Some Spam is Funny without Snide Comments

FROM THE DESK OF:
MR.BRIAN T. MOYNIHAN.
TELEX DEPARTMENT BANK OF AMERICA
NEW YORK BRANCH OFFICE, USA.
EMAIL:mr.briant_m@yahoo.com  Who knew Bank of America used yahoo email!

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) IN AFFILIATION WITH THE BANK OF
AMERICA.
5TH AND 6TH AVENUE 25 WEST 51ST STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10019

You have a Transfer worth $12 M USD with us in the bank of America. Right, A bank would tell me about money I had no clue I had.  We
are here to inform you that your fund has been deposited here for a
long time.

In regards to that, we the officials of the bank of America have
concluded that as soon as the beneficiary obtained the fund origin
certificate It turns out there is something called a fund origin certificate. However they are supposed to be free and they show the origin and path of the money. I learned this from an internet search. http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_fund_origin_certificate, we shall proceed with the transfer immediately.

All you have to do is to re-confirm your information with the correct
mailing address and make a payment of $199.00 USD (That's a lot of money for something that should be free. If I were the scammer, I would say "finder's fee".) only for obtaining
the fund origin certificate. For your information you are required to
re-confirm your full information to enable us proceed with your
payment immediately.
Please Re-confirm your details:

(1.)YOUR FULL NAME  Big Doofus Tricked
(2.)SHIPPING ADDRESS Yeah right, they going to ship that money to your doorstep.
(3.)TELEPHONE NUMBER (CELL PHONE IF ANY)
(4.)AGE AND MARITAL STATUS How better to commit identity theft.
(5.)OCCUPATION

Finally, make sure that you fill this form and return it back and also
make sure you obtain the fund origin certificate which will cost you
$199.00 only and update me so that I will provide you with the name of
our receiver's agent that will receive the money.  I'm surprised you don't use bitcoin to hide your thievery.

Contact me immediately:mr.briant_m@yahoo.com

YOURS FAITHFULLY, The sad part is someone is deceived.
BRIAN T. MOYNIHAN.
TELEX DEPARTMENT BANK OF AMERICA
NEW YORK BRANCH OFFICE

Everyday is a Gift

January of 2010, I was still working for a non-profit and had tendered my resignation. I had been asked to not share the news with anyone and to work through the end of April. I agreed.

I quit the job for many reasons.
1. I had to fundraise my own salary and it was low for the 40 to 60 hour week I worked.
2. It was just hard to make doctor appointments with my mom, brother and myself.
3. I was tired of the demands of people. The services were offered at a nominal fee for the counties and as a result people did not respect the service.
4. I was tired of the demands of people. The school programs were in demand and I just could not make all the schools and do all the programs.
5. One of the board members wanted to micromanage and it was going to be impossible to match their view of what was needed at schools and what schools wanted.
6. I could not take a sick day or day off.
7. One of the board members wanted me to pay a helper to do evening programs which created at least five or more hours work to prepare and repair afterwards. On top of everything, she wanted me to pay this person $250 out of the budget and I was making less than $100 a day.
8. One of the board members wanted me to hire a secretary with money that did not exist. I mean, I would have liked to have been paid too.
9. I had a serious health scare.

If I had not been stretched so thin, I could have easily negotiated with the board member. The lack of funding and demands of the schools was not easily solved. I enjoyed the job, the people and the board member who wanted to micromanage. It had a humdinger of a title even though it paid little. In addition, people were under the impression I knew a bunch of "bigshots".

What I did next is the biggest surprise. I thought that I would have a cushy retirement. Write a few science activity books. Possibly become a science education consultant. Little did I know that my biggest problem was not the job.

Well we went on a family vacation to Hawaii and learned my demanding brother was a control freak. I had a huge conflict with my family after coming home. My mother threatened to move with my two handicapped siblings. More surprisingly, I told them I wasn't running a prison. Move if they want to. I reached a total meltdown. They blamed it on menopause and menopause was rough.

