Remembering 9/11

I know that most everyone in our country today is thinking about that terrible morning four years ago when those airplanes crashed into the world trade centers and then into the Pentagon and then into that field in Pennsylvania...and we learned that it was a terriost attack, in our own country, with our own planes. How could such horror happen in our country, right under our noses? Then we began to learn how this terror happened. We learned that the government had been warned, but ignored the warnings. We heard of FBI ineptness. We were told that Saddam was behind the attacks. We were told that he was hiding weapons in his country. So we investigated. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. But still, our government insisted he was hiding them and he must attack. So finally, we did just that. And after several years and countless loss of life, there are still no weapons. We have been lied to. We have invaded a country that quite probably never did attack us in the first place, seeing as all the terriosts were of Saudi Arabian nationality, not Iraqui. But it's the Saudi's that are the friends of our President's. Those are the people he flew out of their country before the attack on Iraq to protect them. And now gas prices are at an all time high; those same friends that our President has protected are making millions and millions of dollars selling oil to this country. And our President is still protecting them. And this morning, on the anniversary of the attacks on our country, while the relatives of the victims of the people who's lives were lost in the Trade Centers and in the Pentagon and in that field in Pennsylvania are honoring their husbands, their wives, their sisters, their brothers, and their children, Bin Laden has sent us yet another threat to terrorize our country...and our President continues to lie to us.

Our dead deserve a better legacy than this. Our children deserve a brighter future than this.

Taking Advice

Ya' know, you have to be careful when you take advice from another person. I didn't always know that and if someone told me to do something, didn't matter who it was or what they told me to do, I would do it. For nearly 50 years I've just sat around and waited for somebody to tell me what to do. I've been the best little order taker in the whole world. I've always figured that if I did that and things screwed up then it wouldn;t be my fault. I always had somebody to blame. Not bad in theory, right? But you see, you have to follow your own heart, not somebody elses. You have to dowhat YOU think is right for you. Even if it turns out to be the wrong thing in the end, that's ok. It's not the end of the world. If it's a mistake, it's YOUR mistake...not somebody else's. Who care's who gets the blame? You just get up, dust yourself off and go again. I told 2 people recently that I am like that damn energizer bunny, I just keep going and going and going. They both agreed that was a good thing too. Sometimes, I don't think that it is, but most of the time I agree with them. It's just lately that I've been having a huge pity party. I've been told that I deserve it. Maybe I do. And if so, I just might party for a little while longer, too.

But back to the advice thing. I DID take some advice tonight. Just a few minutes ago, in fact and I feel so good about it. Nothing will probably come of it and that's ok; but right now I feel so good about what I did, it's worth nothing coming from it and hey, who knows? For once I just might get my pound of flesh instead of me always being the toilet for a change. I know revenge is wrong and it's not my job to get back at anyone or get even or any of that stuff. I know that I am supposed to take the high road and turn the other cheek and let people get their justice on judgement day and all that religious stuff. I really do believe in all of that sentiment. But I also cannot help wanting to cause a whole lot of embarassment and trouble for those jerks at West Lee Middle School for knowing the my kid was being bullied and harrassed the entire year and not doing a damn thing about it, too. Sorry, but I'm human and I have this side to me that likes to actually SEE justice done every now and then. People get away with way too much in thes world and hide behind way too much CRAP and I am sick of it. And when someone hurts my kid, I kinda tend to take it personally and it quite literally PISSES ME OFF. So, if I can do anything at all about it, I usually will.

Somewhere, either in this blog or on another one I have vented about the entire mess with West Lee. Last night while I was talking to Rebecca, she suggested I contact the ACLU. I figured I didn't have a case at all because all of it was my word against theirs. Well, tonight I was talking to Braxton and got the biggest gift. Turns out that when the boys locker room thing happened, the PE teacher, Mr Williams, broke up the fight and sent the boys to Mr.s Fraizer's office. The very SAME Mr. Fraizer who told me on Friday, August 5, 2005 that he had never seen my kid in his office for a discipline problem the whole year and he knew nothing about the fight in the locker room when all the boys surrounded Braxton. I was so happy! I sat myself down right away and dropped a letter to the NC chapter of the ACLU. And if that doesn't turn up anything, I just might drop an e-mail to The Sanford Herald and WRAL. Yeah, I just might. But first I am going to give the ACLU a week or so.
Nancy did call Fraizer back on Monday after he refused to see me and tell him he hadn't heard the last of this. So I am going to pray, just a little that this nice lady emails me back and tells me to call her or asks for my phone number or at least the details. I would love to see a look of terror come across Paige Murphy's face if he were to read a letter or better yet, get a visit from the ACLU.

