Gossip Fodder

I can’t believe I am weighing in on this…but I haven’t posted in a while. In desperation, I decided to get a little muddy. I know, I too am disgusted with myself. But like a traffic accident I just couldn’t look away. I really should have more self control. Self control hmmmm, wasn’t that my goal for the year. Oh well since I have my wellies out.

Kate + 8

Last week I kept hearing all about how she was getting a new show, and then how she was going to continue with the TLC show, and how her now estranged husband wants the show to end for the sake of the children. I really was about to shout from the rooftops “KATE IS ENOUGH!”

But today I thought about it. I thought about it from a mommy’s perspective. I may be way off here because I don’t know any of them, and due to our lack of cable, I have only seen the show twice. So my experience with “them” is limited. But if I were in her position, if I had eight kids and was suddenly found husbandless, what would I do to support them?

I have been out of work for 10 years, my skills, knowledge and wardrobe (to say the least) are out of date. I sometimes dream of being able to go back to work and help bring money. I am also terrified at what I would do if I suddenly found myself husbandless.

I know having kids grow up on TV can mess them up, but I know having a single mommy that has to work to make ends meet can also have its negative effects. If I could find a job where I could still be “at home” with my kids and make the kind of money that I needed to support 8 children in a house big enough (4 bedroom minimum) then I would take it hands down. At least until I could find something better. In this economy there isn’t much better. Actually in any economy there isn’t much better.

Just saying

Letterman

For those of you who don’t know who Letterman is he is a late night talk show host and not an Alpha Super Hero in red tights fighting illiteracy in the dirty streets of New York. But I wager those who don’t know him probably don’t have internet so my explanation is only up there to get in a shameful joke in on someone else’s name.

Now on friday, I was really impressed with the way he handled things. Yes he was a dog for sleeping around, but he “manned up” and became accountable.

But today…although impressed with his “meeting it head on”, I don’t like what he did, I don’t like what the producer allegedly did. And I think all of this just shows incredible bad manners for all parties. If people just had better manners and listened to their mothers (because that is what we teach them, good manners ya know) none of this would have happened.

Again Just saying
And for the joke…I know, bad manners and I’m sorry.
And now I’m done.

There are no cats in America and the streets are paved with cheese.

Here I go getting my political self all up in your face again. Sorry. Sometimes its the way I roll. I have my fathers genetics inside me and with that and innate inability to hold my tongue when I think I am right. Even when I am not right, I still blabber.

Anyway…here in Canada, we like to think of ourselves as the land of the free, hockey, lacrosse, long winters, short summers, and the perpetual election call. Perpetual election call? what’s that?

Unlike some countries, we do not have set elections. Which might be confusing since this past government passed a bill which became law about set terms and election dates. But then seeing an opportunity for a possibility of getting a majority government seized the moment and called an election. This said election resulted in yet another Conservative minority government and cost tax payers roughly $300 MM. Woohoo Canada, and I thought I was bad with my impulsive spending habits.

Anyway…the point is Canada seems to go to the poles a lot. Each time costing about $300 MM. Now the Prime Minister has the power to start the whole process when he sees an advantage. The opposition can also vote non-confidence in a minority government, take their ball and go home. Thus sending us to the poles as well. Costing Canadian’s roughly (you guessed it) $300 MM.

Since the last election was in 2008 (the time before that being 2006) and it is 2009 I am pretty sure that the Canadian public doesn’t want to go to the poles again. In fact 2 weeks before Mr. Ignatieff decided that he can’t take it anymore, and threw up his hands in dismay at the current government and economic situation, there were comments from financial groups that despite everything, were are holding up rather well and now is not the time to call an election.

But now here we are with the threat of an election looming over our heads. The attack adds have already started. Yay. And yesterday in the news to justify the spending of umm about $300MM (unfortunately I couldn’t get the name of the person who said this) “don’t worry, this money will be spent locally, advertising agencies, sign makers, and pizza places will all benefit from the added business. We will be contributing the the economy.” Maybe Pizza 73 can get us a deal and instead of a heart diseasing side of an 8 piece wing meal (which we frequently get no offense to P73) you can get your very own lawn sign.

