So tomorrow is Mothers Day!

I was reading a blog entry today from a mom who was talking about her Mothers Day events, and it reminded me of all the Mothers Days in our past.

For some reason Mothers Day to me means little itty bitty flowers growing in the bottom half of a carton of milk. Every year at Cussewago we made these for our moms and brought them home to them for Mothers Day. My mom was always excited to see them, and I was always so excited to give them to her. I think that they probably died pretty quickly after we got them home, but my mom was proud, and I think that’s what really counted.

When my brother and I were little, we’d bring her breakfast in bed, and it was usually something pretty horrendous. I never could cook, and I’m 10x worse at making coffee. So we’d bring her burnt toast, coffee with the grounds floating in the cup, and probably something equally as disgusting like microwaved scrambled eggs, but she at least attempted to eat it. It was the thought that counted, we knew that as children, and we never minded that she didn’t eat it, as long as she thanked us.

I have been trying to come up with a very thoughtful entry to write, but my mind is rather list-like in it’s memories. If I can’t record moments in time and post them on youtube, then I can’t properly convey my thoughts and memories. So, I give you a list of memories, maybe some other moms out there can relate, or look forward to, some of the things that brought us so much joy in our childhoods.

• When I was very small, my mom would take me on long walks up Center Rd. towards the I-79 overpass. Instead of putting me in front of the television to keep me occupied, she got up, took my hand, and headed out.
• When I started kindergarten she’d stand outside with me to wait for the school bus, and after it rained there’d be puddles where we stood, and we always sing-songed “Wanna go fishin’?”
• I have countless memories of sitting outside in my turtle sandbox (of which there were many) and her laying out on the grass next to us, working on her tan.
• My dad took my mom to work every day, and if I fell asleep in the car before she got to work, I’d wake up crying because I didn’t get a kiss goodbye.
• My mom worked second shift, so after she got out of work at night, we’d sit on the couch and watch Johnny Carson together.
• She ate countless gallons of imaginary “pineapple soup” that I made in my pretend kitchen. The kitchen she and my dad were so excited to give me for Christmas.
• She didn’t coddle us, sometimes boo-boo’s went unbandaged, and we learned that you don’t have to cry over every tiny thing. This helped us recognize the things that were worth crying over.
• She laughed at me hundreds of times for my “I have _ socks and none of them match” song. I still sing this sometimes.
• Every spring, I stuffed as many dandelions into my sticky little hands as I could to make her bouquets. She totally loved them.
• I learned of my love of animals from my mom, she taught me to love cats, name every single one, and she taught me perseverance in the face of defeat as I watched her pick fleas off dying kittens with tweezers into the late hours of the night, even though she knew they’d die. I learned about hope when they didn’t.
• She encouraged us to be imaginative, musical, artistic, creative, dangerous and dirty. She encouraged us to be happy.
• She went to every terrible school play I ever had one single line in.
• I have vivid memories of us baking in our kitchen in Venango. She let me lick the bowl before it was bad to eat raw eggs.
• Her teachings of love for animals held no bounds for me, and I in turn taught her to love rats with my first, Betty.
• She didn’t yell at us when she came home from work the weekend after Thanksgiving to a fully assembled Christmas tree with makeshift ornaments and a hand-turkey for the angel. That turkey came back for years to come.
• She wrapped every Christmas present, and in all my years I’ve never been able to arrange them under the tree in the same way she did. Same goes for Easter baskets.
• She cheered me on to the very end of every video game I ever played. She was more excited than I was when I’d win.
• She laid in my bed with me all night when I had mono, because I couldn’t breath, and just wanted my mommy.
• She endured countless viewings of The Wizard of Oz, Beetlejuice and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and pretended to like them, even after the tapes wore out and she had to replace them.
• She also listened to hours upon hours of The Who, The Monkees and The Beatles.
• She has the best handwriting I’ve ever seen in my life. I wish I could emulate it.
• She woke me up on my 16th birthday with plans to go to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.
• She knows me well enough to know that it was THE best birthday.
• She sacrificed a weeks vacation from the worlds most terrible job so I could go to Florida.
• She can apologize a million times, but when she took us to Texas, she set into motion a course of my life which brought me great friends and the worlds best husband. I can’t thank her enough for that.
• She mourned right by my side when my baby rats died. She hugged me in the pouring rain as I dug into the mud to bury their tiny coffins.
• She supported me through every break up and make up Alan and I ever had.
• She always let me do my own thing, as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone. Even if that meant playing video games until dawn. Or talking on the phone for hours upon hours.
• She paid the phone bills from those phone calls….
• She never once told me that there was something I couldn’t be.
• She sat on the couch with me in the wee hours of the morning, watching Conan, All in the Family, 3rd Rock From The Sun and Planets Funniest Animals, every night in Texas.
• Watching American Beauty in the theater, and being simultaneously excited to be out to a grown up movie with my mom, and horribly embarrassed by some of the scenes.
• She encourages me in my photography, even when it wasn’t very good.
• She never preached or told me the dangers of drugs, she just told me she’d be broken hearted if I did it. And I never, ever, did.
• She let me choose my own spiritual path.
• She respects my privacy, even online.
• She understands that cats are not only great forms of entertainment, but acceptable topics of hour long conversations.
• She’s just plain awesome.

