My way or the highway!

I have had a hard time lately with my blogging. I actually did write two blogs but they were sort of controversial and/ or ending up being rants and I decided I would be better off dissing them. There has been a lot in the news lately that is note-worthy but I will just have to let them go by the wayside and bide my time for discussing them.

However, that being said, there is a story all over the news that I will enjoy writing about. I'm sure you have all heard about the mom that pulled over to the curb and told her bickering girls to GET OUT. Good news is that the girls (12 and 10 ) are fine, bad news is, Mom spent the night in jail. She is a very well educated, highly regarded lawyer at the top of her game but she is also A MOM.

There is a lot of controversy going on about this on TV. The public are chiming in on this and there are mixed reviews on her actions. Some people are out-raged that a mother would be so cruel and uncaring that she would abandon her children. Some think she should have her children taken away from her and placed in child protective services'care. Some say she is a typical rich female that has no clue as to how to handle her children, some theorize that her kids have probably been with nannies all of their lives and are resented for intruding on her life.

Flip side, some say, "been there, done that!" Quite a few of the news people that are reporting this story and many of the people that are interviewed are saying," Why else would there be t-shirts that say, 'Don't make me stop this car!" or ominous sayings, "Wait until we get home." or a variety of other things that imply that the breaking point is near. I saw a tee shirt one time that was very tastefully done with the message being "Get over it!" Quite a few people on the news actually cringed when they reported this story and said they had reached the point of pulling the car over on more than one occasion but had second thoughts after they pulled over.

We traveled quite often to the beach and other destinations during the summer and most of the time we traveled under threat of abandonment. Doc was not the best traveler in the world and frequently stated his intention of pulling the car over and evicting all the back seat riders. We were aware of his temperament and I tried to keep the peace if at all possible. We had many narrow escapes.

One time Gregg bought a six pack of Big Red and poured all of the contents into a picnic jug that had a spigot on it. He added ice and had 1200 miles of drinks readily available in the back seat.
Things were going well until cruising through Tenn. the odor of Big Red wafted up to the front seat, and we all ,excluding Doc, realized that the spigot had not been fully turned off somewhere along the line and we had a couple of quarts of Big Red on the floor of our Impala. Because of the hump in the middle of the car there was a well like area on each side of the hump. One of the wells was full of B.R. and Gregg was baling it out the window as fast as he could with a small paper cup. Doc did mention once that it smelled like Big Red in the car,but we knew better than to apprise him of whence the odor came. At our next pit stop, he wondered what that was all over the back left fender. Hmmmm. Abandonment avoided on that trip.

We had another incident when Keith and Brian had a shoe box with a toad in it in the back seat and the toad escaped. It leaped all over the car with us frantically trying to capture it but that time we just thought Doc was unaware of it, the toad finally jumped onto his lap, he reached down and picked it up and tossed it out of the car. No war declared that day!

'Mom rage 'struck one time that I worried about for years but the last time I checked, the kids do not remember it. I was the one most traumatized by it. It was on a New Year's day and the kids were particularly fractious that day. It was just one big bicker session. They argued over everything but finally they found a noise maker toy, one that was metal, round with a wooden handle and objects inside the toy that made an annoying noise when the toy was shaken. A battle ensued over possession of the toy, I HAD HAD it. I grabbed the toy out of their hands and threw it on the floor and jumped up and down on it until I had rendered it useless. (my feet hurt for days). I then disposed of the remains and encountered their looks of shock and awe! We had a few relatively quiet hours after that.

You know what? Moms and dads have their limits.

I pulled the car over on I-95 one time and threatened to hitch hike back to Kentucky but rapidly changed my mind when a State Highway Patrolman pulled up and said, "Is everything OK?" Sure,I said and got back into the car and took the next exit off and got on the right road and continued on. Anyone can make a mistake, right?

Bearty and the Beasts

April is the cruelest month. I know that has been said by someone but right off hand I know not who. We've had a little of every thing, weather wise. It has rained softly, stormed furiously, snowed sporadically, thundered noisily, and lightning has streaked across the sky and under my shades into my bed room, but not under my covers! It has been 32 degrees and frosty and 75 degrees and sweaty. (OK by me). I do love weather and like its variations but I am a little tired of being cold and having purple hands.

The flowers are beautiful and the pear trees have shed all of their little white petals across our lawns and now it is time for the dogwoods to show off. The azaleas are ready to compete also and the tulips too. There is so much beauty around us.

The happenings in the world, however; have been ugly, obscene and devastating. A father killing four of his children and himself, a deranged man killing 16 people in a civic center and then himself. (He lived in fear of Obama taking his guns away. ) Three policeman gunned down in California, two ambushed and shot in Indiana, another two or three shot in the north east and another female policewoman shot today. The police are out gunned and the country is shocked by it all. I, for one, am tired of them asking the same question after each incident," Why would someone do that? They must be sick! They must be crazy! How can we anticipate these events and prevent them. "The day before yesterday a man was shot in a strip mall parking lot at 2:30 in the afternoon in the South end of Louisville. Plenty of witnesses observed the crime 'going down' and watched the rented car drive away with the two shooters in it. Drug deal gone bad! Are these guys sick, crazy, could someone anticipate this happening?A letter writer to the editor in today"s paper railed against the anti-gun folks and said, we would all be better off if we were all armed. His theory being that if we were all armed we would be a threat to the others and so they would let us alone and not be so hasty about settling all disputes with gun fire. Now who's crazy? We've got a problem.

There were 50 people killed by six mass murderers just this past week. That doesn't include the single murders that happen every day. I grieve over the young Americans killed each day in Iraq and other war zones but our death toll from gun fire right here in America is worse than the war zone's. Let us pray!