The Biggest Trigger of All the Land

Donald Trump should not be taken to jail for whatever "entanglement" he had with whatever playboy bunny (and make no mistake about it...opportunistic misogynistic bottled blonde lady). I hope she at least uses her new found fame and fortune to help charities, instead of more surgery that perpetuates women's dissociation with their own bodies...dating back pre- Gen X through modern day girls and women. For real, the fight against Donald Trump and the time and money we have spent on this typically fluffy political BS has brought Stormy Daniels from level of featherweight queen to paid guest on MSNBC. Tonya Harding must be pissed off. 

WE HAVE FAR MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO FOCUS ON! YOU, ME, OUR KIDS.

Not to say plastic surgery is wrong. It is technology, baby. I used technology in all sorts of ways. Plus I respect Queen Jane Fonda's making it ok for anyone to be real, and still have plastic surgery. Every silver lining has a touch of grey.

OMG, my feminist heroes. WHERE ARE YOU? I get the core principles of the Democratic party and supported the freaking Clinton scam during my young 20s. Even gave them money, while I had two half-time jobs, plus a part time job at Marshall Fields. 

The Clintons diverted funds donated by the good citizens of the world to their "Foundation" after the first of two devastating earthquakes in the massively underserved island of Haiti. Why the diversion of funds donated by the common people? Because Chelsea was getting married and who really has a cool 3 million in the bank to foot that tab? Not even Bil and Hil.

Not only did Bill seduce subordinates...and if we are being honest, young girls, really...once exposed, he tried to make them to look like trampy 'hos. That is the bottom of the Arkansas White Trash Barrel if you ask me. But, no one cares. But it really is same-same, minus the frequency, as if it a sport, and huge age gaps. 

Also, DEMOCRATS, why? WHY? Bill and Hillary should not have been carpet-bagging in Westchester Co. We already had JFK-freaking-JR, fully ready to go. The Kennedys carpet bagged when it was actually a useful thing. So these hick IL and AR clowns move in and use limited NYC resources to maintain an office in Manhattan? God knows we need the police elsewhere in our beautiful emerald city that is being obliterated (by money grubbing politicians who are just frozen or not very bright) much like our oceans and deserts. It is not good to focus on the past (but Bill Clinton granted China Most Favored Nation status for trade in the 90s, when girls were not always allowed to be born in China which, IDK, MAJOR human right's violation, especially as a member of the Cheetah Girls Squad). And take a look at the current US deficit.

I am no reporter but used to travel to NYC quite often and usually was able to reduce my need for sleep just on the energy alone.  I just walked and walked and subwayed and walked. It is so busy but it is also Zen. Especially prior to the De Blasio admin.

One time, when I was walking back to my hotel on Lex, hiding modestly in the shadow of The Plaza, I was told that I was walking by the Obamas. Or at least President Obama's Escalade. I think they are both rockstars together. I felt chills because I remember when I first heard Barack Obama's voice at the Dem Natty Convention. And it was a blip in political years until we realized what soul he had, backed by the queen spouse, ofc., and suddenly he was our president. It was really like the deep meaning of destiny you see in a Pixar film. That is one of the reasons I became a fan girl of New York. Random sightings of inspiring voices and people. I also saw Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman shooting a scene from 5 Floor Walk Up. I love them both anyway and also in this move, OMG...ofc, I made sure to see the finished movie! And also saw their footage on that little part of 5th Ave they were filming that night. 

I had a college friend who was raised in NYC.  Back in the 90s, he and his friends would see John Cusack and the Beastie Boys. NYC is uber cool, ofc.

But, then another time, while walking back to my little hotel on Lex, I was trying to get back but could not cross the street. I just had gotten dinner and had to get back to my room to finish a bunch of stuff for the next day, work-wise. It was a total blockade going on from the north end of Manhattan to Midtown. Since I had to just stand there, some cool cop from Brooklyn was telling me how this happens all the time. They just get called out. And then they have to wait and patrol. My delay was small compared to their inconvenience (and also, perhaps opportunity elsewhere in the city to help) The reason: Bill and Hillary and Chelsea and whoever else was with their clan, had tickets to a Broadway show and their security and motorcade were making its way down from the Bronx. Literally, the sitting President of the US of A had a lower level of fan fare and disruption in America's busiest town than Slick Willie & Co. What in the actual hell? For real...why Westchester? And Clintons, I know its not "sexy" or the hippest of areas but did you not think your hometown needed you? (see: Esq and Democrat with class and depth, Jimmy Carter).

