Posted 1:00 PM by Bonnie

It's official!!! I will be conducting my first open mic poetry night on Wednesday, June 21 at Drews Blues Cafe here in Sumter, SC!! I'm excited and I'm nervous. I'm making up fliers as I write this and will also make a sheet to hand out with future dates for the poets. I will write more later. Have to get to work on flyers, get my own poetry ready...get poets there!!! aarrgghhh!!!

Posted 8:53 AM by Bonnie

Well, the decision is final. We have talked it over in great detail and have come to the conclusion we really don't want anymore cats. So we are not keeping any of the kittens. Honest!! That's our final answer!

Posted 10:36 PM by Bonnie

The kittens! Well, the little girl was adopted as you saw in a previous post. One of the boys had been claimed, but the woman has never come to get him. So Monday I will put a poster up at the vets. Could you resist these adorable faces?

Posted 7:13 AM by Bonnie

On yardsales, sisters, and rainstorms - I had planned to have a two day yard sale between Friday (yesterday) and Saturday (today). Of course, the plan was there wouldn't be much business on a Friday so I told my sister, Victoria, I was going to use Friday as a day off and read, listen to books on tape, write... and she said, I hope you are so busy you sell everything! Well, guess what happened? Yep, we sold just about everything we had out there. When I set up I had to stack things, and when I closed up I had two very small boxes of stuff left. A few videos and some odds and ends.

Now, the problem was thanks to my sister I had nothing left for Saturdays sale. So, last night we went around and gathered up and labelled more stuff, we wanted to get rid of, for todays sale. So, I get up early because yesterday there were people out there before I was even done unpacking and setting up! And what happens? Out of no where a thunderstorm opens up and before I could even set up I was taking stuff back in. And it is still raining and there is still thunder. Every time it looks like it might clear up... Kaboom! It starts again.

So, thank you Victoria! Had you not jokingly cursed me to have a busy day yesterday I would not have sold a bunch of stuff! So, I'll let you know next time I'm going to have a sale so you can do that again!

And if you're wondering who the horse is - well, I did a google search for images and decided to look to see what was on the net for Victoria Rivas and lo and behold that was one of the images under her name. I couldn't resist posting it here.

Posted 5:46 PM by Bonnie

One gone...three to go! The other day our neighbor, Wheezie, came over to look at the kittens. All the while protesting she wasn't going to take one, she was just going to look. Well, of course, the little tiger girl kitten climbed up her and got her little velcro paws stuck in her braids. It was instant love and Wheezie said, "I'll take her!" So today she came and picked her up. Here's our little girl and her new mommy!

Posted 8:37 AM by Bonnie

10 things that remind you of your mother:

My mom is in her 80's and in spite of a few heart attacks and skin cancer she manages to still do the holiday dinners. I'm in a different state but I call her every weekend and we laugh about getting older. I do miss the family holidays.

1. Roses - my mom loves roses and had them growing in our backyard, in spite of the fact we lived behind a foundry!

2. Vegetable gardens - especially the taste of fresh picked tomatoes - see number 1 and number 8.

3. Bing Crosby singing Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ra (That's an Irish Lullaby) - my mom loved Bing Crosby and cried when he died.

4. Meatloaf and for once I don't mean the singer! My mom made and probably still makes the best meatloaf around!

5. Christmas - my mom loves the holidays, but especially Christmas and as poor as we were she always managed to make it seem special and magical. She would bake cookies and hide them on us - in room we called the cold room. Yeah, they were really hidden, uh huh.

6. Seeing the movie Singing In The Rain with Gene Kelly and Donold O'Connor.

7. The smell of lilacs always remind me of my mom. Our backyard was full of them.

8. Fried green tomatoes! My mom loves fried green tomatoes BUT when she eats them she breaks out and her face swells up...every summer she would vow not to eat any and every summer she would just HAVE to HAVE a fried green tomato sandwich and yep... she would break out and swell up!

Of course, when the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe came out I HAD to buy it for her!

