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Archive for November, 2020

Giving thanks for the small things #Thankful #Thanksgiving

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2020| 7 Comments »

Dear Friends and Family,

Though this year has sucked in ways large and small, I’m thankful for all of you. I have big emotions regarding a few of you, but I’ll save that for a later post.

On this day of Thanksgiving (glossing over the actual horrific origins of this celebration), I’m thankful for small things (in no particular order):

  • Apothic Red for just $10
  • Jeans that fit
  • Fozzy
  • Gideon’s eclectic taste in music
  • Dominic’s dry comments
  • Eddie’s workout habits
  • Purple nail polish
  • Massage therapy
  • Airpods
  • Uno
  • Alexa (but not Siri, sorry)
  • Twitter
  • Apple Music
  • FaceTime, Skype, What’s App, Zoom and Houseparty
  • Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Disney Plus
  • “I have spoken.”
  • Bubble tea
  • Gus’s chicken
  • Writing ability
  • Cooking skills
  • That I can drive a stick shift
  • Ancestry.com
  • The election is over (It is. For real, Donnie.)
  • “Saturday Night Live“
  • “The Amazing Race“
  • “Jersey Shore Family Vacation“
  • Rollerball pens
  • Fleetwood Mac
  • Panhandle Slim
  • Frequent flier miles that don’t expire
  • Friends who invite me over just to drink
  • People who have given me a chance to grow as a person and a professional
  • The fact that the first “Happy Thanksgiving” texts I received were from the moms of my sons’ friends (three of them!)
  • A balcony with lounge chairs and good Atlanta weather so I can be outside
  • Fellow bloggers (like this one and this one)
  • The cute but not functional scarf Goat-yoga Lisa made me

Adorable, right? In the background is the not-cute-but-functional blanket I made.

For what are you thankful? Tell me in the comments.

All my love,
Beth

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My son has initiated self-destruct in school #SundayStories #SundayStress

Posted in Parenting, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2020| 7 Comments »

Dear Dominic,

You’re killing me.

I get it: You aren’t a fan of online learning. As I told one of your teachers this week: You are not thriving in the remote environment (to put it mildly).

But you do actually have to do the work until there is an alternative.

Part of your problem is your lack of time-management skills and your habit of prioritizing things like watching “The Mandalorian” over getting your work done.

Do you really want to repeat 10th grade? You’d end up going to school with your brother.

I KNOW you don’t want that. So pull yourself together.

Love,
Your long-suffering mother

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Keep calm, and wear a mask #MotivationMonday

Posted in Advice, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 16, 2020| 5 Comments »

Dear Anti-maskers:

Congratulations! You and our inept president have helped the United States reach a milestone.

(Ironic how your battle cry is the co-opted “My body, my choice.”)

I understand your desire for personal freedom. But with personal freedom comes personal responsibility. But often, though, people do not do the right thing for themselves or others.

Let’s look at some past freedom vs. personal/public safety issues:

Those four legislative efforts save roughly 723,000 lives every year.* The first three save nearly 30,000. That’s a large enough number to warrant legislation, apparently.

You see where I’m going with this?

246,083 Americans have died of the Coronavirus.

246,083 mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, grandparents.

It’s more deadly and prevalent than the flu.

Americans make up just 4.25 percent of the world population, but have contracted 20 percent of total Coronavirus cases. Americans deaths make up 18.6 percent of the 1.32 million deaths worldwide.

Clearly, we are not managing the spread effectively.

Clearly, lives are at stake.

Clearly, we need to do something.

I’m not a huge fan of personally intrusive legislation like a national mask mandate, but if y’all keep up your shenanigans, that is EXACTLY what we are going to need.

So wear a damn mask, and stay away from people not in your household.

Kthxbye,
Beth

*I’m happy to give you my sources for those stats, but I know you don’t trust scientific or news sources. (In case you do, and I’m being unfair, visit the links in the post plus this one and this one and this one.)

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Among Us is humongous #TuesdayTreat

Posted in Parenting, tagged , , , , , , , on November 10, 2020| 4 Comments »

Dear Gideon, Dominic and friends,

Thank you for teaching me how to play Among Us. It’s not often I can hang out with a herd of 14- and 15-year-old boys (or want to, really).

Side note: What would a group of hormonal boys be called? A Testosterone of Teens? A Breakout of Boys? A (Growth) Spurt of Sons?

I can’t believe y’all were willing to have me in a game AND allow me in your Discord chat. I’m a mom; it’s not cool to be seen with me, I thought.

You were very welcoming and polite.

I’m sure it took some restraint to keep the convo clean, Gideon’s handle excluded. (Gideon, why?)

I realize I didn’t contribute much to the discussion. I was more interested in completing tasks than keeping my eye on character movements.

That one time I was the imposter was illuminating. I knew immediately I had given myself away when I popped in and out of a vent. It was an accident: I didn’t know what I was doing.

Gideon to me later: I can’t believe you killed me.
Me: I didn’t kill you. That was Roscoe.
Gideon: No! You killed me!
Me: Are you sure?
Dominic: You’re so ruthless that you don’t even remember the people you’ve killed.

Really, it was more ineptitude than ruthlessness.

Anyway, I know I’ll get better with practice. I hope you’ll let me play again.

