Gross!

Anybody hear about this piece of news: "Hungry crows may be behind exploding toads: More than 1,000 creatures have puffed up and popped"? What a gruesome sight it must be! *retch & heave* =P

What's goin' on with these bus crashes in the area? The tragic accident in Alexandria between the occupied school bus and the garbage truck? Then the school bus and the Metro bus in the District. Everyone was probably on their cell phones (even though it's against the law in DC)... :-/ I hate when people are all up on my tail when I drive. Sometimes they seem to continue to accelerate even though I'm hittin' my brakes and slowing down. Sometimes I see that they're on the phone while driving. And when people who tailgate finally realize they're following too close, I see that they must have really had to slam on the brakes cuz whatever they have hangin' from their rearview is shaking back and forth/side to side frantically. It's to the point where I think I'm driving more so through the mirror than through the windshield in front of me. It's cuz some months back, this one young driver rear-ended me and I saw it coming. I was on my way home from work and there was traffic, being rush hour and what not... I was slowing down, as were the cars in front of me, as we were approaching a red light. I looked in my rearview mirror to see that the girl behind me was not decelerating and then - CRUNCH! She hit me. Yes, "crunch". That's the sound I heard when she hit the bumper. Long story short, we pulled over, as did another vehicle who witnessed the accident, and so did a couple of firemen in one of their work SUVs. The lady who saw the accident asked me if I needed her to call the police and she also volunteered me her info in case I did decide to call the authorities. She said that the other driver was not paying attention. The firemen took a look at our vehicles. We couldn't really see any damage. My car was so dirty, I couldn't tell if there were any scratches. But it didn't appear to have any dents. The one firefighter said the sound I heard on impact was probably styrofoam that's inside the bumper. I had no idea they put that kinda stuff in bumpers. It just doesn't seem that... I dunno. Maybe I'm thinkin' there should be something a bit more "high-tech" or somethin'. :-P Anyhow, back to the accident - the girl was clearly affected by the whole thing, about to hyperventilate or something. Heh. She was so scared, talking about how she was in such trouble with her parents. Apparently, she had a brother or two with a not-so-great driving record, and so there would be issues with their insurance company. Finally, her father came to the scene and he was nice. I was upset, but I remained calm. I exchanged info with the girl, but never acted upon it. I told the girl that these sort of things happened. And since you can't really tell anything hit the car, I just left it at that. Of course, it bothered me, the whole incident. I was thinking - man, if only I had taken a different route home. Or, if only I had left work 15 minutes earlier. Stuff like that. Which reminded me of the movie Run Lola Run where the mere difference of a few seconds can affect entire outcomes in drastic ways. Check it out if you haven't already seen it. =)

5-Year-Old Arrested...

I am so tired of hearing about this: 5-Year-Old Cuffed, Arrested in Florida! A Current Affair is driving me crazy with this story - morning and evening they seem to be talking about it. Not sure if they re-air or keep talking about it, but all I gots to say is, that bad-ass girl needs an azz whoopin'! :-P Did ya'll see the video? And did you see that stupid family attorney try to exaggerate the matter? He said the girl was "forcibly" arrested. That girl was "gently" handcuffed. And it was mainly 2 cops - not 3! That third one came in a little later. Some people are asking, why did it take that many cops to restrain a little girl. Hello! Think about it - if you alone were going to try to hold an unruly kid (though at the time they approached her she wasn't resisting, but they were prepared for an outburst), you know full and well you might not be able to do it single-handedly without using some elbow grease. I mean, if I were to hold a fightin' child back, I'd really have to use force cuz I only got two hands (and a foot to stick up her butt) and so you'd probably have to hold her wrists or arms firmly and then she could claim you hurt her and what not. So, I see the logic in using more than one cop to control that little miscreant. Did you see the way she was acting all up and out? Whether or not you think that calling the cops was unjustified, there still ain't no kinda excuse for that girl to be behaving that way! I can't imagine ever having done that when I was little. Why do kids no longer fear, respect, or obey authority figures with reasonable requests? I tell you - that no-good mother of that spawn of Satan ought to be arrested as well! On A Current Affair they showed the girl with her mom in NY taking a break from the hoopla of it all and wouldn't you know? The mother was showin' the girl how to walk and act all grown, hands on hips and what not. WTF? I wonder what parents be thinkin'... And the mother had the nerve to say it's the schools fault for not helping her cuz she's tried to have the child moved to another class or whatever. That's still no excuse for me for anybody to be actin' like that. That show was tryna make the little girl seem like she's really such a sweetheart. Even if she is "nice" most of the time, they don't have to move away from the fact that that child was out of control! And this child psychologist, who commended the teachers/adminstrators for dealing with that vile (hehe) child by maintaining an even tone when addressing her, he had the nerve to pull the race card, saying this wouldn't have happened to a white kid. To me, that's beside the point. It's just like how black men are most likely to get arrested and sent to jail for "minor" crimes compared with their white counter parts for the same crime - but the fact remains: you shouldn't have been committin' the crime in the first place! Just 'cause white people may get away with murder, doesn't excuse the act. Enough of this tirade. I just hope the case gets thrown out and that the school isn't held liable because a parent doesn't know how to raise her child.