9. Reading the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - my mom had a stash of books secreted away on the shelf in her closet. She told us we couldn't read them because they were for grown ups. So, of course we read them. She had others but the one that affected me the most and that I still reread from time to time is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. By telling us we couldn't read them she got us curious enough to read them and I developed my love of books because of that little ploy.

10. Going bowling and the scents and sounds of bowling alleys - my mom and I bowled on the same league for years so every time I enter a bowling alley,I am reminded of those great times. Of course, I was their handicap because all of them had averages over 200 and mine was only 130. Without me the other teams beat them on their handicaps - so my mom asked me to join their team and even though I was a youngster in my 20's and they were all old ladies (like about the age I am now!) it was a lot of fun.

Posted 12:56 PM by Bonnie

Wow!! Today marks the fourth year anniversary for Keith and myself and my marks my fifth year hear in Sumter, SC. The funny thing is neither one of us remembered until we were watching a documentary on a film and Keith noticed they had started filming on May 11... he asked me what day it was and not putting the two together that today was May 11 and they started filming on a May 11 I thought and said... oh, it's our anniversary? He asked, "is it?" and then we both figured it out and sure enough... it is!!
So, Happy Anniversary to us! We haven't killed each other yet!

Posted 3:38 PM by Bonnie

Wednesday Mind Hump

Hi everyone! I really like today's Mind Hump theme! It's Official Thank You Day.

1. Name two of your teachers from school whom you'd like to thank.

Mrs. Hoffstetter and Mr. Quirk
(both encouraged the writer and poet in me)

2. Name two friends you'd like to thank.

Sherry Niederriter (who made me feel like I wasn't an outsider in highschool) and Robin Vaughan (who made VT not seem like such a cold place to be).

3. Name two celebrities you'd like to thank.

Joan Baez! I love ya!!!! and Bette Davis - she was soooo cool!!!!

4. If you have anyone else you'd like to thank, you can thank them here!

My sister, Victoria, who made me believe my poetry was good enough to share and published a chapbook of my poems.

My husband, Keith, who puts up with me and loves me in spite of myself.

Of course, if you want to do more than two each, you certainly can!

I'd like to thank ALL of the readers and players on this site, and I'd especially like to thank Friday for giving me the opportunity to do these memes each week.

The rules are, there are no rules!!! All you need to do is copy and paste the above questions into your blog and add your responses. After you've finished, return here and leave us a comment so we'll know you've humped. Be sure your hump is linked back to http://bdinsanity.blogdrive.com so others can hump too.

Remember, there are no right or wrong answers. If one of the questions doesn't inspire you then simply "pass" it. Just use your imagination!

Posted 3:05 PM by Bonnie

PMS Blues - Even if you don't like Dolly Parton you have got to hear this song! What a hoot!!!! Click here for those PMS Blues!

Posted 4:31 PM by Bonnie

Morris College Graduation Day!


Morris College, where Keith teaches, held graduation ceremonies today. Since my first experience, with this college and the graduation ceremonies I have been totally appalled by the behavior exhibited. No, not by the students but by the parents. The rudeness and inconsideration of others is disgusting. In the bulletin it states please hold all applause and acknowledgements until all students have been called and received their diplomas. Before they start handing out diplomas they again remind the parents and families that the next person wants to hear their child’s, spouses, or relatives name called so to please not applaud or yell until the end. They even have security guards to remove any who are disruptive.

Inevitably, there are those who don’t care about the next person, but only about themselves and will start to hoot and holler and jump around waving their arms. This stops the ceremony and takes away from the next person, because they have to be removed from the audience. It’s a shame we can’t all act like civilized human beings and show respect for others and also show respect for the students and the occasion.

Others brought in large gifts, which they put on seats that would be needed for other family members to sit in to enjoy the ceremony. A few had to be asked to remove the presents to make the seats available, others had large balloon bouquets that were blocking the view and had to be told to lower them so those behind them could see. There was an elderly woman needing a seat and a group would not move over to let her have an end seat, so the usher had to go get a security guard to have them move over. Cell phones were going off, and instead of turning them off, the people answered them! The woman behind me was giving directions, very loudly, and passing the phone along to others to talk with whoever was on the other end. And this was during the ceremony.

