Saturday, November 22, 2003
non-opinions...but, questions
I need to get more Sarah Harmer. I do.I watched a VH1 special on Michael Jackson tonight. Although I just can't see the spot where esch links to past posts (do you punkin?) I agree with her post that she blames the parents. I've personally witnessed one child who watched his very routine neighbor do the same thing for years before saying he'd been molested by said neighbor because he didn't want to get in trouble for doing something he shouldn't have been. He almost destroyed that man's life. And, on the other side, I've seen my best friend speak up. And have her father (what IS the word I'm looking for here.....) 'let go' for complete bullshit reasons. And, 5 years later, was allowed to adopt three more children. (and I'm seriously digressing here, but along the lines of why I agree with esch, after knowing what this man did to her, the rest of the family, my boyfriend - who was her cousin- and all of us - she went on to marry and have two girls who she now allows her father to babysit - the onus rests on the parents. It's the biggest thing. And I completely don't agree with 'they did it, you'll do it' crap -grow up. You have children and as far as I'm concerned, you have no excuse.)I try to see both sides of every story and I'm not saying MJ is guilty or not guilty but the show tonight brought forth the following questions, which may be purely media related (and don't get me wrong, I'm invariably impressed by VH1 but....)
1.) They had a family counsellor saying that any parent that would get their child to lie about something like that would have to be completely psychopathic. Like she was shocked that there was such a thing. Like it was rare. Hello? I don't get out much and this isn't actually my job but even I know that psychos procreate, in much the same way that trailer trash and even intelligent people do. Although studies have shown that the more education you have, the less children you have. 'Nuff said.
2.) Do police stations normally publish mug shots? Where's mine? On the other hand, have you seen it? He doesn't even look human anymore.
3.) The police said that the charges 10 years ago were not pursued after the settlement because the child dropped the charges. I don't know if the laws are different in the US but my friend in high school did the same thing. And the police said that once the process is started, it's up to the police to pursue them or not. No matter what the victim says. And so it went ahead. Is there that much difference between our countries?
4.) Do child molesters normally have to pay $3 million in bail? Or is that just rich people?
So, if you were expecting I'd condemn someone or another, well, I can't. He's weird, that's the one thing we can all agree on but using the media to pre-judge is horrible, in all instances. Honestly, leave the poor fucker alone...if he did it, then nail him, but all this other crap makes me sick.
esch @ 5:13AM | 2003-11-23| i never know how to link to past posts either, in fact I should probably hunt down my past posts so I know what the hell I was saying about parents being to blame (although I do think that there isn't much a child can get away with if the parents are Seriously paying attention. Not that all parents do, or even have to with some kids, but come on.)
e @ 1:55PM | 2003-11-24| several thoughts really: 1) I think you have to have a "permalink" or somesuch to link to previous posts, but I'm really not sure how to do it; I want to as well...and I've just noticed that you've got got some: tell me how???
2) If 12 year old boys are not permitted to go to a strange man's house for sleepovers of whatever variety, then trouble would not ensue. what was in it for the kid's parents, and were they totally wet behind the ears?
3) I think that bail is meant to be a sizaeble sum for the bailee, to discourage them from disappearing- so the amount has to hurt. It might be $100 for a penniless person, or $3million for a well-off person
4) People who are attempting to judge him are in my opinion: a) bullying him for looking and acting like a freak and b) full of schadenfreude- they just want to see him suffer. I prefer to allow the legal system judge people, using the hard evidence...
5) In Britain, molesting a minor is a very serious criminal offence. Once out in the open, there is nothing the victim can do to stop the case. The case is pursued on behalf of the Crown by various agencies. And that is the way it should be to prevent witness intimidation. The only way charges might not be brought in a case like this is if the victim confessed "before the charges are laid" that they made it all up. And then the victim might be charged with wasting police time. I trust that the legal system in the States is as impartial, but I have some doubts...
a shopping trip
So, I watched a movie to kill some time and then decided to go get some food. Food is good, right? Couple potatos, some eggs, lunches for next week. You know, the usual. I pay, slog back home through air that feels like it's freezing your lungs (I read that's technically not possible - although I did get my lip stuck to my zipper pull the other day - HEY, it was done all the way up). Pull out the groceries to put them away and notice that I just paid $2.89 for 2 baker potatos. I think, hey, that's a bit funny, I'm sure it said 79 cents a pound. So, I pull out my little weigh scale (hey - I'm bored) and it's 1.5 lbs. That's $1.18. And that pisses me off cause really how hard is it to punch in the little numbers correctly? Besides that's roughly 150% of an overcharge - what if I were buying something expensive? I debate going back outside - is it worth it? And I decided finally, yes, cause obviously today is piss-Jen-off day. And these people have done this to me before but I've been a little more flush with cash in the past, so I've always just let it go rather than....you know.I get all layered up again, go back, double-check the price so I know I'm not in the wrong, explain to the girl, she calls a supervisor who looks it over and then says, "Our scales are in kilograms."
