Lifestyles of the Sick and the Famous

Oh...how I have missed you, darling, wonderful, readers...

Wonderful news...your Holiday Wishes fulfilled...

I'm BACK!!!

I don't want to bore you with all the gory details or whine as if my life, on balance, is anything but enviable.  I am an incredibly fortunately woman and my New Year's Resolution is to be more grateful for all my blessings.  

Darling Husband, if you are reading this, skip ahead to the next section, everyone else, keep reading.  I have an amazing husband (most of the time)...who is my best friend...has given me a beautiful home, cars, shoes, clothes, jewelry, and all of those material things...loves me in spite of myself...and of whom I am enormously proud every day.  

I have a fantastic family.  It would doing an injustice to the word "dysfunctional," to say I have a dysfunctional family!  Sure...a lot of people THINK they have a crazy family...until they have met mine.  DH once recently said to me, "It's unbelievable you don't have MORE issues!"  Again, feel free to laugh...I nearly fell out of bed giggling!  Who am I trying to kid?  I laughed so hard I snorted!!!  My parents lived, more or less, around the corner from each other after their divorce.  When DH and I went back to visit, before Mother moved to Florida, Mother threw huge parties with Dad, Stepmom, Stepsibs, Pop pop, her boyfriend, and my inlaws.  Dad flicked a bottle cap at me in front of FIL because his beer, that he purposely carries in his shirt pocket for the sole purpose of driving Mother mad, was empty...FIL was in shock...though I can't say for sure if the look on his face had more to do with the flicking itself or that I knew what it meant and responded by bringing Daddy his beer...and the finger.  We have had to employ a "NO F-word in the Dining Room" rule.  This rule backfired upon it's inception...when I got up from the table, stepped one step into the kitchen, and, well...you get the picture.  Stepmom has called Mother to ask how to deal with Father...to receive the reply, "When he drove me crazy, I divorced him...I not be the best one to ask," followed by laughter on both ends of the phone...and probably nothing good for Dad.  Grams always called me a "jackass," and when finally called on it, she explained, "That means I love you the most!"  That's just the immediate family.  For the sake of everyone's sanity, I'll quit while I'm behind!

I have spectacular friends.  Some go back so far that, in one case, as Mother likes to say is, "the first man I ever slept with."  We were 3 and went to the same babysitter...another who, well, we met one on her 16th birthday, which was long enough ago that we now celebrate our anniversary rather than our ages, and our anniversary is more than old enough to legally drink!!!  Wonderful people that I've known as long as I can remember...and, largely thanks to the USAF, fabulous people all across the country and overseas.  I am honored and humbled to count such generous, smart, kind, patriotic...sarcastic, quippy, maddening, funny...as my friends.

But, by way of explanation for my absence, here goes nothing:

There is nothing new wrong with my brain.  

Who knew?

I'm going to go ahead and leave it that, because no doubt you feel like reading all of my problems about as much as I feel like listing them...but, I kid you not...a doctor said, "There is nothing new wrong with your brain."  Yes, I know you're laughing.  I laughed, too.  I have just about every specialist one can have...but for a podiatrist (Look out podiatrists of the world, you're next!)...and I thought I had heard it all...but this was a new one...even for me!!!  Ask yourself what kind of response you'd have had to that statement.  I can't remember ever having laughed so hard at a doctor's appt...until she said, "...and I agree with everything in that book..except that Evolution thing...but anyway..."

When I'm 64...

Happy 64th Birthday to the United States Air Force!!!

When I'm Sixty-Four

The Beatles

Give me your answer, fill in a form, 

Mine forever more
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

There has not been a single day in the last 64 years that the United States of America has not needed it's Air Force...nor will there be for the next 64 years and beyond!  Happy Birthday to the USAF and to all it's members, past, present, and future...and to the family members of those serving, who make the US Air Force the best in the world!  

Happy 64th, USAF...and Thank You.

XOXO,

~CAT

Monday Manifesto: A Day Late and (California's) a Dollar Short

Welcome to my new feature...tho it's a day late...

Monday Manifesto

To be honest, I only came up with idea today...after getting screaming/yelling/throw things mad at the news this morning.  By way of an introduction, let me explain my premise...I, absolutely, positively, without question, end up in what I like to call, "The Land of Rant," at LEAST once a week...though once may be a bit of an understatement...I have frequent flyer miles to Soapbox like you wouldn't believe!  Soooo...from now on...well, more ON than NOW as today is not so much a Monday...I will be bitching, sounding off, blustering, haranguing, and/or on a tirade about whatever it is in the world that has irritated me...or you...oh yes, I'll happily take requests...the most, each week.  

