Mishmash Musings

I don’t know if I’ve ever posted about this before, but I’m a volunteer with the E-Buddies Program. This program pairs volunteers with intellectually disabled participants to form e-mail friendships. I’ve been doing this for 6 years now, and have had two e-buddies in that time.

My current buddy is Kristy, a woman I’ve been corresponding with for almost 4 years now. We’re about the same age, and have similar tastes in movies and books. We usually write about our families, work, school, or whatever else happens to be going on.

For instance, Kristy’s last email to me was a triumphant one, as she recently learned that her monthly social security disability payments would be increasing. In her own words, that means “we will be able to eat better for the first time in years.”

I don’t know how Kristy and her husband managed to get an increase in their payments, but I think they used some kind of company that specializes in ensuring that people get the SSDI amount that they’re entitled to. Whatever they did, I’m glad it worked out for them.

Actually, I wish I could help Kristy directly by sending her money or gift cards once in a while, but from what I understand, that sort of thing is strictly prohibited by the program. That’s too bad, because I really am in a position to help!

I just read that the WHO has raised its pandemic alert for swine flu to phase 5, the second highest level. This means the organization thinks a worldwide pandemic of the disease is “imminent”. So far, there have been confirmed human cases of swine flu in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Britain, Israel, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, and Spain. Only Mexico and the U.S. have reported deaths from the disease thus far.

Personally, I think people are getting carried away about swine flu. Is it really that much more virulent than other forms of influenza? Thousands of people die from influenza every year, so why are they calling swine flu a “pandemic”? We’re still just talking about a handful of cases in each of the countries mentioned (with the exception of ground zero, Mexico).

I’m not trying to minimize all the deaths here, but come on. News reports make it sound like tens of thousands of people are dropping dead from swine flu when that’s not the case at all. Everyone needs to get a grip — or stop traveling to and from Mexico!

(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Ok, well I have just been on Twitter for a couple of months now, and I’m already getting sick of it. Not many of my friends are on there, so I’m actually following a lot of celebrities… but the novelty has definitely worn off by now. There are only so many times I can read about how they’re jetting off from one exotic location to the next or how they’re thinking of buying more Mailbu properties or Outer Banks homes.

So I’m planning on “unfollowing” all of these people, or maybe just not even signing into Twitter anymore since I don’t really use it for myself anyway. Honestly, I can understand why celebs would want to be on there in order to undercut the paparazzi and tabloids, but I don’t get the value for regular people. Do we really need to tell everyone what kind of sandwich we just had for lunch or that we’re going to take the dog for a walk?

I haven’t done the Manic Monday meme in a long, long time, but since I’m fighting through a bit of writer’s block as far as my blogs go, I thought today would be a good day to get back to the meme. Maybe the questions will help kickstart my creativity and give me something to write about on my other sites!

Remember, I don’t “officially” participate in this meme because I don’t really have time to go around to other sites to read answers and leave comments. (And I know these questions are from last week, but I’m not gonna wait around until new ones are posted!)

Describe to me your favorite lounging clothes.

In the winter, I wear track pants from my alma mater, in school colors and with the school logo on them. I also wear any long-sleeved t-shirt and/or sweatshirt that I happen to have on hand.

In summer, I trade the track pants for a pair of basketball shorts, once again from my alma mater. They’re really loose and comfortable, plus they have pockets, which is a must. In addition, I go for short-sleeved shirts instead of long.

If you promised to never lie again in your lifetime, in what area would it be hardest to uphold the promise?

My past. I always have a hard time telling the truth about my past, especially to people I don’t know particularly well. I went through a lot of crazy stuff way back when, stuff that I don’t want to get into when meeting new people. So I fudge on things like when I graduated college (I make it seem like I graduated on schedule instead of years later), etc. It would be so hard for me to be straight about everything in my life!

Give a one word answer to the question “why is life worth living”. Family.