Now, I'm not wearing my contacts and he's just a blurry stupid lump across the counter from me but he's just standing there like that solves the problem and *I'm* the idiot and I should just go the fuck away.
I take a deep breath and say, "I wasn't aware that 1 and 1/2 lbs becomes almost 4 lbs instead when you weigh it in kilograms."
I actually had time to mentally pat myself on the back for the calm, sarcastic and witty rejoinder because incredibly, it took him a while to figure that out.
Friday, November 21, 2003
temperature conversion
See, in my barbershop, before all the kids got married and babies started to appear, the hockey team used to get together on Friday nights to play poker. Newfies almost to a man, they let me attend as the only girl in that 'you're just one of the guys' manner that is so endearing. Inevitably they got drunk enough to sing newfie songs a cappella, which I admit unabashedly as my favorite part of those evenings. As I don't live in the crackhouse next door anymore and I rarely get to see the boys, when I ran into my favorite Hanrahan last week and he said, "My dear, we're moving and looking for people with strong backs and weak minds," I jumped at the chance to spend some time with them and offered my dubious strength for the endeavor.Little did I know, then, that the projected HIGH temp tonight is -25 degrees celcius. (for those of you not 'with' the metric system, that's -13 farenheit and yes, those are minus signs). The expected wake up temp is -22 C (-8 F).
Mulling it over this aft at work, I realized that most of the kids would probably bail on poor ol' Dave so I bit the bullet (being one of those types that does what they say they will, if I can) and called him.
He's picking me up at 9 am. Must...find...long...johns.
Day 44 v.2
Thursday, November 20, 2003
This time last year
I had this idea (although I'm sure I saw it somewhere on a blog site cause I have no original ideas - lately) to do a 'this day/time last year' sort of thing. And since I haven't had a blog for a year, well, here's something I wrote last year.But first, I think I need to set the scene...
You see, I was on 'hiatus' from well... working and then there was this ugly little lovebutnotlovebutcouldbelove triangle that took a quick left into hell and so I hitched a ride on a roadtrip with D to get out of town. Around the 18th of November. To Winnipeg. (for those of you not from Canada, think ugly, flat, ugly, cold, unhappy city in the middle of nowhere). We spent 10 days (me on some new medication that kept me wide awake for the first 72 hours or so) in a sleazy hotel and in the attached strip bar. D's best friend from out east, his girlfriend was a peeler in said bar. Now, this I have no issues with, but D's very very young girlfriend didn't think before she spoke and we spent a lot of our time at the back table with the mostly offended girls. Not a whole schwack of fun going on, really. Although some of my good friends in high school became peelers which I regularly 'ran' into (working as the only female sales rep back home), I have to admit it is a bit disconcerting to turn around in your seat to be confronted with the uhhh, parts...of someone you were just having a conversation with.... but I digress. I wrote during the entire trip and arranged it into a little story when I got home. It went ...ani lyrics (to indicate how I was feeling, as it changed) a snapshot of what was happening at the time, more lyrics, well...you get the point.
So, following, two of the in-between lyrics pieces. Cause *this* is what I was doing this time last year.
Some shows you have to walk outside to get there. We escort each other, but sometimes you have to make a break for it, carrying your shoes in case you have to run, wearing a coat over your costume.
Although, to tell you the truth, you can slip into bad habits. Once day, suddenly, you're slogging across the parking lot from the hotel to the pub barefoot, in your costume. You try to avoid the broken glass using the headlights of the 4x4's pulling in. So many of these places are dead except for showtimes. Then you should see the trucks move in, like a solid wall of maleness; you'd think they fill them up with testosterone, instead of gas.
Sometimes, I feel the more naked I am - the safer I am. If I play my cards right, smoke enough dope, stop reading, and try not to think, one of these days I might dissolve into the lights covering the stage, or into the smoke exhaled from the mouths of the men. In the eyes of the workers, the cops, the musclebound bartender, I am immobilized. Like a deer caught in headlights. A secret species. A secret country. It exhilarates me to walk through the crowded bar after my midnight show, the only female in the room, wearing a couple square feet of fabric.
A piece of oil-soaked paper strolling through a forest of matches.