#dirtyboulevard

We have lost our soul. Obviously there are no standard bearers for women in the Dem party currently (looking at you Pelosi and Hilary). Where are you, m'ladies and gents of the Dem party that taught us that we are ALL JUST PEOPLE? And, holy hell, what a shitshow that is going on now...we don't need to usher in the Trump take-down era. From 2020. 

Please, please help you, us and the next generation.

Leave Trump alone. Focus. Focus on kids who cannot afford to buy the national champions a full meal. Make the Clintons divert the 3 mil for their kid's wedding back to Haiti where they sure the fuck could use it, or at least to the national debt that they sowed and fostered. 

Dear God Please Help 

#GenX #Savetheworld #Republicans #Democrats #Haiti #Saveourkids #karma #Trump #Clinton #Obama #nationaldebt #areweinsane? #cheetas #whereareyou

Willy

Back in the day, 80 years ago, we were farmers. The main income was farming, with a supplemental income through life insurance sales. 40 years before that, dads died inhaling allergens and extracts not intended to be consumed at that level, by doing the work of tending to crops. At home, mamas and their babies and soon to be born babies were left without the main bread winner. And everything depended on the weather.

His grandfather lost his dad before he was born. His mama was a talented seamstress at the turn of the century. Sewing beautiful wedding gowns for clients in their small town. One time, his grandfather was tasked with delivering a beautiful gown, adorned with lace and hand sewn one of a kind detail that we could not even comprehend in Y2K, and dropped it in the mud. His widowed mother had to scramble to repair the damage.

His mama was a university student, majoring in education. It was 1940. She carried on the tradition of her grandfather, who started a small town high school, and was its first principal in the 1880s. She may have came home from her college, 180 miles from her hometown. She was an only, her mama almost died during her birth. But the first of her eight children came to her during that first year of college.

She came home, they built a cape cod on the area that was once the family farm pig pen. The baby was born in August, they moved into their new home, and new life on December 7, 1941. 

The After

 Post Covid has done a number on so many

The kids. Those who were never connected to anyone lost any possibility of connection. And were set back. And now we have the Buffalo, NY situation, that trails the other more deeper disconnects we have fostered. And, sweet Milwaukee. And LA. And other places. 

The quieter kids may not have that kind of murderous rampage wake up call, but they were affected. Where were the mentors? The karma. Elementary, middle and high school kids were like WTF is wrong with the adults running the show?

The Seniors. Our senior citizens. For those who had their precious, beloved families as their anchor. Or, who relied on a neighborhood center for connections. They just quietly wondered their fate. And, if lucky, have reconnected with the priceless.

For parents, GenX, Millennials and any other gen classification, I hope... we just realized how we need to quit being so divisive, despite what has been fed to us by politicians for...ever. Life and sickness, and they joy in between are all that matters.

The Olympics, Dichotomy

 I love watching the Olympics with a glass of wine. Same with the Packers games.

Sleep and timelines

It is dark at 6am.  It's going to be darker soon with daylight savings.

Sleep training is organic.  We are babies, up all night, training our parents to become early risers, if they take lesson, so they can get ahead of us while we sleep as teens.  We sleep all over the map from ages 10-20 (+/- 4) and then sleep train for our jobs or careers.  If one finds themselves working third shift at a manufacturing plant or 24 hour shifts as a transplant surgeon or embarking on a morning commute, the career path becomes the baby sleep trainer.  We are trained for this.

Fall mornings are training for dark winter mornings.  The September Equinox in the northern hemisphere represents a deep shift and change is hard.  I read on a blog about depression that September is tough.

I start back to work on Monday.  Once again.  This time, family and health and sleep and work over anxiety/depression about the fundamental changes & shifts daily or quarterly or annually that reach my very core but I don't always know how to acknowledge because I want to know, or think I know.  Infinite wisdom knows what we need and guides us every day when we are still.  We can't know it all so we lose sleep, wondering why what we now know isn't what we thought.  We don't get quiet and still and listen to that little spiritual voice from God that knew before it got drowned out by the uncertainty of the world.

Sleep and know you don't always know.

Unemploy, day 2

Technically, it's not unemploy since I am still on the payroll to wrap up lose ends.  But, there was nothing left for me to do there.  I took a job and a situation that totally demeaned experience & the hard work I've done over 20+ years in selling stuff.

I ran into a former superior at my previous job with my now ex boss.  I was so intimidated by her known brand of superiority, dishonesty that I messed up the intros.  I knew it was the start of my demise at this lil' start up

I was acting on stress & fear, especially after my last weird departure from a job.

