4/21/07

I just read that it’s the anniversary of Columbine… which produces a LOT of mixed feelings for me.  My best friend Ellen was living in that city when it happened.  We were both long graduated from high school, but you couldn’t go to Denver in the next week or two without FEELING the horror and sadness, seeing all the flowers, crosses, stuffed animals, etc.  It brings tears to my eyes at the memory of it.  And it was spring, so it was beautiful… the area was, and IS, just gorgeous, the Rocky Mountains towering not far in the distance, farms practically in the middle of the city, a small town feel in the midst of Denver.  It’s a place you think, I could live here forever.  And then something like Columbine happens, and you realize, it’s not safe…and if THIS city is not safe, then NOWHERE is safe.  It’s a horrific realization.  I was glad I lived in Greeley, but still… the feeling is pervasive.  You HAVE to convince yourself that it won’t happen to you, because otherwise you become unable to live your life.  I left Greeley in 1999, so some time had passed, and it wasn’t because of Columbine that I left… I don’t want to leave that impression.  I just had a better opportunity if I moved to Sacramento, so I did.

The other thing that occurred to me when I read that it was the anniversary, was, Oh, that explains a lot.  What in God’s name is this country coming to?  Virginia Tech… this guy up here that said Virginia Tech would look tame in comparison, even my friend Linda was telling me shots were fired near her son’s school in Stockton… it was another school though.   California doesn’t exactly leave a person feeling safe anyway… but I swear this is just too much.  Even in the SMALL town of Galt that we just moved from, a 16 year old was killed a year or two ago in our neighborhood park over a POT deal gone bad… since WHEN is POT a drug that gets you KILLED????? 

I have to admit, I can’t stand feeling like this… unsafe.  My neighbor got robbed a couple of months ago… the next DAY they had an alarm system put in.  Our family thinks it was probably an "inside" job or something close to it… they have a 13 year old son who is only here on the weekends, we think it was probably one of his friends.  i have to admit, we IMMEDIATELY changed our alarm code after that.  But the odd thing is, even though my kids are prone to leaving bikes, skateboards, whatever on our porch, and that day was NO exception, nothing was taken from our porch.  Of course, we were home…and I swear that neighbor thought WE’D done it.  Or that the kids had.  No way.  I mean, my kids ARE prone to taking things that don’t necessarily belong to them, if they think they don’t belong to ANYONE… for instance, some insurance agency left Easter candy on all the doorsteps right before Easter, so my kids went to like 6 of the neighbor’s houses and removed their candy from the doorstep.  I had told them they may take the candy from two of our neighbors that seem like they’re never home, or maybe this is a weekend house for them????  When I found they’d gone to so many houses, I quickly told them, "Taking the candy from 2 houses that may or may not be occupied is one thing… but taking it from everyone is something else entirely." and I told them to put it back…. it wasn’t like they needed all that candy anyway.  But they’re not going to go breaking into someone’s house to steal their stuff, they KNOW better than that (Good Lord, I HOPE so… if not, then we need to have a VERY serious talk… but I’m always making sure if they have Elijah’s toys, that they realize it’s wrong to keep them, and they need to give them back.)
The moral compass of most people today worries me though… even JERRY… when we go to a restaurant, he’s always sending the kids off so he can basically lie about their ages so he doesn’t have to pay so much for them.  Of course, Sydni for the longest time thought that 1) She should eat before we went to a restaurant, and 2) that she should be able to eat nothing but sugar for dinner, and 3) one plate and she was FULL.  We struggled with her for the LONGEST time to get her to eat right at places like Hometown Buffet, and not just grab fruit and rolls, and french fries, skipping the meat and veggies all together.  Let’s not forget about chocolate milk to drink.  She’d be SO squirrely when we left… argh.  Shabree was always good about eating her salad til recently.  Now all she wants is french fries.  Becca is pretty good about eating, and Sydni is definitely better.  Shabree is hard to say… but she’s typically a decent eater.  Anyway, Jerry just tends to pay based on what HE thinks they’ll eat, rather than what the restaurant says.  It’s been something of a mood point lately, as we’ve had NO money to eat out anyway and have largely curtailed our outings.  At the most, we go out once a week, IF that, and really, Bec and Syd have missed out, because it’s either been me taking Shabree to Burger King for a whopper jr (2-3 bucks, because I usually add cheese, and sometimes order a soda for us to share), or Jerry and I go out leaving the kids with Kim.  And then, we eat on the CHEAP.  The last meal Jerry and I had out cost us 12 dollars.  We had water instead of soda… lol… we added lemon and sweetener and actually had lemonade.   It was good.  Then we went and saw a matinee.  So it was a very cheap date, maybe 20-22 dollars.  Which is sort of more than we can afford, but we needed it.  Today, we’re staying home and Jerry’s making spaghetti.

Well, I should get this posted.  I have a swap that needs doing, and I’ve been putting it off.  I need to cancel some swaps I signed up for, because I’ve just lost most of my interest and taste for this, and I need to catch up on my books… not to mention it’s hard to do ANYTHING with a 7 month old baby to chase around!