I'm grateful for: a debt paid; more videos converted to dvd, more room in the family room; I'm still getting a lot from Joan of Arcadia. Who woulda thunk it?

It's 3am and I'm about ready to try falling asleep. Hashem willing. Sleep has been difficult. I woke up around 6am and couldn't get back to sleep. I passed out around 8pm and slept for about four hours, and now here I am awake again. And, I still have the cold.

Good news is that S3 doesn't seem to have succumbed. The Vitamin C and Chinese herbs seem to have kept it off.

Other good news, tomorrow is the day TF comes to take Peppito. She is bringing her son AF, who was S3's best friend. As they've grown older, they don't play as well together, and perhaps aren't such good friends.

S3 has his friend from Bareqet, who is two years older than he is, and so challenges him to be better, faster, stronger, and AF who is a year or two younger and apparently somewhat emotionally challenged is no comparison.

S3's two friends on the moshav may be going away for good. I hope it is good for them. I know that S3 will miss them some, and not miss them some. They are not good playmates, but they are anglos and about his age, and the only boys who fit those particular criteria on the moshav.

I turned the phone off and didn't talk to S2 today, but TH says he was sounding quite chipper. I can't wait to hear from him, tomorrow night, about his unit which is supposed to be singing - performing a popular song for their mefakedet, and also the mefaked of the base. I hope it goes well, he was worrying about it yesterday.

I talked very briefly with D2. It should have been more brief. I wasn't feeling well and whined at her. Not good. *sigh*

I talked to a bill collector from the U.S. and have now discharged one of the debts left over from then/there. Unfortunately, it isn't actually 'my' debt, since a friend of mine managed to get a cellphone account in my name, then run up a lot of charges and trash the phone. Still, it is a good feeling to no longer be a 'deadbeat' even for something as small as this. It *is* small, nothing compared to my real debts, the ones from @mex. Less than 10% of those debts. But, maybe it's a sign of things to come?

A good thing to come out of the economic downturn is that companies that were being complete a**holes and wouldn't work with you (us) for love nor money are suddenly willing to deal. If @mex had been willing to deal, rather than simply trying to screw us over at the first sign of weakness, they would have been a deal on their way to being paid by now I think. At least they would have more money from me than they do. But what can you do when you say 'I can send you $$$/month' and they say 'absolutely not, you send us the whole $$$$$ in the next two weeks or nothing.' So, they got nothing.

If mother drops dead in the next two years, I promise to pay @mex off whatever they offer me. Otherwise, there just isn't the money, and, that's not up to me.

More than two years from now I won't go. I'll make a new promise then, if need be.

I don't like not paying my debts.

Not much to say about today. I finally got all the Magic School Bus episodes that we have on video tape on dvd. S3 was enthusiastically going to go off and watch all of them. Fortunately that didn't happen. And now we have some good educational viewing for when he must watch television - other than N@t'l Ge0graphic which is unfortunately pretty badly slanted, and worse, propaganda. They pretty often present as 'fact' what is in actuality only 'theory,' and try to drive home the message of human guilt.

The only one who should be instilling guilt in my children is me. My nine-year-old doesn't need to feel guilty about pollution in the oceans or the loss of habitat for an endangered species on some island he's never heard of. Let him take on the burden of collective guilt when he is old enough to understand just what that means for heavens sake!

I really do not appreciate this 'thing' among the 'educated' 'liberal' er, um, people-who-make-PBS-programs-and-educational-materials-and-decide-what-moral-values-should-be-taught-in-schools-and-on-the-airwaves. We apparently must all be taught to feel guilty, like somehow we can't appreciate what is right and wrong and try to do right unless we understand how horrible we are? And, why do we have to see ourselves as horrible? Aren't most people just doing the best they can trying to get by not-really-horrible-at-all-despite-what-the-elitists-say? So, yeah, um, not so hot on N@t'l Ge0graphic any more. Just too much there that is not 'science,' and too much that is 'Science-as-religion' which is to say you are supposed to take what they tell you on faith and not question the common wisdom.

Wouldn't people interested in real science (i.e. the scientific method, objective questioning, learning and understanding about the world and how it works) welcome challenging questions? And attempt to listen to the questioners and answer them thoughtfully with verifiable facts? Well, I think they would.

They would not need to instill guilt in people in order to make them fall in line with their view of How-Things-Are.

Of course it is fun when S3 is watching something of that sort, and S1 is in there howling and pointing out all sorts of discrepancies and telling S3 where they are stating their theories as facts - at least when he knows the subject. On the other hand, while I want S3 to be skeptical, and to know not to take everything in that he sees on these sorts of programs, I would also like him not to lose respect for (at least some of) the people who make these programs.

I miss J@cques Couste@u. Just for the record.

What am I rambling on about here? I don't even know. It is too late, too hot, and I am still sick. *sigh* Here's praying that tomorrow is a better day, especially since I have to do grocery shopping and TH has a yahrzeit to go to (anniversary of someone's death - celebrating their memory).

Be well, all, and Gd bless

Oh, and it turns out that the tzeva adom this morning wasn't an actual missile. I don't know what it was, my Hebrew isn't that good, but it wasn't a 'real' alert. Lovely.

And in other good news, we sold both of our boy goats, the grown guy and the kid. Now we have cash! TH went right out and bought bread and milk and tissues. What's important...

I'm listening to Winifred Atwell: Swanee River Boogie

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06