer for, the Varsity Cheerleading squad have placed in the top 10 for the last 12 years at Nationals nabbing the first place title on two occasions.
All three of my girls made the Varsity Cheerleading squad this year, but unfortunately, Middle Daughter’s eating disorder precludes her from that type of activity this year.

As the high school's Blue Demons football battle away to break their streak, Middle Daughter continues to battle her own demons. Her sapphire blue eyes weren’t blue last night, though. We sat in the stands and cheered, stomped, yelled and took pictures and she squealed when they announced that the school musical was going to be “Footloose”. I think that’s more her thing, anyway. A girl after my own heart.

This year, my beee-u-tee-ful oldest daughter, Ariana, was bestowed with the honor of Cheerleading Captain. No surprise to me! Ari is a leader, an organizer and one of those people who will catch you when you fall, figuratively and literally. She is true blue.

And my gor-geee-ous little daughter, Erica, made her high school cheerleading debut at this game. Erica is a flyer for the squad. Last night, the cheerleaders didn’t do anything that could be called “daring”. They don’t risk injury cheering at games and only perform the basic school cheers with some easy stunting. I’m certain that when I go see them in competition, I’ll be holding my breath 'til I'm blue as they toss her up in the air doing flips, twists, baskets and whatever other “mom mortifying” feats win cheerleading championships. Yikes.

I went to the game with the intent of getting some fabulous action shots of my girls, but I was asked politely by them to “not make it obvious” that I’m taking pictures. I guess when you’re a senior in high school, mom taking pictures of you is slightly embarrassing and could cause your face to turn red. We wouldn't want that to happen since we're sticking with the blue theme here so, I compromised and took some video instead. Here’s Ariana:

And Erica:

And here’s the team doing one of their basic cheer stunts. That’s Erica going up on the left.

My son will start soccer next week, too. He is a “three sport athlete” in soccer, wrestling and track. Last year, he made state in track and hopes for a repeat.

It’s a blue time in The Rock Chick Household, but not in a bad way. Cheering on the kids is fun and I like to scream. What can I say? It wipes away my blues like nothing else does.

Unless, of course, like last night, I get stuck sitting next to the Hysteria Lane resident crazy person, but that’s another story...

Velocity

2008-09-02T03:46:00.006-05:00

I just finished reading Dean Koontz’ “Velocity”. This isn’t a new release, but if you haven’t read it...DO! It’s a doozy of a suspense and mystery and a real page turner. I couldn’t put it down.

All of my blog readers are aware of my Nancy Drew-like inability to resist mysteries and scandal and I stumbled onto a big one!

Early yesterday, I read the reports stating that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant.

I felt for Sarah. In some ways, we are a lot alike. We both have big families by today’s standards and we both competed in the same year in the state level of a pageant and neither of us won. She earned the nickname “Barracuda” by being a fierce competitor in sports. I was known as “Hammer” at the police department where I worked because I wrote more parking tickets than anyone else.

I apologize to my ticketees. I was young and knew not what I was doing :)

We also both have 17 year old daughters. I can’t imagine anyone not being completely tormented with worry about their daughter’s health and future having a baby at that age.

That’s pretty much where our similarities end. I’ve looked at her political positions and I can tell you beyond the above listed resemblances, we are nothing alike. Because, like almost everyone else, I had never heard of Sarah Palin until just a few days ago, I clicked on what I thought was an oddly titled news link.

It said “To rebut rumors, Palin says daughter, 17, is pregnant”. Rumors? What rumors? I hadn’t heard any rumors, but then I had only just learned of Sarah Palin’s existence, too.

What I found in the first paragraph of the article was one of the juciest, tabloid soap-opera-ish “could it actually be true” mysteries I’ve come across in a long time!

A story worthy of a Desperate Housewives plotline. Oh wait...it already was a Desperate Housewives plotline.

Rumors are flying with the velocity of a rocket ship, that Sarah’s fifth pregnancy with her now 4-month-old son, Trig, was faked and that her daughter, Bristol is actually Trig’s mother.