It was just that my life slowed down enough for me to realize it was totally out of control. Originally I gave my family and myself two years. I would eventually move each of them to a more appropriate living situation and I would be able to enjoy a few years before I got too old.

By January of 2011, I started writing. It's funny. I am a good writer or so I thought. Progressively, I knew I needed to learn more if I wanted to be good. I would feel dumb but most people new to a field have a learning curve.

The dumb things I did

1. Assume that I would start out great.

2. Assume that my writing style would not need to be honed. Writing grammatically correct is much different than enjoyable writing.

3. Assume that money was the goal of my writing.

I am still a work in progress. I've leaped a huge hurdle in being able to take what I want to say and filter it to only write what people want to read. My next accomplishment is having confidence in my opinion. It is not knowing what I should think but giving myself the opportunity to act on how I feel.

1. Even though I am on a eat healthy diet and exercise plan; I don't give a rip about others think about my weight and hang ups I may have because of it. After all, I got my own teeth.

2. The knowledge that life isn't always what you want. I have always heard when everything is going wrong, then maybe there is another direction available. It's hard to see this when you have experienced events that have no redeeming quality.

3. I choose to take care of my mom and two handicapped siblings. I used to think if I sold this house, I would get them a house so my complaining siblings can do as they wish. I now know it would be what they do now which is nothing. These people still need help. They go with me wherever I go. I know that they could live in nursing homes. It is a contentment I feel as my sister takes care of her little dog and fusses over her.

So it is January 2015, I have my writing projects and goals.

My mother is in good shape but no longer can drive. She is a good driver but she gets too tired to handle it. We've got one day to ten more years together and I hope I can remember to appreciate these days.

My sister and I get along better. In my family, I am the family member all my siblings complain about. The only one who never has is my mentally handicapped brother. I went to college and they didn't. 

I had a great father. He had a fault which was control. He never wanted anyone to make any decisions but him. I got out of the house and left. I did feel anger over this until I learned that the children of alcoholics are big controllers. My dad was the son of an alcoholic.

Things are better with my other three siblings.

I'll be 59 1/2 this year and will empty an annuity that I thought I would never use to buy a minivan and make my house handicap assessable for my mom.

I know why so many housewives say they do not know how they did what they did and worked for so long. Caregiving is demanding.

I've faced the fact that my life is also finite. I have been getting my things in order. I don't expect to be kicking the bucket anytime soon. I just know that everyday is a gift.

This blog post is the result of the following prompt form Writer's Circle of Mama Kat's Blog 



If you could have given yourself a snapshot five years ago of what your life is like now, what would the picture be of and how do you think you would have felt about it?

Thinkin about droppin my pants

Thinkin' about droppin' my pants and riding the Marta train. The young hipsters are did it with various boxers. My blousy briefs should make a statement. I'll of course wear a new pair.

It was pantless Monday in various train stations around the world on January 13th. The internet keeps this old chick up with what is going on.  I guess I missed pantless Subway Monday or everyone missed my blousy bloomers.

I remember streaking. It was incredibly famous in 1973 and disappeared by the fall of 1974 when I went to college. I would not have done it. I had led such a sheltered life I would have never been able to run naked even with 6000 other kids.

Here is a recent video by Ray Stevens of his famous song THE STREAK


The news needs more levity. I have been following political pundits. They have two problems, they are replying and commenting too much which results in limited vision. I follow the liberal pundits because I lean in that direction. I follow conservative pundits because Facebook friends feel compelled to post them. What I can tell you is that they all write to people who want to have that opinion and truth is immaterial.

That being said, we will all be here tomorrow. Well hopefully, I'm getting older. Once you get in your fifties, it dawns on you that you are lucky to be alive. I have a bad neighbor. I wanted to move because it is so oppressive. Then I came back to Earth and knew it would be hard on my mother and well me to do that. I hope to live as long as my mother but you never know.

Caretaking takes years from your life. It is startling to know you need to keep a specific amount in your checking account in case you kick the bucket and bills can be paid for awhile. In other words, I am prepaying for my funeral and thinking about updating my will.

