Rays of Consciousness

Insight into who I am? Hmm, one of my dearest friends said, "You need to get your t.v. watchin, greenery smokin, feline lovin, tree-huggin, no meat eatin, Goddess-adoring butt out of that bed and get to school! You hear me?!?" Of course I mumble and grumble in protest, mornings aren't my bag.

Monday, November 22, 2004

Ahhh little Miss Kai insists on paging me at 2 am to remind me ever so gently and conveniently (smirks) that I've neglected my blog. Well she's right, I have been busy you know moving all my things and my cats back from California to Denver. Mission accomplished! I am now settling into my apartment and trying to get my place looking as nice as I can afford it to. I have hardwood floors as y'all know so most of my furniture is also wood too. Now my mother gave me an awfully nice couch that would've gone beautifully with everything and it even had a pull out bed for guest who stay overnight to be accomdated with. We took the door off the hinges and moved it into three hundred different positions and still it wouldn't fit through due to my hallway being a little too narrow and this annoying exit sign hanging on the ceiling in the way when trying to stand it up so we could slide it through. Ugh! I was depressed to have to drop it off at the Salvation Army since the couch looked nearly new. So, I'm stuck with these two yellow-tiger-striped chairs that are simply too loud to be sitting in my living room. My dad says he'd give me a loveseat out of his storage but I have no idea what it looks like and when he'll be back in town. Not sure that it's worth the hassle. We'll see.

Panthea and Pan are adjusting along nicely. I thought Panthea being so reserved for the last three years wouldn't take very well with having to share me and our new place with Pan. Boy, was I wrong! They warmed up to each other pretty quickly actually and my ever so reserved- uppity queen-who-dare-not- to- play- with- any -cats- for -the -last- three- years finally came off her high throne and is playing all the time with Pan now. They wrestle, nestle, groom each other. I about wet my pants the first time I saw them that close. I figured it might take a year before that type of behavior was exhibited. I am so glad it hasn't taken that long. Mama is happy that the three of us can purr contently.

I am grateful to JB. I was in a bit of an unexpected financial bind and she really came through for me. Paid the gas all the way and let me tell you folks if you ever rent Penske to move, it's about 80 bucks to fill it up so be warned! It was so hilarious when we ran out of gas in Mesquite, Nevada and had to flag down highway patrol to get to the nearest gas station. JB stayed behind with the cats while I went to fill up a red tank. We had been looking for a gas station the last hour and half but to no avail. Oh well. We made it safe and sound and I had a nice but bittersweet time with her while she remained in Colorado for a little bit. She does have a gay brother that lives in Denver and it was nice to see him again. Before she left back to California she made sure I was stocked with food to last me until my next paycheck and purchased a few things for my apartment. So again, gratitude can't be expressed enough here. Hopefully good karma follows her as she could use some right about now with her life in California.

I had a nice weekend recently. Family came over to see my place for the first time. Mom was the first one. I called her up that morning and asked her what she was doing at noon on Saturday. She said she was staying home trying to keep my little brother, Danny, quiet and warm as he was recovering from being sick. I told her then my next suggestion is obviously out of the question. She insisted I go on and ask her so I did. I invited her to join me in a protest at the capitol regarding the unjustice of unverificable machine votes, especially those found in Georgia and Ohio. In one small county in Georgia there was only six hundred and something people registered to vote but the machines say there were 2,000 that voted and most were for Bush. Something is off here and what are we doing about it as a people? Sitting back and taking it passively? Well not me, I at least wanted to rant and scream about it and a protest was the perfect outlet for that. Mom used to work for the Democratic party office calling people all day long encouraging them to vote for Kerry so I thought she'd be interested in this. She paused for a moment after I explained what the protest was about. She said "Now remember you have a right to assembly but don't get too loud or carried away" I challenged her back and said "We also have the right to freedom of speech" Mom chuckled and said, "You're right.....okay let me leave Danny here with Grandpa and I'll come pick you up" I was pretty surprised. I really figured she'd stay home with little Danny. So she came over, saw my place called it 'charming and cute' and when I told her I was thinking of painting my room Lavendar she says "I knew you were going to say that!" We scrambled into her suburban and went to grab some coffee as it was starting to snow again. Bundled snugly we walked over to the capitol after parking and mom turns to me and says, " Dan (her husband) says I can get arrested but I have to be back to work by Monday" I laughed and said "Wow imagine that, mother and daughter arrested!" and we chuckled. We got handed protest signs from people who were just leaving so we're waving them furiously and I look around at the faces amongst me and saw a people of pride and passion. It was a small group maybe 40 to 50 people there. I got a little upset at that fact.

Why have people become so indifferent to what's going on in the world of politics today? Where has the passion to push for radical changes gone? I was really really turned off when a friend of mine was leaving before my mom got to my place, turns around and says to me "It won't make a difference you know so why bother?" I snapped quickly in response and said "Because of people like you? You're right it won't make a difference. It may be too late to change things but if enough people uproared you'd be pretty surprised of the changes we are capable of bringing and the amount of power that we do hold if we come together first" she just scurried on down to her car and left. That's when my disgust at peoples' indifference emerged that day. Now I'm not naive people, I know Kerry accepted his defeat and that's pretty much all there is to it, but have you ever wondered? If enough people uproared, what passion could do to ignite certain changes? We at least need to focus on trying to remove the stupid computer machines out of the voting system and rrestrict it to paper ballots only. How many of these computer people monitors were fanatically Republican when they made the countdown of votes? Why isn't there some kind of policy or law that says those people who are hired for countdowns need to be of an Independent party or just plain neutral?

Here are some of my favorite signs I saw that day:

"Correct Electile Dysfunction"

"Veterans didn't die for a rigged election"

"I voted.......I think"

"The machine ate my vote"

"Paper ballots are the way to true democracy"

"RIP True Democracy: November 2nd 2004"

Did you know that tens of thousands of minority people are purged from the computer votes because their names are slightly similar to that of felons? That's just messed up. What did you guys do when you found out about all this? How many of you sat there passively and took it?

Not I, and certainly not my mother. We ranted, we raved and mom even made people laugh. They had some speakers talking about Bush being interested in bigger and better warheads and nuclear weapons and how he's so fixated on technology to explore Mars and mom screamed out "I'll PACK FOR HIM!" I never thought out of all people, that I'd attend a protest with my own mother. Thanks Mom, you're the coolest!"

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