Southern by Mile High

2008-02-08T12:48:00.001-07:00

ON A LIGHTER NOTE.... :-)

Since I haven't posted [until earlier this week] in a VERY long time, and what I did post was on the depressing side, here is something lighter.

Jokes from 5 year old Ramsey:

Where does Santa Claus stay for his vacation? In a ho-ho-hotel!

What does a skunk use to call his mother? A smell phone.

Why was the pig nervous? Because his name was "Bacon."

What is a cat's favorite city? Prrrris.

2008-02-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

LIKE THE SONG SAYS, "LOVE'S THE ONLY HOUSE BIG ENOUGH FOR ALL THE PAIN IN THE WORLD"

From time to time I get overwhelmed by the cumulative "bad news" of the day, especially those stories that relate to children or others who are even more vulnerable than the rest of us. One recent day I read about videos being found in Iraq showing boys as young as 9 and 10 being trained as soldiers and perhaps suicide bombers, the youngest shouting in his pre-pubescent voice, "fight them and God will torture them through your hands." The same article mentions that two women with Down's syndrome may have been used as unknowing suicide bombers, with their weapons activated by remote control. Yesterday near my corporate office in Austin, Texas, a 5 year old boy (same age as my son) was abducted from his driveway as his mother and sister watched in horror, in what was likely a gang-related action. (Luckily he is alive and well according to news reports today.) The colleague who brought this to my attention said there was another recent story she saw, of a boy around the same age, that caused her to cry herself to sleep that night. I asked her not to share that story with me.

I'm not to the point of dropping my newspaper subscription or turning off the news, because I don't want to be uninformed, but I don't know quite what to do with that pain. I suppose all thinking and feeling people bear this burden and the best we can do is to hug our children, keep them as safe as we can, love and watch out for our family and friends, and try in whatever small ways we can to make the world a better place. Along with trying to send up that pain and fear to God in our prayers. If anyone has tips on what helps you with this, please share! Thanks

2006-09-23T16:30:00.000-06:00

WOW, WHAT AN EVENT: THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY CANCER ACTION NETWORK'S RELAY CELEBRATION ON THE HILL 2006

What an event. I returned home from Washington DC a couple of days ago after helping throw a huge cancer-fighting "party" with nearly 10,000 friends from across the country. The point? To convince Congress that this is not the time to cut back on cancer research and programs. On the scale of federal lobbying efforts, this was one of the largest ever and Congress took notice. We had meetings with nearly every Member of Congress and U.S. Senator, and many of them signed on to a document called the Congressional Cancer Promise.

Cancer control is an issue that can gain the support of even the most frugal, most anti-government Member if he or she has been personally affected. Yes, we are fighting a war and that takes a lot of cash. (In fact, let's spend more to keep our men and women safer by giving them better body armor.) But cancer is killing a lot more Americans each year than terrorism and many more causes of death combined, and we are making tremendous progress that will lead us to taming this disease soon if we continue to invest in research and prevention/early detection programs. It's a good feeling to have reminded our leaders of this in such a personal and compelling way as our ambassadors did last week.

2006-09-10T22:29:00.000-06:00

The American Dream.....

We recently went to a 50s type diner called Gunther Toodys. They play hits from that era on a jukebox, serve mostly burgers and shakes, and the hostess & wait staff wear poodle skirts and that sort of thing. It's the kind of place that until not too many years ago would have made me cringe at how contrived it is, but here we were bopping along with the kids to the music. (My husband did notice a teenager roll her eyes when she looked first at her mom and then at him, singing and dancing to the music!) :-) Funny how children and age make you take a lighter look and find the playfulness in a wide variety of things. In these days of information overload, terrorism, war, etc. it was kind of nice to spend an hour feeling like we were back in a simpler time, living the American dream. [I am blessed to be living the modern version of the American dream for real.... just not the 1950s type!] Here's a photo of my good looking husband and above average children (per the Garrison Keillor expression); notice the neon reflected in the diner's window as dusk approaches.

2006-09-10T22:20:00.000-06:00

This dawg is reformed.....
We have a friend in Washington DC who is a huge Georgia bulldogs fan. Several times he has tried to recruit our son Ramsey to the "dark side." He even shipped him this dawg in a Georgia shirt. This weekend Ramsey decided to reform the dog and change his attire. GO GATORS!!! (Sorry, Danny.) :-)

2006-09-01T22:41:00.000-06:00

September in Colorado: It's A Beautiful Thing. My new neighbors told me that in the Denver area, the August heat quickly gives way to a brisk and beautiful September. Like clockwork, here it is September 1st and tonight it is 45 degrees. Being recent Texas residents who are used to sweating until sometime around early to mid-November, we took the opportunity to turn on our gas fireplace and enjoy the warmth and glow [while having some of our windows slightly cracked]. OK, so maybe we partly did it to annoy our friends and family members in Texas and Florida who are still sweltering. But it was pretty nice and cozy, regardless of motivation. I'm OK with them taunting me in March when the flowers are coming out in Austin and Gainesville, while my toes may well still be frozen here in Colorado. Of course my work travel schedule around that time may require quite a few trips to Texas, just coincidentally. :-) For now I'm enjoying the cool and looking forward to the aspen trees putting on a beautiful display.......

2006-08-24T11:31:00.000-06:00

HOW PATHETIC IS THIS MAN (AND THOSE WHO THINK LIKE HIM)? THIS IS NOT ONLY ANTI-FEMALE BUT ANTI-MALE AS WELL......

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Don't Marry Career Women By Michael Noer, Forbes Magazine Aug. 22 2006 (Following is a portion of the article)

How do women, careers and marriage mix? Not well, say social scientists. Guys: A word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career. Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women--even those with a "feminist" outlook--are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner. Not a happy conclusion, especially given that many men, particularly successful men, are attracted to women with similar goals and aspirations. And why not? After all, your typical career girl is well-educated, ambitious, informed and engaged. All seemingly good things, right? Sure…at least until you get married. Then, to put it bluntly, the more successful she is the more likely she is to grow dissatisfied with you. Sound familiar? Many factors contribute to a stable marriage, including the marital status of your spouse's parents (folks with divorced parents are significantly more likely to get divorced themselves), age at first marriage, race, religious beliefs and socio-economic status. And, of course, many working women are indeed happily and fruitfully married--it's just that they are less likely to be so than non-working women. And that, statistically speaking, is the rub. To be clear, we're not talking about a high-school dropout minding a cash register. For our purposes, a "career girl" has a university-level (or higher) education, works more than 35 hours a week outside the home and makes more than $30,000 a year. If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).
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Gloria Steinem's response, with which I agree: "I'm deeply grateful to Forbes Magazine for saving many women the trouble of dealing with men who can't tolerate equal partnerships, take care of their own health, clean up after themselves or have the sexual confidence to survive, other than a double standard of sexual behavior. Since a disproportionate number of such unconfident and boring guys apparently read Forbes, the magazine has performed a real service."

2006-08-24T10:52:00.000-06:00

What exactly do I mean with the title "Southern by Mile High," you ask? I'm a Girl Raised In The South [GRITS] who now lives in the Denver area (Mile High City) after some great years in Austin, Texas and Washington DC. True GRITS never lose too much of their Southern seasoning even when they have lived away from the South for years or decades. In ideal cases, they take on additional spices from new geographies and journeys, kind of like a wonderful Mexican mole sauce with all sorts of complex flavors. I aspire to be that mole sauce. Also, to be totally honest, my first two choices of blog titles, "A Balanced Life" and "Life's A Journey" had already been taken by some apparently like-minded people. Oh well.