COMPUTER COLONICS

“And there were reports that while Randy Acevedo was being handcuffed in front of the State Attorney’s building in Key West, a group of female supporters, some maybe teachers, screamed like demented Manson family members at police as they carted him off to be booked into jail.” ~ Let’s try, ‘Real Reform: Whatever it Takes’ By David Goodhue

If I remember correctly, Goodhue moved here only a few years ago so don’t go thinking that locals have suddenly discovered common sense or even a sense or proper perspective. The real question I want answered is … why didn’t Acevedo just turn himself in like his wife eventually did, without the drama? I thought he was pretty normal — I mean — by Keys standards.

His predecessor could not get out of the Keys fast enough.

I talked with the Superintendant before Acevedo on the phone once, and my impression was, he was amused and completely appalled by the gossipy, in-fighing that is local politics here in the Keys. The politics of personal destruction is an art form here and the Acevedos are not going down so easy, because they are in the clique so deep that only an outsider would dare say boo to them, much less call them on thievery and fraud. And that outsider would be raked over the gossip coals and spit out half dead when the confrontation was over. God help them if they have a family here because the kids are not off limits in the fights that go on. The former Principal of an elementary school is on the list for Christ to appoint. She listened in on teacher phone calls and read every single email coming and going from that school. She issued an edict that all gossip had to go through her and if she caught anyone gossiping on their own, they would be fired - or worse. I am just paraphrasing the letter she sent out to teachers and parents. Acevedo did his best to fire her. He only succeeded in demoting her back to teacher. It would be an interesting twist if Christ gave her Acevedo’s job, wouldn’t it? Nothing would get past her - definitely.

I am off work today - I think - but Dave is working so I am debating the ToDo list over Irish Breakfast tea and a bagel.  This is going to be one of those posts that will have readers convinced that their lives are perfectly normal - which is why they seek glimpses into mine.  When people see just s little of what goes one in my head and my house, they feel a sense of contentment in the knowledge that - no matter how screwed up they are - they are on solid ground by comparison. 

On the ToDo list today is a note. I have a magnetic thingy on the fridge where Dave and TO2 write stuff down for the next, epic grocery shopping trip– which is not happening today but you need to know what I am ignoring as much as what I am not ignoring for the full entropic effect.

List:
• ♥ Cranberry Juice
• ♥ Big f’ing bag of f’ing rice. These little f’ing bags that make one dinner and a little f’ing left over f’ing SUCK!

He spelled out the f word but this is a PG rated blog so I concatenated.  Dave is referring to the cute little bags of jasmine or basmati rice that I buy, which always - if measured correctly - leave about a 1/2 cup of rice in the bag which is not enough for one family meal.  I have about 3 ziplocked 1/2 cup bags in the pantry.  I figure one more and that’s a meal.  It is possible to buy a gargantuan bag of basmati rice - not jasmine though I don’t think, but once I suspected that this issue drove Dave nuts I stuck with the cute little bags that say they re-seal but don’t. We have been married for … a really long time.  Neither of us can even really remember which small passive-aggressive act of revenge triggered the next, but our house is one twitchy little particle of cruelty after another, none of which can be attached to a previous transgression but deep down we know it’s deserved.  Still.  We bitch.

Don’t try to help with shopping suggestions.  Just.  Don’t.  I realize that most of you probably plan menus and take great joy in a well organized home.  You probably know the brand, store and what shelf the large bag of rice sits on and some of you freaks - I’m not pointing out Eva specifically - probably know the exact price this week and — you have coupons.  None of you understand, and you have never understood, the truly dark side that lurks in me.  If you did you would run screaming into the night and never read this blog, call or write me again and feel fortunate that you escaped unscathed.  Now that I know for certain how much this small thing annoys Dave, there will be a case of small jasmine and basmati rice bags purchased on the next, epic, grocery shopping trip.

So much for the grocery shopping list.

The big ToDo’s today are as follows:

♥   Forensic cleaning of the Miata.  The drought has kept me from really washing that car and it is a grime encrusted critter.  I am going to risk arrest for using the hose, I’m sure, but it has to be done.  This is no ordinary cleaning.  If done the right way, I would call in Hazmat to deal with the remains of iguana poo on the rag top and bug bomb the interior followed by a full wipe-down and a vacuuming session from hell, guaranteed to deposit about twenty dollars in change into the collection bag.  During this process and entirely new batch of wild life will probably sneak in and start nesting.  It’s a convertible.  There’s no real way to keep things out except for TO2 - who hates my car.  He and Dave nicknamed it the “Whistling little S&*t box.”  … OK.  It does whistle at about 90 mph.  Part of its charm.  I love that little car.  The fact that Dave and TO2 hate it is also part of its charm.

