One Thing Leads to Another

I've always said that once you do one thing to fix up your house it leads to another.  You know, a fresh coat of paint makes the doorknobs look crummy or once you've put up wallpaper it is screaming for a border.  Well, I never will hang wallpaper again as long as I live but you get the idea.
I discovered recently that house fixing is not the only thing that leads from one thing to another.  Did you ever go on iTunes?  Well, it happens there too.  First you see a song you like or remember then that leads to another one and another one and another one.  Those $1.29s add up!  Fast!  I am learning to be very discerning but it is hard, my friends.  Actually I got one song for only 69 cents!  It was Gerry and the Pacemakers.  Some of you don't even know who that is and apparently not many people do as that is the cheapest song I have!
I remember going to see their movie, Ferry Cross the Mercy, and the movie theater actually stopped the movie until the girls stopped screaming.  It was a really dumb movie as far as I can remember.  They were just copying the Beatles...or the Monkees.
Anyway, see how one thing leads to another?  I always liked the Monkees but when I think of them it brings up memories of my kids when they were little.  They love the Monkees on Nickelodeon and they used to play the music and pretend they were the guys and it was really really cute and funny.
My kids were always creative players.  It might have been them and it might have been some of their playmates.  One of our neighbors used to show up at my door in the summer wearing a little wool hat and mittens and meowing like a kitty.  Pretty creative, no?
Trying to create a creative costume for Halloween is...well, trying.  My DH is going as a lumber jack.  I had the great idea of doing a couples costume and going as a tree.  Well, I racked my brain to think of some way to look like a tree and it was sounding more and more complicated and aren't couples costumes a little trite?  So, I am going as nothing.  I have a Happy Halloween tee shirt and one of those crazy looking little headbands.  Done and done!
So, as I said one thing does lead to another and we have finally led to the end. 
Happy Halloween!!!

Oh, John, We Hardly Knew Ye

John Kasich is really making me angry with all his talk of how public employees are ripping off their fellow Ohioans.  As far as I am concerned, the only public employee who is ripping off the Ohioans is John Kasich.
I am a retired teacher.  I paid toward my retirement and my employer matched it.  A lot of workers have that.  I paid for my health insurance the entire time also.  So do all my fellow teachers, retired and working.  We are not the enemy.
Kasich is able to skew things so that public employees seem to be better off than the middle class.  John boy, we ARE the middle class.
 Without us, you wouldn't have public services to offer.  You would have to educate your children, fight your own fires and protect your family yourself.  Let's just take educating your kids.  First, you have to stay home so you can't have a job unless it is at night when the kids are sleeping and who will protect them then?
You have to be able to think on your feet and develop a curriculum for your kids and choose the books they read.  You also have to teach them social skills so you would have to get together with some other kids at some point or another.  If your kid gets sick during lesson time, you have to stop and care for him or her while the other kids just wait.
Now, there are people out there that home school their children but they are supported by the Dept. of Education in Ohio so that they don't have to develop lesson plans or curriculum.  I admire those people and hope the best for their kids but to me there is nothing like an education with a diverse group of children your own age.
Teachers work hard.  Are there some who work the system? Probably, but I don't know any of them. When I worked, I worked hard and dedicated most of my time and a lot of my  own money educating kids.  So did my colleagues.  We kept studying ways to help kids learn better.  We tried adventurous ideas to help kids get along and learn to work in a group.  We taught kids to respect others and recognize their strengths and the strengths of others.
And now our Governor says I am a cheater and so are my colleagues.  How dare you sit in Columbus and judge what we do?  Come to Cleveland and teach--you wouldn't last an hour.  Try fighting a fire or arresting someone or nursing someone back to health...you would fail miserably.
It seems the governor skews the rhetoric in this direction so you all won't notice that he is taking away our legal right to collective bargaining.  No more give and take about class size or how many ambulances for EMTs or how many patients a nurse should serve. 
If we lose that right, then you are next...that's right Ohio, you are next.
If people had known that Kasich was going to go this route before the election, I wonder if he would have won?   I know my vote didn't put him there.  I hope yours didn't either.

This is For the Birds

Did you know that crows are as smart as a young child? Well, they are.  I learned that on some science channel yesterday.  Pretty interesting but also a little creepy.
Years ago, when we were in Disney World, there was a sign at a restaurant we were in that said not to feed the birds.  I joked that there were so many of them, that one day we'd come here and the crows would be in the chairs and we would be begging from them.   Eerily correct now that I know how smart they are.
And they learn...fast.  So what's to stop them from taking over?  That movie, The Birds, always creeped me out but now it is a real horror story. 
Crows' major concern right now is the acquisition of food but they learn to respect the feelings of other crows and notice how other crows interact with their peers.  Geez, some people don't even do that.
So I don't know about you but I'm practicing my crowing! Better to be safe than sorry.