So I continue to write. I am writing a funny play similar in spirit to Greater Tuna. It is titled The Great Canadian Swamp of Florida. I might get arrested if I drop my pants.

Take care, Ann

Race Issues

Schools were first integrated in 1968 with the "Freedom of Choice" plan. It was sixth grade and we had a black teacher named Mrs. Rutledge. The principal came to each homeroom and spoke to us about being polite and respectful to Mrs. Rutledge. Then he worriedly said he hoped the students in her homeroom were behaving and our teacher agreed.

By eighth grade, integration was in earnest. They closed the black school. It turns out that the black community did not want to leave and go to the now formerly white schools. In Houston County, the designated schools for the Air Force Base were already integrated. I remember the black students walking to class the first day. They had an orientation for them and then they were released to class.

Not much happened, there were a few kids who fought a few of the black kids. More bravado than anything else, most of us only heard the gossip. Anyway in 1970, we integrated. Mrs. Rutledge passed away from liver cancer during our sixth grade year. We loved her and I can still hear her saying to our class when we misbehaved, "You are very rude."  The statement stretched and raised in intensity as she stated it.

One observation I had in college is you could tell attitudes of us who had attended school after integration was different than those who had not. Later, I taught school and saw a more subtle difference.

There is always a big gap in preparation for school that some students have and other students who can pick up easily where you are at. When I began teaching, there were more African-American students with that gap than there was when I retired. You always have a certain amount of students who need extra help. There is no shame in that, what is a shame is having classrooms so big you cannot help them.

I worked with the teacher who replaced Mrs. Rutledge. It was interesting to hear the blow by blow uproars of integration. I remember school being canceled many times in eighth grade which with the malaise an eighth grader can have, it was wonderful. More days to loafer and talk incessantly with my friends. As a kid I did not know the behind the scenes turmoil.

What changed in me over the years is that I saw African Americans have more hassles than whites. Growing up as a poor white, I had to struggle for what I had. I remember the attitudes toward black people. I hear those attitudes today.

The attitudes that don't change are those that don't comprehend the obstacles African Americans have to face. I worked with a African American teacher who did have problems dealing with children. She was too mean. However, she could never see it because she had dealt with racism for so long.

The criticism was just racism in her opinion. I can see why she felt that way. She also was not a racist. One time I said something in conversation that could have been considered offensive. I catch myself, she just shakes her head. She knew I wasn't saying something racist. That ever meter of discretion worked in her too.

A big obstacle in race relations is that my generation needs to die out which I am not in a hurry happening. We carry baggage which can be discussed ad nausea with no relief. The saddest part is that a new us versus them will replace it.

I commented on a native American thread on Facebook. I would say my support of African Americans comes from my native American ancestry but it doesn't. It comes from my parents and the fact that they passed on compassion for other people to me.

I watched a cute teenage girl allow my mom to slowly wash her hands and a public restroom before she approached the sink. I have watched people push mom out of the way and make her stand. This young lady stood and looked at her phone. I have seen people pretend to read posters on walls to give my mom time and space to enter stores. I have always done the same so I recognize it quickly.

If you want to aggravate some native Americans, tell them you have Indian ancestry. It aggravates them. For me, I was a "kickback" and definitely had the look. This made one woman disturbed that I said I had the high cheekbones. Oh brother, I should have said I was lucky and did not get the nose. However, I would have liked the teeth that my mother had.

I also don't think the native Americans have the opinion of that thread of conversation. Social media has not matured and people can be pretty obnoxious and holier than thou with comments.

The only time I got positive feedback was in South Dakota at a pottery shop. I think the women were just kind. They smiled and seemed genuinely happy to hear of my ancestry. Even my blond blue eyed sister got to bask in the brag session. I know some people are wanting casino money but most just want to brag. And many have only heard family stories which may or may not be true.

I was born with an advantage. I get a glimpse into attitudes. Some people who feel it is better to be white and like me tell me I look white and only white. I worked at a school with many black teachers and custodians. After my blond sister dropped by, one teacher and a custodian told me about a white friend they had. Sometimes I have slipped in the racial divide.

