THE CARDINAL

Talk about case studies in psychiatry. Now this is a good one. One morning, several weeks ago, I was awoken by a cardinal flying into my window. Now, at first, I thought it was a mistake. I thought, "poor bird didn't see the window." WRONG, dead wrong! The bird not only saw the window, he continued to fly into the window for days which turned into weeks. Every morning, around 6 a.m., this male cardinal would land on a tree branch outside my window, start chirpping, then continue to fly into my window. Well, needless to say, I tried everything from opening the top part of the window to putting towels over the window. Well, the towels worked as long as they were hanging on my window. But, once removed, the cardinal returned.

Now, my eldest son suggested it might be his deceased father reincarnated. This child was always a jokster. And, obviously, still is. But, since neither his father nor myself believe(d) in reincarnation, I quickly excused that suggestion. And anyway, if it were my late husband, I would think he would have flown into the bedroom to visit me when the top windows were open.

Well, to make what could be a very long story a short one, I called my eldest son this past weekend and asked him to bring his shotgun. Yes, that is right! I, the supporter and member of the WWF, the Sierra Club, the Wildlife Fund and don't forget the local SPCA had my son shoot the cardinal as it was getting ready to attack my bedroom window for the trillionth time! The guilt of this murder stayed with me until this morning.

This morning, I woke up at around 7:15 a.m. with lovely singing of robins, wrens, bluebirds and even bluejays. But, thanks to the accurate aim of my son with his shotgun, I did not wake up to the sounds of a cardinal. Amen!!!

Homicidal Ideations

If anyone wants to experience Homicidal Ideations just call Technical Support @ HugesNet. Believe me, within minutes you will be wanting to kill somone. Most likely the person on the other end of the phone. You see, they will probably be in Bomnbay, India. Yes, that is right. Bombay, India. Imagine being a person who is not computer wise and not only having to deal with that but also having to try a figure out what exactly the person on the other end of the line is saying. Because Lord knows it isn't English.

HugesNet has a policy that with every person one talks to from HugesNet, one will get a "Case Number." Why I don't know because out of 19 case numbers I got last week only 1 person asked me for the last one I received.

Believe me, the problems w/ online service is a racket. Yeap, indeed it is. As an example, I tried to go through their program to restart the service on my computer. Lo and behold, the technical support people said I would have to have a service rep come out a move my antenna signal. Now, what I found interesting about that was this: they closed my daughters account at my house so I could open a new one in my name. The parameters for my daughters account was Longitude 74West w/ Frequency @ 1130 & Symbol Rate of 30. When my account was activated, the parameters were: Longitude 93West w/ Frequency @ 1190 & Symbol Rate of 30. But the actual parameters should have been: 113West w/ Frequency of 1130 & Symbol Rate of 33. Now the fact that no service rep had to come out and change the parameters from my daughters to mine originally. That is from 74W to 93W. But yet, they were trying to tell me that a service man would have to come and change it from 93@W to 113W for $125.00. Common sense would indicate that if no one had to come out to change it from 74W to 93W, then there is no reason for one to come out and change it from 93W to 113W. Therefore, when I told the technical support rep that, he sheepishly decided that he could change it himself w/o having to send out a a service man to do it. What a freakin' racket. Even though I'm not a computer genius, I do have enough common sense which saved me $125.00. The morale of the story is this: I would rather not know how it rains but kno wenough to come out of it than to be able to explain how it rains but not know enough to come out of it! May the force be with you and the patiences of a saint when dealing w/ the Bombay "Dream Team" of Technical Support for HugesNet! Or aka, the "Homical Induced Team" from Bombay!

Oil and The Presidency Don't Mix

I believe there are two things the President of the United States should not be. They are: a politician and an oil man. I liked the idea of a peanut farmer becoming President. I also liked the idea of the popular vote actually electing the President instead of the "Electorial College" doing the trick. To me, it doesn't seem right that the majority of the public vote does not necessarily mean the winner will become President. I thought democracy was synonomous with majority. Guess I'm wrong. At least in politics. What were our fore fathers thinking re: the electorial college anyway???

Hybrid vehicles, geo-thermal heating systems, solar-light systems all good for the economy and environment. But, not good for the oil industry. So, we get oil men in the White House for the past "umpteen" years and our gas/gallon goes from <$1.00 to >3.50. Isn't anyone as mad as I am about that? And I drive a hybrid car even...

I was under the impression that this country had enough oil to keep us @ $1.25/gallon until the Second Coming of Christ. The problem is we don't have enough refineries. The first oil President saw that enough of them were shut down so we couldn't keep up with the finished product. And what happened to the oil that the lower 48 states were suppose to get when the Alaskan Pipeline was built? Where is that oil going? Certainly not in my gas tank that's for sure.

Yeap, I think it's time that we elected a President who doesn't have any links to the oil industry and one who will be willing to open up more refineries so more oil can be refined here instead of us having to rely on the Middle East for oil or anything else for that matter.

I hate what the Bushs have done to this country. I hate that we have sat back and allowed them to. I hate that our Congress is too stupid to see what the oil industry has done to the economy of this country. Wake up America and smell the coffee before it is too late. Or is it???

And now New York has the dubious honors of having our Governor resign in disgrace. Boy politics just keeps getting better and better doesn't it? Welcome to the Jungle...

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

So, I'm sitting in front of the television being rather impressed with the debate between Clinton and Obama. I'm impressed because these two politicians were actually answering the questions being asked of them w/o throwing mud at each other.

Now, I am not a Republican nor a Democrat. Never have been. Always have been out their doing my own little thing - Green. I have, upon occasion, voted for a Democrat or two in my time. But, give me a man like Ralph Nader and I'll vote for him every time. Sorry, I digressed. Back to the debate...

So, there I am watching two politician totally destroy any preconceptions of ignorance and politicians meaning the same thing. I was being proven wrong on my definition of a politician. I rather enjoyed the debate and was ready to cast my vote in favor of the Democratic party. But then, it happened. And I knew it would. I knew the harmony of that evening was too good to be true. In the world of psychiatry it is known as a delusion. And I, obviously, was having one.

Weeks after the debate, Clinton won big, Obama won big, they were neck and neck in the race. And it had to happen. As politicians it was unavoidable. It was a given. The mud slinging has begun w/ these two candidates. There goes any respect I might have had for either Democrat. Now what?

Personally, I believe, Michael Douglas should run for President. I really liked him in the movie
The American President. In fact, I think the best political speech ever given in the country since George Washington's was given by Michael Douglas in this movie. If you haven't seen it, you should. His opponent did some mud slinging and Michael would not "sling" back. Now, that speech got my attention.

Well, back to the drawing board for this voter. I guess it's another write in vote. Maybe I will vote for Michael Douglas...