Messin with the Moon

We had a beautiful harvest moon last week.So I started messing around with my camera.


After I saw this one, it gave me the idea to try and draw a pentacle with the full moon.
This was my first attempt. Close, but not quite....
Then I nailed it.

The Web

No, not Worldwide, but Spider. It's been foggy the last couple of mornings, and I shot these at work today. Click on the pics for a larger view.



Note how they billow in the breeze.



Later on in the day, the sun came out. As you can see, the foliage has finally started!

Northwest Trek

Back in June, we spent the morning at Northwest Trek, a beautiful and brilliant wildlife preserve featuring animals found in the Pacific NW. I was very disappointed that the woodland creatures weren't out, and the otter tank was being cleaned so the otters were elsewhere. The bear exhibit was closed, and the wolves & big cats were elusive. Shooting the birds was difficult because of the low lighting in the woods, yet the flash made them looked washed out. But the big game animals came out great and most were shot from a moving tram!

Such a long, long time to be gone, And a short time to be there...

The older I get, the more I think about how short life is. I guess everyone pretty much goes through this stage in their 40's. The last 10 years have flown by at a very scary rate of speed. It blows my mind that 20 years ago we were about to go through the worse earthquake in San Francisco since 1906. TWENTY YEARS. In 1989 when we got married, it was only 20 years since Woodstock. Now it's forty years since Woodstock. One of the things that really gets me is whenever I see a cemetery headstone. It usually only contains the person's dates of birth & death, sometimes a little more detail...'beloved husband and father' or 'WW2 Veteran', but not much. Nothing to illustrate how the person was in life. It's like, you go through life and it's all for nothing. And the more time passes, the more people are forgotten. My dad's headstone makes me sad because he was so much more than just a WW2 veteran. And the rest of us have gone on with our lives because there's nothing else for us to do. Death is a certain. I do try to put this stuff out of my head, as it's pretty depressing.

Unfortunately, the other day, I was painfully reminded of this.


I have a lot of Facebook friends...almost 600. So of course it's impossible to keep up with every single person, especially when a lot of the contacts are gamers.

Over the weekend, I was trying to think of some way to help Axe out, and remembered that one of my FB friends, Dani Bonnici, lives in Cape Town. She posted some beautiful photos of a thunderstorm over Cape Town in the spring. I thought maybe Dani would have some ideas of places that might be hiring, or know someone in the arts, as she runs a very popular & successful ceramics shop. I went over to her profile, and ignoring the many wall posts, I went straight to the link to her ceramics shop. http://www.ceramicsafrica.co.za/ It was there that I read this awful message:

"We are sorry to say that Dani suffered a massive stroke and on the 26th of June she passed away, all our love and prayers go out to Dani, her son and her family. Her family would like you all to know that the business will still be open."

To say that I was floored would be an understatement. I went back to her Facebook profile and started reading all of the posts. People are still leaving "I miss you" messages on her Wall. She was very young...not much older than me. I read all the way back to right after she died, about 3 months' worth of posts. I eventually had to stop because I was getting more and more distressed, not just because she died, but also that I had no idea she was gone, and had been for 3 months. Our lives go on and hers was painfully cut short. She will never see all those "I miss you" wall posts and the outpouring of love from her family and friends. If that's not a page out of the "live life to the fullest" book, I don't know what is.

RIP Dani. I'm so sorry that it took me this long to find out you were gone.

Being Mr. Monk

I originally had a slide show to post from Photobucket, but it got all screwed up so I have to figure it out this weekend.

Anywho, I'm absolutely BURIED in files at work. Why my boss takes cases when the trials are a month or two away is beyond me. I am hoping to be able to prep some new blog entries this weekend.

But I also wanted to post a friendly reminder to everyone to be a bit more like Adrian Monk this year. Use hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes. Wash your hands a lot, esp. after handling money or blowing your nose. Sneeze or cough into your elbow. If large stores offer wipes at the entrance, use one on the cart handle. Get a flu shot. Get an H1N1 shot, if they become available.

The other day I was thinking about all the common surfaces that the public touches and it made me gag a bit. ATM & debit card machines, door handles and knobs, toilet flusher handles, money.....even items on the front of shelves could have been handled by someone who was sick. I brought in a bottle of Purell for the reception area, and I use wipes on all the common surfaces at the office, every day (door knobs, copier & fax buttons, light switches, telephones, the mailbox handle, etc.). I cannot afford to get sick and furthermore, neither can Brian since he doesn't have any health insurance. If I have to, I'll start wearing rubber gloves and a mask. lol

I am beginning to wonder if the CDC knows something we don't, because the media is being very proactive in getting the word out to sanitize, sanitize, sanitize, stay at home if you are sick, keep your kids home if they are sick, get your flu shot. It's unusually proactive. We even got a message on our answering machine from the Safeway pharmacy, reminding us that they are offering flu shots. We don't even use the Safeway pharmacy; I only get my groceries there. We're getting our flu shots on Saturday at the Bonney Lake Fire Department's annual open house.