When Billy Graham was asked which sin he would remove from the world if he had the power and he said racism.

Yes my ancestry  is primarily that of the British Isles. Many of my ancestors came over in the early 16 hundreds. I'm descended from Puritans, Quakers, Slave Owners, Unionists, Confederates, Union Sympathizers, good people and hopefully not too many bad people.

My grandfather Bennett was actually a Benet. He was born in 1867 in Germany. He served in the Spanish American War and World War I. My maternal grandmother's family had to be registered during World War II because of their German surname.  A name that arrived long before the American Revolution.

I don't consider myself white. I am an American. I know that this is a piece of fluff against the problems we have in society. But like my eighth grade self, I have been sheltered from the worst. If I were a Native American, I may bristle at folks claiming native ancestry. If I were black, I might consider some of the criticism as racism. We are a product of our environment.

I have a Facebook friend who laments how bad schools are. In her area, they are bad. If your child has good social skills and strong academics, they will do ok. If your child is like most children, they will have problems. Weighing those problems against the problems of home schooling figure into the equation.

I don't like home schooling for two big reasons. Kids do not get the social skills they need in dealing with people who think differently from themselves. Some kids need an escape from well meaning parents who have social problems themselves or have poor academic skills.

With that said, sometimes home schooling is the answer for some. I had a student who was behind and would resist your help. Grandmother wanted us to do more for him but without his cooperation we could not achieve much. If grandmother did a year or two of home schooling, she could use the discipline needed to get him caught up.

In the end, we all got a story. How we conclude is always based on what we feel and where we stand. There aren't easy answers because it is not just one problem. I read an article about racism in the South. It was so simplistic because it dealt with the powerful wealthy whites and blacks that worked for them. It did not discuss the poor whites and blacks that left the rural areas for urban areas for jobs. With the mechanization of farming, they were obsolete and went where work was.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Travel is my raison d'etre. Of course I don't get to go that many places. I could pack it up and live in a camper traveling North America and then venture into South America via Central America. Hop on a ferry and make it to Europe. Put a rudder on back and venture across the Bering Strait to Asia.

Me and my dogs and a few good books with a camera with oodles of storage cards and a computer that can store it all my videos and photos without breaking down. You can't travel without dogs, you would never feel at home. My cats would stay at my house.

I did have a traveling cat in my younger days but these old mates of mine are firmly rooted in my bedroom sleeping on my bed most of the day. Both cats do not approve of the humans who live with me. They implore me to drop them off at the people pound or on Highway 96 like so many humans do with dogs.

Little do these cats know that these humans are the reason I have not succumbed to becoming a human vagabond.

Irony - The Law of Unintended Consequences - Yin and Yang - Bittersweet - The Road Not Taken

My favorite poet is Carl Sandburg. Just take me there quickly please is my innate inertia to hear something new or change.

Another favorite poet is Robert Frost.

Below is his poem "The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

How I quit smoking.

It was a late Thursday night before the last weekend of January 1999. I had the thought that I would be an gross old woman with yellow fingernails and yellowed white hair buying a case of coke, several cartons of cigarettes and a large sack of cat food every week..

The next day I had the beginnings of a cold and an oppressive school dance to coordinate. Thankfully, the principal canceled the dance. There was a lot of politics in which I was a bystander that I hoped to escape unscathed without having to take sides.

The cold became a full blown upper respiratory illness. It lasted a week and I could not smoke. Afterwards, I stayed busy and tried to not think about smoking. My hardest moments was sitting with friends at a restaurant who were smoking. It was all I could think about was buying a pack on the way home and smoke just a few.

I have uneasy dreams today where I have smoked a few. It fills me with such regret. I knew back then if I smoked one, I would start back.

I had started teaching night school in addition to day school. Work was not going that well and I wanted an out if possible. I made it for two months, and then spring break with free time came. No longer was my day ruled with day school, walking my dogs, taking a nap, taking a quick shower and working at the night school.

My fluid, throaty persistent cough had stopped. Every time I though of smoking I would remember that cough. It haunted me and rose anytime I got hot, stressed or on the spot. The cough was so aggravating I was able to dismiss the yearning.

