One of the most amusing things about our relationship is before we were even dating, a bunch of us were in my college dorm rooming going through one of those 'find your perfect mate with your Zodiac' books - it was a Chinese Zodiac books. For S&G's we paired up everyone to see who was compatible. I was born in the year of the Rooster - hubby in the year of the Monkey. He was a college friend at the time and in the room, so of course we got paired up. The Chinese Zodiac book basically told us to run screaming from one another - which we found amusing (we started dating about 6 months after this...naturally).  It was something I always found funny. Since it's Valentine's Day, a bunch of compatibility stuff has been popping up on Yahoo. Here's what the Chinese Zodiac one had to say about us:

................

Compatibility of the ROOSTER (Birthdate: 11/29/69 and the MONKEY
(Birthdate: 02/08/69)  The Monkey and Rooster are so different they
may have difficulty maintaining a relationship of any kind. Both will vie for
control. The Rooster will find the Monkey to be an extreme showoff. The Monkey
may consider the Rooster a stick in the mud. It is hard to envision this
pairing as successful lovers. Their overall compatibility rating is 40%.

If you know us at all, you know how hysterically funny I find this. But, here's a Western Zodiac Compatibility for today - obviously, since it was Valentine's Day - it wasn't going to tell anyone not to date - you don't sell a lot of diamonds that way:

................................

When Sagittarius and Aquarius join together in a love match, Aquarian ideals
and Sagittarian knowledge combine to make them a creative and unique couple.
This partnership is uninhibited, and while it can get competitive with these
two, there's never a dull moment! Underneath any romantic overtone, there
exists a great friendship; their Signs are two apart and this tends to give
them an ability to communicate well as well as an excellent rapport. Both are
idealistic and excited about life, and together they enjoy great times.
Together, the two can fly without fear of falling. ....

Many Sagittarius-Aquarius relationships enjoy the feeling of mutual
admiration. Sagittarius is attracted to Aquarius's individuality, vision and
creative capacity. Aquarius admires Sagittarian excellence and initiative --
Sagittarius is always coming up new ideas, but they aren't always able to carry
them out the way Aquarius can. Both Signs relish their independence, and there
aren't many conflicts because each understands this about the other. At times,
Sagittarius may seem too selfish for Aquarius, who in turn may be too out-there
for their Sagittarian partner. As long as they communicate their happiness
about the relationship, they will overcome any bumps in the road, major or
minor. ....

Sagittarius is ruled by the Planet Jupiter and Aquarius is ruled by the
Planets Saturn and Uranus. These three Planets form a sort of cycle that
typifies the Sagittarius-Aquarius relationship, especially their ability to see
eye-to-eye. Uranus is the Planet of new ideas and creativity; it's from this
Planet that Aquarius gets its grandiose ideas. Then Jupiter steps in with its
influences toward higher learning, expansion and abundance. Finally Saturn keeps
the process going to completion, following up after Uranus's inspiration has
been exhausted and Jupiter's energy moves on to new things. ....

Sagittarius is a Fire Sign and Aquarius is an Air Sign. Air fuels Fire and
keeps it going much in the same way that Aquarius can inspire Sagittarius to
make great leaps. Sagittarius can keep up with the Water Bearer's tendency to
engage in experiments based on futuristic ideas. When they come together, they
are an innovative, inventive team! Aquarius and Sagittarius use intellect and a
sense of adventure to gain new experiences -- each fosters creativity in the
other. Both Signs have a wide variety of interests, and Sagittarius's need to
get in on the action gives them ease with which to put the plans of the
idea-generating Aquarius into action. ....

Sagittarius is a Mutable Sign and Aquarius is a Fixed Sign. Sag rolls with
the punches and is happy to stop what they are doing to tend to other matters.
Aquarius is slightly less adjustable, more into sustaining a project already in
progress as long as they are passionate about its completion. Aquarius can help
situate and resolve issues rather than jumping blindly into new ones, whereas
Sagittarius is happy to drift from one subject to the next as the mood takes
them. They are both loyal and devoted to one another, and they can get past a
lot together. ....

What's the best aspect of the Sagittarius-Aquarius relationship? It's their
ability to resolve difficult issues when they put their hearts in the matter.
Mutable Fire and Fixed Air cover all the bases: These partners can stick with
an idea once it's firmly implanted. Their formidable combination makes theirs a
relationship of outward motion as well as inward depth.

So anyway, I generally think Zodiac stuff is 'just for fun' and I found the contrast of these two things, that I pulled up within minutes, screamingly funny.  Hope everyone had a good day - hope you can look beyond the commercial flogging this holiday always gets and took the time to tell loved ones that they were indeed loved.
....

