Fifty years should be celebrated. I have outlasted Nixon, the Edsel, the Cold War, and insanity. Okay maybe not so much the insanity. I now will call it, second childhood.

whose idea was it to name streets by numbers?  if the town is small this might work out well, but as it grows, new ways of naming should be considered.  where i live there are twenty five different 64th's  ave, rd, lane, blvd, street, st.rd, place road, ave lane, lane road.  i live on 111 court just off 234 place road two blocks from 112 lane road.  and it is not just out here in the boonies.  a friend of mine wanted to build on ne 24th ave.  now we know all streets and blvds. run east-west, and all avenues and roads run north south, so one would assume that when you pass 23 ave the next one would be 24th ave?  well you would be wrong.  it is 25 ave road, and the one after that is 27 ave.  got that?  i still don't know where her house is.  we just meet at charlie horse's (they have the best wings) on 40, which leads me to another problem.

in an effort to further confuse drivers and mapping companies sometimes roads are multiple numbers.  ne 14th is also 10th st and to make matters worse, Bonnie Heath Boulevard.  40 is Silver Springs Blvd.  sw 10 is also 200, state road 200 and sw college ave.  17th street is hwy 464 which is maricamp blvd.  uh huh.  all addresses are legal, the post office recognizes all those names (might explain the price of postage...with rescuing all the lost postal delivery people).  the truly crown jewel though has to be where us highways 27, 301, and 441 are all the same road, aka 4th ave or otherwise known as pine ave.  yep all four names, all four used by various people and businesses on a long stretch of town, country, city.  wait, that's five         i think.

this plan is so confusing that expedia and mapquest have a hard time finding roads.  sometimes they just insist you must mean another aveplaceroadblvd.  only one area of the county (besides the town of Dunnellon) have real names.  hickory and hibicus and sandy are so refreshing.  of course there is that small problem with the trail road off the trail ave, but we can overcome that.  of course i realize names can be confusing, too.  justin gave me directions to turn left on hickory and right on pecan.  the roads were actually left on laurel and right on chestnut, but then he works on sw 19th ave road and just moved from 34th place ave frontage.  hard to make the switch quickly.

the town was laid out in its present form in the early 20th century which is why there is still a magnolia ave, a wenona, watula, wyomina, and fort king plus a few others, very few.  but the rest were all changed to the number system during the this time.  i am pretty sure it was during the time of gertrude stein and picasso and hemingway.  maybe the absinthe prohibition came here late or the marijuana scene came early, but something made those people think this would be easier.  and it would be if i could just find a map to direct me to sw 236 lane ave. or was it court lane or road street...

Posted by: ginnygk at 04:13 | link | comments (2)

Today a heroine died.  She was beautiful, powerful, passionate, and compassionate.  She was hard as nails and a fighter.  She was dismissed from her home and fought to get back.  She was one of my heroes.  She believed in something, and was willing to die for those things she believed in.  Unfortunately, she did.  Like her father before her, she was trying to make her country stronger, better. 

Now she will be used as a weapon of hate against others.  She will be remembered as much for the turmoil her death left behind as for her life.  Already others are using her memory and death as a sword to smite down enemies both real and imagined or created, to call attention to themselves.

Let us take the three days the leadership has called for to mourn her loss, so young and yet so old.  Let us pray that people come together in her name (they will not, but we can pray).  Let us remember that at 35 she was leading a country out of darkness and into a future, punished, betrayed, exiled, and then murdered.  Let us remember she thought that saving her country was worth it all.

Benazir Bhutto  -May she finally have peace and freedom.

Posted by: ginnygk at 01:47 | link | comments

Random, random, random

Could someone pass a law where we could put stupid people in public office who say stupid things in jail for say, 30 days?  Might attract a better crowd if this was a penalty for stupidity.

I realized when I could not take my car the 60 miles to my family home, that this was probably a signal that going anywhere was going to be difficult.  Since we can't "buy" anything on credit for five years or get credit cards, etc  I guess those dreams of Italy, England, Spain, France, Hawaii are pretty much shot to @#$%.  I learned that term in doctor school. 

Even if I could go somewhere, a spouse with limited abilities after noon, probably puts the kabash on it as well.  (another doctor phrase not to be confused with Mrs. Calabash)

Can you really point to an odder pairing that worked than Bing Crosby and David Bowie?  One of my fondest memories of tv as a kid. 

 First time I missed family at Christmas except one year I lived in Texas.  Holiday without family, even ones that make you crazy, might as well be a work day.

Having three jobs does not impress the bankruptcy trustee.  More interested in why they aren't higher paying jobs.  Damn attorneys.

Finally found the red purse, Christmas Day...sigh

How bad is life when going to work is the best thing you can think of doing and you don't really like the work you do?  Please do not answer and spoil it for me.

Posted by: ginnygk at 23:46 | link | comments

Ah the joy of Christmas!  Merry Christmas to all.  Happy Holidays, Kwanza, Hannukah (which I missed). 

Everything that was joy and is joy in our house is the children.  The adults have chosen to act like spoiled adults.  Thank heaven for the Christmas wrapping paper for the 1 year old and the other toys and stuff, even those belonging to her sisters, for the four year old.  There won't be ham and turkey and five kinds of pie, but there will be pork roast salvaged from earlier in the week and a pumpkin pie made with substitutes for eggs, since I didn't expect to make one.  But the kids have eaten, apples, candy, cookies, and whatever paper Kai could get in her mouth without us seeing.

