Bully

Oh boy, this is going to be a "touchy" one.

The hot topic of this week seems to be Karen Klein and the bullying she received while at work as a bus monitor. Haven't heard of it? Pull your head out and pay attention to the news, or just Google her name.

Now, before I climb up on my beautifully decorated and bedazzled soap box. Let me just state that I believe ALL BULLYING is wrong. I have children. I do not want them bullied nor do I want them to be bullies. I am all "up in their business" all the time. I have taken them to our anti-bully rally. I monitor their facebook pages and posts. I try to stay aware to make sure I'm doing my part and that they know how I feel about bullying, how seriously it is taken in our home etc.

With that said, I feel horrible for this poor woman who was bullied by these kids and I have empathy for her. But it does make me question her job as a bus monitor. What exactly does a bus monitor do? I looked it up and it states the following;

http://dot-job-descriptions.careerplanner.com/SCHOOL-BUS-MONITOR.cfm

1) Monitors conduct of students on school bus to maintain discipline and safety: Directs loading of students on bus to prevent congestion and unsafe conditions.

2) Rides school bus to prevent altercations between students and damage to bus.

3) Participates in school bus safety drills.

4) May disembark from school bus at railroad crossings and clear bus across tracks.

What authority does a bus monitor have? Is she just to sit there and observe or can she stop altercations? Obviously her presence there did not deter/prevent an altercation. She does not look all mean and tough, so here is where you will hate me for saying this, but then again maybe you're thinking the same thing, just not wanting to say it. What is the school thinking of placing her as a bus monitor? She was in the wrong job. She does not exude the authority to stop young boys from bullying her, how is she to stop them from doing it to others. Read #2.

There is a website stopbullying.gov that states to intervene immediately, get an adult to help, separate the kids, make sure everyone is safe, stay calm and model respectful behavior. It also states do not ignore it.

She did neither of these things. The only thing she did do was ignore it, which you're not supposed to do.

Does this excuse the boys? Absolutely not!! Should they be punished for bullying? YES!

But who should punish them? You?

So here is what we have...someone started a website to raise money for Mrs. Klein, because they felt bad for her and thought a vacation was in order. That is nice. That shows just how good people can be. They are now at 500,000 and it's growing, which is a very nice vacation, if not a paid off house and maybe even retirement. Way to go USA.

But we also have this...whoever posted this also posted the kid's name and addresses. The kids and their families are now getting death threats! WHO IS THE BULLY NOW????? For those adults who feel this is appropriate, please go to the nearest clinic and sterilize yourself to save humany from any further downfall.

So what is the best punishment for bullies? I don't know. Seems to me bullies have been around forever and they exist in both school and college and work. The tactics just change as you get older, we don't call it bullying we call it harassment.

I keep thinking more people should be sterilized...

It has been forever since I've written anything.  It's amazing how quickly time flies.

Today I'm painting my bathroom.  I'm so excited for the finished product...maybe a little too excited.  I'm also quickly realizing I'm not a painter.  You would think for as much as I like to remodel I would be a decent painter.  Seem I'm a better supervisor.

I have paint on my hands, on the floor, and in my hair.  Amazingly enough, there is some paint on the walls too.  It all looks so damn easy on tv, and they can remodel a room in an hour!  OMG this is going to take forever!

I haven't finished yet, I'm on break.  A well deserved break I might add.  I'm keeping a picture in my head on what the finished product will look like so I can stay motivated.

Lord help me because I have now started and I am determined to finish!  OK only so husband to will not laugh at me and say I told you so.  Whatever it takes, right?

Unsocial networking

I love my facebook.  Yes I do.  But I think there should be some etiquette, for a lack of a better word.   My top three pet peeves (at least for this week)

1)  For those of you who rant on and on about that "someone" stating only random things...STOP IT!  Have the balls to tell the person to his/her face how they have wronged you, lied to you, treated you wrong, blah blah blah....why the hell tell us?  Are you hoping that that particular person will read it?  If that's the way they person has done you why are they your fb friend to begin with?  Unfriend them and move on and leave everyone else out of your drama!

2)  For those of you who have this incessant need to take a pic of everything you eat/cook.  We all know you're just trying to upstage those of use that are a little bit more challenged with the workings of that big silver thing with all those buttons and the fold out seat that is stuck in our kitchen.  Our (my) spouses read our facebook page and then there is the unrealistic expectation that they should eat this way too.  Like mac & cheese is not good enough all of a sudden.  But ok, take your pics, we'll endure it, but please, for the love of Ricky Bobby, DO NOT start showing us how it ends up.