Let's get through this flu season together, and hope that it doesn't reach pandemic proportions.

Yes this is a real sign

Hat tip to Susan, who posted this pic on Facebook the other night. It's a real sign, off I-75 in Troy, Michigan.

Justified or Irresponsible?

Unions are ruining this country. There. I said it.

For the past few weeks, the teachers in the Kent School District have been on strike because they were unhappy with the contract presented to them by the District. This happens every single year in one or more of the school districts in Western Washington. Initially, the parents are supportive, but the more time that goes by, the more inconvenienced the parents become and support for the teachers plummets. Last week, a Judge ordered the teachers back to work or face a $200.00 per teacher, per day fine. Sunday night, they finally reached an agreement and school opened yesterday. I find it rather disgusting that the teachers only agreed to go back to work when the money was coming out of their pockets. At least they have jobs, unlike my husband who is now on Month #13 with no work, and now his unemployment benefits have run out.

A few years ago, the Marysville School District stayed on strike until the last part of October. It screwed the kids over big time, especially the seniors who were relying on sports scholarships and early admission into college. It further screwed the students over because they had to make up the lost time by foregoing school breaks and attending school almost until the 4th of July, and many seniors lost valuable summer work wages.

The biggest sticking point is the "smaller class size" thing. They complain because they don't get enough one-on-one time with the kids, and many of the kids don't speak English. Well we can solve the smaller class size thing by controlling the population. When I was in school there was no such thing as one on one time with the teacher, unless you went for extra help during lunch, study hall or after school. As for our non-English speaking kids, LEARN THE DAMN LANGUAGE. We had an influx of Vietnamese families into my hometown, in the early 80's....or at that time they were known around the world as "the boat people". They integrated into the USA and the kids who attended Sandwich High School learned English. The exchange students learned English. Quit mollycoddling these people, especially those who are illegal, and force them into an English immersion class. Seriously.

I never even heard of teachers going on strike until we moved to Washington. I don't believe it happened in California, and I know it didn't happen in Sandwich. Why are these teachers punishing the kids by going on strike at the beginning of the school year? I realize that they are underpaid, overworked and underappreciated. They take a lot of crap from the many ill-mannered kids and teens. But is going on strike really helping the kids? I don't think so.

A few months back, I posted a question to my friends, on Facebook, asking whether those people with children would be willing to give up their Child Income Tax Credit or their hefty tax refund (b/c they can claim their kids), and have that money be funneled towards their respective schools. The people with children responded, "No". They were not willing to give up their child tax credit or their refund, because they stated that they didn't trust the government to actually give that money to their school districts. I then posed the question, "Is it fair that childless couples see their property taxes go up and up, yet we have no child exemption to claim and our refunds are much smaller?" Surprisingly, not one person who had kids thought of it that way. I really believe that this would help the schools tremendously. I don't see why childless couples have to do more than their fair share for the schools when the people who have kids and need the schools are getting refunds upwards of $3,000 every spring at tax time (where we only get about $500 as our tax refund, IF we are lucky).

I realize why unions were started and yes, there is a need for them. Some of them. Like the garment workers union, to keep them from being worked 18 hours a day in sweat-shop conditions. But teachers? I don't agree with their being unionized. I was in the electrical workers union (IBEW) when I worked at Channel 56, so I have some experience in this area. I felt that our shop stewards were a bit too hardcore and ridiculous, the way they constantly threatened "to file a grievance" for every little thing. I remember one time when one of the news talent accidentally touched or moved one of the studio cameras. Only IBEW members were allowed to touch the equipment. Some of the guys in the studio got super indignant and pretty much dressed down the newscaster and telling them to never touch any equipment again or else a grievance would be filed with our union. I rolled my eyes. Even when I went back to visit in 1991, some of my former coworkers reminded me not to touch the equipment b/c I wasn't in the union anymore. Oh and let's not forget the times when a Director would go to ask one of the crew a question like 5 minutes before we were "on the clock". We would be standing outside studio control, waiting to start work in 5 minutes, a Director would ask a question and inevitably someone would say, "We're not on the clock yet. Ask again at 3:15." Give me a break.