♥   Finish painting and restoring the haunted bathroom off the Kitchen.  This bathroom is haunted.  There is no other way to describe it.  When you see a light switch flipping on and off repeatedly with no one touching it at two am and the cats won’t go near it … when a perfect round hole appears in a pipe inside the wall and no picture was ever hung there, no hole in the drywall exists, no varmint or vermin signs are found and yet the hole is there and the bathroom is ruined, along with the kitchen and no one can explain it … when things fall off the wall that were solidly attached and for the third time you have to replace the ceiling because something weird is going on between the floors but no one can figure out what it is, even after the thing is stripped down to bare wood and pipes … I don’t care if you don’t believe, the damned thing is haunted as hell.  It’s also a pain in the ass because this is the third or fourth renovation.  I suspect the ghost dislikes the semi-tropical, Mexican decor.  Well.  Bathroom ghost can KISS MY ASS.  The decor stays the same.  I just used a slightly darker tan colored paint to make it more ethnic.  Small cruelties.  It’s a sign of an advanced, civilized, but still slightly savage race.

♥   Bill and home office organization.  What can I say?  Office Depot had a sale.  I have a full blown office in a room off the front door, but currently I can barely get in there because all the stuff from the haunted bathroom is in there.  So.  With the bathroom done, I can clear out the crap and get the office organized again.  Right now I am writing and working in the bedroom at the vanity.  There is a HUGE vanity mirror right the hell in front of me as a type and this makes me nuts.  No one should be able to see themselves when writing - ever.  It’s just weird.  So.  Big garbage cans are coming up the stairs; full garbage cans are going back down the stairs.  Bills, paperwork and documentation are being reorganized into cute, leaf green containers and getting labels.  It has occurred to me that Dave and I may reach critical mass soon on the cascading list of deliberate annoyances, and when it’s over, someone will appreciate a well organized, labeled and sorted office when they have to sift through paperwork for Wills and things.

And there you have it.  The dog needs walking and then I am hitting the list.  Happy Friday to all of you.  Have a safe, July 4th weekend.

There are a few people I trust and believe (but verify periodically) when it comes to the economy. Rick can put this one down as a conservative conspiracy if he likes, but I post this quote in all seriousness. Taleb is someone worth listening to.

“We’re in the middle of a crash.” ~ Nassim Taleb, author of “The Black Swan

I am reading his book. It meanders a little but is loaded with fascinating ponderables.

What is a Black Swan event?

An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that would be extremely difficult to predict …

… is one way of explaining it, but it’s also about a refusal to recognize the significance of that occurrence and its affect on your life.

Just as an example from my own personal conversations here in S. Fla, I can say that many Cubans thought their exit from the island was temporary. Many cemented family valuables under tiles in the floors of their homes - sure they would return soon to reclaim their wealth and their lives. It’s been - what? Fifty years? Plans have been passed down from family member to family member over generations on who is designated to go when Castro falls and reclaim the ancestral estate. They did not recognize the “Black Swan” for what it was when it appeared and they definitely did not see it coming. People have this odd blind spot when it comes to history in the making. They don’t see the significance of what is happening and can’t project what it means and where it will lead because they base their projections on what they know and believe is true right now.

The world is not a static place and we are not static beings, but for some reason we are trapped mentally in static beliefs. Why is that? It’s weird.

In anycase, if you have not been paying attention here’s a head’s up that most of you won’t believe regardless of what I say.

We.are.in.the.middle of.a.crash.

Just for fun, because I am pretty much demoralized by the news lately and in need of a distraction –

Oh hey!  Big Brother starts soon, doesn’t it?  I can’t wait!  Love that show. 

Where was I?  Revenge.  I received two emails this weekend that were kind of fun and was given permission to share a bit.  The first was a super poke demanding that I get off my ass and get another book published.  Heard that before and I usually resist red fonts, all caps, and people clearly paid by Ann Vremont to specifically harass me.  It read:

Is Revenge.EXE ever coming out? I would really like to read some more from you. I loved Revenge Gifts and have re-read it several times. Hell, I’ll buy a direct e-book if you don’t have a publisher for it.