Yay - I got one of my state income tax refunds in the mail today! It was a LOT more than my Federal refund and significantly more than my other state refund is supposed to be. I just don't get it... It was my first time doin' my own taxes. I used the TurboTax software for Federal and one of the states I resided in. And since I didn't wanna purchase another TurboTax program for the other state, I went to the state's website and filled out some crap there. I tell ya, it was a bit confusing! I went to bed quite late that night cuz, as you know, I'm a procrastinator, so you know I was finishing my sh!t up the night of April 14th. :-) I had started a few days earlier, but I quit cuz I started with the Federal joints, and when I came to the end to see how very little I would be gettin' back, I was HIGHLY upset cuz TurboTax calculated for me chump change! But anyway...

Got a pedicure yesterday. First time, too. I thought I'd treat myself this one time. But I don't think I'll be rushin' to get another one anytime soon. Overpriced. I thought I'd at least get a more thorough treatment. I mean, I thought they were gonna give my feet a good scrubbin', sloughin' off all the dead skin and what not! But it wasn't that intense. :-/ But I got my little piggies painted. =P

I'm hungry. That's all the update for now. =)

Baby's Heart...

I had a doctor's appointment. Here is what her little heart sounds like:


She should be here any day now...

Lock your doors...

Lock the doors - Martha's out! (Stewart, that is.)

I've been MIA for quite some time, I know. But I've just been quite busy. And when I wasn't, well, I was just lazy. :-P I wouldn't say this is a 'return' post, but rather an "I'm still alive" entry. I'm just checkin' back in, but I wouldn't even know where to begin with updating you all on the past year. Besides, my memory just doesn't serve me that well. So, anything I recall that has happened since last summer will be brought to you in piecemeal, if at all.

Okay, so what's the deal? Umm... I guess since I last blogged, I had moved from my parents' house to my own apartment in a rich county in another state that's out of my league. I just do not earn enough to make my home there, unfortunately. And I also hate the state. Or "commonwealth," rather. It just hasn't grown on me. Maybe if I could fit in the income bracket of the average household here, I wouldn't complain in the same way. Or maybe I would. The average household, apparently, makes about ninety thousand per year. I'm livin' paycheck to paycheck. Not cool! But hey - it's America! You live a lot better, holistically, I think, in other countries. Even third world. It just seems that the only way to live comfortably in this country requires you to earn mad loot. Not all of us are that lucky. Not all of us are interested in professions that bring you that kind of money. It's just not fair. So... once my lease is up, guess where I'm going? I'm moving back home. Ugh - I dread it! I'm doing it for financial reasons, not because I miss the 'rents. Heck, I almost would much rather struggle with money (maybe I can be eligible for public assistance at that time... >:)) than to put up with Mom and Dad.

So, by moving to another state, I decreased my commute time. It used to take me nearly an hour and a half door-to-door from my house to my job. And actually, when I moved, it still took me nearly that long! But our office was scheduled to relocated less than a couple months after I moved, and that cut my commute by about 30 minutes. That's good stuff. But it's a significant amount.

And my job. I hate it. I'm not doing anything I'm even remotely interested in and I just cannot excel. I feel stagnant. And more and more each day, I reluctlantly head to work. Business Process Reengineering. What in the hell? I don't have any interest in business. So I get thrown into this line of work with no motivation to learn it and no proper training to smoothly transition into it. So I lack the guidance I need to advance and I'm working in an area where I lack the initiative due to unfamiliarity with this field of work and my exposure to it thus far has yet to pique my interest. It's just not a happy place. People have already left. More people will leave soon because they're not happy. Don't get me wrong, it's a good company if you're the right fit in your field/specialty and you get along with the execs and all... But other than that, it suck @$$. Hmph. I got Robert a temp job there and he went beyond his temporary period - about double it. But then he had enough and put in his two weeks. Lucky him. I can't wait until I can do that. And I hope to do it sooner than later. Robert's take on the place was that it was too "cliquish - you're either in or your not."

So, that's a tiny update on at least one aspect of my life. That's enough for now. We'll see when I get back to you guys. Hope all is well. :)

In memoriam...

Another great leader passes: Karol Józef Wojtyla, also known as Pope John Paul II. (1920-2005)