As some of you may or may not know, Washington is home to the Boeing Company. There are several plants where the planes are assembled. Every 2 or 3 years, the machinists union goes on strike b/c they don't like their contract. They want more money. "Mo' money! Mo' money! Mo' money!!", if I may quote from an "In Living Color" sketch. They end up on strike for at least 30-60 days, the planes go unbuilt, the orders stack up or are canceled, Boeing's clients end up going to Airbus, and when everyone does finally return to work, Boeing ends up laying off thousands of people because the plane orders dropped. The Boeing plant in South Carolina has just voted to disband their chapter of the machinists union. This means that Boeing can now move their assembly lines to SC, and tell WA to fuck off. The Boeing workers up here don't seem to be worried about it, but I am worried about it. If Boeing decides to move the bulk of their assembly to a right-to-work state like SC, the economy in Western Washington will really take a hit, and it's bad enough as it is.

So, what say you? Unions: Justified or Unreasonable?

Bringing Lady Axe to Brandon's Grave

Last year, I made a promise to Axe that I'd get the song she wrote for Brandon Lee, up to his grave in Seattle. She emailed me the lyrics and I did them up on parchment paper. I added the pic of Axe, then I spattered it with red ink to make it look like blood. It was still missing something, so I took it outside and burned the edges. Pleased with the results, I was ready to head up.

But, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to get up to Seattle in 2008 and then the winter and spring weather shut me down till July, when I was finally able to make it up there.

Volunteer Park, Seattle

After I left Jimi's grave in Renton, I headed up to Seattle, to the Capital Hill area so that I could visit the Lees' graves. Despite my having googled all events going on in Seattle at 8 a.m. on a Sunday, when I arrived up there, all the streets were blocked off. I was stunned. I asked a cop what was going on and he told me there was a road race. It figures. I told him where I was trying to go and he told me to just go around the traffic cones b/c the runners weren't up there yet. So I find my way up to the cemetery, only to find the gates closed. I didn't know what to do...so I drove past and saw the entrance to Volunteer Park. I drove in and decided to kill some time till the cemetery opened. I was glad I did.

My Virtual Doggies

This is my little guy, Sirius. Isn't he a cutie? The white dots form the Canis Major constellation which includes the star, "Sirius". When I was a kid, I used to watch "The CBS Children's Film Festival", hosted by Kukla Fran & Ollie. There was a film on that show that I saw, about a beautiful GSD named Sirius.

This is Milk Dud's World. That would be the puppy under the otter. These critters are so adorable and I am wicked sucker for "cute overload", so I collected a bunch of them.

My First Attempt at a Photobucket Slide Show

I took a very quick trip to Seattle in July, 2009, on a mission for Axe. On the way up, I decided to stop in Renton to see the Jimi Hendrix Memorial and grave.

Hot Head and Her Funny, Funny Man.....

I have a hot head. I mean over and above my volcanic temper which is always simmering under the surface. But seriously, my head is hot. I never wear hats or scarves in the winter because the cold air feels so good on my head. I blast the air conditioning in my car every morning, every season, no matter what the weather, until my face feels icy and my nose starts to run. Then, and only then, will I turn the a/c down or off, and I leave the vents open so that air is still blowing on my face. But the second I am stopped at a light or in traffic and that constant stream of air isn't blowing on my face, the a/c gets cranked back up to 11, till I am moving along again.

Whenever I finish any kind of strenuous exercise - be it the gym (the what now?) or mowing the lawn or cleaning the house - no matter how cool my shower is, I still end up sitting in front of the fan letting it blow directly at my face and head.

I always used to love getting a little drinky-poo when we'd go out to eat; I've always been a huge fan of the Whiskey Sour. I especially loved the beginning of holiday weekends, when I could imbibe a bit in a deliciously sweet Sombrero, or powerful pre-bottled "T.G.I.Fridays" Long Island Iced Tea. But over the years, I began to notice that, not only do my sinuses get hopelessly plugged when I drink any kind of alcohol, but my face feels like it's on fire. The flush starts at my neck and works it's way up to the top of my head. Even my scalp is red. The skin on my face feels hot and tight and I get itchy all around my jaw line, esp. under my ears. It's very uncomfortable and I really feel like if I don't get something cold on my face immediately, my head's going to spontaneously combust. That's when I uncouthly dig into my water glass and start rubbing ice all over my face till it's soaked wet and starts to cool down. Rather than endure this horribly uncomfortable and embarrassing ritual, I just stay far away from alcohol.