With time the urge was less. I really did not think about smoking.

After my dad passed which was December 18th, 2000, I was late driving from my home in Sharpsburg to some place in central Georgia that I needed to be. I began to dig in my purse for no reason as I drove South on the Interstate highway. The hunt for cigarettes that I no longer smoked or possessed had been bidden by my subconscious.

Now, I don't care for cigarette smoking. Mostly that lingering smell on everything is what bothers me. I spent the night at my brother's house and the smell was more than I could handle. After unsuccessfully trying to sleep in the backseat of my Toyota Corolla, the discomfort and the frequency of traffic of the road in front of his house drove me back into his house.

Why did I start smoking?

At first I was just experimenting. A little reckless behavior to take the edge off the fact that I was incredibly naïve, sheltered. Later I smoked on occasion because I was the youngest person where I worked and all the others who were old, i.e. 26, 27 even 31, smoked. It helped me not be so nervous.

The problem was that I no longer could lay them down for months at a time. I still called myself a "chipper". Later, I knew I was a smoker and it was an addiction. I would quit occasionally. I understand why people need help quitting.

I was lucky in that subconsciously I had begun to loathe the habit. I think this is why I was able to go cold turkey. I think this is what happens to most all who go my route.

In the end, I think cold turkey is the easiest. I cheated or took advantage of the fact that I had a chest cold in giving myself a head start. If I had lived with a smoker, I don't think I would have been successful.

The best way to quit smoking is to never start. I was so cavalier about smoking in my late teens and early twenties.

I never drank much due to witnessing alcoholism in family members. It's never very pretty  Later I realized that if alcoholism had been in my make-up, the first drink would not have been my last.

Drugs, go figure, I am poor white and female. Society has no respect for your screwing up. I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer but even my 18 year old self knew that going to "the barn" and drinking and drugging with a bunch of guys was not smart. Heeding the warnings of drug abuse and knowing that I was lucky to get to go to college, I was saved a lot of misery. I know some folks experiment with no long term harm. The visuals of people I grew up with that lost the battle to drug use out shadow them.

Anyway, it is January 4th and I am making some changes. I'm not saying I am quitting my candy crush and farm king addiction. I am just not playing much anymore. I will read a book or heavens forbid, organize my papers.

Real change never happens in a vacuum.

Surrupticious Cat Videos

I look at my stats in the morning. I always wonder who is reading my blog. I also wonder if I should get a serious purpose to this thingamabopper.

Anyway I have more readers from the Ukraine, Poland, Russia and China than the United States many nights. I guess they are on the look out for any surreptitious cat videos the NSA may have accessed without their knowing.

I lost about 30,000 words to a novel through involuntary copying and pasting to nano word counter and obviously must have done a cut and paste. I wonder if the NSA could help me recover it.

Anyway, I am mystified why anyone in China would read my blog. Even more surprised that their firewall would allow anyone to look at an American's blog. Last of all, the google translation should be incredible. Some languages translate better than others.

When google began, I translated a French document on a computer at work. The system shut down and gave me a stern warning about accessing pornography. I did not go tell on myself and never heard anything from anyone.

Such is the luxury of working for a school system. They knew we would all make innocent mistakes. I had a monitor attached to my computer. One time out of habit, I turned off the monitor and the kids groaned. Afterall I was googling a picture of a rock. Well there it came, a large sample with an unshapely naked woman standing beside it. I did not share with them they were wrong, half the class would have run to my desk.

In the early 90's when they introduced internet and computers in the library, a librarian at an elementary school suggested the child put www dot hurricane in the news dot com in the web address window. Pornographic images loaded immediately. She thought quickly and exited the page. The page had code that allowed it to upload pop-up pictures.

They started to evacuate the library before anyone calmed down enough to unplug the computer. Sounds like an intro to a unit on alien invaders. Like have you ever seen that many people posing like that with a body these gals have. Silicon gel breasts that don't sag. I don't guess aliens wear clothes. Maybe a few should be shown in silver bodysuits. Where are the male aliens?