Without further ado, I give you, the inaugural: 

Monday Manifesto:

A Day Late and (California's) a Dollar Short

California passed the first part of the Dream Act yesterday.  In a nutshell, this first part means that illegal immigrants attending public colleges are now eligible to receive private scholarships and financial aid.  The second part is still to be voted on in Sacramento and would add public sources of financial aid to the monies that can be received by illegal immigrants to offset the cost of an education at a state school in California.  These are the same scholarships for which legal, American students are competing...the same financial aid for which they are applying.  How can this be?  How can California, in essence, take scholarships and financial aid away from the citizens for whom it was intended???  Oh yes...and did I mention...PAY IN STATE TUITION?!?!?

Now, before anyone says word one about what I said just a few lines ago...competing...as a rule, let the best student win.  Let me assure you, I agree completely!  Winners and losers, no trophy for second place...and to quote a wise man, "If you're not first, you're last!"  That's right, I went there!  My blog, I can do that, remember?  BUT...you have to follow the rules.  Rules are good...rules are our friends...you should never go under the bus for any reason!  (Choose your favourite commercial tag line about rules from your youth and insert here)

There are rules one must follow when:

Being a foreign citizen interested in attending a US college

Working in the US

Living in the US

Becoming a US citizen

Shall I go on or are we sort of getting a feel for where this is going?  Ohhhh...that's right...one more thing to cover before we move on ...The New Colossus...I won't quote, you all know it...Yes...all our families immigrated to the United States at one point or another...the "Melting Pot" such as it is (damn, now I want fondue)...unless of course we choose to trace our lineage to, somewhere along the way 1/16th "Indigenous Persons to Northern America"...but we are not even going THERE right now!  I am proud to be an American, as all of you well know, and I celebrate that everyday as the wife of a USAF Lt Col.  I am also proud to have been born and raised in South Jersey...just ask any Cowboys fan that's ever had the misfortune of sitting next to me at Texas Stadium...or anyone who's ever met me!  My parents are proud of their hometowns...my grandparents...greatgrandparents...their hometowns in whatever country they may be...as am I, because it is ALL a part of me.  But every one of them immigrated here legally...just as when I move from state to state...and BELIEVE ME...giving up my NJ driver's license broke my heart...but GETTING a California one nearly killed me...I follow the LAW...even though it is a huge pain and not without expense...and become a resident of the state in which I live.  

So as we go on...MAKE NO MISTAKE...I am not holding anyone to a standard than that to which I hold my family or myself.

Sweet Lord!  Are we to the point yet???

YES!!!  That was a lot of rant to get to the point...but I wanted to make sure we were clear...and I felt like ranting.  So, I did.  Five days a week I wake up early and watch (listen to) Good Day LA while I'm showering and getting ready for the gym.  Often this spring, there were on location reports from various public colleges in California of what I can only describe as "sit-ins" by groups I will avoid calling "dirty hippies" because surely they have a more PC name...and I'm guessing it isn't "Prius driving, patchouli reeking, tree huggers" isn't it either...so I shall call them students...because their tuition was being raised.  Clearly, I'm not a fan of civil disobedience or plug in cars, HOWEVER...one morning I noticed one of the students was WEARING PEARLS!!!  It was at this point that I looked further into what they were...Ronnie forgive me...protesting.  After a LONG talk with my pretty pink computer and the promise of online shopping following my research, I looked it up.  One by one a majority...and that was this spring, it is likely more now...I did NOT check every public college before writing this blog post...were increasing their tuition an average of about 10%.  Now...I can't lie, part of me thought...cost of doing business...part thought...that's what you get for even considering going to school off the East Coast...unless it's the Colorado School for Wayward Boys, you're Catholic, or you're a huge a college football fan!  If you don't understand these exceptions, they do not apply to you.  But...for arguement's sake...let's say I'm willing to consider that there is some perfectly valid reason for choosing a west coast school and there is this tuition hike.  I have been accused, on occasion, of not knowing the value of a dollar.  Here's what I know...even a valet doesn't want A dollar and no one carries cash...sorry Mother.  I don't have kids...I'm not looking forward towards tuition...I have no clue what it should cost!  I assume it's entitled people bitching because really...you draw on on what you know, right? 

Here's what I learned...for the 2010-2011 year:

Out of state tuition and fees for UCLA:  $33660

In state for UCLA:  $10781

Colorado School for Wayward Boys:  $0

Harvard:  $35051

Clemson out of state:  $26900

Rutgers out of state:  $24433

Princeton:  $36640

Notre Dame:  $39919

Interesting spread, no?  Not necessarily related to where each school is ranked by education or popularity...still...now, an illegal immigrant can pay IN STATE tuition for UCLA.  Let's say that I wanted to go to UCLA to get my SJD.  The tuition difference is $15102...

Well, well, well...I just get rolling and look at that...DH reaches out from Texas and "suggests" I might want to continue this tomorrow...

I do hate when he's right...but this is getting long...

And I feel bad...you're not used to me getting...and I use this term VERY loosely..."political"...as you all know where I stand and that I will not speak out against any of our elected officials.  That said...I hope I haven't bored you...and I hope you'll be back tomorrow...where I can tell you everything about this tuition/education craziness...and I hope to have your feedback!!!

XOXO

~CAT