Yeah, just once, I'd like NOT to be the toilet, ya know what I mean?

Inside Myself

I'm more depressed today than I probably ever have been in my life, except for the day that Bud died, or when my Mama died. I've never felt so alone in my whole life and I don't know what I am going to do. What began as one of the best exeperiences of my life has turned into the worst mess I could have ever imagined and it has nothing at all to do with what most people would think it would...personalities. Nancy and I could not be more compateable than if we were poured from the same mold. Our diffrences compliment our likenesses. Everything woorks in sympatico. Our finances could be a bit better, but wh'o's couldn't? We have some small, everyday logistic issues, but worked at, we could end up having a very nice life together.

There is Braxton who has to go to school every day and be out in the world, not to mention at other times, living with two crippled women who can't do a whole lot for themselves. But, make no mistake about it, he is my life. Since Bud died it's been he and I against the world and I swore to him that I would never leave him. Just this summer without him has quietly torn my heart out, but I've heard in his voice how he has grown. And Kristi tells me how he has come out of his shell and is talking to people and holding conversations. That was so unliks hime here. It's because he doesn't have to put up with the name calling there that he has had to defend me and himself against while living and going to school here. People are prejudiced and they make no secrets about it. It breaks my heart and tears me up. You even hear it in your local churches.

One public school has already turned Braxton down for acceptance because of the suspensions he got while going to school here because he was not protected against the bigotry and bullying. My daughter is now trying to put him in a Catholic school if they will give us financial assistance. I will have to mail her his Social Security check, so while I am here, I will be living on $484.00 a month. If this school refuses to accept him, we will have no choice but to bring him back here and put him n another school, doing what West Lee told us to do in NO and that is lie. Because of bigotry and bullying.

It breaks my heart to have to leave here, especially not knowing where I will go and how I am going to make it. Braxton and I both have found family here and I wish more than anything that we were not being forced to leave it.

I feel that at this point, I could get over my homesickness. Since I began talking about this move with them, I've seen a side of them, that I had forgotten. It's going to be awfully hard living on my own, when my family does not want me living with them, as I was under the mistaken impression of, than I once thought it was going to be. And Mississippi might be a place to consider. I could kick myself for ever coming up with the idea of living with Barbara in Ms. but we know I've had worse ideas.

I guess things are just really getting me down bad today, so writing was probably the best idea. It hasn't answered any of my questions about what the hell I am going to do. A woman in Nancy and I met online offered to let Nancy and I both come live with her outside of Nashville. But she's counting on my kid staying in NO, I think. Says I can pay her 300 a month, have the Master Bedroom and bath, she got a hot tub you can use in the winter, big screen tv, all the amenties. WHole 9 yds. Sounds nice. This family of mine, that is not crazy about having me live with them, would have me committed. And how would it look for me to tell Nancy I'm homesick and then move to Nashville? Makes a lot of sense, right? Doesn't solve my problem with Braxton, either. I do NOT want to live without my child. However, if it's really better for him to be in NO without me, living in a family, whtch, let's face it, I cannot give him, I don't know. I'd at least have to be close. Like maybe an apartment nearby so I could at least SEE him. Not friggin Nashville.

I know I need to take the first couple of paragraphs of this post and put it in the church newsletter on the last week I am here. That oughta blow their socks off!

I feel better now, giys. Thanks for readin'....
See ya'
Jan

More From Our Double Talking Embarassment of a President

This jerk the American people have elected to a second term as President of the United States has gone and embarassed the country yet again by defending one of his crooked friends, reminding me of the Clinton administration with the exception that when the Clinton's got their hands dirty, they at least had the decency to admit it, after a fashion, whereas Mr. Bush will never admit that he made a mistake. But then I seriously doubt that this dictator thinks he makes mistakes.