Sorry, Charlie

There's a man who stands at the corner of 306 and Mentor Ave. who holds a tiny Ron Paul 2012 sign.
Sorry, buddy.  Ron Paul is not going to be the President.  I know you think he will change everything that is wrong, but he won't.  Neither will President Obama.  No one man can fix what ails us and we have to wake up and realize that.
The entire Congress of the United States needs to step up.  They need to get off their overpaid butts and get something done.  What ever happened to compromise?  Like I say I want 20 million and you say no, two million and we haggle and discuss and end up somewhere in the middle?
Now it's so bad that the young people of this country who need jobs are revolting against the establishment.  They have every right to protest and if they can facilitate change, more power to them. However they seem to have no leaders.  They need their own George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and their comrades to lead the fight.
You can't have a successful revolution without charismatic leaders.  Personally, I thought Obama was it. I was wrong.  Does that mean I'm going to vote for Ron Paul or Mitt Romney?  Not on your life. If Mr. Obama is smart (and I'm sure he is) he will step up and be the leader and invite other strong advocates of  "Main Street" rights to join him.  Wouldn't that be thrilling?  If a President could really make some changes without the interference and the lassitude of his fellow leaders?
Too bad we can't recall all the Senators and Congressmen.  They could come home and teach school or be a firefighter and try to make ends meet and fight for their right to negotiate their contracts.  They wouldn't last a day!

Just Sayin'

This weekend our DD was home for a visit and on Saturday we watched the OU/Texas game as she is an OU Sooner.  Boomer Sooner!!  Whatever the heck that means.
Anyway, the Sooners are a great team.  I have a bone to pick with them though.  Their colors are crimson and CREAM.  Really, boys?  Are you football players or interior designers?  Whatever happened to good old red and white??  You know, Red and white!  Fight! Fight!  Crimson and cream! Dream?  Dream?  Self-esteem? Self-esteem?  Not exactly Rah rah, is it now?
Texas is no better.  They have burnt orange.  Really?  I know you got that name out of the box of 64 crayons we all know and love.  And according to DD, they don't even have a second color.  Burnt Orange! Fight! Fight!   Not so much.
In my day you were two colors and they were plain--like green and white for old Shore Jr. High.  Or blue and gold for Euclid High school and Kent State University.  I even had a white fake fur top and a green skirt in eighth grade.  I know, I know.  What a fashion statement.  That top was like a burlap sack on too.  What was I thinking?  Well, in my defense, I was only thirteen years old.
In high school and college we could get a big yellow mum with a blue ribbon to wear to the big game. Oh, how I loved those corsages. I think they are out of style now.
Football is not my favorite sport but it is rough and tumble.  So if your school has a color like burnt orange, it's time to start a petition to change the name of the color....like to orange or brown...and not to crimson and cream either!

Deer Me!

Not unlike many people in our part of Ohio, we have deer--alot of deer.  They are in the wooded area behind our house and they desperately look for food anywhere they can get it, i.e. my backyard.  At first it was exciting to see deer going past the house way back there in the woods but lately it is getting out of hand.
The first sign was when my neighbor told me that he saw a deer with it's front hooves on our tree/bush by the side of the house so it could pull down the branches and eat the leaves.  Then a friend told me she saw some deer coming out of our backyard and out toward our street on New Year's Eve like they had been at a party at our house!!
Pretty soon, the little fawns came too close to the house and ate things on people's patios.  The moms put a stop to that but not for long because now they all come and eat our flowers and our ground cover in the woods and our bushes and anything they can lay their lips on.
Our wooded back yard is bare as a bone--all the pretty and natural ground cover has been eliminated.
I haven't had a flower bloom in two summers.
So get deer repellent you say?  Now, why didn't I think of that.....wait, I did.  I got these little bags that a friend used in her garden and swore by.  Our deer ate them too.  Must have been cannibal deer....or vampire deer.
I tried the spray too and it would kinda work for a couple days and then it was useless and I would forget to get out there all the time.
Oh, I don't blame the deer.  They are losing their natural habitat and are desperate for food.  I get it.  I just stopped buying any plant that isn't an evergreen.  They don't seem to like those...........yet.
The deer are getting bolder too. I went back in the backyard to get a couple of chairs and there were two deer laying in my backyard like they owned the place.  You should have seen the look the older one gave me.

Then one early evening I got home from the gym and nearly jumped out of my skin.  There was a deer right by my garage.  You know how they can stand so still so at first I didn't even notice it.  But then it made a small movement and I screamed.  Oh, yes, screamed.  The damn thing didn't even flinch until I got the garage door going and the noise finally scared it away. It was so close to the house you would have thought it was our pet!
So I always tell DH(and anyone else who will listen, frankly) that I'm waiting for the day a deer knocks on my door and says,"Hey, lady.  What you got in there to eat?"