I did it! Over the last 5 months, I have successfully waded through 10,000 emails that have come through my sorely neglected for the first six months of this year Yahoo Inbox. YEA ME!

"YEA ME!" has become the new catch-phrase of the offspring and myself in response to the myriad and on-going deluge of overwhelmingly negative "stuff" that has been pouring down over the last couple of months.

She's about to drown in it. For myself, being far more jaded and cynical (there are distinct advantages to being "old"), I manage to laugh my way through most of it in the end.

We are vehicle-less. Between the two of us, we have managed to kill three minivans in the span of 2 months. I view it as a karmic signal that an SUV is in order. Having the long-held belief that minivans are tangible evidence of evil, it was merely one brief exercise in fuzzy logic to arrive at the karmic connection.

Gabe has been suspended from kindergarten five times in six weeks. She is not surprised but is highly frustrated by this series of on-going events. We knew that it would be a challenge playing "catch up" in getting him the medical, behavioral, and educational help that he needs, but I am certain that she was not bargaining for anything this extreme. Progress is being made, after the ex-son-in-shit-head's years of denial, thankfully. He is being medicated (short-term) for the ADHD while further testing for allergens and metabolic imbalances is under-way. Preliminary testing has found that he is not Aspergers but is definitely in the "spectrum" for sensory integrative disorders. The school psychologist has decided to forego information gathering and proceed directly to testing. He has an IEP in place, but the school is not willing to be stern enough with him regarding his outbursts and maladaptive behaviors. There is nothing that Gabe loves more than an audience. When his behavior in the classroom (typically running on the tables, throwing things at other students) necessitates him being removed, they send him to another room full of students. The only difference being, the second room is the in-school detention room which is pre-filled with a disruptive element before he arrives to contribute to the melee. With Gabe needing to be the center of attention, this particular group of children only serve to escalate his behavior even further.

Aren't the people who came up with this resolution supposed to be the "professionals?"

I am glad that my daughter is a pro-active as she is. This would otherwise be an unwinnable scenario. However, it is wearing on her immensely.

The latest "YEA ME!!" will transpire later this afternoon when she is finished with work. She will drive 35 miles east and scour the should of the interstate for her keys, which were presumably lost there last night when Minivan #3 bit the dust.

The gas was off for a week-and-a-half. Thankfully, the diligence of a single father of seven (who officially had nothing to do with fixing the gas leak as it is against the policy of the fascists at the utility company) found and fixed the offending gas leak allowing hot water to return and heat to be generated, just in time for the onset of the cold weather this week.

The clothes dryer was kaput for a week and a half. In spite of promises to look at and fix it from Al, Amanda was able to find a loose wire and reconnect it herself. I was impressed. She disassembled and reassembled the components in the fashion of a true professional, including having two miscellaneous screws left-over at the end of the exercise.

For now, I'm closing this in order to assist the children in cleaning the living room before she gets home from work. It is painful to live a mess; there is no point in living in a mess.

~yawns and stretches~

It's 5:26am, and I'm just sitting down with my first cuppa joe. My caffeine consumption is seriously lagging these days, and that is probably not a bad thing.

I am relatively wide-awake for it being such an early hour. I was awakened around 3:30 by a combination of the pain in my back and the wretched feline yowling downstairs... sounded too much like my daughter saying "mom." Does that "mother hearing" never go away? ~sigh~

I hope you all liked yesterday's entry on The Story of Stuff. Other than some statistics, it really didn't present any information that I didn't know, but I hope it gets spread around the internet enough and seen by enough of those with the "Wal-Mart mentality" that SOMETHING in there strikes a chord with our consumer-driven masses.

Not that I think Wal-Mart is really any worse of a retailer than Target or K-Mart or Sears or Abercrombie or Macys... I see the same countries of origin on the labels of products sold in those stores as I do in Wally-World.

You know, if Americans were to not shop for a month (hell, two weeks), it would do more to damage our economy than high gas prices, plummets in the stock market, the failure of large banking/insurance corporations, and the housing crisis combined.

Whomever is to be the next president of this country (I really pray that it isn't McCain, and I'm a Republican. A Republican with a conscience, that is.) is walking into a truly fucked-up scenario.

Another big thank you to the Clinton administration. It was his administration that deregulated the securities industry in '98/'99 (somewhere around there, I'm getting old, gimme a break, OK). Those controls had been put in place after the GREAT DEPRESSION. And, hey, look... it took us less than a decade without those controls and regulations in place to totally screw things up. Gotta love the global economy and the fact that our currency is backed by nothing of any value. We have tremendous national debt and trade deficits. Oh hell... you all know how we got into this mess.

Oh, hey... I got one of those DVD's that Clarion sent out in order to smear Obama. If you didn't receive one, it is titled "Obsession." The "O" in the title is the Islamic crescent and stars and the cover art definitely lends an "apocalyptic" tone. I didn't get to watch it. The perverse and twisted part of my nature really did want to watch it for purely vicarious reasons. The offspring (another Republican with a conscience) however, stated quite matter-of-factly, "You know we're not watching this, right?" as she deposited it in the trash on Saturday - the very same day that it was received in the mail. I really don't know where that bitch gets it from.... ~insert giggle and wink here~

Well, it's 5:50am... shower time.

Ciao!