Nighttime can be uncomfortable, especially in the summer when our a/c is laboring day and night to keep the house at 68F. The second my head hits the pillow, the pillow gets too warm. I flip it over and enjoy a few precious seconds of comfort before that side gets too hot. Then it's toss/turn, toss/turn till I finally fall asleep. I do get some relief in the winter months because I seal off the bedroom heating vent so that heat never, ever is on in that room. You open the door to the bedroom and it's shockingly icy. We've mused about whether we could cause a thunderstorm in the hallway, by simultaneouly opening the hot, steamy bathroom & icy cold bedroom doors and watching the mini-weather systems collide. But I digress.....

I came up with an idea to help with the nighttime hot-pillow problem. Because we have the world's smallest freezer, I obviously can't jam my entire pillow into it to keep it frozen all day till bedtime. So I started putting a pillowcase in a ziplock baggie and keeping it in the freezer instead. When I go to bed, I put the frozen case on the pillow, and put a new case into the freezer, and then alternate them every night. Brian thinks this is absolutely hysterical. I think it's absolutely necessary. At least the frozen case keeps the pillow colder, longer, so that maybe I can fall asleep.

So yesterday I went upstairs to refresh my Crystal Lite Ice Tea (no more Long Island), and opened the freezer to get some ice cubes. Bright blue caught my eye and I was wondering why Brian would have put a freezer gell pack on one of the shelves, so I looked down. What the.....is that a NOTE in my pillowcase bag....?

.....What's it say? I lean in to get a good look.......

"ROTFLMAO".

Funny, funny man.......

Ed. Note: Do you like the juxtaposition of the Lean Cuisine frozen food directly under the Cookies & Cream ice cream? Now that's "ROTFLMAO"!!

Bad New Englandah, No Lobstah

As you all know, I am a native Cape Codder/New Englander. When I was a kid, all I could think about was getting the hell off the Cape and away from the East Coast. "I'm bored. There's nothing to do. Cape Cod is so dull!!!" was a familiar refrain. Yeah I've done some touristy things, but when I think back to all of the missed opportunities when I lived there, I could kick myself.

Yesterday at lunch, I was browsing through "National Geographic Traveler" magazine. They were featuring some of the best driving trips in the world and I was pleased to see that Cape Cod was listed. There was a photo of a lighthouse called Wood End Light. I was very distressed when I realized that not only had I never seen that particular lighthouse, I had also never heard of it. I had to google it to find out on what part of the Cape it's located, and was surprised to find that it's in Provincetown. I'd only ever seen Race Point Lighthouse and had no idea there was another one up there called Wood End. In the list of things to see along the drive around the Cape, it mentioned the Museum of Natural History. Never been there either. Or to Nauset Beach. Or seen Monomoy Island. I've only been to Nantucket once, and Martha's Vineyard twice.

That got me thinking about all of the trips I could have taken......should have taken....when I still lived on the East Coast.

For example: I went to college in Maine for 2 years, which meant that I lived there pretty much full time from Sept. 1982-May, 1984, except for the summer months and winter holidays. My freshman year roomie is from Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park. While she came down to visit me on the Cape for a week, I never went up there to visit her. I've never been to Bar Harbor. In fact, I've never even been north of Lewiston. I've never gone to Cushing to see where Andrew Wyeth painted the Olson farm, including the famous "Christina's World" painting. I've never been to any of the Eastern Canadian provinces. Some kids used to take road trips to Quebec & Montreal, but I never went.

During the summer months, I worked. There was no backpacking across Europe, or even taking ANY time off, for me. Cape Cod's economy, esp. back then, was still driven by the tourist industry, and as a chambermaid at a 4-star hotel, I was busting my ass cleaning rooms, in high heat and humidity, so that others could enjoy their time off. I worked from the day after college got out till a day or so before I went back. Because my dad was the best plumber in the town of Sandwich, he could not take any time off in the summer months b/c that was his busiest season, what with all the old cottages that were now open for business.

In the summer of '84, I was able to finagle about 4 days off to go to Yonkers w/ my parents for a few days to visit family and bring my grandmother up to the Cape for the summer. And let me be perfectly honest: Yonkers is NOT a tourist destination. My maternal family settled there in the early 1900's, and that's the only reason we went. In fact, come to think of it, for all the time we spent in Yonkers back in the 70's, my folks only took me into New York City twice: Once to the Bronx Zoo in 1974, and once to Manhattan in 1978.

I lived in New England for 24 years of my life, and I've never been to Vermont either. My bff Liz went to college there and has remained in Vermont since 1982, but for a few years in the Toronto area in the early 90's. Did I ever visit? No. The only time I ever crossed the border into Vermont was when my dad got lost in New Hampshire and accidentally crossed into VT, where he promptly did a U-turn and went back into NH.

