Tolerating Education

I wanted to take a moment to comment on the recent 9/11 issues that are plaguing this country these days.  I realize that my voice in this world is minute but even a tiny ripple in the pond has an effect overall, so I hope that I can make myself clear here and that this tiny ripple of sanity keeps expanding. 

I believe in the founding principles of this country, one of which is the freedom of religion from persecution.  Because of this I do not have a problem with the Mosque in New York.  The Muslim religion as whole did not commit those horrible crimes; they were committed by a group of religious extremists that cater to the fears of the ignorant.  And this, after all, is what extremists do and extremists exist in every major religion and political group. 

Of the thousands of innocent lives taken by these extremists on 9/11, several were themselves Muslim (http://islam.about.com/blvictims.htm), there is a Mosque in the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and thousands of American Muslims are fighting everyday in the Middle East for their country, The United States of America. 

It is common knowledge that we fear what we do not know and/or understand.  That being said, it is our responsibility to educate ourselves out of the darkness of the corrupting fear so that we do not fall victim to its emptiness. 

Let’s turn September 11, a day of national tragedy, into a national day of tolerance for the sake of peace.  This should be a day where religions across the country hold fairs, courses, and lectures and open their doors to those public citizens wishing to educate themselves. 

This is what that preacher in Florida should have suggested or possibly would have suggested if he honestly did have God in his ear or heart as he claims.  This man’s ignorance and the media that give his ignorance a worldwide stage are very disturbing to me and should be disturbing to the public at large. 

In honor of a day of tolerance and education in this country I will close with a quote from the Holy Qur’an. 

Hold to forgiveness, command what is right; but turn away from the ignorant." [7:199]  The Holy Qur’an

http://www.cair-net.org/

Please pass this on in hopes that everyone may educate themselves for the sake of peace and tolerance. 

Royal Catnip Scandal

Paparazzi recently shot this photo of the usually shy and reserved Royal Princess Angel Love-Smith wholly consumed in a bag that was allegedly full of catnip just last night! 

Sources say that the catnip is in a plain brown paper bag because “it’s just more fun”. 

Has the pain of losing her daddy caused her to go the way of Lindsey, Brittney, and Paris?  When asked to comment on the photo she gave no comment only mewing as she snubbed all further paparazzi questions on the issue. 

 

Later that same night the Royal Princess Sasha Love-Smith was captured openly enjoying catnip! 

 

“There’s nothing wrong with having a little ‘fun’ now and then.” she said when asked about the scandalous photographs. It seems that the usually strict and straight laced Princess Sasha is standing by her family in their recent grief and is actually participating in what could become a dangerous catnip habit for the Royal family. 

The SADDEST Post EVER

My life has been upended and turned upside down. My beloved Sikeith passed into the other realm of life in early June. He will be missed here, but is once again with the loved ones that preceded him and is happier now than he ever could have been here. This event is why I have had such a silent blog and online life lately; I have no clue how to live my life now, online or offline, so I am silent and waiting for some direction.

I want to thank everyone that has messaged, called, visited, prayed, or even silently watched over me over the last several weeks. Thank you all. I have had so much love given to me; love, even from people that I had no clue would be so present for me in this time. I hope that I am worthy and able to return the love and loving sentiments that have been given and expressed to me.

I am overwhelmed by many things these days but I hope to get back on track soon; what track that may be, I do not know. As usual I have consulted the cards on this issue and have been advised by “the universe” to lay low and just mourn for a time. I think that I will slowly come back to life as some kind of life comes back to me.

I am taking every opportunity to be social and try to go out whenever anyone asks me to go somewhere or do something in hopes that I will not fall deeper into the abyss of the sadness that consumes my very soul at times. I am also looking for some part time work so that I may create some kind of schedule and order to this new life.

Thanks again everybody; I will write more when I find the mind and you all will be rolling your eyes again in no time.

Blood Money

Well hi everybody! I apologize for neglecting everyone and dropping off of the radar this last month or so. You see, there is this epic and ever ongoing fight that my brain has with itself over its sanity and willingness to participate in the real world with live people like you all.

Thank God that I live in the 21st century; I get a virtual view by poking my head out into digital ports to watch a bit of the real world pass by.

In efforts to win the fight for sanity I have been trying to keep myself busy. I made a few videos and have been playing around with the Windows Moviemaker program on my pc; something nice and anti-social to work on. I haven’t made anything that I would publish to the world yet, but I do still have plans for those sewing instructional videos. I’ve heard that I could get paid to do this and found Associatedcontent.com, so I’ll give them a go and see what happens.