I have a better Idea. How about we leave things the way they are. Ride out this economic storm for at least another 2 years. Force the boys to get along and send each and every person in Canada a cheque for $10 nothing gets more local than that. Just kidding keep the $10 and put it towards my portion of the ever rising deficit. A whole other rant.

Not just Mediocre, It’s Crap.

Dear CityTV Programming Executive,

Last night I was watching TV and was absolutely disgusted by a program that has recently joined your lineup. Normally I am one that votes with my remote, but after seeing 3 minutes (if that) I could not let this go. Last night I became nauseated at the premiss that “a washed up rock-star would have a monitor on his you-know-what while women talked explicitly to him.” Lets just say I couldn’t turn off the TV fast enough.

My problem is not with the fact that people do that sort of thing. What goes on in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom (unless of course it is harmful and illegal and at least one party isn’t consenting, then we go to the courts). The problem I have is why would you consider this good TV. I know you did not make this show, we have the oh so sick people of VH1 who hide behind the first amendment to thank for this trash, but why on earth did you buy or rent this program. Surely there is someone in your company that would have the foresight to know that this would not be good.

I am insulted that you think that I am so hard up for entertainment (maybe due to the writers strike) that I would put up with something so bass and substandard. If you would like more viewers put better stuff on. It is time that I make a stand. I refuse to watch crap and I am tired of mediocre. I do not want to waste anymore time on entertainment that results in me being dumber for having seen it.

One more thing, could you please pass this on to all of your other executive friends and producers out there. It would really help me out. Thanks!

Sincerely,

Alyson Wonderland

PS. I hope you noticed that I did not mention the name of your show as I refuse to put free advertising for such junk.

Who Needs a Tookus?

I had many more things that I could call this post, but knowing my mother occasionally reads this I decided not to debase myself by using language that is unbecoming a lady. Hahahah!

 Earlier this year my husband was offered a job that would take us south. South to where the weather is warmer. South to where there is minimal shoveling of snow or scraping of the windshield. Unfortunately the move didn’t work out and well, I am here. This morning I took my boys to school in -23 C (-9.4 F). It felt like -27 (-16.6) according to the wind chill.  According to me it felt Awfully cold.

When the temperature gets like this (or when there is snow to shovel, or windows to scrape) I can be found screaming “I am not suppose to be here!” Its close to 8:00 am and some people might still be sleeping, but I don’t care. If I am not aloud to swear then I should be aloud to vent what ever way possible to get me through this ordeal. I don’t consider it an ordeal if it is -5 (23). I get it. The Earth has seasons and getting cold is necessary for the killing of bugs yadda, yadda, yadda. But really is -23 all that necessary? It is cold enough to freeze your tookus off.

I have been told I need to accept my fait. I live in Canada and its cold in Canada so get a nice hat and get over it. I’ve tried it. I got a nice stocking cap knitted hat thingy (toque) and my son borrowed it an lost it and now my head freezes. I have nice boots (thankfully he doesn’t fit those yet). My husband bought me a winter jacket and some mittens. I am making it through but it will be a long long long time before I ever take on that attitude that it is all right to live in the Earth’s Icebox. Who needs a tookus? I do. Its the only thing that isn’t sagging right now.

I thought I already went to school.

Again I am not sure if this should be posted as it is a bit of a rant. Unfortunatly I had not the forsight to make myself more anonamous so that on occasions such as these I could hide from the consiquences. But No, I had to use my first name and post pictures of my lovely children (They are lovely aren’t they.) and thus making myself and possibly my children suseptable to backlashes.

My two older tweedles are in school. They love their teachers and have some really great friends. That being said I think my school is lacking. My children have at least 1/2 hour of homework to do everynight (or what the teacher assumes would be 1/2 hour). Then on top of that my son are supposed to read for twenty minutes. Then there is my second son who is having issues (doesn’t do his work at school) so now that he is so far behind we are doing his daily schoolwook (mostly math) at home as well. Then there is the homework my oldest teacher has assigned to me. Apparently she thinks that we don’t talk enough so now we are to do “Reflections”. Tweedle D is given a topic to write about, then he brings it home for me to read and I have to write my own childhood experiences concerning that topic. Like I don’t have enough to do already. There are some nights we don’t get to bed before 9:00pm and we are still behind. Keeping in mind that my kids need to be in bed by 8:00pm at the latest or they are bears the next day.