With loads of appreciation,
Gideon and Dominic’s Mom

 

 

 

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The democratic process: It’s messy sometimes, but it works. #FridayFeeling

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 6, 2020| 2 Comments »

Dear People Talking About Election Fraud:

Look. Listen. I get it. I’m still not over the 2016 election.

I couldn’t believe that people would vote for Trump the first time. But they did, and he won. And we all got on with it.

We’ve had four years of (fill in your preferred adjective).

Why is it so hard to believe that the same sentiment that drove the “silent majority” to the polls against Clinton in 2016 could be the same thing driving folks against Trump in 2020?

His presser last night was … unhinged. It was made up of lies. It was embarrassing.

The election was not rigged. There hasn’t been widespread voter fraud.

Let’s look at the ways Americans had to vote:

  1. Early voting. This does not seem to be in dispute.
  2. In-person voting Nov. 3. This does not seem to be in dispute.
  3. Absentee voting. This is apparently what’s in dispute. By Trump.

With absentee voting, people could mail them in or drop them in a ballot box. State laws vary, but the mailed-in ballots usually are counted as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3. The deadline to drop in the ballot box in Georgia was 7 p.m. on Nov. 3. Again, states vary.

OK, stay with me here: Early voting and in-person voting are tabulated easily. Absentee voting takes longer because poll workers have to open and carefully check the ballots in a guard against — wait for it — fraud. Some states can open and count early. Some can’t.

I am a Georgia voter. I did not want to wait in line and be around people in a PANDEMIC. I requested, filled out and returned an absentee ballot via drop box by the Nov. 3 deadline.

Georgia had better DAMN WELL count my vote. (And I did NOT vote for Trump.)

As there were historic numbers of absentee voting, the processing will take longer. DUH.

Absentee voting has a long, strong history in America. It’s the way those in the military vote, for crying out loud.

Also, Trump himself has used absentee voting (as recently as August) and encouraged people to vote by mail. In Arizona. Where he thought he had plenty of support.

But you know what? Spitting on Arizona favorite John McCain’s grave has a cost.

You know what else has a cost? Calling war dead “suckers and losers.” Georgia has 13 military bases. Georgia also has Stacey Abrams, who has worked tirelessly to increase voter registration and voter turnout.

There are many reasons why people would want Trump to be a one-term president, just as there were many reasons why people didn’t vote for Clinton. 

Just as the Democrats have not engineered a worldwide Coronavirus hoax, they have not perpetrated voter fraud. Please note that Georgia and Arizona (two states you are wound up about) both have Republican governors. And Georgia’s Secretary of State is a Republican too. One Trump supported.

Nevada’s is too. Are you alleging that they are in on this plot? Please.

And if Democrats were going to rig an election, wouldn’t they flip the Senate too? Come ON.

So stand down, outraged Trump fans. This is our democracy — the one you profess to love.

This is our process and it works, whether you like it or not.

Your fellow American,

Beth

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The day of reckoning approaches #SnarkySunday

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 1, 2020| 5 Comments »

Dear Mr. Trump,

Americans have been making their choices in droves via early voting and absentee ballots.

Tuesday is Election Day (even though we may not have an answer that day).

I won’t be voting that day. Eddie and I chose the absentee route for two reasons:

  1. I believe scientists that the Coronavirus is real and not a hoax perpetrated by the Democratic Party. (I mean, REALLY? A U.S. party is going to get the whole world in on a hoax? To what end?)
  2. Hence, I want to limit potential exposure by not putting myself in close contact with people I don’t know.

I’ve had in-depth conversations with two long-time friends who support you. One was a rational, calm conversation where we agreed more than we disagreed. One was … not like that at all.

I understand your allure even less than I did in 2016.

And I am regularly amused/outraged/appalled at the emails I get from your campaign. (I’m on your list thanks to an event I attended.)

This is the article that examines presidential laziness.

Here’s my response to some slogans you and your supporters use.

“Make America Great Again”
I thought America was pretty great pre-2016.

“Keep America Great”
Sorry, but America is not great at the moment. I am NOT better off than I was four years ago. I’m middle class and paying WAY more taxes. The industry in which I work has been negatively affected by your xenophobic policies. And as someone who travels, I can tell you that America is an international embarrassment.

“Life begins at conception”
Fantastic! So that means you’ll protect women endangered by a pregnancy, the children after they are born, old people who might get COVID-19, poor people, immigrants and people on death row. Right? Pro-life means that you support all lives.

“My body, my choice”
This one makes my head explode as it has been co-opted for the anti-mask movement. If you want personal autonomy, great. I’m all for that. But you can’t pick and choose. (See above.)

“Drain the Swamp”
Eeesh. Washington, D.C., is now the swampiest swamp ever.

It should come as no surprise that I will not be voting for you. This is not to say I haven’t voted Republican in the past, and wouldn’t do so again if he/she were the right person.

But you are not the right person.

And the Republican Party is not the Republican Party of old. You know, the one that wanted a smaller government, fiscal responsibility, personal autonomy, etc.

I care about LBGTQIA rights, universal healthcare, eradicating systemic racism, reducing the deficit, upholding personal choice, maintaining separation of church and state — all those things that you are against.

So I’m not wishing you luck on Tuesday.

And I hope you’ll take McConnell and Graham with you.

Frigid regards,
Beth

 

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