Then we get to the speaker. Now I have to admit I did enjoy him. Some of what he said made no sense at all, but he was certainly an exciting speaker. Here is some of what he said…

When the white man owned slaves God came down and taught the black man to read and educated the black man, who then could turn to the with slave owner and tell them that the bible said more than obey your master. Now, if history serves me right, God never did come down and teach the slaves to read…it was the good slave owners who thought the blacks should be educated as well… And gosh, I really don’t remember God coming down and saying let my people go and the slave owners caved in under God’s pressure. I think it had something to do with whites in the north feeling slavery was wrong… something called the emancipation proclamation… But hey! I could be wrong.

Then he goes on about how Africa is the most financially affluent country in the world and that North America and Europe couldn’t survive without all the money and technology coming out of Africa. Hmmm…. News to me, but hey, I could be wrong! If that’s true why are they shown so much on all these ads begging for money to help build the underdeveloped nation and feed their starving children?

And all the while the mostly black audience was hooting and hollering and praising jesus and halleleliah we showed the white man… but this is where it gets interesting.

He stopped…looked out at the crowd and asked…. And what have you done with what God gave you and did for you? You continue to blame others for your problems and refuse to take responsibility. There was a time when blacks owned 40% of the land and businesses, but now it is less than 10% because you are happy to spend your money on alcohol, and drugs, and fancy cars, and expensive clothes and jewelry and the most expensive makeup. You have phony eyes, phony fingernails, and phony lives. Instead of putting a percentage of your money into building the black community and black businesses you destroy it by spending your money on drugs.

Suddenly the crowd isn’t so vocal. There are those who are agreeing. Don’t get me wrong, not everyone was shocked by what he said, but some got up and walked out. They wanted to hear how the white man was still holding them down, but he was telling them no one was keeping them down but themselves. He challenged the graduating seniors to pull their money and start a co-op where they would fund black businesses and rebuild the black community, instead of buying fancy cars and expensive clothes and then complaining they had no land or property. He challenged them to be smarter than the past generation. Some walked out at this point – they thought he was going to talk about reparation and how the white man owed them, but instead he’s telling them that time has past and they need to open their eyes and see they have met the enemy and the enemy is them.

At the end of the speech he went back to how the Church has given the black community everything it has, etc etc etc. But all in all, he was very motivational and interesting to hear. The ceremony was short and sweet and we even got out of the parking lot without the usual traffic jam problem.

In the picture of Keith you will notice he is wearing a blue Penn State tassel instead of the gold PhD tassel. They made a mistake and gave him the wrong one. It should have been blue and gold. Blue for Penn State, where he graduated, and gold for his PhD status.

To see all the pics I took today click here.

Posted 6:03 PM by Bonnie

Wednesday Mind Hump

Hi humpers! Today is Tighty Whitey appreciation day. I don't think too many of you wear those, so we'll just do a Cinco De Mayo theme.

1. ¿Como Estás?

Las cosas han sido mejores, pero realmente no puedo quejarme.

2. Ever been to Mexico? If so, where? What did you do there?

Nope!

3. Do you like Mexican food? What's your favorite Mexican dish?

Yes. Favorite dish - bean and beef burritos, with refried beans and rice.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo I will post the words to one of my favorite spanish songs....
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marijuana que fumar.

(The cockroach, the cockroach
Now he can't go traveling
Because he doesn't have, because he lacks
Marijuana to smoke.)

Happy Cinco De Mayo!!!


The rules are, there are no rules!!! All you need to do is copy and paste the above questions into your blog and add your responses. After you've finished, return here and leave us a comment so we'll know you've humped. Be sure your hump is linked back to http://bdinsanity.blogdrive.com so others can hump too.