3)  Songs/videos/Youtube.  Let's see who can post the most video/songs in one minute.  I get you like music, it's noted in your profile.  I beg you...stop with the 20 listings of your favorite songs.  You see for those of us who have better things to do, like work, we check our fb on the awesome smart-phone, and you have now overloaded our little bitty screen and we have to scroll thru all your crap before we find something a little more useful, like a shoe sale someone has noted.

Good grief...

What the hell is up with that?

Hilbilly Handfishing...are you freakin' kidding me?!?

I am what one might consider an Okie transplant.  I was born in Norway, moved to Texas when I was around 10 or 11, and I've been in Oklahoma for the last 13 years.  I like it here, sort of.

In the winters we have snow.  It might only last two or so days, not long enough to ski or sled, but we have it.  It gets freezing cold.  It's like our air freezes.  And in the summer it's almost like the mojave desert.  Really plants and shit are dying and there is a water shortage, the temps are in triple digits.  It's not for the weak.

I always thought that northerners see okies as rednecks.  Can you blame them?  We have noodling here.  Who the hell noodles.  And before you could deny it.  No one really does that stuff?  Who fishes without poles?

But now, now with this new tv show, Oklahoma looks like a really redneck state.  Bunch of hilbilly rednecks who stick their limbs in holes to hopefully have  big ugly stinky catfish bite them.  What a dumbass thing to do!

I love fish, just not all kinds of fish, and catfish is on top of the list, right below lutefisk.  Catfish lay on the bottom of the riverbed, burrows down in the mud, opens it's mouth and eats whatever falls in.  And just the name alone...ugh.  And they are truly ugly with whiskers and all.

Noodling, handfishing, I don't care what you call it, it's a dumbass thing to do.

Who really needs to cook...

Well, apparently I do!

It's not that I don't like to cook.  It's just that I'm not really all that good at it.  I have my favorites that I like to cook.  Spaghetti (not in a crock-pot, bad bad mistake), pork chops, salad (although I don't think that qualifies as cooking) taco's and grilled chicken, to name a few.

But it's the entire process.  Buying the groceries, prepping the food, cooking the food, cleaning the kitchen.  It's all so time consuming.  Now the sad twist to this is I don't like frozen foods either, they are nasty.  And I don't really care for fast foods.

The perfect solution, of course, is to hire a cook.  But that doesn't seem to be in the budget.

Buy a cook book you say, oh I have those, plenty of those.  And this will sound really bad, but some don't have pictures and then I don't know if it looks right.  And most of the time it really doesn't taste right either.  You can now tell me that I have to keep trying, that I'm not going to get it right the first time.  Whatever, I don't really have the patience for that, and I'm giving you the evil eye for suggesting it!

My sister, she cooks.  Maybe I should move closer to her, that way I can stop of all the time, like I used to when I was a single mom and was tired of hot dogs and oat meal.

But honestly, I don't think this is my fault.  My mom really didn't like our help that much unless it was Christmas or a special occasion.  Other than that we really just made a mess and I really preferred to be outside riding my bicycle.  It seemed to work out for us both.

Here is the sad part of all of this.  My son, my dear sweet boy, brings a girl home for Christmas this year and I am making dinner.  All of it by myself.  Oh vey.

The ham was good.  I can bake a ham.  The sweet potatoes...I don't know, I don't like them so I just make them as the recipe states, and my husband eats them.  But come to find out not so long ago, it seems he will eat just about anything I cook in fear that if he speaks up I'll stop cooking all together.

The potatoes, what potatoes, I forgot to make those...there was other stuff too, but honestly I can't remember what it was.  Needless to say, we should have ordered pizza.  Maybe with canadian bacon and those round sweet fruit things.  Pineapples.  That's what they're called.  Whew!

Now because I didn't like the kitchen as a child, I'm suffering as an adult.  I say suffering, but really it isn't like any of us is starving...Well, my kids tell me they are, but they aren't.  They just don't like what we have and the fact that we don't have a bunch of junk food.

So is there a lesson in all of this?  Yes there is.  My children, if you are reading this (Maverick does read my blogs) then please marry someone who can cook, then I can come to your house for New Years Eve, Valentines Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and let's not forget birthdays.

Don't roll your eyes at me!  There are three of you...I can make my rounds, spread the love.  And as a token of my appreciation, I'll clean your house (maybe just the kitchen) and I'll babysit too.  Seems fair to me.