You can see why I thought it was Ann.  I mean, who else is actually waiting for Envy.exe?  My mom?  So I accused the emailer of being a friend of Ann and it was her response that really got my attention and made the day interesting.

Surprisingly no.
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I have bought and loaned out several copies of RG and they never come back! My friends loan them to other friends, etc. You are an underground sensation in the hoodoo/magical community in Tx.Well, this week my sister handed me a copy and told me I had to read THIS! It was fantastic! Hated to tell her it was my book to begin with. (Her TBR pile has a room of its own.) No one gets the autographed copy I won from your site.
.
It did get me thinking that I hadn’t heard anything in ages since a brief blurb about .exe on one of your blogs. (POKEPOKEPOKE)

I am an underground sensation in the hoodoo/magical community in Texas. That is … one of the nicest compliments I think I’ve ever gotten. Texas being Texas, I can’t imagine there are more than a handful of hoodoo\magical people there - but I like the fact that

a. They aren’t calling BS on my research and facts in the book

and

b. They are passing it around so it doesn’t end up in a dumpster.

Thank you.

The second email –

But Cindy! You didn’t answer her question about the second book! OMGWTHBBQ - you are NOT dodging this yet again are you? You said you were sending it out.

I didn’t send it - k? Haven’t sent it. Don’t have the rights back from TOR on the first and, quite frankly, the very idea of having to deal with a publisher or editor after the things I’ve seen gives me frick’n nightmares. At some point my desire to entertain someone other than myself will overcome my fear of another publisher\agent fiasco and I will send it - or maybe just self-publish because I am that big of a baby - but not today.

The SECOND email  –

 … was from a friend who clipped an article from a place I lived when Dave and I first got married.

A revenge website with a decidedly darker edge than mine.

There are some very strange people out there.  Just Say’n.

Link

Man. And I’ve just had the lowest opinion of people in Des Moines because of a certain blogger and her relatives and here I get my ass handed to me with an example of one unbelievably amazing resident of that city. Sadly the woman’s husband died, but what a rescue.

“Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can’t repeal that reality.”

~ The Cap and Tax Fiction
Democrats off-loading economics to pass climate change bill

I actuallly watched Waxman at work on C-Span for a few hours and I could not get out of my head the thought that, here is a man from California, a state that will not allow new power plants to be built inside state lines, a state that Enron bent over and treated like a house cat back in the 90’s because of their insane energy policy and taxes - here is a man who freely and openly said in front of god and everyone that he did not read the bill he is pushing through for President Obama and special interest groups. I couldn’t get past the fact that, of all the people in the House of Representatives and the Senate, he is the least qualified to even speak on this bill much less be the man in charge.

I get into it with Eva and Ann on the man caused Global Warming issue frequently and I have not been swayed from my belief that it’s a colossal scam. The scientist who originally theorized it has spoken against what is being done. I believe we should be good stewards of the planet. We should recycle, reduce polution, modernize our energy policies and protect our wild places for future generations. That’s just common sense. But Global Warming cause by human beings is complete bunk and the Cap & Trade bill coming up for a vote tomorrow is a massive power grab by the government, a massive tax hike on every man woman and child in this country, and - if Europe is the future - their Cap & Trade plan realized an increase in greenhouse gasses of over 6% whereas here, with no cap and trade, we actually reduced ours by almost a full percent.

This bill is insane and my Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is planning to vote “Yes”.

It’s 1200 pages long. No one has read the bill. No one has really debated the bill. And tomorrow they are going to shove what the Wall Street Journal calls the most massive tax hike in American history down our throats.

I don’t care what political party you belong to, your energy bill will increase by several hundred dollars year. Your schools will be paying approximately $10k more per year - the cost of a teacher’s assistant? The cost of all goods will have to go up and everyone, poor or not, will see their expenses go up.

Now. I happen to think this is worthy of at least a day of discussion before we go under. Hell I even think it may be worth sending an email off to a Congressman. Ask her why she supports this. Ask her if she has read the entire bill. Enquiring minds would really like to know.

“Before today, the bill ran a little over 1,000 pages. Early this morning, Waxman dropped a 300-page amendment into it.” ~ HotAir.com

Snipers taking out protestors. Heart shots - so this is not random.

The torture of a 17-year-old in Iran
A teenager’s story, with graphic photos, of abuse at the hands of Iran’s religious paramilitaries, the Basij