Yesterday Tweedle D had a math test. They sent home study sheets for them to do. We had a week to “practice” He wasn’t getting any of it. He did the homework but when I looked back the homework was just busy work. They weren’t applying principles. Plus the study sheet was using terms that they hadn’t used in the homework so it was like doing a months worth of math in a week because he had to learn all of the new terms. It’s not that I didn’t know what I was doing. I did. I just don’t think that I should have to teach concepts that should be taught already. Granted my son chats and may have missed the in class examples but I have been told that if the teacher doen’t have enough time to go over certain principles it is now my responsibility to teach those at home. I don’t have a teaching degree. (I almost did but I switched) and I wonder with all the time I spend “teaching” them at home, if I shouldn’t be doing home schooling. I’m already pretty much doing it with Tweedle E as he doesn’t get anything done in class.

Now I know teachers have it rough (well some of them do) They have umpteen children under their care with varing backgrounds and abilities. Some kids have issues greater than Tweedle E’s but I get so crazy when they have so much homework that there isn’t time for them to be children. I really don’t know how other families can have their kids in piano, hockey, soccer, tennis and still get their homework done. The thing is the kids in 3rd grade and up are “punished” if they don’t get their homwork done regardless of wether they undestand it or not. Heaven forbid if parents have other commitments that require their time because those kids will loose an opportunity to participate in a fun reward.

I’m not about to pull my kids out of school just yet, but I don’t want to let this slide either. Parent teacher confrences are comming up and I need to be my children’s advocate but I don’t know how to tactfully say this is too much. My kids are going to hate school before they are even out of elementry. Basically thay are being graded on wether or not I have the time to help them get their homework done.

AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Remebering I like to keep things light I am a littel leary of putting this up, I may take this down later, but right now I needed a place to vent.

In the past two weeks there have been Five arrests and one warrent out for an arrest in the area of Child molestation. One was a church youth worker, One a soccer coach, one was a teacher, and two were residence of central Alberta. These two were particulllarly awful in that the were producing child porn. Just so you know one of the two was a woman. Yes people pedophilia knows no gender bounds. The person still on the “lamb” is another Canadian wanted in Thailand.

Now this situation would normally only set my blood at a medium to high boil, but couple it with the costumes that I saw in the last week as well as last night and I get nuclear reactor meltdown. I have seen kids under the age of 10 dressed as a sexy nurse, a hoochy devil, a cocktail waitress, and a sexy pirate. Not to mention the sexy pumpkin I found at the store. A pumpkin is round, large and orange. There is nothing sexy about a pumpkin and yet manufacturers managed to sex up a pumpkin.

I am mad! I am mad at the manufatures and the “media” for creating this stuff and the enviroment that makes it oh so desireable.But my anger doesn’t stop there, I am mad at you parents who are shelling out the dough and buying it. I bet if you interview every parent who bought that stuff they would say “My worst nightmare would be to have my daughter molested, kidnapped and or killed.” They would claim they would do everything in their power to prevent that from happening and yet their little girls are running around in the dark dressed like they are for sale.

As for the slightly older kids (12-18) you parents still have the power. Yes your sneeky daughter may sneek a sexy outfit out under their modest costume to be revealed later at a friends party. Fine! When they get caught they suffer the consiquence. Maybe they have to wait and extra month to get their learners permit or they loose driving privilages all together. Or how about they do a weeks commmunity service in a womens shelter or a childrens cottage and see what path they might be heading down.

Now we all have free will and I don’t want to take that away. In a perfect world we could all wear what we want, but we don’t live in a perfect world and there can be serious consiquences to the choices that we make. I am not taking the responsibilty away from the scum that abuse little kids nobody gets away with that. I however would never dress my child in a pair of shorts that say “Juicy” or “Delicious”. (mostly because they are boys, but I don’t think I would do it if I had girls either) You would never invite an alcoholic to a wine and cheese unless you are cruel and you should never advertise your daughter to a pedophile.