My bff Holly went to college in Toronto for a few years in the 80's too. Did I ever visit? No.

I simply took it for granted that the stuff will always be there so I'll get to see it "one of these days". Then I went to San Francisco the first time and that became my main focus. Getting to the west coast. Now that i live here, I lament the fact that there is so much I didn't do or see, and when I lived there, I had no interest in doing or seeing any of it.

So I guess next spring when I go back to visit my mom, I will have to check out some of these places on the Cape, like Wood End Light and the Museum of Natural History. No excuses.

Who can it be now?

2009 has easily been the worst year of my life, the worst year of Brian's life and the worst year of our marriage. Among the general stressors of Brian being out of work for over a year and not having health insurance and a couple of incidents we had this spring and summer, I have been dealing with crushing stress at work. The clients have been absolutely horrible to us. Very, very angry and abusive people. Small wonder their marriages crumble after only a few years. Then of course my being booted off Facebook for over 2 weeks was, I thought, the final nail in the 2009 coffin. I mean, how much worse can it get?

I was wrong.

Besides all of the above, in June, there was a "smash and grab" at my office. Someone came up the back stairs and smashed thru the window of our new attorney's office, and snatched her computer and monitor off her desk. Since times are hard and this is a common occurrence these days, we figured it was drug addicts looking for an easy target like a dark stairway of an office complex that is empty all night.

Then in mid-July, I got a call from my coworker, Deb, on a Saturday, telling me that she'd debated whether or not to tell me, but decided she had to. Our office had not only been targeted again, but this time, they cleaned us out. Computers, monitors, fax machine.....they smashed 2 of the printers to bits on the floor. They took the art off the walls, all of my boss' suit jackets out of the antique armoire, and his little $9 dictation recorder off his desk. They also took my oscillating fan and Deb's magnifying glass. However, they did not take real things of value, like all of the antiques and first edition books in my boss' office. Just the dictation recorder. None of our personal items were stolen or ruined, except the fan and the magnifying glass.

This second buglary devastated our office. So in the days following that robbery, we sunk tens of thousands of dollars into an alarm system with flashing strobes outside and motion sensors inside, all new computers & monitors, all the new software, a new fax machine, etc. We had 3 steel bars installed over the window where the first smash & grab occurred, and we had several very bright lights installed in back that have motion sensors on them as well. All things considered, we were up and running fairly quickly, but it's been a long, hard road back. Many documents and forms had to be rebuilt. Our computer guy was able to recover data through May 31, 2009, so I guess only having to recover 2 months' worth of data isn't that bad, but still.

It's crystal clear that someone is really, really pissed off at one of us. We've kicked around various names as possible suspects, but really, it could be anyone. But who? He thought maybe it's someone from "the internet", which I think was a shot at me because of my Facebooking. But my profile is set to private so only my friends can see it. It used to be set so that my network could see it as well, but I changed the settings several months ago. I don't have that many friends within my network anyway, and those who are my Tacoma-area Facebook friends are people with whom I have been acquainted for over a year, and/or fellow Hatchlings players. I really do not think it's anyone connected with my Facebooking at all. He intimated in July that he was distressed that I put up a status when a client had gone off on me on the phone and then trashed me in an email. But I told my boss that my status said, "Joanne M. Wolf does not get paid enough to deal with the kind of abuse I just took from a client. Bastard made me cry." No names, no locations, no details....just that a client made me cry. I think that's one of the reasons that he insisted on a new server that blocks all social networking sites. Which is fine.....I was spending more time on FB at work than I was supposed to anyway.

The second burglary was very much designed to hurt our business. And it's someone who has to have intimate knowledge of the layout of our office and our personal lives. Why leave all of my boss' antiques and stuff but take his suit jackets and dictation recorder? Why take my fan? Does the person know that I'm always hot and need to use a fan all the time? Why take Deb's magnifying glass? Do they know that she has vision problems and can't see very well?

We were recovering as best we can and thought we had put this all behind us and were moving on. Till today.

I arrived at my office and noticed the back door was wide open. At first, I thought....I hoped.... maybe my boss was unloading some more cases of copy paper. Then I saw the splintered piece of wood under the stairs. My exact reaction was, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME????????" I blazed up the stairs and inside, but fortunately nothing was missing this time. The alarm must've scared them off. But the new steel door is completely ruined. The new jamb and all of the super large bolts and screws are torn up and/or shattered. The deadbolt strike plate was ripped right out of the wall and the hinges were torn off as well.

