Random thoughts

I find myself sitting here at home, wondering just what a 58 year old female can actually do when needing a job.

yep, i'm outta work again. this time its transportation related. i don't drive, and the city buses here in my town don't offer evening or weekend service. well, we can ride the bus from 9am till 3pm on saturdays, but when your hours last until 7 or 8pm and you need to get to work on sundays, its a problem.

four years ago, we had evening service for the general public that ran 6 days a week, called the nifty lift.

the nifty lift are buses that are used primarily for handicapped riders, as they go door to door, rather than making the handicapped travel to bus stops. they were also available for seriously senior citizens, who were still living on their own, but needed the extra 'lift' to go do their errands, or visit their friends.

four years ago, the new mayor canceled this service. we still have the nifty lift, but it runs during the day and doesn't take non-handicapped riders anywhere....unless the regular buses break down, and the nifty lift is required to finish the run.

needless to say, a lot of people in this town lost their jobs. employers like it when you actually show up to work your shift...and not enough employers were willing or able to change things so the employees could work different shifts,

a lot of folks here are not happy with the mayor. we just had an election here. with over 40.000 registered voters in our county, only 10,000+ voted...but they were mostly all democrats...the mayor is republican.

which brings me to my problem. i'm really pretty good at the job i just lost. but it makes a difference WHEN you do it.

i sold prepaid portrait packages for olan mills studios here in my town. when i first started, i had a ride, so i could work evenings and weekends. i could easily make my quota of sales per hours i worked, cause the ability to sell these packages depends on how many people are out and about on any given day. people generally shop for their families evenings and weekends...about the time i'm packing up to leave for the day, people are starting to enter the store our studio is located in to shop for their family needs.

so my sales fell, and my superior had to let me go. i don't know about you guys, but i've never had a boss fire me with tears in her eyes. she said if my transportation problem is ever resolved so i can work the hours needed, she'd hire me back in a heartbeat.

that makes me feel good. to know that i am valued as an employee, and as a person...she said that she really liked me, that my coworkers appreciated the extra things i did to help them out when the studio was busy, that the employees of the store the studio is located in said they thought i was a really nice person.

so its down to the mayor and his betrayal of the citizens of my town who don't have cars.

shoot, if there was the money to buy a car, i'd drive it. i've done it before. i drove for nearly 20 years without a license.( i don't like taking tests.) i finally got caught. went to court, paid a fine, did probation, and its over. i haven't driven since. the fact that i don't feel comfortable behind the wheel of a car has nothing to do with the law. perhaps that makes me a terrible person, but its a truth. what it does reflect is my health. i don't have the reflexes now that i did before.

i'm not sure i could make my hands and feet do what my mind tells them to do.

so i really need the bus. and maybe come november we'll have a mayor in office who sees the problem and does something to fix it.

i wonder

i wondered why the shooter in the virginia massacre had a gun...indeed, apparently he had two...then why he decided to use it.

i'm still not clear on why he used it. apparently the shooter felt like an outsider. i've felt like an outsider all my life, but was never interested in killing anyone. never felt prompted to take one of the two guns in our house and shoot my classmates and teachers. that never even entered my mind.

turns out that the shooter bought one of the guns in a gun store. the owner did a background check, but because someone didn't fill out a paper and turn it in, there was no record of the shooters dangerous state of mind, so he passed the check and walked out with a weapon.

if guns were outlawed, this would not have happened. true, he would have tried to locate a dealer on the street, but once the street sellers are caught and imprisoned, this option would become harder and harder to employ.

we, as a nation, are not all that interested in putting the bad guys in prison. our prison system is in need of reform, not to mention the overcrowding that makes it necessary to set prisoners free in order to put newer prisoners in jail. so we need to agree to additional prisons to accommodate the need to keep lawbreakers behind bars to complete their sentences.

but we'd rather spend money we don't have on wars we don't want.

time for a major change here people.

before another shooter buys a gun and takes aim on another group of citizens who don't know he feels like an outsider and opens fire.

IF IT WORKS ONCE, WHY NOT TWICE

now, thanks to the NRA, another shooting has happened. this time in Texas.

poor NASA certainly has had some bad press lately. but a disgruntled worker at NASA shot and killed his supervisor over a bad work performance review. seems he walked in the door with a gun in his hand (?) and went to his former supervisor's office.

first off, i wonder why no one stopped this guy at the door. course, if he had been prevented from purchasing a weapon legally, maybe he would have used something a little less lethal, like a club or whatever. but he had a gun...and used it repeatedly on the man who died trying to lock the door to his office before being fatally shot.

and i wonder if that old wives tail that says bad things happen i threes means we'll have at least one more gun death like this before summer gets here.

and when its summertime, with hot weather making already angry people, the gun deaths will only get worse, right? sigh

people, i am so tired of guns everywhere.