I hope that everyone out there who is able to, gives their mom a call, a card, a visit, a hug, a bouquet, a brunch, just ANYTHING, for Mothers Day.

I just came across this website:

Cuter by the Hour

I love it! There is a new cute animal photo posted once an hour, and they all seem pretty much adorable!

Sadly they do have CO on their blogroll but there are no real “ads” for them, or any other ads for that matter, so I’ll call it good :)

I hate horse racing. I really do.

I don’t care if it’s “tradition” or a “sport”, all it is to me is a pointless sport in which poor animals are in danger of falling and breaking limbs, and then being euthanized.  I think Nascar is pretty lame, but I’d support that over the Kentucky Derby any day.

Erin has made a parody site to Cute Overload called “Sad Overload” and you can visit it here.

Speaking of sad animals, Benjamin and Miss Kitty are due for their yearly exams soon. I think the vet will be happy to see that Benjamin has slimmed down a bit, and MK has even gained a bit. Happy cats!

So, I miss seeing all the cute, I admit it. It’s not the cute animals fault that someone fell asleep at the wheel at CO.

So I did what any un-lazy person would do and searched Google for some cute animal sites. I came across this one: Cute Animal Pics.

Very cute animals, minimalist design (I have to admit, CO’s design was getting to be extremely slow for all the ads) and holy crap cute animals! I really hope to see them succeed :) Especially since they aren’t partnering with animal murderers.

Everyone who knows me knows that I feel very passionately about animals. I’m not like crazy PETA-style, but I am against Hartz products, I do think fur is wrong, and even eating meat is a challenge that gets harder and harder to overcome as I get older. The thing is, our pets trust us to make decisions for them that benefit and lengthen their lives. Their happiness and lives depend on us, and that’s why it makes me mad to see products such as Hartz not only still in business, but advertised on a website that has in the past also spoke out against things such as seal hunting, fur wearing, and animal abuse. People might not KNOW how deadly Hartz products are, they might click that ad, and they might buy those products. And then their animal will get sick, lose fur, it might even die, all because they thought to themselves “Well if it’s a CO sponsor, it’s got to be safe.” Unfortunately, it looks as though the powers that be at CO HAVE spoken and have pretty much said “too bad” and are continuing to promote Hartz products. They may think animals are cute, but they have no respect for their health and lives.

Yes, pets and animals ARE cute, but our pets are also members of our family, don’t try to sell us a product that will tear our family apart.

I need to go snuggle my kittens and explain to them just how much we love them.

My last post, I went back to the site and didn’t see the Hartz ad where it had been, but it IS there, just off to the side.

Shame on you Cute Overload!!!! Absolutely 100% shame on you! I go there for updates of animals in cute poses and making faces, not to look at advertisements by animal murderers. I wouldn’t care if it was an ad for Hartz cat toys or something, but their flea/tick killers are just terrible. Check out http://www.hartzvictims.org/ for more information on things that have happened. Animals become injured, lose fur and skin, and DIE because of Hartz flea and tick products.

The saddest part to me is not so much that the ad was shown, but that the people in charge of CO are censoring comments by people begging to have the ad taken down. It’s ok to have a battle about whether it’s acceptable to have human babies on the site promoting cute, but not challenging their financial source. They have plenty of ads that I’m sure DO get clicked (like the horrendously expensive ModCloth who’s products can often be found elsewhere) and they have to make at least a little money off that and other ads.

If it was an error in judgment, like say the webmaster didn’t know that Hartz killed animals, that’d be one thing, but they have been informed and have not only ignored, but censored peoples requests.

So I retract my “Hooray” and replace it with a hearty thumbs down and a “BOOOOO CUTE OVERLOAD!”

I love the site, and send it to all my friends, but I have to say that I think it’s a website I can live without if Hartz ads continue to run on the site.

Also make sure to vote for I Can Haz Cheeseburger  at the 2008 Webby Awards! It’s under the “Weird” category.

I checked out Cute Overload again today (and that otter picture…good God. There is too much cute there) and it looked like the Hartz ad had been pulled. Hooray for Cute Overload!

In other news, I’m going to start tap dancing and river dancing in my living room in hopes that just MAYBE my downstairs neighbors get the hint, and turn their tv down.

I was very disturbed this morning to see that Cute Overload had a Hartz flea and tick advertisement right in the middle of their normal submissions. Now, I know nobody actually pays attention to, or clicks, internet ads, it makes me sad that a place so in love with animals would recommend a product that has been known to kill cats and dogs. I’ve heard FIRST HAND from countless people who lost their pets after using a Hartz product. My old boss used the flea stuff and lost her cat within days, he was just a few years old.

