The Air We Breathe

Clean air at Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite, CA

Air is something we all take for granted. So is breathing. Yesterday while at Walmart I started having a funny feeling in my throat and couldn't help but cough. Being around the food I was very self-consious and coughed into my elbow. "Great," I thought, "I haven't coughed all season and it hits me right when I'm in the middle of the grocery store." I tried swallowing to get rid of the dry tickle, but since that didn't work I shopped quickly to get out of the store as soon as possible.

In the checkout line, the lady in front of me was coughing a great deal.  The customer told the cashier that several people in the store were coughing uncontrollably. My eavesdropping ears perked up as as the cashier informed her that management was reviewing surveillance tapes. Usually I don't butt into others' conversations, but I was intrigued (and a little anxious that I would be blamed for starting a cold epidemic by coughing in the food section). The cashier informed me that someone had sprayed pepper spray in the store and hopefully the culprit would be caught.

Whew! I was off the hook. But on the other hand I was upset that I was subjected to something so ugly. Just how safe is the air we breathe? How can we protect ourselves from stupid people who think it's funny to spray pepper spray in public? Even more important, how can we protect ourselves from someone dangerous who sprays something more toxic into our air? Luckily, my coughing cleared up shortly after leaving the store.

Advertising

My kids are suckers for advertising. They memorize all the ads and jingles from TV and the radio. Then they relate them to life in all kinds of ways. When M was small she was sitting in the car with Grandma, stuck in traffic. Grandma said, "It looks like we're gonna be awhile." M answered, "We should have a Snickers." At the time, that was the catch phrase for Snickers.

Today we went down to the Big City to do some shopping. Mr. C wanted to go to Dick's Sporting Goods. I asked him what he wanted to look at. He answered he didn't know. I told him we usually just go to stores with a purpose, in order to look at something specific. He replied, "It's like Ancestry.com. You don't have to know what you're looking for. You just have to look."

Preserving Our Linguistic Heritage

I was reading on someone else's blog about how his culture is losing it's language. I think that is happening everywhere. We live in an area where people are holding on dearly to their dialect and I often kid about it, but I'm glad that someone is trying to preserve who they are. Our language is becoming so generalized here in America. I can tell when I watch old black and white movies from the 50s just how much our language has changed. We use a very limited vocabulary now, compared to a few decades ago.

I think we need to read and make sure our kids do too. Then use those words we pick up from books.

In my case I am going to keep reinforcing to my kids their linguistic heritage by speaking in the northern dialect and using a northern vocabulary. (I consider my kids Northerners, even though Mr. C lived in the North less than 10 weeks.)We will use shopping carts (not buggies), water the flowers with the hose (not hosepipe), turn the lights on (not cut them on), and push buttons (not mash them). And if they decide to cover a neighbor's trees with toilet paper they will TP the house (not roll it). (And then they will get in trouble for it afterwards, no matter what they call it.) We use short vowels in words with the CVC and VC patterns: dog instead of doe-g and on instead of own. And we will pronounce the long I as I instead of ah. With that being said, I am glad that they are being exposed to another culture's language. I believe that more and varied experiences can only improve who we are and broaden our knowledge of who we share this small planet with.

This is a humorous conversation I overheard in the shower house the last time we went camping at Yosemite.  I was  listening to a group of teenage girls from the UK.
Girl 1: Why do you think they call cutlery, silverware?
Girl 2: Maybe because it looks silver.
Girl 3: No. They even call the plastic kind silverware.
Girl 1: How strange!

Change of the Seasons

This time of year I switch the clothes around. When you have growing children this involves not only putting up shorts and T-shirts, but also getting rid of things that no longer fit. About a month ago I cleaned out Mr. C's old clothes and sent them north to my nephew, Boisterous. All of sudden, Mr. C didn't have any clothes and I was looking at an expensive trip to the mall. Then one day our neighbor across the street started sending her son over with loads of his old clothes. Now Mr. C's closet is full to overflowing and it didn't cost a thing. Don't you just love it when good things happen unexpectedly?