She looked at a picture of them, standing three across, at a party the previous year. She was in the middle, and far enough away now to step back and consider that she looked like the brave one of the group; the one quick to laugh, chide, take a stand or take a chance.
But things like this - little things like this - revealed the flaws. "Your idiocy could fill volumes", she thinks. It made her wish she could change everything about herself, totally reinvent her personality, her IQ, her looks, her voice, her name. Her only consolation now was that few were here to see this act of total, unconscionable and absolute stupidity. The inability to be detached enough to let his behavior towards them go.
It had been an ugly fight. One of those arguments that blew truth into little bits then scattered it all over the place like a round of exploding ammunition. When they were done, there was nothing illuminated or resolved, no clarity, just a lot of shrapnel stuck in your face.
And because I sniped at nomoreozone :) for not finishing a past story today....when I came home, the third person had also left town. Permanently. He's the one I miss, circumstances aside, he was someone I would have spent the rest of my life with. I've found someone like that only once before in my lifetime. I came home with a better understanding of myself, for time spent away. I don't know what his has done, but I hear he's happy. The third? He's still got something that's important to me. Which he won't return. I still can't figure out if it's payback, sheer laziness and lack of concern, or something else. But, in the end, I think that the two that Ajazz left behind weren't worth all the trouble.
girl friday @ 12:33AM | 2003-11-21| I like it. It's raw. It's everyday shit with a few momentous suprises along the way, and the writing is amazing.
luckycharm @ 1:38AM | 2003-11-21| beautiful.
moi @ 11:53AM | 2003-11-21| geez, i'd forgotten all about the 'm' episode. here's hoping one day the weenors will fade for you too.
yj @ 5:03PM | 2003-11-21| i love the background pic. i miss dougie. i like this piece of writing (but you knew that). i don't want to remember where i was last year at this time.
secret
Is it just me or do those Victoria Secret commercial push-up bras without pads look really freaking uncomfortable?Not that I've ever worn a push up bra but.....ouch.
Someone from the 'old' condo board bailed off the 'new' condo board. Before the first meeting of the new board even. That makes me the only grandfathered member. Not a big loss though - one of the bitchbitchbitch in private, kiss-up in public members.
A pedestrian got squished outside of work today. 14th one (or so) this year. Which is a big jump over previous years. Someone should let them know that the ol' "they have to stop if I'm in the crosswalk" doesn't really apply when it's snowing and the roads are bad cause you know, the drivers don't drive for the road conditions either so the chances of stopping even in good weather around here are baaaaad.
Most of the division is working from home tomorrow so I'll be all alone in the bat cave playing with political poll maps. Sounds fun, don't it?
I found all the blogroll links - can I just say "yay"?
Whew, I'm boring today. Wait, let me see if I can find a good link to end the day with....
Vodka is bad. Or maybe it's just the contests.
dang
I must have updated the blogroll riiiight about time it began to go wackadoo, cause I lost all my new links. See, I add them to my favorites, check them for a while, (in case I randomly happened upon the one and only entry I'd find amusing) then when I know I want to keep them, I move them to blogroll and delete them from my favorites. Which normally works quite well. But now I can only remember 3 or 4 of them. argh. Gee, maybe I'll start using that handy 'backup' feature. ;)My phone rang about 8:05 this morning. The people at my condo management company (and i use that term loosely, very loosely). "EMS is outside, but they can't get in, can you let them in?" Suuuure. But they didn't buzz so I went out to take the dog for her walk. Came back in, little EMS guy in the lobby. I guess the problem was that they couldn't get into the CONDO UNIT, not the building. And, nope, there's no central keys. The commonly accepted *standard* lockbox for emergency personnel? Gee, our managment company never mentioned we should have one of those, when the on-site 'manager' left.
Here's the things I question:
-EMS fella said they'd been there for an HOUR, trying to get into the unit. Uh. Hello? I asked as to whether the sick person could still be alive. "Oh, no, it's not critical, but she's in too much pain to unlock the door." Um, sorry but if I were in that much pain (and not *critical* but with someone on the other side of the door with drugs) I'd be dragging myself across the floor with my lips, or maybe my eyelashes.
-We regularly hear that there's only 5 ambulances on duty (or 6 or 4 or whatever) for Calgary's millionish people. And these boys just sat for an HOUR? During morning rush hour?
-By the time they called and the police came to break down the door, it had been 1 HOUR 20 MINUTES. Then I'm assuming they carted said sick person to hospital and left the door open.