So I’ve started working from home as a babysitter to a 4 month old little boy (I believe he’ll be 5 months in a couple weeks)

It’s been an adventure, we’re getting used to each other, and he’s teething so that’s tough. I’m still trying to get into a routine with him as far as eating/sleeping, but I have a feeling that until he’s 100% comfortable here it’ll be something that will be hit or miss.

Other than the teething, he’s a happy baby. He and Alan  have some “boy time” for a while between 11-1:30 or so and they communicate very well. Alan told me last night that he just thought of it this way: He’s 4 months old, doesn’t really know a lot about the world, people are always talking to him and he doesn’t know what they are saying, so Alan put himself into his shoes, and he said that if he was 4 months old and didn’t “get” the world yet, he’d just want to chew on stuff. So they bonded pretty much instantly. It’s nice too because while those two play I take some time and make the bed, clean up the kitchen, make up his lunchtime bottle (the baby’s not Alan’s) and I feed him around the time Alan leaves so he’s starting to doze off shortly after Alan leaves. Perhaps that’s why he keeps waking up mad shortly thereafter and nothing can calm him down!

His parents are really cool people too, they are in the music business, just taking a very quick break to get some life stuff taken care of before they go touring again.

It’s definitely all new to me, I’ve babysat before, but his parents have accommodated me with a swing, a bouncer, as well as a Pack n Play.

Outside that, can I just say how AWESOME the Pack n Play is? I’d seen one previously at my moms but it was an older model and it was just the crib part, and I thought it was cool then. The one I have here now has the changing table attatched and the diaper/wipes thing, and that is just SO COOL. Not only is it a crib/playpen with that stuff attached but it folds into about the size of a box of crackers (well ok how about 2 boxes stacked) and it’s lighter than my cat.

Right now I’m just working my way through his transitional phase and the teething, and we’ll be great. I’m always SUPER paranoid I’m going to accidentally hurt him by like, bumping into something, but so far we’ve been doing really well. I think that’s a natural fear though, because babies are so new and fragile, and I’m sure their not nearly as fragile as I think they are, but I think it’s better to err on the side of caution.

I’ve been making sure to give Benjamin alot of extra attention at night, I had no idea he’d be so jealous. He isn’t taking it out on the baby (both of the cats have been great with him, it’s as if they know he’s not a toy) but he’s pouting alot. MKF just does her own thing and doesn’t really make a big deal but Benjamin is taking it really personally. So after the baby leaves I sit with him and tell him that he’s my baby, and that even though the other baby comes here, and we take care of him, that Benjamin will always be OURS. That seems to make him feel better.

I think that’s about it for the evening, I got a bit of time before Alan gets off, and speaking of MKF I haven’t seen her in a while and I want to go find her.

Ok, there’s alot of chit-chat over the world about all this stuff with the airlines.

First, American Airlines and their cancellations. Whenever a problem is identified with a particular type of aircraft, something that could potentially become a problem in the future, it is taken care of as soon as possible. This is for the safety of airline passengers. Does this mean that the MD-80 you flew on last week through American was a crash risk? Probably not. Most of it comes down to the fact that the news uses scare tactics to keep you watching/reading the news. Most news channels however haven’t bothered with the boring details, that’s it’s just a bundle of wires in the nose of the plane being refitted because it looked like the original refitting didn’t work the way they wanted it to.

What gets me is that people fumed about Southwest Airlines not doing their scheduled inspections (and you were never in danger then either) but now they are fuming when an airline does exactly what they said Southwest should have done. The plain fact is, American doesn’t want the 10 million dollar fine that Southwest got. I’ll put my safety (and the safety of others) over convenience any day. Sit around an airport waiting for another flight, or die in a plane crash? That’s a no brainer folks! I’m not saying that American planes were a crash risk, but the way people are acting, it’s as if they don’t realize that the airlines want you to be safe probably more than they want you to be happy. Yes, the sad truth is thats probably more for liability and insurance reasons, but the fact still remains that they want you alive, not dead.
I’m so sad to see all these airlines going out of business and filing for bankruptcy or bankruptcy protection. Frontier Airlines today filed for protection, and in just the last two weeks we’ve also lost Aloha, ATA and Skybus. For most people, the end of Aloha was no big deal, but for the people who worked there, it was. Not only did these people lose their jobs but some people who were with Aloha had been with them for several decades.

It’s just a sad state of affairs, and I can’t really blame the airlines all that much. With rising fuel prices it’s just as hard on them. They have to make that money somewhere, so they put on fuel surcharges, and people stop buying their tickets. Everyone seems to think that these airlines have tons and tons of money but if that was the case, they wouldn’t be dropping like flies to bankruptcy and Chapter 11.