Who the fuck is doing this to us? The Fircrest PD is absolutely useless, although they do think that some kind of battering ram was used on this door, versus someone kicking it in like the last time. And because my boss opted not to pay for the alarm monitoring, no one showed up when the alarm went off. None of the people in the apartments behind our building called it in. And I found out today that the alarm only blasts for 3-5 minutes before automatically shutting off. So what is the damn point? It's clear that the new door and bright lights are not going to deter this person from continuing to harass us. And the police have not indicated if they are going to assign any detectives to look into why we are being targeted and by whom. If only Detective Bobby Goren could look into it. lol

Now we have to pay for a surveillance camera and a second steel door with a steel frame. I am pushing hard for a gate as well. It's the only way to keep someone out. But now I am also afraid that the perp is going to be so angry that they aren't getting to us, that the next thing will be a fire. The steps to the two back doors are wooden. It wouldn't take much to douse them w/ an accelerant and strike a match.

I did suffer some PTSD this morning, but I am not quitting. I will not let this person's actions intimidate me. I am hoping that my boss doesn't decide that we should move the office elsewhere. I remain uneasy, but hopeful that this was the last time we get hit.

Facebook or Facistbook?

Hello children. I'm back after a year+ long immersion in "All Facebook, All the time". That abruptly ended when I was unceremoniously disabled by their software bot on Friday, August 14, 2009 at 5:30 pm, in the middle of my fave game, Pet Pupz.



My offense? Wait for it.......I wrote on people's walls too fast!!!!! *GASP* DUN-DUN-dun. Apparently, one of the lovely drawbacks of Facebook, which I am now finding out about, is that, if you do ANYTHING too fast: comment, add friends, delete friends, send messages, receive messages, write on walls too much, send friend requests, etc., the bot picks up on it as "spamming". Then the person's account gets red flagged as a possible spammer. Earlier this spring, I had been carrying on some simultaneous conversations, via the comment box, on some of my friends' profiles. My commenting ability was promptly shut down for about 6 or 7 days. Since then, if I get too carried away commenting, I had 2 "pink slips" pop up on my screen, warning me that I was engaging in "abusive behavior."



OK, for one thing, Facistbook are the ones that gave us the opportunity to comment on every single brain fart on our newsfeeds. When I first joined in the spring of 2008, all you could do was write on your friends' Walls. Now, you can comment on every quiz, application, status, video, photograph, poll, WHATEVER, that your friends publish. Then when you do so, they shut you down as a spammer. I am seeing more and more people show up in various chat rooms/chat boards, with the same problem I had: "All I did was respond to messages in my inbox", "All I did was write Happy Birthday on my friends' Walls".....etc. Many of the people who need help the most are from non-English speaking countries. They don't know where to turn.

And by the way, this whole incident also proves the old adage that "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished". After my initial commenting suspension in the spring, I had tried really hard to tone down my chatting in comment boxes and on walls. Then a situation came up, where a friend of mine back east asked me for my help to stop something that was about to happen in one of the elementary schools in my hometown, Sandwich. The school opened about 15 or so years ago, and during that time, the students had created murals on one of the walls. My friend told me that she had it on good authority that the murals were about to be painted over, before the kids came back in the fall, so that it would be too late to undo it. I was horrified. Both the principal and superintendant of the school are from "off Cape". Which means that they had ZERO clue just how deep family roots run on Cape Cod, especially in Sandwich which is the oldest town on the Cape. Even though I don't live there anymore, I do feel a certain school pride and allegance to my hometown. In the days before I was disabled, I was trying to get the word out to fellow Sandwich residents and the people with whom I went to school, to encourage them to lodge a complaint before the painting started. I got the word out via Facebook. And then they shut me down. By the way, I received an email from the school saying that the murals had been saved and would not be painted over. So while my efforts to help out the Forestdale School worked, I got punished for it big time.

God forbid there be an actual HUMAN that works there. There is zero customer service. All I was able to do was send an email to disabled@facebook.com, and all I got was a canned "thank for your inquiry, we'll look into it and get back to you in a few days" response. I have dug up every email I can find for Facistbook, to no avail. One of my friends sent me a phone number she found, but you get sent into a general voice mailbox.