Posted 8:49 AM by Bonnie

Somehow, Steven Colbert of Comedy Central got to be one of the key
speakers at the White House Press Corps event. He is hard-hitting, blunt
and harshly critical of this administration. The President, and the rest
of the right-wing media that was invited, was not amused. They seemed
shocked. And were pretty silent as Steven assailed this administration
and all is stands for, but Steve finished his piece. This is well worth
watching:

Posted 8:28 AM by Bonnie

I belong to Sumter freecycle. For those not familiar with freecycle it is a way to clean out things you don’t need or no longer need and pass them for free onto someone else. You can also make requests for items. The following are just a few requests I found to be totally out of line with asking for every day items someone might have, around the house, that they are no longer using.

Freecycle ridiculous requests:

1. Wanted: Storage shed or mobile home for storage

2. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted Transmission

3. [sumter_freecycle] wanted: room built on trailer (rules state not to request services)

4. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted Transmission Help (see above)

5. [sumter_freecycle] WANTED: laptop memory

6. [sumter_freecycle] wanted: female cockatiel (these birds are around $250!)

7. [sumter_freecycle] WANTED: POWER POLE (yeah, I have a few of those lying around)

8. [sumter_freecycle] PPU: Lexmark 3in1 (I checked this out and the least expensive of these run from $99 to $149!)

9. [sumter_freecycle] WANTED: Boom Box or Shelf Stereo with CD player (another item that runs from $50 to $175).

10. [sumter_freecycle] wanted karaoke machine (I found one on sale for $49.95) sure –something I would have laying around the house ?

11. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted: Above ground pool (I think this is my favorite so far. I mean doesn’t everyone have an extra $10,000 to $35,000 above ground pool just lying around?)

12. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted: Leaf Blower or Shop Vac with blower attachment – the leaf blower might not be that bad. They run from around $39.99 to $109.99. and the Shop Vac with blower attachments aren’t cheap either. The cheapest I found was around $58!

13. (This one I just found totally disgusting)
[sumter_freecycle] WANTED: PAGEANT DRESSES
I have 2 small girls that really want to be in their first Clarendon
County Pageant.
If anyone has a gown that is a 4T and anyone else another in a 6X or 7
it would greatly be appreciated.

14. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted: Motorcycles, Dirtbikes, Minibikes, ATVs (Oh yeah, I always have at least one or two of these $10,000 plus items lying around to just give away!)

15. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted: Laptop (want to bet this is the same person requesting the laptop memory?)

16. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted: Computer

17. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted: Good working fridge

18. [sumter_freecycle] wanted/ Freezer

19. [sumter_freecycle] Wanted: Fencing

20. [sumter_freecycle] wanted full blooded lab (uh sure… like a full blooded lab puppy is only around $650 - $800)

and after warning after warning that this is give or request household items AND NOT SERVICES! (especially request services) this one…

21. sumter_freecycle] cherry picker to go in air to check out light on pole
want someone to look at my night light on a pole.

Posted 3:30 PM by Bonnie

Monday Music Mambo - Week 97

Greetings, everyone! Today is May Day, the day we celebrate workers all over the world. Here are some May Day Mambo questions for you:

1. Name three songs about working or the working man ....ahem... and the working WOman.

1. Working 9 to 5
2. A Hard Days Night
3. Working Class Hero

2. Name a few artists who champion the working man/WOman

1. Florence Reese
2. Joan Baez
3. Harry Chapin

3. Name one song that gets you through your work day, either by listening to it or having it stuck in your head.

Master Jack - no idea why but I have loved that song since I first heard it...

It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack.
You taught me all I know and I never look back.
It's a very strange world and I thank you, Master Jack.

You took a current ribbon from out of the sky,
and taught me how to use it as the years went by.
To tie up all your problems and make them believe.
And then to sell them to the people in the street.

It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack.
You taught me all I know and I never look back.
It's a very strange world and I thank you, Master Jack.

