Am I A Bad Mother

I left the school selection and decision in the hands of my husband. She hasn't been herself, so on Friday I took off from work and trekked into NJ and picked cutie face up from school.

I couldn't ask any questions because I was fighting back tears. The room she is in all day is smaller than her bedroom. We live in NYC so her bedroom is really small - hence "to the burbs". When the teacher said she liked the playground and playing with the older kids - all I could think is YEAH - look at where she is the rest of the time. Nothing against the other 3 children in her class of which 2 were special needs. My daughter is a very smart almost 2 who knows and sings the alphabet in English and Hebrew, sings songs in several languages (I'm counting Frere Jaques) and answers questions Dora poses. Well maybe "umbrella" was a guess, but What should we take to protect us from the rain? she said umbrella.

Do I quit my job and pull her out ASAP?
Do I find another school and wait until Sept to start? That's what I'm doing. Am I a bad mother?
I'm actually furious with Paulo - How did he pick this place. They have dozens of choices in NJ. We could always go back to the school she was in. Except for the fact that I didn't like one child who liked to hit. At least she still sings songs with hand and dance motions from that school. Her favorite is "Fire Truck" by Ivan Utz.

Holy War - Holy Shit

Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, Hammas have called for a holy war against the west and of Jews. Remember there are only 12 million Jews in the world. Why must people keep picking on them. It's time to be concerned. This is the next big thing. In the future historians will look back and say this is the beginning of the Islamic movement that ends in major war. The only things I know for sure is:

- that a lot of people will die needlessly,
- in the end of the nightmare, the good will win
- there will still be Jews and those who sided with the Jews will be the victors

It's history stupid. We keep thinking we are so smart it can't repeat itself. But it does. Time & time again. Thank you Mrs. Teresa Fisher my high school history teacher for giving me a perspective on life and the world.

No More Diet Coke

Five years ago I drank about 2 liters of Diet Coke a day. Three years ago I went on an organic - no sugar diet and stopped drinking Diet Coke all together. After the birth of my daughter - I would have one every few months.

I'm not sure when, but stopped drinking it totally. Yesterday I had a big craving for one. I bought it and had a sip. It is the most aweful tasting stuff. What happened? How did I ever drink this stuff? I need an alternative drink sans sugar, sans poison low calorie sweetener. I've been drinking watered down Vitamin Water but concerned about the food coloring. I also do Starbucks decaf with organic milk when available (the soy milk they use is way too sweet).

I'm hoping to start my organic - no sugar diet again soon. I'm just waiting for my kitchen to be finished so I can cook my healthy foods again.

Bye Bye Diet Coke. Attention: please come out with an organic/non glycemic/non-caffeinated drink soon.

Papers Signed

I signed all the financial papers last night on the house. My guess is that we are going to be sending over our 10% soon. I'm not really ready for this sort of change.

Cutie face was written up on Friday for pulling another girls arm causing her to dislocate her elbow. She went from model student to bully overnight. There is no way in hell that my 21 month old daughter would have the strength to do this. She's smart but is not strong. My husband signed something that said he was told. He also said that he has to teach her to go for the knees - not the elbow. When he spoke with the teacher who was there at the time, she said she didn't see what happened - All the kids were playing and the girl's who's elbow was dislocated is prone to this. We are not sure why cutie face took the fall for this. I'm trying to figure out how to handle this in the future.

We really have to find her a better school. My husband heard one of the teachers yelling at the students. This is not good thing.

PowerPoint Sucks

My project today at the office was to design a PowerPoint Template that everyone can use. That way all the presentations on the project would be branded.

Everything I wanted to could not be done.
1 - Master slide - I wanted to make the heading all UPPERCASE. The master slide makes it UPPERCASE. But when you insert a slide it's upper lower. (Same problem with the bullets)
2 - I was playing with the color palatte and ended up with too many of similar colors in the drop-down text/paint/line toolbox. There is no way to get rid of the ones you don't want from the drop down quick selection list.
3. When inserting a chart, you can't customize the font colors on the graph.

And we wonder why Microsoft is tanking?

Support for Israel

At noon today I joined over thousands of people at a support for Israel across from the UN. I was amazed at the turnout in the 97 degree NYC heat. Something must be done. More than 1,000 rockets, missiles and other attacks recently have been launched against Israeli cities from Gaza and Lebanon. Israel has the right to self-defense and to assure the security of its citizens. Every country that has equality for men and women, tolerance for others and is a democracy must support Israel's response to these terrorist attacks. Terrorist must be destroyed. I was surprised to see that Sens. Hilary Rodham Clinton was there. Without a doubt she's trying to be a viable candidate for the next election.

I wonder what would happen if we could have armed forces that would allow recruits to pick and choose where they what they were going to defend rather than - fiat - I am the president and you go where and when I send you. Would people choose conflicts in Africa? Would more people sign up?

Ban All Marriages

I'm really pissed about New York's Supreme court ruling saying that denying marriage to same-sex couples does not violate the state constitution. I'm not suprised. There's a Real Estate issue that says that if a religious organization owns an apartment building they can deny renting to those people who do not practice that religion as long as they don't deny anyone from becoming a member of that religion. (And rents would be cheaper since not tax is paid on the building)

You are not denying people from getting married only denying marriage for certain people to certain people. I therefore would like to state that marriage as an intitution is unjust. It's legal but unjust.

I hope that in my lifetime I will see same sex marriages or the banning of all marriages. I actually prefer the banning of all marriages. Each person should fend for themselves or enter into a contract agreement. This will work for everyone. Even two sisters who live together their entire lives.

My Dream Beach House

We are renovating our Beach House. It was supposed to be completed in April. They are still working on it. Paulo has been there all week helping the contractor do the work. I like my contractor, however, the people he has working for him have no desire to complete the project.

I'm afraid the same thing will happen on the burbs house. Paulo is planning to be the General Contractor on that project. He's doing an organized and fast job on the apartment kitchen. He considers all these little projects practice for the bigger project - our dream house.

To be honest - I don't really want a house. I like living in an apartment. He wants the house. But I'm thinking in 20 years or so we'll be back in an apartment. Let him live knowing he lived his dream.

Signed Contract

We sent over the signed contract. They haven't signed it yet so we didn't put down our 10% deposit. Paulo is going to put down the first 10% and I will pay the closing 10%. We got our morgage based on 20% down. The contract has us closing next month on August 15. When it's time to close we will actually be paying three morgages. As soon as our kitchen is renovated and stuff moved to storage we will sell our NYC apartment. In September we will finish renovating our vacation house getting it ready to sell next March.

I hope this is the last fixer-upper property we will purchase. It's hard having expensive tastes with not enough money. I guess this is what makes America work.

Ken Lay Died

I had much admiration for Mr. Lay. I don't believe he understood the charges against him. In our system of justice one must choose between guilty and not guilty. This is different from guilty and innocent. Not guilty means you have no guilt. Innocent means that you didn't do the crime you are charged with. I believe that he was guilty of trusting people who worked for him. I also believe that if someone commits a crime while working for someone, the person who owns the company or runs the country is guilty of that crime. That even includes outsourcing.

In my book Mr. Lay was "not guilty" but "not innocent" of the charges. I'm glad his pain is over. He was a nice man who really cared for his employees. He trusted those around him and those he employed. That was his fatal flaw.

Rest in peace Mr. Lay. And thank you for the opportunity to do work for Enron. It was a highlight of my career and my life. It was because of you I learned how to read the world.