LOL

I think of myself as kind of a hater of the LOL , it is overused and misused. An example taken from FaceBook "just watched The Experiment..what a psychological disturbing movie lol" Why did the writer add the laugh out loud? I have not seen the movie but I found this "Rated R for strong disturbing violence including a rape, language, some sexual content and nudity." LOL, really? I also saw another FB thread recently and I swear there had to at least 8 LOLs distributed through the comments, and really nothing seemed funny.

Today my husband sent me a text, and it actually made me laugh out loud, possibly qualified as laughing my ass off, LMAO. It is such a wonderful feeling to have a laugh escape uncontrollably, to catch the giggles and not be able to stop. So here is to laughing out loud and meaning it!

Friends

Wednesday while teaching my Upper Beginning Reading and Writing class one of my students, a young woman from Russia, asked me about the word "friend". She said that friend has a different meaning in Russian, it means someone you are close to and know what is going on in their life. I said, that it was the same in English. Then she told me an anecdote of an American neighbor that had introduced her to another friend. A few weeks later my student asked her neighbor how the friend was doing. The neighbor replied, "I don't know, we really don't know each other well." Hmmm, I replied. Maybe she was right, as I thought of my FaceBook "friends" many (most) are really not people I would consider friends. She said in Russia they use the word acquaintance. I said, yes, we have that word too.

I know language is ever evolving unless it is a dying language. I wonder if social media will change the definition of "friend", replacing acquaintance (or someone I met once on a beach when I was drunk. )Will we develop new words for different levels of friends, or perhaps just add adjectives, best, true, quasi? Or perhaps we could define friends by what we know about them. Categories such as people whose birthday I know, whose birthday month I know, I (think)know which season they were born in, and I have no fucking idea, nor do I care.

Cats

If asked on one of those silly quizzes "cat or dog" I always answer dog. I relate more to dog people. But, I do like cats. I have two cats. People that say they don't have personalities don't know cats. I don't even consider most cats aloof. They are more independent creatures for sure. Though I don't think that is always a bad thing, especially when it comes to vacations and weekends away. Both of our cats seem happy to see us when we come home. I do find it interesting that both come to kitty kitty and neither come to their name. For Wally I guessed it was because he has probably had three or four names, I have no excuse for Sparky.

People also say cats are useless. That point I will definitely argue. The reason Wally found his way to our home was because we were being overrun by mice. One week of Wally and no more mice! Both cats have their own special house jobs. Sparky is a bag and water inspector. No bag is left uninspected and occasionally tested for napability. He is the only cat I ever met that loves to play in water. Turn on a faucet, shower, or flush the toilet and here comes Sparky to check things out, and maybe splash around a bit. While it is just amusing now, if we ever spring a leak in the plumbing, he could prove to be a useful cat.

Besides job of king mouser Wally has found another important job in the house, "blanket anchor" He sleeps next to me almost every night and his 18 -19 pounds is enough to anchor my side of the covers and prevent Mark from stealing all my covers.

Obligations

Today I put together Kris' birthday package. A card, 100 dollars and her car registration papers. She still has not changed her address with DMV . She had let her insurance lapse, I hope they have got some since then. I know they have bought some expensive video gaming equipment and she is getting an iPhone for her birthday (all info thanks to FB) . So, I guess they must be doing okay, or they have their priorities totally fucked up.

That is not really what this is about, it is more our obligations to her and hers to us. Are there any remaining? She came up in December because of a fight with Noah. She was here almost the entire time Mark and I were in Mexico. She made up with him ( After 30 dollars worth of phone calls on our home line)and was going to leave about 12 hours before we returned. My mother-in-law told her she had to stay, at least to say hi. She did and left the next day pretty early. She didn't feel obligated to come up for my step-dads funeral, she didn't even send my mother a note or email until I harassed her. While my step dad was not always the most charming person, he actually got her started on golf and was very supportive of her progress. In the past two years, she sent Mark and I texts on our birthdays, as well as Mother's Day and Father's Day. We will see this year. Mark has definitely been more emotionally hurt by her seemingly lack of interest in us. The last three times we went to see her in Coos Bay she was less than a gracious hostess. That is actually a huge understatement as she would barely respond, she changed plans (without telling us), and was consistently late (hours) without letting us know what is going on. She has lied a lot to us. She has went against her word, I even feel she has used us on occasion. I think Mark is done and I can't say I blame him. She has acted even more coldly to him over the last few years for no apparent reason. Cold might be the wrong word, it is disinterested, I guess. It is all hard to watch, we have been there for her. Noah has not for several pivotal occasions such as the birth of their child. Yet she has chosen her life with him. I am not sure if she wants us in her life any longer? She doesn't act like it. So do I keep sending her birthday cards even if I don't hear from her? Do I wait for the day I get an "Not at this address" returned letter? I do know that I don't want to be the one to do the final cut of our relationship. I will send her and Aiden cards, I will keep inviting her up for Christmas and other big events until she either rejoins our family or leaves it forever. I will keep to my obligations of how I think family should be treated, I will make her be the one to make the choice not to know us anymore.

Editing

I have not posted much since coming back to this blogging thing. Funny thing is I have written many more posts that just have not made it live. I write, wait, go back and review, delete, write and wait some more. Many posts never see the light of day. I look back at them and they just don't seem to say what I wanted or it seems the moment or the relevancy has passed. Hmmm. Sometimes, I think I think too much.

Crash

A week ago Wednesday , I was in a car crash on the way from Portland State Univ to Canby High School. Wednesdays are a painfully busy day for me, Oregon City to Portland, to Canby and then home. I eat on the go, and have just enough time between classes to make it from one site to another. Wednesday's weather was crappy. I was supposed to carpool as a passenger, but she was very late due to the heavy traffic, so I went on. I didn't make it very far. I was hit hard from behind by an uninsured motorist. The damage didn't look too bad at first. After all the "at the scene" crap was taken care of I went to work and thought of what if all the way to work. What if I had waited for the car pool, what if I left earlier, later, what if I had not been in the fast lane. The next morning I popped my trunk and saw the extent of the damage which led right to the passenger seat where Jason usually sits. My what ifs changed. By Friday I learned that the car had been in a bad crash before I owned it and the front safety was missing. "Boy you were lucky not to hit hard head on" said the body shop guy. More what ifs. I am not really sure of the point of this post other than small turn of events can bring big consequences. That and thinking of a lot of what ifs is can be hard on the soul.