So the gifts are open, the kids are complaining of tummy aches before noon, and the adults are avoiding each other.  {sigh}  Are the holidays over yet?

 

Posted by: ginnygk at 16:51 | link | comments

It is very sad at our house today. Clara is laying on the loveseat, just staring at the door.   Daisy runs in and out the door and Sam is pacing the floor.  Bugsy is more needy that normal and Snuffy just can't seem to get relaxed.  Quita and Clara are starting arguments over nothing and Michael tears up looking at the floor.

Cherokee died yesterday.  Eleven years she was our heart and center.  She chose us by refusing to go back home and sitting at our back fence for an hour yelping until someone went and got her.  And she immediately, at seven weeks, climbed on the couch and went to sleep.  She never left. She was our alpha dog, even when we had a male that thought he was the big dog.  She rearranged his attitude.  She rearranged a lot of attitudes, sometimes overdoing it and when it was unnecessary.  But she was the boss.  And she loved her dad.  "Dad's at the gate" was sure to send her barreling out the door at galloping speed.

She loved to ride.  Around the block, across the state, for two minutes or a day, she was always ready to go.  A trip to Interlachen?  She knew the minute we took that road to the right that a hamburger waited down the road.  She only had to remove the pickle.  Or the carrots.  Otherwise, any food would do.  Even when others didn't eat because they did not like the food or they were sick, she had no such problems.  At one point she weighed 95 lbs and it was all muscle.  She had manners and behaved like she had been trained.  I will miss that.  None of the other dogs seem to know how to listen.

And we will miss her kisses, her smile, her joy at being with us.  And we will miss our joy at being with her.

Posted by: ginnygk at 01:24 | link | comments (2)

There are, in the news, few topics that are essential to the way we impact our future.  Oh, there are the global warming issues, the next leader of whatever country, the car of the future, and weather, always weather.  But truly one new debate will have a great affect on the future simply by the nature of its subject, children.  Specifically the subject is children who have committed crimes and been charged as adults.  Some are in prison with no hope of parole as part of their sentence.  But new science and issues indicate that there are some problems involved with deciding to send a child to prison for life.  And our social conscience seems to be bothering us.  Both are indicators that the subject should be reconsidered.

First, new science shows the brain does not fully mature and make sound decisions until the last minute of teen years or early 20s.  This poses a real problem for the "hang 'em high" group.  It does not, however, excuse deadly force, murder by plan, or other unreasonable criminal activity, which in essence means all illegal activity.  It does give pause for better ways to deal with many of these children.  And for the matter of principle, yes there are totally evil children as well as totally evil adults. 

Second, punishments are far too easy when it is one size fits all.  Do the vampire killers of the mother and father deserve long sentences?  Yes, but life is about learning the hard lesson and there are not lessons that can be addressed when you are in jail from childhood through adulthood.  Do the teens involved in beating homeless need to be jailed?  Again, yes, but let us remember that there is a point where children need help, counseling, time to process and understand their actions.  Time out as it were, for a long time.

Children are impulsive creatures and their ability to reign in anger and spite are difficult actions to judge.  Some of the things adults would oppose, get upset over, or laugh off are dire events for children (remember high school, crushes, fights, popularity issues?).  Worse, today we put in their hands, make available, create and sell the very things we don't understand them using.  I know that getting a handgun or an AK-47 or whatever the newest mass murder weapong is, was not just difficult, but impossible to get when I was a child.  The play, "West Side Story"  was the first publicly dramatized use of a knife to kill one teen by another and it was horrific.  Today we wish they would use knives.  At least they would have to get up close, take a punch or two, and look the victim in the eye.  Not so with an automatic weapon.  Just walk in, spray a million bullets and leave. 

Prisons are another problem.  We send kids to children's prisons, which are child corporeal punishment zones legalized.  Lessons are, "as long as you don't bother the guards with problems you get to eat, drink, and be left alone. " Otherwise you get punished.  Just breathing in the wrong pattern can get you busted, literally and figuratively.  "Don't bother me, you won't be dragged down and put in lockdown."  Kids need to go to a place where they learn to act appropriately, learn the differences between what is right and wrong, lessons they don't get at home.  They need to find out there are rules and actions that do not meet the standards of rules which in turn means punishment.  And there has to be a light at the end of the tunnel.  Youth is about hope, and when that is lost, so are youth and the future.

It is time to reexamine our methods.  We need to judge our own flaws, not just the horrors and shock at the ability of children to hurt, maim, and kill.  We need to find punishments that serve the purpose, and programs that give direction, lessons, hope to children who have made mistakes.  Does sexual relations between a ten year old and a seven year old really require a 10 year prison sentence and lifelong designation as a sexual offender?  If it does, then lots of kids who played doctor should be held accountable.  No wait, then millions would be punished for just being kids.  And kids who fight in school, they need major discipline, not two years in a facility.  Otherwise we are punishing them without teaching them right from wrong, giving them a limit on hope, punishing them for being kids.  And I would prefer to weed out a few bad disciplinarians in schools than weed out a bunch of kids who don't understand the rules of consequences for actions.  I also would prefer that children go to prison in a setting that benefits them, with lessons and discipline, education and some play. with people who care about them and the future, not the next paycheck and the fact they can be mean if they want to.  I don't think they should be molly coddled, forgiven, defended by parents on the grounds they are just kids.  All of this leads to more of the same.  There must be consequences; but those consequences should be kid consequences, not adult consequences.  Otherwise we are Hitlers trying to eliminate being kids.

 

Posted by: ginnygk at 13:55 | link | comments