My friends even started a group, petitioning for my return. Of course most of you already know that since you all joined. It makes me feel so good to see the names of people I know personally, friends I've met on FB, and people I don't even know who just want to support me. There's a guy named Rudy Arnauts who is doing a series of videos on You Tube, called "Meeting with Mark". He is trying to get Mark Zuckerberg's attention and set up a face to face meeting with him, to discuss this problem and the lack of customer service. His videos are very eloquent and he's the only person who is going to bat for us. Even if your account hasn't been disabled, it COULD happen. I encourage everyone to check out Rudy's 3rd installment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdeZtNQhQZA

Over the course of the last 2 weeks, I have run the gamut of emotions. Because I was not ready to quit Facebook "cold turkey", my first reaction was utter and complete despair. I cried A LOT. It was like going thru withdrawal with the nausea, dry heaves, and other "issues" I will not go into because it'd just be TMI. Brian was feeding me tranquilizers that entire first weekend, as I could not believe that the one good thing I have to look forward to each day was taken away from me. As the days went by, I began to mourn my individual games, esp. Pet Pupz. I felt like I had killed my puppy. The more I was offline, the more I missed my friends, and the minutiae of their daily lives. That was the hardest pill to swallow. That they were all hanging out and visiting w/ each other, and I was left out. I was certain that I was destined to be isolated and alone forever.

As my 2 week suspension drew closer, my emotions turned to anger. This is ridiculous. How can a social networking site disable their users FOR SOCIALIZING???? How can a social networking site create "limits" on how much you can do, WITHOUT TELLING YOU WHAT THE FUCKING LIMITS ARE? How can a social networking site give you the ability to comment on EVERYFUCKINGTHING, provide you with a list of upcoming birthdays then penalize you for using the features???? Seriously!!! All they tell you is to go read their Terms of Service which only generally outlines the fact that there are "limits" and if you exceed them, they reserve the right to disable you. And because we don't pay for the site, they don't give a tiny little rat's ass about the users.

To be honest though, having had FB drastically reduced at work because of our new server and it's blocking of ALL social networking sites or sites that might potentially harm our system, and then not having FB at all in my off time, was a bit liberating. I was missing it like crazy in the beginning, but I was actually finding the time away from the computer to be much more relaxing. Remember, I was logging onto FB at 7 am at work, camp on it all day, then go home and play from 4:45-bedtime. I hadn't realized how tired my eyes were. Or how much I'd neglected my crafts. Over the last 2 weeks, I got some cross stitching done, and a TON of colouring.

I had already decided not to create a new profile, were I to get the "too bad so sad" email. It just wasn't worth it. All those months of scanning and uploading photos, which were now gone. Over year's worth of games that I'd have to start over again. Then of course I'd get in trouble for accepting and/or sending too many friend requests as I tried to reconnect with everyone.

By last week, I had stopped the daily emailing to Facebook, because my pleas were falling on deaf ears. I sent one last email on Friday, August 28, again telling them I was sorry and could I please have my profile back. I was taking the "glass half empty" approach of assuming my profile was gone forever. That way, when I got the "too bad so sad" email, I could just move on. Today, shock of shocks, I received this in my inbox:

"Hi Joanne,

Facebook has limits in place to prevent behavior that other users may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site.

Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with the specific rates that have been deemed abusive.

Your account was disabled because you exceeded Facebook's limits on multiple occasions when writing on Walls, despite having been warned to slow down.

However, after reviewing your situation, we have reactivated your account, and you should now be able to log in. Please be aware that if your account is disabled again, we will not be able to reactivate it.

Once logged in, please slow down the rate at which you write on Walls. We appreciate your cooperation going forward. Thanks for your understanding,
Lex
User Operations Facebook"

OK, so now I get to come back, but this has left a really, really bad taste in my mouth. I feel like the whole thing has been kind of ruined for me. I'm allowed to have my profile back, but clearly I'm going to be watched like a hawk. I will be able to play my games, but I will have to cut down on all commenting and interacting of any kind. I will set my profile to show as my being online, so that if anyone wants to talk to me, it'll have to be via the IM chat, which apparently has no limits and apparently what FB wants you to use in lieu of the comment boxes and Wall features.

And one last thing. I want to thank each and every one of you for your emails, good wishes, support and for joining the group to get me back. In the end, that is what means the most to me. Not that I got my virtual "things" back, but the love and support of my friends. When I last checked the support group, there were over 230 people who joined. I would start weeping as I scrolled down the list of names. Everyone I love and care about the most were there. My friends have always been the most important thing in my life, and when the chips were down, you were all there for me. One friend emailed me that the only reason he even had a FB profile was because of me. Others are so angry that they want to quit Facebook b/c this is happening to more and more people. And now I understand why my friends list fluctuates so much. People come and go, and now I know why.

I love you all very much and I appreciate all your love and support. I will be logging back in to Facebook as of tonite, but I will not be as chatty as I used to be. I will be able to be reached on the IM chat, and via my regular Hotmail address. I am too afraid to say much on FB, lest I end up in the dog house for good.