My latest beef with the man is Raphael Palmero. Palmero curently is a baseball player for the Orioles and before that he played for the Texas Rangers, hence, Mr. Bush's love affair with him. A year and a half ago when Jose Conseco's book came out, naming Palmero, among others as a steroid user, Palmero said that Conseco was a liar and that he had NEVER used steriods and that Conseco was ruining his career. Palmero has since then been up for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Two months ago Palmero tested POSITIVE for steroid use. That's right, positive, meaning he had steroids in his massive body. His answer to that? He used steroids "by mistake." He actually expects intelligent people to believe that he used steroids by MISTAKE! And the best part of this is that one and a half years after our president made a strong speech against steroid use and said that there was NO excuse for steroid use among atheletes and that we MUST rid our sports of steroids at all costs, had the nerve to say that he believed Palmero's ludacrist story, that he used steroids by mistake.

Give me a break. To say that he used steroids by mistake is equvalent to saying that the dog ate his homework. It just does not fly. And for Mr. Bush to dignify that stupid comment and giving it credibility by saying that he believes him is in effect calling every American stupid, and it makes me sick.

George Bush is running this counrty like a high school clique and we, as intelligent, adult Americcan's MUST put a stop to it. And we have to fo it noe. We need more politicians who are not so afraid of him that they will go up against him and even over is head, if necessary over each and every decioion he makes or there will be more and more of his double standard dictatorship.

This is beginning to border on idiocy. How can he come out in public and say something as ridiculous as "I believe him"? How can anyone with half a brain believe that a grown man, supposedly with some intelligence take steroids by mistake?

What's next, Mr. Bush? Why not have the Air Force shoot down Santa Claus for violating the White House's air space?

Family Matters

Kelle and I have been talking a lot lately about she and Raymond getting married. I know this is something that has been coming and I have been thinking about my baby's wedding for so many years. This was always the one that I was going to do right. From the time she was a very little girl I had a vision of her in white lace, with her long blonde hair in curls framing her beautiful face. I saw her wearing a veil of lace that I made for her. She was going to walk down a long beautifully decorated asile on the arm of the only an she has ever known as a Daddy, and that would have been Bud, had he lived. I would have been sitting in the front pew of the church, waiting for Bud to give her away, while Kenny and Verna sat behind me (finally, where they belonged). I pictured Kristi as her Marton of Honor, while Charidy and Jessica stood in attendence. Braxton and Robbie would have also been in the wedding party, while Jilly and Emily were flower girls. The reception would have been a great party with Kelle sharing the first dance with her father with Bud and then giving a few minutes toward the end of the song to Kenny. Bud and I would have helped to send the kids on a grand honeymoon and after they returned, they would have settled into married life as happy as any two people could have possibly been.

It will not happen anything like that now. She told me on the phone just this past week that they want to go to Las Vegas to get married and wondered if I would have a large fit. Naturally, my first reaction was to have tha rather large fit, but thankfully, I did think before I opened my mouth and had the good sense to tell her that this was HER wedding, not mine and that it should be done the way she wanted it done. If she wanted to go to Vegas then I felt that's what she should do. And even though it killed me to say that, I think I understand her reasons for feeling the way that she does. Remember, this is all MY opinion....nothing more. But I have arrived at this opinion by listening to her for years and also knowing how she feels about her sperm donor. And yes, to her that is what Kenny is. She says he is too busy with his "real family."

I believe that Kelle wants to have her wedding in Vegas away from family to get out of the family hassle. She does not want Kenny to walk her down any asile and definitly does not think he deserves the right to be giving her away. She also knows how I feel about sharing the front row with Verna and she has managed to push her way onto that space at each one of my child's weddings. Kristi's was the worst when Kristi GAVE Verna my seat. After 8 years I am still not over that hurt. Kelle has never felt that Kenny has ever had time for her, and she does not feel like she is his real daughter. It is easier for her to ignore all the problems and just run away and do it. I think she will tell him after it's done.

I tried telling Kristi this but naturally Kristi does not want to talk about anything unpleasent concerning her father with me, although I feel like that with her father, the rules are different. I saw that because all ofer her house she has pictures of Kenny and Verna, Kenny and the kids, Verna and the kids, but none of Bud and I, or the kids and I or even Bud and the kids. But when I started to tell Kristi why Kelle didn't want to have a family wedding she asked that we change the subject. I can't help but wonder how many times she tells Kenny or Verna to change the subject. And I also worry about me and why I can't seem to get over this. How long am I going to hang on to this hurt? Although for me, it really does not matter, what matters most is my child and how she feels. I know she is so hurt because she's lost her Dad. Losing Bud has been so hard on both Kellle and Braxton, not to mention me. But somehiw, by hanging on to oneanother and by the grace of God, we are going to be just fine. I am as sure o this as I am of the fact that God exists.