Some of you may have seen the casino pics on my MySpace page. We met with some old friends for a night of fun and drink; I always have fun with them but even with all the people inside those walls it can be a bit anti-social since most of the games are one player and not really games either… I ran out of money too fast and I get bored with slots. Maybe I should learn the horses since we were at Remington this time.

Remington was great; it is seriously one the best places I can think of to hang out these days. It’s close by, I can smoke, drink, and gamble; now if weed were finally legal I’d be in absolute heaven and may never leave. It’d be like a miniature sin city within four walls if they’d throw in a strip club and hotel.

But I’ve digressed from the fun that was had with my friends; they were a blast as always and I can’t wait to club hop on our next adventure together.

And speaking of old friends, one of my old friends found me on Facebook the other day. He is really family by way of my nieces; he is their brothers’ father. I haven’t heard from him in more than ten years and it was nice to see that he is doing well.

In closing I’ll explain the title of this post. I was going through Si’s wallet the other day to rob him so I could go shopping when I ran across the nastiest thing I’ve seen in years.

REAL BLOOD MONEY!!! EEEEEWWWWWW!!!!!

I asked him where he got that nasty ass dollar and he told me that the Walgreens on NW 23^rd and Classen gave it to him and he didn’t notice until I had pointed it out.

Now, I understand how Walgreens could have blood covered money in their possession, I assume that since people often go there immediately after a hospital visit that there would be a bloody bill or two now and then, but I also assumed that these were weeded out or set aside and given to the bank instead if stashed in the register to be handed out again to the general public. Boy was I wrong.

This is just a visible example of how dirty circulating money is; I hear that one can find weed and cocaine particles if you look with a microscope. Also, think about how many asses have touched a bill… Thank God for hand sanitizer.

Video Discovery

Hi everybody! 2010 has been great for me so far and I have a lot to cover this post.

First of all, I have been looking and searching for a functional purse for months now; you know, one that has lots of pockets and places to put things. But these days purse designers seem to want women to just dump our things into a large bag where everything falls to the bottom and gets jumbled up leaving us to search for things far longer than really necessary.

Luckily I have a handy dandy sewing machine that enabled me to make a purse that is totally functional and (hopefully) stylish as well.

What do you all think? I am using it and take it everywhere but I haven’t had anybody ask me where I got it or anything yet.

Stylish or not, I think I did a pretty good job; Si is more proud of this work than I am. He’s been showing it off and bragging to everyone that enters the door and everywhere we go. He makes me blush… he has my head so big now that I’m thinking of making a few sewing instructional videos. I’ve been altering all of my bell bottom jeans into skinny jeans; I bet people would love to see how that’s done on video.

I love that little camera I got for Christmas! I’ve been making videos with it lately and posting them to my youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/bastet574.

This one is from the hail storm we had Wednesday night.

I’ve never seen anything like it before. The hail was the size of Dip n Dots ice cream pellets and covered the roads like heavy snow.

That was, coincidentally, the night that Sinn went back home to Pennsylvania from her visit. She had a death in her family recently and had to come home for the funeral. While I am sorry for her loss, which I could see weighed on her, I am selfishly happy that I got to spend some time with her.

We took as many pictures as I could get in.

There are more, of course, on my myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/bastet74

Some of the pictures you may notice were taken in a club. Mary, Sinn’s spouse, had a birthday while they were here so we all went out to celebrate together at a local club. I LOVE drunk pictures! It’s kind of like the move ‘The Hangover’; you never know what you’re going to see the next day.

So what’s better than dunk pictures? Drunk video of course! I was going through my phone a couple days after the big night out and found a video of that night!

This is all too funny to me! I only remembered making the video after I found and viewed it; and even then it was a foggy memory. See, it’s not like I totally blacked out that night, but there are blank moments that had to be filled in for me later; like when did I get undressed and how did I get in the bed?

I had so much fun that night that I peed my pants; you know it’s fun when you pee your pants. I haven’t had ‘pee your pants’ fun in many many years and this was a much needed fun-cation.

But, as I mentioned earlier, she had to leave and go back home. She and her wife were very welcome and gracious guests. When I should have been showing them a good time on their vacation, they were making sure that I was having a good time with them. And to top it off, Mary gave me the best complement ever before they left but I can’t repeat it here because it may unintentionally offend some people.

Yes, this has been a good year so far; I’ve even seen my sister twice. Sinn hadn’t seen her in years so we stopped by for a short visit while they were here.