So, for those of you who haven't been keeping in touch lately (shame on you anyway)....

Most of you already know that hubby's mother passed away in November. It was one of those things - she was in horrible pain and it was time, but it was still hard. It hit the boy very hard - coupled with his not very smooth transition into Middle School, we've all been having a lot of problems. But, seeing a family counselor has been a huge help and we all seem to be finally climbing our way out of the muck of little 'd' depression.

Looks like we'll be on the move again here fairly soon. Could be as early as November of this year, but will more than likely not be until November of 2010. We're looking at going overseas again, but are looking at a lot of options right now.  Mainly I want to get the boy into a much better school system.

Both my nieces are graduating early this summer - the older one from college, the younger one from high school. I'm so very proud of both of them and torn about getting out to see both, which is going to be very tough. It's been hard to stay close and be a good aunt living so far away for so long. They are both just incredible young women and I am so proud of both of them. One of those times when you truly wish money did grow on trees...

In general, things are starting to smooth out a little. The hubby will put on his next rank the end of this month, so yay him. Hope everyone else is making it through 2009 so far.

Keep in touch guys, please? I love hearing from everyone and will do my best to answer emails.....

Wow. Just wow. Clark County (Nevada) School District gets an 'F' in Civics, Political Science and American History.

It NEVER occurred to me that my son would not be watching the first African American President get sworn in at school yesterday. Had I known, I would have kept him at home and just taken the damn unexcused absence.  When he got home from school yesterday I asked what he thought about the President's speech. He explained he hadn't seen it - that his 1st and 3rd period teachers only had the TV on for a few minutes - the main thing he was concerned about was Senator's Kennedy's collapse during the luncheon - that was the only thing he knew about it.  The swearing in and speech would have occurred during his 2nd period class, which was computer science. Yesterday was his first day in that class (they have gym the other half of the school year) and what were they doing instead of watching a truly great moment in American History? Writing down vocabulary words, sharing 'getting to know you' stories and playing GAMES ON THE COMPUTER! I really really thought that it must just be that the computer teacher was an idiot with no awareness, but once I called the school and spoke to the principal, it really hit home just how much they didn't care.  The principal said there were no guidelines from the District and that she had left it up to the discretion of the individual teachers.  I was flabbergasted when she told me that she hadn't watched it either - she was at another school observing teachers (who clearly didn't watch the damn thing either!). She was really sorry, but didn't know what to say.

So I emailed his 2nd period teacher. My son is not the best at A) paying attention or B) relaying a coherent account of events that occur at school. So, I thought, rashly giving this teacher the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she had told them at the beginning of class they if they wanted, they could watch CSPAN or something on the computer and he just wasn't paying attention. But no. I got a truly terse and disheartening response from his teacher, complete with bad grammar:

I am so very, very tired of adults who are bullies. I had to deal with one directly today (one of my son's teachers) and then later, the fall out from a 2nd one. I hate to sound simplistic or pollyanna-ish, but I do not understand what makes grown people act like they are 12 and still stealing little girls' lunch money.

Okay. So, shocker here...I'm not perfect. So there...saved you from saying it. I enjoy a good juicy gossip, just like most women (and men too, though most of you won't admit it), but I try very hard not to spread the hurtful shit. Truly, people in the groups I hang out with have no flippin' idea the secrets I carry around about other people that I never share. But you know what? I'll tell you the same things to your face if you ask. I hate that passive-aggressive bullshit where people can't come out and say what they want to say and either say veiled, cutting things or even more cowardly, have others do their dirty work.

Guess what? If you are over the age of 18, you are officially, legally, morally and contractually an adult. That means if you bully others, act in passive aggressive fashion, lie when confronted for your bullshit behaviour and generally flounce around like Princess Pretty-foo-foo Pants whose shit doesn't smell, ya need to get smacked. And I wish I was the one to smack a bitch. And I'm just right out on the tip of that emotional branch right now. You know the branch? That twiggy looking one that the fat cat sits on that's just barely clinging to the tree? Yeah. That's where I'm at. And I think I've had enough emotional upheaval in the last three weeks that if I WERE to slap a bitch, I might get away with it. Maybe we could sell tickets. Baronial fundraiser anyone?

I'm scared to think of what my blood pressure is right now - I can feel that little green vein throbbing at my temple.

I_just_don't_know_ why_ people bully. I've NEVER understood. I always try very hard to excuse people's behaviour and I've been teaching my son the same thing. They had a bad day, they didn't get the little red tricycle when they were 5 for Christmas, they have a horrible disease that secretly disfigures them, WHATEVER, but what the fuck?!? When you are a 50-ish something year old woman, you would THINK you would have gained enough experience and self-knowledge not to only find pleasure in the world when you are ruining the game for someone else.