P.S. Are Manic Monday questions always as disconnected as this? For some reason, I thought there might be a theme to the questions, but I guess not. Weird… and totally random!

It was inevitable, I guess. And really, if I found out that more than 50 million people worldwide had viewed a clip of me on YouTube and if paparazzi were stalking my every move, I’d want to look my best as well. But still, I’m a bit disappointed to see that Susan Boyle has gotten the makeover that everyone suspected she would.

She was recently photographed wearing rather nice clothes, including well-fitting pants, a leather jacket, and a Burberry scarf (or a decent knockoff). Boyle has also been to the stylist and had her hair dyed.

Newspaper reports indicate that her hairstyle only cost around $35, but that leather jacket looks to be $300 at least. And who knows what her other duds cost. That leads me to believe that Susan has signed some sort of recording contract and has received an advance or signing bonus. Why? Because she’s unemployed and lives in government-subsidized housing. Where’s she getting the cash for these new duds?

I like what I’ve heard of Susan Boyle thus far, so obviously I don’t begrudge her her new-found fame and (perhaps) fortune. But I don’t feel quite the same about her now as I did before because she doesn’t seem like such an underdog, KWIM? I still hope she wins Britain’s Got Talent, but I won’t be crushed if she doesn’t….

(AP Photo / Andrew Milligan ,PA)

I had a ton of things to do today. All of these little errands had been building up for the past couple of weeks because I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t had a chance to do anything else. So it was finally off to the post office, Wal-Mart, the grocery store, the home improvement store, the video store, the gas station, and the library. Whew!

It took me about three hours to get everything done, and there was minimal waiting at all of these places — with the exception of Wal-Mart, where the cashier had a problem with the barcode scanner as soon as I made it to the front of the line. Figures. So after fumbling with the thing for a couple minutes, she finally gave up and started typing in the barcode numbers for the items I had. Luckily I was only buying a few things or I might have been there all day!

I had overdue fees at both the video store and the library, which sucked. But I had completely forgotten about the due dates and probably wouldn’t have been able ot return the stuff on time anyway. Oh, well.

At any rate, it’s time to throw together some dinner and settle down on the couch for the evening!

Wow, how many more of these murder-suicide stories are we going to see in upcoming months — with all the blame going on “the economy”, of course.

There have been several similar acts committed recently, and we can probably chalk the Parente family up in the same way. Though Baltimore County police are not releasing details and haven’t specifically called the case a murder-suicide, that’s how things look right now.

Originally from New York, the Parente family, consisting of 59-year-old attorney William, 58-year-old wife Betty, and daughters Stephanie (19) and Catherine (11), were apparently in Towson, MD over the weekend to visit Stephanie, a Loyola College student. Their bodies were subsequently found by an employee at the Towson Sheraton, and are now being autopsied by the medical examiner.

If this does turn out to be a murder-suicide, I’ll be sickened. Why is it that parents think they have the right to decide whether their children should live or die? If William (and you know it had to be the father behind all this, right?) was having financial problems and wanted to take himself out, so be it. But to kill his wife, and especially his children, as well? That’s just disgusting. And Catherine was 19 already, an adult in the eyes of the law. Surely she would have been able to arrange for care for herself and Stephanie, wouldn’t she? It’s not like either of them would have been left alone in the world with no one to look out for them.

Just sick. And to blame it on losing some money? That’s even worse. Money is not the answer to everything.

I always read that you’re supposed to check your credit rating ever once in a while, regardless of whether or not you’re shopping around for financial services. The reason is that doing so is supposed to help you spot fraud or identity theft before things get too far out of hand, because loan applications and whatnot will appear on your credit report.

Anyway, there are lots of companies out there that provide credit report services, so it shouldn’t be difficult to take a quick peek now and then.

I have to admit that I’ve only checked my credit rating once in the past four years. I guess I’m just too lazy to follow through on advice even when I know it’s good. I’m gonna do it soon, though! (Yeah, famous last words….)