Lady Axe

Thought you guys would like to see what Axe has been up to. She's been having trouble w/ some flaky musicians for her band so she ended up recruiting her mom and daughter to be in the band. Her mom's a musician and from what I hear, Anushka can really shred a guitar.

I love these pictures of them.

Cali-flora & Fauna

Now that I've uploaded a bunch of pics to my Facebook photo albums, I'll have some subject matter on which to draw, if I want to keep my blog limping along.

There are some pictures of the local California wildlife and such.  

This is our hamster, Buddy, eating some roodles.

Our bunny Clover.
Mule deer behind our townhouse in Fairfax.

"Nice rack!"
Also taken from our townhouse in Fairfax.
Fairfax
Foliage in Northern California starts slowly in October and peaks at Christmas.  This picture was taken in December, 1994.
Hawk.
Madrona tree.
This moth was really big, and sitting in the bushes in front of our townhouse.  I have no idea what kind it is.  
It was as big as a butterfly.  
Our guinea pig, Oliver, in the patio garden, Fairfax.
Spring in Fairfax.
Sea lion in Noyo Harbor, Fort Bragg, CA.
Sheep in Humboldt County.
This is the day after Thanksgiving.  The night before, Brian flung the turkey carcass into the woods behind our townhouse.  We woke up to vultures all over the ground and in the trees, fighting over the carcass.  
Yosemite Valley, 1992.
Yosemite Valley, 1992.

Nothing to say

I know I should update my blog more often, but the bottom line is, I have nothing good to say anymore. No job for Brian. Not even anything on the horizon. I continue to take more abuse than I should, at work, by the clients, and that makes me more angry and stressed out. I am very depressed that 2009 didn't start off like we'd hoped. Not even close. The only bright spot is that Obama is officially our President, but the fucking Republicans would rather see our country go down the drain than work WITH Obama on a solution. Funny thing is, those right wing fuckers are the ones that got us into that situation, and now they are trying to rewrite history and blame it on everyone but the real culprits.

I never wanted my blog to be a downer. But unfortunately, that's all I can talk about. Gloom and doom. More regional layoffs, more not-so-subtle begging for donations to help this person, or that school, or that team, by way of the news media. I have thought about blogging about the idiot nimrod assholes who are our clients, but this being a public forum, accessible by anyone, that could leave our office wide open for a lawsuit, so I can't even bitch about them, most of whom have brought most of their problems on themselves. I will say that we have a whole bunch of extremely abusive men as clients and I'm fucking sick of them calling and demanding things. I know I'm the rude one in the office and I don't give a shit. I'm here to do a job, not mollycoddle and say, "there there". Debby can be sugary sweet and hand hold and waste countless hours on the phone, but I don't have that kind of time. I've always been a "cut to the chase" person. In fact, I can't even stand it when people start "story jokes". I like quick, one liners. Biff-bam-bing. Whenever Brian goes, "I have a joke" I whine, "It is gonna be long? Because you know I just don't have the attention span for a long joke."

Anywho. I haven't shot many photos as there's nothing to shoot right now. Road construction is going to make it nearly impossible to take any day trips this year, not even to Seattle. I won't be going to the Cape (not terribly bummed about that), I won't be going to Canada. I won't be going anywhere except home and work. That's all my life revolves around. Well, that and Facebook. I don't even answer emails anymore. Diane finally gave up on trying to get me to respond to her emails and called me on Saturday afternoon. Everything is just a huge fucking effort. I try to check all the blogs, daily, but I find myself drifting farther and farther away from the blogosphere. Things go so much faster on FB, the interaction w/ people is instantaneous. I can carry on a conversation w/ my friends in Denmark, Portugal, Canada, etc. in real time.

Over the past few months I've located, or been located by, tons of old friends from high school, college and my Channel 58 years on FB. Getting caught up w/ everyone and their lives has taken a HUGE chunk of my time, esp. when it seems that my role in life is "Archivist". I was probably the only kid who brought a camera to high school to take pics of my friends in the late 70's and early 80's. Back then I had to cajole, beg, trick, whatever, to get the photos. After a lot of whining and eye rolling, my friends would finally consent. So I scanned a bunch into a Facebook photo album, much to their delight. Now they are begging and clamoring for more. Apparently I'm the only person who can readily lay hands on yearbooks and 30 year old photo albums. So if I'm not playing on FB, I'm scanning photos.

I'd be happy to blog if I could think of anything to say, but I can't. My muse has left me. I can't be funny on demand, and I just haven't felt funny at all lately. What would you guys like me to talk about? Should I deluge you with more vacation photos? High school and past career photos? Cause at this point, that's about all I have.