I am a big clucking chicken...and I'm okay with that

So I am learning today that there are more than a few things that I have just gotten way too old to do and the newest item on the list is being scared.  I no longer enjoy scary movies.  To most people this would not be such a big deal but for me this is huge.  When my 15th birthday was approaching (sooooo many years ago) my friends and I set a goal that I would have watched 500 horror movies by the big day.  I already had a catalog listing the classics like the original Universal monsters and their spinoffs to Rosemary's Baby and such.  I had viewed most of those it was the newer "slasher" movies I was adding to my collection.  At one time I considered going down the road of movie makeup and special effects artist.  CGI was unheard of and movie gore was created in someones kitchen.  Yes I eventually outgrew it all but every year when Halloween rolled around and the cable channels pulled anything remotely scarey out of the bag I enjoyed that little guilty pleasure of a good scare.  Then horror movies changed.  Movies like Saw, Hostel, and their sequels and such came along and went from a good scare to torture.  I am in noooo way saying those slasher movies from the 80's were any better.  Hell no!  But there were rules.  No killing kids or innocent virgins and the deaths were quick and quite frankly they were really cheesy looking.  Yes there are always exceptions.  Jaws would have never been as suspensful if a kid hadn't been eaten early on.  That moment you saw that scene you knew all bets were off and anyone was fair game.  But for the most part those movies were campy but sometimes creepy.  So tonight I rented a newer movie I had not seen yet.  I had seen the directors other work and knew it would be something different and maybe scary.  What I did not count on was a half hour in turning the movie off.  Why?  Too violent or graphic? Nope I just got tired of sitting there watching something with one eye open waiting for the whatever to jump out and scare the crap out of me.  That is exactly what I told my dear husband when he half woke up to realize I was shutting it down.  So now I am wondering what else is going to change.  Is it age is it maturity or is it a feeling of not wanting to be scared for entertainment.  That zen feeling I have come to find so comforting I do not want to let go of.  So yep I am chicken I admit it.  Maybe this Halloween I will have to stick to the guaranteed classics for a good scare.  Halloween,Exorcist,Night of the Living Dead(original black and white please) and many others.  I will leave that newer stuff to a younger generation that gets it.  So does it all just go downhill from here.  Things like this are the reason women in their 40's have babies when their kids they already have are half grown.  It does not make you younger just crazier.  Right now we have a living room full of laughing screaming teenagers sucking down vast quantities of mountain dew and chinese food.  Should be scary enough for now.  I guess the running theme I have been stuck on lately is that I am feeling old and (more importantly) we need a lot more kindness and good and less violence and cruelty and negativity.  Sounds simple but what's wrong with that.  Be friendly to people you come across in your daily travels.  If you look you may see someone in need of a little boost you can give them. 

Smart T.V. a true oxymoron

I admit I am totally guilty of telling customers at work when they ask whats the difference between a smart t.v. and a regular one that the smart t.v.s only play PBS and the history channel.  Come on you would do it too if given the chance.  But it did get me thinking that television is much like the internet in that there is a vast expanse of information out there but you have to avoid the garbage and junk also screaming for your attention.  So I announced to my husband that I only want educational shows on the television in our bedroom. Hahahahaha.  I told him that didn't exclude the music channels that only play music, not videos and commercials.  So history channel,discovery,disc science,etc.  He didn't really argue too much since if he does watch anything it is history or military channel.  So it occured to me as I was playing one of two games I play online what is the difference between sucking out brain cells in front of the television or in front of the computer.  I do tend to get lost online when I go to look for one thing and the next thing I know I am looking at 6 different sites at once.  Then I had to make an exception for old movies.  Classic movies.  It was AMC running a string of Hitchcock movies that made me realize how unrealistic I was being.  And of course there is football on tonight.  So after three days this experiment is over.   I tried.  But I will not allow any housewives,moonshiners,rednecks(get enough of them at work) or any kind of dance or pagent moms
 on my t.v. so even though its not a smart t.v. it isn't STUPID either.  But really I am no entertainment snob I have guilty pleasure shows and movies just like else.  I have found that as I get older I just don't have the time or energy to devote to following these things.  Another thing that popped into my head on the drive home.  I used to have a crazy imagination.  I was a romantic and daydreamed all the time.  And now I don't have the time or energy for that crap either.  Has "real life" totally beat me down?  Am I doomed to a life of cynicism and no hope.  Maybe the fact that I am realizing this and questioning it is enough to prove I haven't fully succumbed to it.  There is a light I can reach for to escape this bleak exsistance.  One thing about me that has not changed over the years is my ability to realize when I have no idea what is going on(daily) and just accept that.  I never understood the appeal of the show Wife Swap.  Just the premise of the show alone tells you if you sign on to do that show you are going to spend two weeks in a world completely backwards from how you live.  Now I get it.  AHHA.  Escaping to the greener grass and realizing it is just as brown as yours but it's really about getting out of your element for that time.  Trying on someone elses shoes for a moment and for once that actually sounds smart now.  Okay enough thinking I have Vertigo on the DVR.