I was shut out from the process and couldn't prospect enough business.

Ugh, now I have to find another job.  And I am in a fog all around this time around.   Unlike the clarity I had the last time in leaving, with experience and relevant contacts.  

There are people fighting so many harder battles but job loss sucks.  I am praying for those who are profoundly devastated in TX.

Dad

You died last year.  On February 23rd.  You were a small but strong man.  I know you cared about people very much.  I think you were neglected as a kid, not by design, just by Catholic baby boomer family on a small town dairy farm standards.  You were the oldest.  You had to run that place with your Dad while going to school and he sold insurance.  You had 7 younger siblings who you also cared and looked out for. You had an awesome, classy, academic and life skills talented sister just behind you.  You both got college degrees in the 60s which not everyone did.  Especially when you had to do it on your own as the eldest farm children from Lomira.

You had old work shirts with a "Standard" logo that you wore to take care of the three acre plot we lived .  You worked in the 50-60s era service stations and knew how to fix the classic autos.  You went to Detroit to learn drafting, but then decided you wanted to apply the math and science so you went to sweet MSOE where they train the best engineers a corporation could ever hire.  Grandma says you lived down there in a campus apartment that had cockroaches that ran across the floor when the lights went off.  It was totally ghetto but you were from the old school non entitled days.  You worked every angle in any environment.  I remember when Todd and I used to look through the piles of mail for the Catholic Appeals fund that you chaired when you had a house full of kid and a full time job and a farm full of beef steers or steer.  I like steers.   Every minute of every daylight hour was spent working.  Sometimes you took a 45 minute nap on the couch, even though you had screaming kids in the house and chaos on the farm.

You lived on a farm before silo unloaders, manure spreaders, barn cleaners, automated milking machines...and tractors that required more maintenance than output.  You were taxed in a manner that my entitled Gen X self could never appreciate, until I started reading historical fiction more.  None of your little siblings had to deal with any of that as you were on the cusp of the industrial farming revolution.  Despite all that work, you taught us all to love Wisconsin and its farming roots, not to mention its sports and political ones...you watched the Packers every Sunday in the 70s when they sucked and you knew Bob Betts and got Packers to speak at events and even stalked Al McGuire once to his car until he caved to host your fund raiser, per your pal/BOL, JG.

I probably wasn't your favorite kid other than the fact that I was the first girl *yay* or likely the most rebellious and limit pushing kid any parent could ever not wish on their worst enemy.  Your favor was consumed by concern and energy sucked making sure none of the other four strayed so far off the beaten path. I am sorry.  I am glad you now know that it was never at the level your 80s media consuming parent mind would think of a child who got home at 2 and slept all day until I had to go work at the gas station, where I gave my friends free food when they visited.  I still have never done the cocaine you told the school counselor you suspected me of doing.  I was a Miller Light gal.  Now I like wine.  Thank you for being conservative, sometimes micromanaging, when other 80s parents were permissive.  I am certain as a 40-something that you and mom knew intuitively that is what I needed and I never said, thank you, Dad, for not taking the path of least resistance, especially when I was a surly brat.

I am not sure what any one of the many people you knew in life saw but what I saw was you always still tried, even when I or others who should have had your back became so completely detached from everything that you had to deal with.  All the stress that I cannot even imagine.  I think most of it came from being a people pleasing community builder.  You did make many friends.  You had a creative and good business mind but really, you were an engineer.  I think you and Grandpa Schill are conferring on that now because he told you that too.

It is admirable that you had farming in your heart, or wanted to be your own boss, or a combination of both that drew you to farm the land.  I remember you on the Ford tractors sold at West Bend Implement, down the road from Puppyland, where we usually got our farm dogs.  I remember that red and yellow combine.  I remember your gold Mustang you had when MC was born.

When I went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC with TM in the late '90s, we both agreed that you would like that place.  You were an agricultural engineer as well as an industrial one.  Even in the drought of '88.

I am so sorry that you were so stressed and I never stepped up to help as much as I could have or should have.  Your live was amazingly busy and you liked it that way.  Lance remembers you gold Cadillac and your tan leather car coat type jacket back in the 80s.  You liked your car and your smokes.  I am glad you didn't have to suffer for too long without your life and your community.  You went away for three months in a maze of interventions before you died.  You tried so hard to live.

Thank you for everything you taught me.   I heard and knew you even when I didn't acknowledge it. You raised us all to have solid values and traditional character that is sometimes lost in the world. Your whole family misses you and cannot wait to see you again.