This picture reminds me of the old days when the three of us were an unstoppable booshie force in the local clubs. What’s booshie you ask? Look here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Booshie and pay close attention to definitions 1 and 3. We just knew we were fine and better than other bitches. LOL

2009 Wrap Up

Hello readers! This last month has been so hectic that I’ve had no real time to blog and get you all caught up.

First of all, I finally finished that quilt!

And it’s still too small.

As you can see, it barely covers the 6’5 foot man that it was intended for so I’ll have to start over and make another one; a huge one. It has been deemed a couch blanket now with all of the kids’ happy approval.

It’s ok though, I didn’t really like the way it turned out anyway; something about the colors or maybe the way I put it together is turning me off of it.

And while on the subject of colors, I colored my hair again… it’s almost black.

I’m not sure I like it. My people say it looks good and that it’s a nice change from being a red head for the last 20 some odd years, but I can’t tell if they’re being honest or just being nice; or maybe they’re just happy it’s not red. lol

I’m happy that it’s finally grown out from the horrible cut I got earlier this year. I can wear it down and I’ve been contemplating a curly perm since I’ve been curling it a lot lately. I need another trim, but am now terrified to have a stranger touch my hair and if a friend or loved one messes it up, I can’t ask for my money back. I’m in a pickle about my hair.

I’m gonna leave it alone for now; we’ve been having the worst winter weather ever seen here these days and I think I’m going to need my long locks to keep me warm when I venture out into the cold.

This is the view from my porch on Christmas Eve during the blizzard.

These pics were taken halfway through the storm so you can imagine what the final result was like. I could barely open my screen door to snap these shots. But, as all of my loved ones up north can attest to, this was nothing.

My niece came home from Massachusetts (where they are used to this weather) for Christmas this year with her fiancé and their little girl. They stayed with her mother for a while but her mom was having issues with her apartment so they came here to keep me company and make me happy!

My niece is the one on the right and her lovely fiancé is holding their cute daughter.

I can’t express in words how much I enjoyed their visit. They were awesome guests; we talked and laughed, drank and danced, and had I had a great time with them. I wish there was time to do more; there is never enough time when loved ones visit.

I took this shot right before they left out on the road back; this is the best ‘starting the road trip home’ picture ever! They all look so cute; just look at this gorgeous happy family. This is my favorite 2009 holiday picture.

This is the picture that set the mood for the holiday in my house this year.

Ah yes… notice the colorful lights that trim the doorway and blanketed tree that features sweet candy canes in fanciful flavors, the mantel displaying a Christmas card greeting, and American football on the TV.

I liked this one because seemed like a modern Norman Rockwell-esque picture, without people of course, but there are more pictures on my MySpace page (www.myspace.com/bastet74) that clearly show OU football playing on the TV in the back ground.

Most of my holiday pictures were taken with my brand new camera that my dad gave me for Christmas. It’s great! It has more than nine megapixels and does video (how much, of course, depends on the memory card potential). I was close on guessing it this year too, btw…

Now I just need something to film. I’ll probably be posting videos of my cats soon… that’ll be exciting for sure… yeah, watch for that! lol

Another ‘gift’ from my dad this year was Christmas dinner. He calls a few days before and says that since I did such a great job cooking last year that he’s going to buy the food and I can cook again this year! Wow! I get to slave over a hot kitchen for three days and see it devoured in less than 30 minutes again!

I don’t really mean to sound ungrateful, it’s just that the only people coming to dinner is my dad and my drugged out brother whom I don’t even like. I would feel better about it if my bedridden mother decided to make an appearance, or if there was a general consensus to have dinner at my house by all family members, but to have to go through it when everyone decides to stay home and/or do other things is just frustrating and wasteful.

He did buy everything though for which I am grateful for since it was mostly staples and they tend to last a while.

Yes, Christmas was good this year despite the recession; Si got me a gift card from my favorite store, and I got cookies and a crockpot from my aunts. I regret that I was unable to buy Christmas for anybody but Si this year thus making my holiday guilt worse than usual.

The holidays are too commercialized anyway. Everything in the media is telling us to buy and be generous to our loved ones, as if we aren’t already generous throughout the year, while also implying that love is dependent upon material gifts. Not to be old fashioned or anything, but I think it would be great to just be able to be with the people that you love without feeling guilty of some financial deficiency.

That’s kind of how my New Year’s Eve went this year. It was spent quietly with good company over drinks and conversation. Although pretty sedate for NYE, it was ideal for the time.

On that note… a toast to an ideal 2010!

(My wonderful father drinking a wine cooler on Christmas.)

Happy New Year Everyone!