There are still a few good guys out there

If you had asked me 2 hours earlier what I was about to write about I am sure it would have been something trivial maybe somewhat humorous but definitely not what I am about to write now.   This evening I had one of those reaffirming moments proving to myself that we are meant to be where we are at any given moment.  I clocked out of work on time today.  Never happens on a Sunday.  It was pouring rain.  So hard in fact I could barely see my car in the back of the parking lot.  As I exited the store there were about 15 to 20 people waiting under the awning for the rain to let up.  I normally just go for it and head for my car and look like a drowned rat by the time I get there but for some reason I hung back with the group.  It wasn't lightning just rain and wind.  Next thing you know two or three people try and make a run for it.  And wouldn't you know one of them, a woman in her mid sixties I would say, tripped and went face first into the cement.  I think in that moment everyone let out a collective gasp.  But then as I looked and realized she wasn't getting up and nobody was even attempting to move toward helping her.  So I pushed through the group and started to cross the walkway where she was laying in a pool of water.  By the time I got over to her one man had come out of a car waiting to cross the walkway and two gentlemen with umbrellas came over as well.  It was still pouring down on us but they helped to get her up and into a wheelchair where we took her back in the store and got her cleaned up.  I stayed and helped her fill out a report, had a manager get her a towel to cover up with, she was cold.  Then when she was ready I pushed her in the wheelchair back to her car and tried to make sure she was okay.  It just astounded me that so many people stood and looked on as she lay there.  If that had been my mother on the ground I would like to think someone would have gone to her.  As for the three men that did come over and assist.  They were the angels because it took two of them to get her up off the ground.  I don't know if my faith in humanity is waning or growing with the acts of kindness I see after the bad stuff.  Today it should have been a no-brainer.  Senior citizen falls down, in rain, GO HELP.  I really hope the karma falls on the good side though and the guys that came over to help are rewarded for their kindness.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Saturday...my favorite day off of the week.  When everyone else is home too and we spend our day doing random errands but we are together mostly.  When I don't have to be up at 5 A.M but 6 A.M. instead.  And of course the afternoon lunch with my two favorite chickas even when my sister is being a controlling bossy pain in the ass.  We always have fun.  Today was a little too much of the running from place to place to place.  Driving through four different cities back and forth.  I found myself at a point I didn't want to talk anymore just listen.  I just wanted to go home and climb back into bed.  Not an option when you are sitting in the backseat letting others make the decisions.  It was a good day just too much.  Too much everything.  Is it wrong that by the time Sunday rolls around I look forward to the security blanket of work knowing EXACTLY what I will be doing all day and being in charge of everything around me.  I am missing having my own place and the solitude of being in a room alone in the quiet for even just a little while.  The years I was a stay at home mom I loved my mornings when the kids and husband were out of the house and I could keep the television off and just enjoy the silence.  Depeche Mode was onto something there.  I want to simplify everything.  I have a cousin I am in touch with online who is same age as me.  In the last few years she has turned her life around going natural and green and healthy.  She now grows the majority of food for her family.  They go to local dairy for milk and such that is all hormone free.  She looks amazing and most of all happy.  I realized I strive to have that.  I love my family but it is all about what are we buying this week here.  We are a nation of consumers.  I want to stay out of that circle as much as I can.  I have been considering more and more the suggestion that I move up a level at work.  It would be more a matter of waiting for the right opening to come along but I think I should.  I have said that the position I am in now allows me to be more creative but the reality is I still spend more days than not hating my job.  I still feel like a hamster on a wheel and if that is the case why not try and get a bigger wheel.  So I have to start putting it out there that I am ready to take that next step and move up.  The payoff...possibly making enough money to live off of, modestly of course.  Then again maybe major life decisions should not be made having drunk a cappucino, hazelnut macciato, and three cups of really strong coffee.  I tend to get a little impulsive.  Let's see how I feel tomorrow when I am in charge of the hamster cage for the day.