Anyway, it seems that Bristol is now 5 months pregnant and therefore, could not be Trig’s mother, thus rebutting the rumors.

Of course, I wondered why anyone would even think that Sarah Palin had faked a pregnancy as a cover up to her teenaged daughter’s pregnancy? So, I clicked a few more links and found out why people might be suspicious.

It seems that Sarah Palin was supposedly in her 7th and 8th month of pregnancies and never really looked pregnant, despite looking very pregnant with her other children.

Bristol Palin was supposedly out of school during this time period with a severe case of infectious mononucleosis.

And if this is true (you can’t believe everything you read, of course) Sarah Palin supposedly had her bag of waters break a month before her expected due date while preparing to make a speech in Texas. She not only stayed to make her speech, after the speech, she boarded a plane from Dallas to Seattle and then took another plane to somewhere in Alaska. At that time, her husband drove her to a hospital that didn’t even have a NICU. The baby was coming a month prematurely and they knew the child had Down’s Syndrome, putting him at further risk of complications.

Three days after the premature birth of a baby with Down’s Syndrome, Sarah Palin was back at work.

Hmmmmm....it does sound intriguing, no? It’s exactly the kind of stuff that conspiracy theorists live for!

I don’t believe it. My first question would be “Why?”. Why would anyone, especially someone in the public eye, try to pull off a scheme like this? Because she is a big believer in abstinence? Certainly everyone knows that despite teaching, nagging and talking to our children, they are humans and will do things that perhaps their parents don’t approve of. A teenage pregnancy is hardly what anyone would consider “scandalous” nowadays.

And...How? Maybe I’m being naive, but I would think the doctor and the hospital staff would have to be in on the whole thing. This seems to me like the kind of story anyone needing $50.00 for gas would gladly leak to The Enquirer.

There is some saying that there is some truth to every rumor. This whole drama doesn’t seem very likely to me, but I’m interested to see what speed these rumors can achieve before the whole story crashes and burns.

What do you think?

Them Bones

2008-08-29T12:27:00.005-05:00

Last night I finished reading Kathy Reichs’ “Bones To Ashes”. It was an excellent, engrossing read. No surprise there. All of her books are this way and when I get my hands on one, I devour it. If you don’t already know, Reichs’ books were the inspiration for the Fox hit TV show, BONES.

My only complaint: Dr. Temperance Brennan’s, the main character, on-again/off-again relationship with Detective Andrew Ryan.

I’m sure this is done to add some drama throughout the series, but I’d prefer they be together and muddle through the occasional spat or something. Kathy Reichs is a superb storyteller and between her descriptions of body language and snippy conversations, I can feel the tension between the characters. That’s a huge compliment to Ms. Reichs’, but I don’t care for it. They belong together.

Tempe and Ryan sort of remind me of my neighbors, Tom and Lynette. On alternating weekends, they are either making divorce announcements or having relationship breakthroughs rediscovering their love. They are either holding hands or hanging “Gone Fishing-Alone (I hope, anyway)” signs on their front door.

It’s either super wonderful or really bad with them. There’s no in between. They are like a roller coaster, on a straightaway just building up speed during the week and then on Friday nights, they find out if they go on an upward climb or if the world suddenly bottoms out on them and they start descending into a stomach churning fall.

My jaw bones ache just listening to them sometimes. Right into my ear and then down the back of my neck. Ouch.

I think at times we can all get caught up in this black and white thinking. I know I do. Sometimes it is very hard for me to see the “shades of gray” and I end up extremely frustrated until I can.

That’s what happened this week. I got caught up in black and white thinking and ending up so frustrated that I realized I was holding my breath at times. I had to stop, remind myself to breathe and remember that the world is in high definition color and not black and white and gray. My new Hi-Definition big screen proves it!

I’ve decided to move my RGB slider to the red side of the spectrum today. Red is the color of energy and love. It’s hearty tone represents strength (think power ties, gentlemen) and courage (think American Flag, people!)If I were a better gardener, it would be the color of my rose garden.

Best of all, the color perfectly compliments my favorite fashion accessory, rose colored glasses. The world appears much more lovely when I have them on. :)

Today is a much better day.