What makes (or not) an outfit?

OK, so the other morning at work I see this lady (not naming names but she is not in my department) and she is wearing this cute dress.  I look up and see her hair and it looks like she barely combed it and threw a ugly "workout" band in it.

By workout band I mean those that you buy like 10 for $3 at any convenience store and you're supposed to wear them while working out, cause girl, any other time is just UGLY!

Well, back to my story...I was talking to another lady (names being withheld for obvious reasons) and said "did you see that?"  I know it was tacky of me to point it out to someone else...but hey, I have my flaws.  My friend said "yes, and then I noticed the shoes too."  OMG, they so just ruined the outfit.  At this point I feel I should just say "as if" and pretend I'm in the movie Clueless.

Between the hair and the shoes I'm thinking this poor soul should get a full length mirror for Christmas.  Everyone should have one.  A nice mirror you can see yourself in from top to bottom because sometimes the shoes does make the outfit.  And in this case, not so much.

Now, I did feel horrible for being so critical, but I couldn't help it.  And it's bad.  This lady is really sweet and smart and maybe she just doesn't care how she looks, and maybe I shouldn't either...maybe I should just read my previous post on judging my looks....I'm going to hell!

Do you judge by appearances alone?

We all do it.  Don't deny it.  When you see that young lady walking past all dressed in black with multiple piercings, you judge, I judge, we all do it.  It's the way we are.

Yesterday I went to see my tattoo artist for some work and I took my daughter with me.  She proceeded to tell me of the piercings she was going to get before she turned 18.  My husband told her to wait until she turned 18 and then she could do whatever she wanted.  I tried to explain to her to keep in mind that corporate America judges you and she doesn't know what she want to be yet.  Major eye roll on all points, but she's smart and she understood.

So we compromised, her ears needs re-piercing, ok I can do that.  She wants 2nd holes and 3rd holes, and a bar oh and a nose pierce.   Oh boy!  I feel some major compromising coming on.  Although she did see a girl get a belly button pierced and the girl cried so I thought, bingo!  She sees girl crying and no more piercings.  Shit!  I forgot for just one second who we were talking about.  My daughter proceeds to tell me that she wouldn't cry.  She's tough.  Great...

It's not that i mind so much the piercings.  Well, the nose bothers me.  All I can think of is buggers stuck up in there and that grosses me out.  What I do mind is I don't want people to judge my little girl.  She is such a sweet young lady and I don't want this to deter people from getting to know her.

So why do we judge others so much.  Whether they are too skinny, to fat, hair too red, boobs too big.  It seems we just can't get past our looks.

A skinny blond with big boobs, we think stupid.  A brunette with glasses, we think dork or geek.  A redhead, well she's gotta have a temper.  Oh and that one with all the tattoos, well if it's a girl she might be a slut or party girl and the boy, he's only trouble....where do these ideas come from?

I know...you're not gonna like it.  It's not all the movies or music.  It's our parents!  Yes, I'm blaming my momma!  Or at least you can look to your family and see where your judgements come from.

If you say it's the movies I'm going to ask you why you are watching them, better yet, why are you letting your kids watch them.  And why aren't you talking to your kids about them later.  Be it music or movies.  Why don't you talk to your kids???

As children we hear our parents talk about others and we are swayed by their opinions.  When you are children they tell you how to dress, they brush your hair.  They tell you what doesn't look good and what does.  And if your parents are worried about looks, well then, you are really in for some major opinions and judgements.  I think we as parents can so easily forget the influences we have over our children, good or bad.

Ok so this is just my theory.  But it's a good one.

But I think we should break the cycle of judging.  And this is hard because I'm very opinionated and crap falls out of my mouth like I have tourettes.   When my kids were little I let them dress themselves.  And this was not always with good end results.  My oldest boy would wear cowboy boots with everything including swim shorts.  My daughter would never wear an outfit together, always mixing and matching.  When she was about 4 it was so bad that I made her a button.  It was her "special" button that said "I dressed myself today".  It had smiley face and I told her it told her it was her it meant I was proud of her.  And I was.  I mean she looked silly bordering on ridiculous, but I liked the fact that she had her own opinion and that she knew what she liked and expressed it.  She still does to this day.  Could care less what others think of her.  That makes me proud, even if she should dress a little more girly (eye roll again).

Not only should we all care a little less of what others think of us, and we should certainly care less about how others look.   Try not to judge.