Cruelty needs to stop now

No focus is not one of my strengths but I will attempt to use it today.  First thing I HAVE TO get out there is What the hell is wrong with people!?  Once again in the news a case of a 12year old girl killing herself because she felt she could not live with the bullying. TWELVE YEARS OLD and she had been bullied for years.  To the point her parents pulled her out of elementary school and home schooled her for some time before she went to middle school.  We are raising little killer pit bull children out there that cannot see the damage they are doing to other human beings here.   So who do we place the blame on in this situation?  Do we blame the kids doing the bullying, assuming they are about the same age as this young girl.  At 12 we have a full sense of what it means to be mean to someone and to hurt someone.  Do they realize the long term damage they inflict, probably not, but they are VERY aware of the pain right here and now.  So yes.  Do we blame the parents of said kids for (1) not being aware of what their children were up to.  The first time she was being bullied it was physical in-your-face bullying. This last time it was cyber bullying.  And yes if you take your child off the internet they don't see the mean things people say but as soon as you send that child to school everyone around them has seen these things and will tell the person.   Parents need to realize letting your child roam free online unsupervised is the equivalent of dropping them off in the middle of the city at night alone and saying "do whatever you are on your own".  or (2) they knew and allowed their children to treat another person this way and maybe are the person who created the bully by being one themselves.  Again, training little pit bull children. Teaching them to spot a persons weakness and tear them apart.  I see this daily at work.  Adults who treat their children worse than dogs and children who know nothing but cruelty.  So yes they are at fault too.  There is no shortage of antibullying messages out there in the mainstream media.  There could be more but I think what we really need is a focus on reaching those children who are suffering and helping them.  Helping them to see that there is life after middle school and high school and nobody should EVER have the kind of power over our lives to the point they decide we are not worth living.  Empowerment.  Not just living but thriving.  Taking back the power the bullies have and saying NO MORE! Letting that girl or boy know they are beautiful and loved and unique and they have the whole world ahead of them.  The best revenge really is living well.  Being happy.  I was a bullied teen.  Ages 12,13 and 14 the worst.  The hell years.  Feeling worthless and buying into all the evil things that people said and did.  I tried avoiding it.  Making myself invisible.  When pushed to the point I could no longer miss school I was forced to go to school principal.  Still remember to this day sitting in the office with three of the ringleaders of a group of about 15.  To hear their fake proclamations of surprise and shock that they thought I was their friend and how I must have misunderstood the situation they actually liked me.  Of course the principal bought everything they said hook line and sinker and the bus ride home was worse than ever after that.  Even after making friends the next year and finding people I connected with and starting to come out of my shell the damage was done.  The complete lack of self worth and feeling of despair was enough I tried to take my own life.  The worst thing I have ever done but it was the beginning of turning things around too.  Sitting in an emergency room looking at the pain on my parents faces I knew that suicide would never be an option.  I remember the doctors in the er scolding me telling me how selfish I was for trying that and I thought they were cruel and had no idea but it eventually sunk in they were right.  What scares me is if I had succeeded.  I had no idea at 14 the turns my life would take.  I would have missed out on my children and husband and friends and jobs and celebrations and a million moments that would not have happened or I would not have been there for.  This is the stuff we need to get through to these children that are hurting.  And I wonder...even though they don't deserve the thought but what about the people that bullied this girl.  What was their reaction to this.  Will they live with the guilt of this for the rest of their life or are they so disconnected from humanity did they laugh it off.  If that is the case they will continue. What are we as humans if not the sum of our actions.  How we treat each other.