I saw right thru the way you started teaching me now.
So someday soon you could get to use me somehow.
I thank you very much you know you've been very kind.
But, I'd better move along before you change my mind

It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
No hard feelings if I never come back
It's a very strange world and I thank you, Master Jack

You taught me all the things the way you'd like 'em to be.
But I'd like to see if better people agree.
It's all very interesting the way you disguise.
But I'd like to see the world thru my own eyes.

It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack.
No hard feelings if I never come back
You're a very strange man and I thank you, Master Jack.
You're a very strange man and I thank you, Master Jack.
You're a very strange man, aren't you, Master Jack?


The rules are, there are no rules!!! All you need to do is copy and paste the above questions into your blog and add your responses. After you've finished, return here and leave us a comment so we'll know you've Mamboed. Be sure your Mambo is linked back to http://bdinsanity.blogdrive.com so others can dance too.

Posted 10:24 AM by Bonnie

Illegal Immigrants: Today the illegal aliens/immigrants in our country are threatening to walk off the job and show us what America would be without them. Let's look at this point by point.

1. They say they take jobs Americans won't take - WRONG! See, this is just another form of outsourcing. I have friends who complain they lost their jobs to outsourcing, when the company they worked for closed their company here to open in another country for CHEAPER labor! Tax breaks to no taxes! The businesses hiring ILLEGAL aliens are doing the same thing.

Americans would fill these jobs for fair wages, health benefits, etc. The illegal aliens work for less than minimum wage. Then our government gives them FREE HEALTH CARE AND FREE EDUCATION FOR THEIR CHILDREN. They mainly get paid cash/under the table and therefor don't report their wages and DON'T PAY TAXES. Those of us who do work legally and pay taxes pay the school taxes that help pay for the education of their children!

2. So, let's talk about education. They are threatening to keep their children home from school - because? why? Their children are going to school FREE while Americans - naturalized or otherwise are paying the taxes that pay for their kids to go to school FREE. Do they understand they aren't doing us any favors, but it's the other way around?

3. They are exercising one of the AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP freedoms - the freedom of assembly and demonstration. These are freedoms legal citizens fought for and earned. So, go ahead and enjoy the freedom that would not be allowed in their own country, while demanding we teach classes in Spanish or other languages because their children aren't Americans and aren't citizens and while they thank us for the free health care and free education, they will be taking their pay back to Mexico to support their country and their children will take their FREE education back to Mexico to make that country a better place.

4. FREE HEALTH CARE! Yes, they do get free health care. Yet, Americans with no health coverage are sent away without treatment or made to have fund raisers to raise the money for operations, etc. We just had to do that for a friend who needed heart surgery, had no health care, and had to pay PRIOR to the operation. Had he been an illegal alien this would have been free to him.

I worked in the fields - picked potatoes, picked grapes, and strawberries. It's hard work, yes, backbreaking yes, but for a fair wage Americans will do the job. As I said before, paying illegal aliens less than minimum wage is the same as outsourcing. Figure it out!

I have worked as a cashier - stocking shelves - cleaning crew - but now a large majority of these jobs are outsourced to illegal aliens and I as well as many other American citizens, who would happily do these jobs - for a fair wage - are out of work.

Now, if the illegal aliens really want to show how much impact they have on America - don't use your free food stamp card for a day, don't utilize the free health care benefits, don't have your baby in America so it will automatically be a citizen. If they really want to show how much impact they have on American they should spend the day in Mexico (where most of them are from) and lessen the crime percentage for the day as well as dropping the percent of illegal drugs that would be sold and used for that one day. No, I'm not saying all of them are drug dealers or users, but enough are to make a difference.

I know there will be those who disagree with me, but if you do and your job has been outsourced think about it. How did you feel when you learned your company was selling out and moving over seas to get cheaper labor and more profit for them? Then think of us unskilled laborers who are out of work now because our jobs are being outsourced to illegal aliens who come here and take our jobs because they are willing to work for less money, because to them everything else is free, and an American dollar is worth much much more in their country.

That's what Zephyrbird thinks!