My boy is home! Here for a few days visit and I am ecstatic.
He informed me just before the flight that he had a little surprise. My selfish self slightly hoped that they were pregnant...just a little. I am admitting this with a little reluctance and a dollop of shame. Instead, my boy (who is not a boy) got a really good promotion within his company and I am very happy for him.
I knew it was not their time. I knew that it was purely self centered and that they will have kids when it is the best time for them and I, as I love him with all my heart, would desire nothing else at all. It was a fleeting feeling and now it is gone and I am just happy that he is happy, that they are flourishing and living their lives purposefully.
So now, I am free to enjoy 2 1/2 days of contentedness and being fully present.
This is more for my fellow lady bloggers than the guys.
Did you know about restaurants and bars putting ice in urinals?
I, for the first time at 55, just heard that this is fairly common practice. Incredulous, I peppered the person with questions as he acted as if I were a complete numbskull.
This puts a whole new twist on "You learn something new everyday".
I was talking to someone the other day that said they had no problem that AMAZON PAID NO TAXES in 2018 to the government. Their take was that Amazon gives so much back to the economy by the amount of people they employ etc. that is works out. But do they pay their employees well?
Recently, Congresswoman Katie Porter questioned Jamie Dimon, CEO JP Morgan Chase, on how an employee of JP Morgan Chase was suppose to be able to live on the salary she was being paid as a full time employee of his bank.
He first questioned her figures, then he shut down and repeatedly gave a rote answer. Jamie got a little raise in January...I am not sure how he manages on $39,000,000.00 a year but someone has to do it.
Now, I wouldn't think a lot about this EXCEPT JP Morgan Chase took $25 billion of TARP funds even though said bank was actually in pretty good shape. According to Wiki...
This was the fifth largest amount transferred under Section A of TARP[33] to help troubled assets related to residential mortgages. It has been widely reported[34] that JPMorgan Chase was in much better financial shape than other banks and did not need TARP funds but accepted the funds because the government did not want to single out only the banks with capital issues. JPMorgan Chase advertised in February 2009 that it would be using its capital-base monetary strength to acquire new businesses.
I won't go into the whole Mortgage Crisis, but, why didn't they use taxpayers dollars to pay a liveable wage to Chase Bank employees? From what I can see, companies that are not paying federal taxes, and/or are getting massive tax breaks for various reasons (that may or may not have to do the the money they donated to campaigns) and NOT paying a living wage, are not giving back to the economy. They are simply getting rich, getting their stockholders rich, off the backs of taxpayers, the little guys....a double whammy per se.
Add in that many of the "business friendly" lawmakers (possibly on the receiving end of those large donations) allowing businesses to run basically tax free, are the same guys who bad mouth the, so called, entitlement programs that might help the people that are working for the same companies that are not paying their employees a salary that can live off of.
Now, factor in the concept that it is many of the same lawmakers that don't want women to be able to make reproductive health decisions, especially knowing that they CAN'T AFFORD to have a child and you got something I like to call "A vicious cycle of poverty".
I am not calling for socialism. I don't think liveable wage is too much to ask for.
Through the years our kids will sometimes cause us pain. Whether it is from harsh words, bad choices or lack of consideration, it can sting.
Now that mine are either adults or young adults those things happen hardly ever. Partially because we are not so tightly intertwined and, hopefully, because I have learned to let go and let live. But there are times, on occasion, when words are said or unsaid, when I feel diminished. It hurts. It’s almost as if I am not a person with feelings. I want to lash out but that would be my inner child who is entirely thinned skinned. I don’t and let it pass.
They are still young and have a lot to learn. I will take a tub and lick my wounds and keep my words to myself, and remember that I sometimes use words that feel weapons too. Next time I am engaging with someone, I may be more careful.
Today, when reading A Prayer For Owen Meany, they mentioned two words that I had not heard or thought of since my childhood.
The words? “Telephone Drawer”. How many times I heard my mom say, “Check the telephone drawer" or "Get a pen from the telephone drawer".
A thing of days gone by for me. I haven’t even had a landline for 7 years. I've recycled the phone book if they insist on leaving it on my porch for at least 12 years. I still have an office supply drawer which would have consisted of many of the same things but not quite the same really. The telephone drawer belongs to my mom. I can hear her voice say it now.
My father-in-law was a nice man, a generally good guy. Mostly genial and subdued, he held tightly to his conservative values in a way many of his generation did. Not necessarily keeping himself up-to-date with issues but often just reiterating the same old rhetoric. Democrats love big government, increased national debt and a create big welfare state. It was his right to believe it, I never argued with him.
Obama was voted in the year my oldest son could vote for the first time. My boy was thrilled and couldn’t wait to pop his first chad. My father-in-law, not so much. He died before Obama left office but I’m guessing he probably would be a Trump supporter even now. Unfortunately, mimicking the way he was raised, he called Obama a monkey on a few occasions. I had never heard words like that come out of him before. I was left to explain to our shocked kids how some people choose to live in the past and how the elderly can, at times, lose their filters. They loved their grandfather and his language confused, hurt or maybe just disappointed.
It is hard to keep quiet when a loved one espouses values that dehumanizes people because of their skin color or for any other reason. He was in his 80's when this happened. He was fragile and we all suspected we would be losing him soon. I said nothing.
We did lose his soon after. In his PJ's, in his house in Nevada with his dog, he sat on the side of the bed and died. I am reminded by the Boy Scout that there are many parts of us and sometimes, within those many parts, is a part we don't like so much. We have to choose how we deal with that one part when the other parts are the person we love.
Boogie served his country honorably, tried to be a good father and husband and loved his family. I loved that man even though there was a part I didn't like at all.
My father-in-law was a nice man, a generally good guy. Mostly genial and subdued, he held tightly to his conservative values in a way many of his generation did. Not necessarily keeping himself up-to-date with issues but often just reiterating the same old rhetoric. Democrats love big government, increased national debt and a create big welfare state. It was his right to believe it, I never argued with him.
Obama was voted in the year my oldest son could vote for the first time. My boy was thrilled and couldn’t wait to pop his first chad. My father-in-law, not so much. He died before Obama left office but I’m guessing he probably would be a Trump supporter even now. Unfortunately, mimicking the way he was raised, he called Obama a monkey on a few occasions. I had never heard words like that come out of him before. I was left to explain to our shocked kids how some people choose to live in the past and how the elderly can, at times, lose their filters. They loved their grandfather and his language confused, hurt or maybe just disappointed.