now, there have been a few times in my 58 years of life that, had i had access to some form of weaponry, i'd be creating this post from prison. but basically, i don't like guns. they are noisy and cold things that do no more than cause pain and death.

there is no good reason, as i have said before, for anyone owning a rifle or a hand gun, unless they are in the military, or on a law enforcement payroll.

and, in England, if you are caught with a weapon, you go to prison.

seems to have worked out pretty well there.

a friend of mine was married to a man who hunted each deer season to help put food on his table. but he used a bow and arrows. he said it gave everyone an even shot at survival, as he was only a fair shot with the bow and arrow, and deer are pretty fast, once they get moving. but he still managed to fill his freezer at least once each season with enough meat to feed his family.

not a bad alternative, in the long run.

and if that shooter in Texas had walked around town with a bow and arrow in his hand, maybe someone would have asked the important question---'whaca doing?'. any answer other than hunting for dinner maybe would have prevented another tragedy.

THANK YOU NRA FOR ANOTHER THRILLING REIGN OF TERROR

this is just to than that wonderful organization, the National Rifle Association, for another thrilling chapter in the continuing saga of murder and mayhem in the good ole usofa.

i actually bought a copy of our Anderson Herald Bulletin today because the headline caught my eye. the fact that it was over an inch high in bold print had little to do with it, i guess. but the words sure did the trick if the size of the type didn't. 'gunman kills 32, then himself ' was over a picture of parents hugging their children after reaching the Virginia campus following the killing spree of an individual (or maybe two) killed thirty-two kids and/or teachers before at least one of the killers finally turned his gun on himself.

there were no numbers released on how many people were wounded. and college students around the country will be looking over their shoulders and jumping at shadows for who knows how long.

all so a bunch of shooters what to protect their right to own and use fire arms of every size and description.

and they spend tons of money in dodge--make that Washington, DC, and state legislation's across the country keeping guns readily available to whoever wants to buy them for whatever reason they may have us own killing machines like the ones used in Virginia Monday.

perhaps the NRA could send some of the money, earmarked to purchase new laws and protect the existing laws allowing the purchase of whatever firearm they want. to pay for the funerals now being arranged by 32 families. then more of this money could be used to pay for the medical bills of the wounded people from Monday's shooting. then more money could be to pay for the counseling of those who will need help putting their lives back together after this heinous shooting spree Monday morning.

when will we be able to elect representatives who will be able to ignore the money from the NRA, and finally enact legislation banning all firearms for anyone other than police and the military.

who knows, the time may come, perhaps in a hundred years, when the police won't need to carry weapons, and the military will be the only armed force in the land.

i won't happen over night...the disarming of America. but with determination and perseverance, it will eventually happen.

we just need to elect people to help make it happen.

different topic, same author

my daughter bought a printer Sunday. what a great invention. i think. because i started going through my email folders, a task i had been dreading, as some of them had gotten quite large, and i knew they had to be sorted out. but what to do with the information i had felt necessary to keep for one reason or another.

i began printing off for paper files the lists of household tips i had acquired over the past two years...the jokes i had laughed out loud at when reading the first time (these i kept if they still made me laugh two years later. the rest...trashed.)

but what i began to realize was that it wasn't the information i received so much as the thought that someone thought i would enjoy the newspaper articles, jokes, cartoons, whatever enough to share them with me.

its that thought...the pleasure or outrage the author of the emails believed i would share. and mostly they were right.

i didn't delete as many as i thought i would.

i wonder if i'm the only one who can't let go of stuff. want to keep it around to look at again and again.

what does that tell me about who i am?

a 'string saver' for sure. a habit that i am trying---really trying---to break.

i've started by going through my collection of gizmo's and eliminating those that no longer brings back a name or a face of the giver. a chancy tactic, since my memory isn't what it used to be. but a start, anyway. so if you come to my house, you'll still see a lot of drek, but not as much as there used to be...sigh.

any tips appreciated. that's not to say i'll take them lol

religious freedom

there are those in this country that seem to think everyone shares their particular brand of religious frenzy. that the 'ideals' expressed in their bible is the template for the country's behavior.

i suppose if this were true, there would be only one religion, not the thousands of them that cover every secular thought under the sun. if you don't like what one preacher says, then find one who shares your beliefs and go there...if you can't find a preacher you like, who espouses your brand of religion, then create your own.

the great thing about the USA, is that is allowed. you can go to any church, believe any way you like, or stay at home and relax.

the only real problem i have with all this, is that too many people believe we live in a theocracy.

WRONG!!!! this is supposed to be a democracy. freedom for all, until you reach my nose. that's when MY freedom begins.

you cannot dictate what i decide to do with my life, just because your religion may say its wrong.

i can take a drink, go to a movie, make health decisions, all without consulting a priest, minister, pastor, etc...unless i choose to.

we must all be vigilant. there are mostly well meaning people out there who would take over my life, all in the name of god.

my goddess takes exception to that and so do i.