So rude.

Dear rude woman,

Sometimes I wish I had raised my kids differently. When you said excuse me to my son as he and his friends sat on the curb at the parade he politely squished over against his friend to let you get by. But you didn’t go by.. You sat your oversized McDonalds eating ass right next to him and THEN proceeded to yank your snotty smelly kid in the 2 inches of space between you and my polite son. He still didn’t say anything, he just moved over more, squishing himself against his friend. When his friend’s mother pointed out that “He was sitting there.” You said.. and I quote.. “Well you ain’t moving my fucking kid.” Classy.
“Ain’t’ is not a proper word and using the f word just shows your gross lack of intelligent vocabulary.
My kid, the polite kid, got up and stood. His friends did too and you moved right into the space. Then you proceeded to try and stop the marchers to take photos of them with your kid. Lady.. It is not –your- parade, it is our parade.. stop screwing it up.
Then.. then! You told your kids to dump out the drinks they did not like and throw their cups on the ground.. now the sidewalk. Where people were sitting, was wet. Nice job. And covered in your McDonalds trash. I really hope you are not from Holyoke.
People like you make me wish I had raised my kid to be a little bit ruder. You know.. kind of like you and your kids. Good job.

Signed,
Mother with manners.

Just saying..

I borrowed this from a newsletter I get. I'm not screaming my opinion, just sharing something to think about. Can any of us really stand to be spoon fed political propaganda?

A global warming science update, which can be summarized in seven short words – It is much worse than we thought.
Public opinion, which finds that a record 41% of the American people think the threat of global warming is being exaggerated.
• Economist Nicholas Stern believes that without urgent action, we could be committing ourselves to a planetary increase of four to six degrees Centigrade.
• Even at a more modest four degree rise, Stern predicts that 85% of the Amazon rainforest will be destroyed, leading to catastrophic shortages of fresh water and mass failures of food harvests. As many as half of all species on Earth may become extinct.
• A 2009 peer-reviewed study published in Science concludes that the planetary effects of Antarctic ice melt could lead to wildly uneven sea level increases. In the Northern hemisphere sea level increases as high as 21 feet may threaten New York, London, and Tokyo with total inundation -- creating tens of millions of refugees.

Denial and Deceit -- The Opposition
You'd think this terrifying wave of discoveries would galvanize all of us to take drastic action today.
Instead, we are witnessing an unprecedented propaganda blitz by polluters and global warming deniers to stop legislation and confuse the public. Consider these few highlights of what they're up to:
• They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying, political contributions alone -- with hundreds of millions more in paid ads.
• The number of lobbyists working to block global warming action has increased 300% in recent years, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
• They've landed an army of talking heads on the political talk shows to drive the debate among the Beltway crowd. Their message is as simple as it is false. A cap on global warming pollution is a "hidden energy tax" (which it is not) and that "we can't afford to act in the current economic crisis" (which is not true).

Tech. Dif.

One sick kid
Two essays on the effects of early slavery on todays economy
One story for 7 year olds
Two midterms that I have no time to study for
One fire in the attic
Two essays comparing poems for children and creative elasticity in childrens toys
One large bottle of Tylenol PM
Two dollars in my pocket

Me: Does my hair look like I brushed it?
Kid 1: You brush your hair?

Boss: So I took your advice and broke up with my girlfriend instead of cheating on her.
Me: Good for you! I think.. how did that go?
Boss: Well, I broke up with her via text message.
Me: ................

Me: I am have Thai pasta for lunch, 150 calories.
Erin: I can't eat pasta.
Me: This is GOOD for you pasta, it's rice noodles.. look.
-I took photos of my lunch with my phone and e-mailed them to her-
Erin: I don't know who is dorkier, you for sending me pics of your lunch or me for downloading them.
Me: -busy eating my pasta-

I stopped taking my iron pills and have been feeling like a truck ran me over.. I still have the Mi Plaza and Mt Tom pics to post but I can't find the stupid cable for my camera. My laptop has a sim card slot though so as soon as I get a chance I will try and upload them that way. I am dreading the parade.. I hope it isn't cold out.

While you wait...

I have two posts in the works.. Mi Plaza and Mt Tom.. but for now I just have this..



The Armory
Sargeant & Pine Streets
Holyoke Mass.
Circa 1900


Birds Eye View of
High Street, Holyoke Mass.
Mount Holyoke in Distance
Circa 1910



The Nonotuck
Holyoke Mass.
Circa 1910

Things I would like to know..

1. Why are all the lights along High St missing the delay between red for one street and green for the next? Why?!

2. Why did the Holyoke School Dept close down Lawrence to ‘save money’ and then not move there but still pay to heat and light the entire building? Hmm?

3. Why did Lisa Lavoie have mens jeans and greasy hair on her ‘perp walk’ into the Holyoke Police Department? Doesn’t West Virginia have showers? Are her clothes being saved as evidence? Does she actually dress like that? … that would explain a lot though, wouldn’t it?

4. Why doesn’t the McDonalds downtown pick up its freaking trash? And smile when I drive though. I love your new Mochas. You are single handedly destroying my illusions of being a health food nut. At least smile as I pay you to crush my dreams.

5. Why did the shop guy just hand me a dirty invoice? They have soap over there, I know because I bought it for them. Can no one take a hint?

6. On a happier note Kashi has instant oatmeal that is not overly sweetened and has 9 grams of protein a serving! Yay! And my boys will be taking a Yoga class Saturday morning with me, I kind of want to just watch and take pictures of them in Warrior pose, then frame them for their adorableness. Mike, don’t tell them I blogged about that!

7. Sunday is supposed to be delicious outside, I hope it won’t be too muddy to go walk around Mt Tom! Anyone want to come?

p.s. The best play ever a few posts back was West Side Story. I need to hunt down a new copy on Ebay.

Teaching kids about taxes!

My son is on the Gold Star System. He gets gold stars for brushing his teeth and cleaning his toys up... And every week we take 25 % of his gold stars to teach him about taxes.

Four Degrees Hotter

Boys came to work with me today, snow day. Thank god for having a big enough office that they don’t have to sit near each other and actually co-exist for 8 hours.



So I am reading this article about Global Warming.. I know it is a phrase I do not like but in this case it is actually what they are talking about. What will happen when the earth’s average temp climbs 4 degrees. It doesn’t sound like much, but you have to stop and think… At 32 degrees your freeze pop freezes. At 33 degrees you have kool aid in a tube.

The difference of one degree might as well be the difference of 100 degrees.

If the average temp rises 4 degrees New Orleans will no longer exist, Brazil will be a desert..

ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 °C.

I know the article says 4C, I use Degrees because I was mceducated in ‘merican schools where we only spent 5 hours on the metric system and Celsius.

Now, I am not an alarmist and I don’t actually think that recycling and avoiding plastic will stop Climate Change. It is too late now, this is real, it’s happening. Some of us will still be alive to see this. All we can do now is try not to make it worse… use less, buy less, burn less. No one is asking you to turn into an environmentalist nut right this minute.. but bring your own bags once in a while, notice how much trash you create, maybe try a little compost project just for fun.

What we need to do now is prepare for the future.

On a more local note, it has been really uplifting lately to hear so much about Holyoke and our efforts to be a little greener, after all Holyoke has the potential to be the Greenest City in the state. Wouldn’t it be nice to be known for something other then crime, poverty and culture divides?