Oh my god. My left eyeball is throbbing now - that's probably bad. I hope it doesn't pop out. Does that mean I have an aneurysm?

Luckily, for me and for her, I don't know her address. I suppose that's best. Cuz don't think I wouldn't be over there right now writing CUNT in her font lawn with salt (yup - do it right after it rains, that shit is burned into the grass for months). Yeah. That's right - I wrote that word. I meant it too. Sue me.

I think I better go to bed now before I write anything worse. Is there anything worse than cunt you can call another woman? I'm taking suggestions. I need a better, more shocking word to express my outrage and anger.

I found this very eloquent, especially for a former ESPN dude.....

SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
msnbc.com
updated 8:13 p.m. CT, Mon., Nov. 10, 2008

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."

From the News of the Weird Website......

Ironies:

Evolution scientists at Switzerland's University of Lausanne reported in June that over the course of 30 to 40 generations, ordinary flies tend to live longer if they're stupid. The researchers guessed that heightened neural activity overtaxed their systems.

[Agence France-Presse, 6-4-08]

This touched me and I wanted to share.


By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, Associated Press Writer

WARSAW, Poland - Irena Sendler — credited with saving some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, some of them in baskets — died Monday, her family said. She was 98.

Sendler, among the first to be honored by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as a Righteous Among Nations for her wartime heroism, died at a Warsaw hospital, daughter Janina Zgrzembska told The Associated Press.

President Lech Kaczynski expressed "great regret" over Sendler's death, calling her "extremely brave" and "an exceptional person." In recent years, Kaczynski had spearheaded a campaign to put Sendler's name forward as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker with the city's welfare department when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, launching World War II. Warsaw's Jews were forced into a walled-off ghetto.

Seeking to save the ghetto's children, Sendler masterminded risky rescue operations. Under the pretext of inspecting sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, she and her assistants ventured inside the ghetto — and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and in trams, sometimes wrapped up as packages.

Teenagers escaped by joining teams of workers forced to labor outside the ghetto. They were placed in families, orphanages, hospitals or convents.

Records show that Sendler's team of about 20 people saved nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and its final liquidation in April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.

"Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory," Sendler said in 2007 in a letter to the Polish Senate after lawmakers honored her efforts in 2007.

In hopes of one day uniting the children with their families — most of whom perished in the Nazis' death camps — Sendler wrote the children's real names on slips of paper that she kept at home.

When German police came to arrest her in 1943, an assistant managed to hide the slips, which Sendler later buried in a jar under an apple tree in an associate's yard. Some 2,500 names were recorded.

"It took a true miracle to save a Jewish child," Elzbieta Ficowska, who was saved by Sendler's team as a baby in 1942, recalled in an AP interview in 2007. "Mrs. Sendler saved not only us, but also our children and grandchildren and the generations to come."

Anyone caught helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland risked being summarily shot, along with family members — a fate Sendler only barely escaped herself after the 1943 raid by the Gestapo.

The Nazis took her to the notorious Pawiak prison, which few people left alive. Gestapo agents tortured her repeatedly, leaving Sendler with scars on her body — but she refused to betray her team.

"I kept silent. I preferred to die than to reveal our activity," she was quoted as saying in Anna Mieszkowska's biography, "Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Story of Irena Sendler."

Zegota, an underground organization helping Jews, paid a bribe to German guards to free her from the prison. Under a different name, she continued her work.

After World War II, Sendler worked as a social welfare official and director of vocational schools, continuing to assist some of the children she rescued.

"A great person has died — a person with a great heart, with great organizational talents, a person who always stood on the side of the weak," Warsaw Ghetto survivor Marek Eldeman told TVN24 television.

In 1965, Sendler became one of the first so-called Righteous Gentiles honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for wartime heroics. Poland's communist leaders at that time would not allow her to travel to Israel; she collected the award in 1983.

Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said Sender's "courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the innate goodness of mankind."

Despite the Yad Vashem honor, Sendler was largely forgotten in her homeland until recent years. She came to the world's attention in 2000 when a group of schoolgirls from Uniontown, Kan., wrote a short play about her called "Life in a Jar."

It went on to garner international attention, and has been performed more than 200 times in the United States, Canada and Poland.

Sendler, born Irena Krzyzanowska, said she lived according to her physician father's teachings, arguing that "people can be only divided into good or bad; their race, religion, nationality don't matter."