So about 9:10 I called the 'management' company to ask them to either hire a security guard or call the 'manager' guy to do something about this woman's door. She asked me which unit it was. Uh, I don't know. The EMS guys called you for permission to break down a door and you didn't ask? Oh right, cause you thought it was the FRONT door. And I didn't ask because 1)it's not my business to know and 2)I don't thrive off the private problems of others. She then asked me to walk through the building and call her with the unit number with the open door. Sure, honey, I'll get right on that. Except, I'm *at work*.
Scary hey? It's taken me a year and a half to get the contract the developers signed with the 'management' company. Our contract with these dip...shits is up in June. We have to give 90 days written notice. And with a new board that hasn't had to deal with her for the last year and a half, that gives me 4 months to convince them (or, really, just let them learn by observation) that we need to give these losers the boot.
Thank god it's almost the weekend.
Day 43 v.2
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
pls deer god
save us frm ppl who write lyk this. AND LIKE THIS!!!! NEWAYZ, I LYK HOOKED UP WITH MY BRO.....u ppl muz be wundering wtf is she doing? I've been reading other blogs. Apparantly, all written by ppl who can't typ, spell and wr raised on im. Pls, give me baq full sentences, proper english, good punctuation and coherent thought processes. I beg you.
Or maybe it's an attempt by the younger generation to have something of their very own? I wish they could have picked something that didn't make them all look so stupid.
luckycharm @ 4:13PM | 2003-11-20| I know. I've run across this too. and what I'm afraid of is-if enough people express themselves in like manner and they don't grow out of it, then it will eventually become the norm. Yikes!
snowdog
It's still snowing as we go out to have our morning drag around the block and this dog, oh yes, this dog, she loves the snow. After we've made faces of distaste and tiptoed through the melted puddles beneath the building overhang (because this dog hates the rain), we forget we're 15 going on 16 and *bound* into the drifts. Belly deep and high stepping as mommy tries to slog delicately along the tire-tracks, we stop every 2 feet and in a daring move, jam our face vertically downwards directly into the snow. Snuffle deeply (and make no mistake, if there's food under there, we find it), fling errant fluffs everywhere before bounding another 2 feet to repeat the maneuver.Mommy watches affectionately, walks along another few feet, and turns just in time to see us walk smack-dab into a parking meter. We stagger slightly and realize that we've got so much snow piled up on our snouts that our eyesight is severely impaired and deduce that we must shake our head repeatedly before bounding over to mom to have her wipe our face off.
We glare over at the funny looking man on the snow moving contraption who seems to be laughing at us, deciding it is not worth our precious playing time to attack, and flounce off to continue the diveandsnort mission.
Day 42 v.2
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
messages
I've had 4 unheard messages blinking away on my machine, since Saturday. And I have absolutely no desire to see who called. How pathetic is that? I finally got enough energy to check them:-one of the people I was supposed to go out with on Saturday
-some credit company looking for Jill. Since I'm only listed as J in the phone book I get a lot of callls for this Jill person. She must be in pretty deep shit.
-the treasurer of the condo board that I called on Friday. But I can't remember why I called her.
-the mechanical people who want to know how the heat in my apartment is. Better/worse? Since when? Since your report indicating that 86 degrees in the hallways and 74 degrees in the condos was normal, even though the hallways have no discernable sources of heat? And that there's nothing wrong in the condo where the guy has between 46 - 50 degrees all the time? And since you further indicated that (even though this wasn't happening last year) all this is perfectly normal and the only way to remedy it is to install a drop ceiling in the parkade and use radiant heat in the space in between? For oh, about 15 - 20,000 dollars? Are ya loose?
Wow, I really am snarly lately. Must find a way to get a good night's sleep.
Day 41 v.2
Monday, November 17, 2003
end of day
hmph, so I guess the long rant diverted the horrifying day. Wasn't that bad, really.but, dude, I have nothing to say today. Some nevers....
I've never been in a ToysRUs.
I've never had a manicure.
I've never read "War and Peace".
I've never seen that Rhett and Scarlett movie, whatever it's called.
I've never kissed someone I loved in the rain.
And I updated my blogroll last night, but it's gone a winky-dinky so hopefully it's be feeling better soon.
Day 40 v.2
Sunday, November 16, 2003
backstory
It's a pretty cool thing to buy something and then, a few weeks later, see the story behind it. The story is here.a couple sunday thoughts
It never ceases to amaze me that 9 times out of 10 my stone-deaf dog is standing in front of the elevator which opens.Question: If I have never ever met any of your expectations over my entire life, have you ever stopped to consider that maybe the problem isn't with me but with your expectations?
And, yes, I always thought that about VD, but when you look at where we met, such subversive mutterings would have been cause for hanging. Naked. From the belfry. Welcome home.
Day 39 v.2