Election Day

I try to steer away from volatile subjects like politics, but today is election day so I figure it's a good day to get on my soapbox and alienate a few of you out there. Seriously, I'm the same person I've always been, you're just hearing some things I don't usually share with you.

Here are some statistics I've found online: The spending in 2010 for the Department of Defense was 708 Billion dollars (this figure doesn't include spending for Homeland Security or Veterans Affairs). The last year I could find statistics for education spending was 2005 and we (nationally) spent 14 Billion dollars. Most education funding comes from the states and we all know how well they are doing. So there are your American priorities. I found a pie chart with the percentage that goes out to Social Security and Medicare. It's higher than education, but lower than defense.

I also found figures on the national deficit compared to the GDP. We were in pretty good shape until GW came along. And although Obama has let loose on the spending, I remember that it was late 2008 that GW decided to bail out the banks and left that on the table as he scooted back to the ranch.

 House Republicans, in their “Pledge to America” agenda announced in September, promised to cut $100 billion in domestic spending programs if they take power. The unspecified cuts would come from non-defense domestic discretionary programs, which totaled $477 billion in the 2010 budget. Social Security and Medicare would be excluded from the proposed 21 percent reductions. (from businessweek.com) So that looks like education and healthcare will be the ones to be cut. Oh, boy!

And I'm always assailed by the moral issues by my friends at church so here are my views on that. You may be against abortion and gay marriage, and the Republicans may pay those issues lipservice, but what have they done about it? While they had control of the presidency and congress they didn't outlaw abortion and gay marriage actually started gaining legal rights in some states. So keep that in mind, when you listen to their rhetoric. And as for those ads with all the religious references, and there are plenty of them in Alabama, just let me say that my faith is not a commodity. Don't try to buy my votes with my belief in God.

Some insights from each of my kids that I've heard in the last few weeks.

S: "I'm starting to see the differences between Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats want to help people and the Republicans want to make money."

M: "They are saying if they get rid of those tax breaks for people making over $250,00 a year it will hurt small businesses. But we learned at school that most small businesses aren't even affected by that because they have their own exemptions. So I think they are just saying that to get people upset and vote the way they tell them to." (I believe her "they" are Republicans.)
Mr. C: "I don't know why we have to have Democrats and Republicans. It's just something to make Americans separated."

Whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or partying in The Elephant's Ass (aka Tea Party), get out there and express yourself today: VOTE!

New Design

I was ready for a change. Hope you enjoy the new design!

I was reading over some of my previous posts. My goodness! Apostrophes left out, wrong endings on words, misspellings, & words left out. I'm glad this isn't for a grade!

Weekend Cocktail

I am doing my monthly hair coloring. The box instructs to leave hair color on roots for 20 minutes or 30 minutes for resistant grays. It doesn't say how long to leave it on shockingly premature white hair. I've said I will stop coloring my hair when Mr. C goes to college. Just think how fried my brain will be in eight years from all these chemicals. So I've got 30 minutes to recap the weekend.

We found a neighborhood that did trick-or-treating, so Mr. C suited up on Saturday to get some more candy. It reminded me of the neighborhood where I grew up. Not every house had a light on, but most did. I was somewhat concerned by the house where several adults were sitting outside at what appeared to be the kitchen table. The table was littered with several beer bottles, mostly empty. They were thrilled to see "Earl" and wanted to know where "Randy" was. I was afraid they might offer Mr. C a beer, but they just gave hime a handful of candy. At another house they were so tickled by his costume they got out cell phones and took his picture. I thought it was nice of them to ask me first if they could photograph him.

S wrapped up the Narnia play this weekend. We went to see her Saturday afternoon. It was a very nice production, especially considering we live in such a small, remote area. The poster shows the actual kids who were in the play here. The lion in the play didn't look so realistic. But well done all around.

Talladega was this weekend. Traffic comes to a standstill in our tiny town after the race as everyone is trying to get back to the interstate. We live eight miles south of the interstate and the race track is 25 miles south of the interstate, so anyone from up north has to pass by us to get to the track. It was a huge mess trying to get across the bridge to church Sunday evening. I would have skipped it, but it was our week to cook supper for the youth.