She married Mieczyslaw Sendler but they divorced after the war's end. Sendler then married fellow underground activist Stefan Zgrzembski, and they had two sons and a daughter. One died a few days after birth. The second son, Adam, died of a heart failure in 1999.

Sendler is survived by her daughter and a granddaughter.

Good god. I am not sure what sort of karmic debt I am working through lately, but it just seems like everyone outside of my immediate circle of close friends and family just needs to act like an asshat. All of 'em. Why?

Because I was raised in the 'chronic apologiser' mode, when there is a problem, I tend to look to myself first. What did I do wrong? What could _I_ have done better. But you know what? Some of you fuckers are just mean and wrong and want to cause conflict and DON'T have anyone's best interest at heart (even your own).

I made a resolution at New Year's to be better at saying no. To stop volunteering to do things that I didn't want to do. To set clearer limits of what things I didn't _want_ to do but was semi-willing to do.

I recognize my many MANY imperfections. I strive very hard to be honest, to be fair, to be good, to be nice. No, I don't always succeed and no, sometimes just trying is NOT enough, it IS the succeeding that is important. I recognize that too. Yay me. But one of my biggest failings is that because I tend to be relatively motive free (as much as a human can be) in that if I give you a piece of cake, it's because I like you and want you to have piece of cake - it's not because I hope that three years down the road I will be able to turn to you and say aha! I gave you a piece of cake! Now YOU owe ME.

So, when people act like total asshats, it really sets me back. I try so very hard to give them the 'bad childhood,bad day, bad work/home/money situation, just plain ugly or dumb' overlay so as to excuse their actions. But now I'm questioning my motives. Maybe I'm not being realistic. Maybe all people really ARE conniving assholes who only want to cause problems.

One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn in life is to admit when I screw up. It took me a long time to get there and a lot of ugly lessons learned. About how much mental pain you cause yourself when you try to cover up your mistakes and go to great lengths to make sure no one knew you fucked up. I now tend to be pretty public about it when I make a mistake. I own it. I offer suggestions on how to fix it. I try to fix it myself if I can. And usually, that's the end of it.

But add to that, now I feel like I am in a position where I should be setting a good example. Rather than going off on someone and telling them exactly what I think of them, I follow the rules. I tell my boss. I take appropriate action. Unfortunately, this rarely seems to work. Why? Nobody else seems to want to play this way. They want everything to be someone else's problem and/or don't want to admit that they've caused a problem and perhaps I am adding to that by trying to follow the rules, rather than dealing with things myself.

I'm thinking pretty seriously about subscribing to someone I love's working premise - in that people are just assholes and then things can only go up from there.

This song popped into my head tonight, can't tell you why, but it's my current profile song - huge is the number of memories this brought back. This was one of my all time favorite songs to dance to in clubs. I had never seen the video before tonight. And no, I don't know what the hell is up with the eggs - some sort of Belgian post-Modern take on Humpty Dumpty, or sumpin'. Teeny bit of nudity (nothing shocking, but probably not something you want your boss watching over your shoulder).

Okay, so am I the only one who has noticed in that last couple of years that people now have the need to immortalize a loved one.....in die-cut letter stickers on the back of their freakin’ car window? Where did this trend start? And _why_ the hell did this trend start?

Now, I loved my grandma. She died last year at the age of 90 after living a pretty full life. I loved her enough to go see her in the nursing home, when she didn’t have a clue who I was, etc. It was upsetting, but I was glad I did it. But at no point, in the 9 months since she died, have I felt the need to put any information about her life or death on the back window of my freakin’ Ford F-150!

Is this really the society we are becoming? Personally, if I had lost a small child in the last year (and these are the ones that really get me), I have a hard time believing that for one second, it’s going to not be on my mind. But yeah, just in case....let me remind myself by sticking ’Beloved Angel’ in 6" high reflective letters on the back of my tricked out Honda along with beloved angel’s date of birth & death. Yup. That’s parental love for ya.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not sentimental enough. Maybe I foolishly feel like I loved my loved ones and showed them love while they were alive and so I don’t need to work out any guilt ON THE BACK OF MY CAR! Let me now state, for the record, that any loved ones of mine who are still alive after I shuffle off this mortal coil are in NO WAY obligated to announce ANYTHING about me on the backs of their cars. Say it in marble, people! Even better, say it at the crematorium and then plant a tree. Jeez!

UPDATE

Oh good god! I was googling to find an image of this to include in case somebody hadn’t noticed this - there are COMPANIES that will print these out for you to sell.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/fashion/sundaystyles/11DECALS.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
That’s it. That sound you hear? That clippity clop? Yup. Four horsemen.