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Jodene

reads, writes, speaks, listens & does lots of hand holding

the best description of me is in my words- please read the posts and there you will find me ...

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Lighten up- for a few minutes

This morning I saw a squirrel crossing the street in the crosswalk. The cars stopped until it scampered up the curb- as they should have for any pedestrian. My kid thought it was hysterical. Last Wednesday I heard about a Russian girl who killed her teenage friend by stabbing her to death with a pair of tweezers. Today I heard about a man in a nearby affluent community who killed his wife, three children, mother-in-law and self over the weekend. He left three notes about financial woes. It made me nauseous and my eyes got misty. The squirrel I saw in my rearview mirror with my own two eyes but the other two stories I heard on the news. Some days I have to turn off NPR and watch for law abiding squirrels and remind myself there is humor in the world if we look for it.

I spend about 3 - 5 hours in my car, driving and keeping the oil companies in business. I try to listen to NPR and understand what is happening with the economic crisis, war in Iraq (let’s go ahead and add Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan to that list for now), rise in unemployment, etc. And frankly, it gets me down! If I weren’t driving, I would be curled up on the floor in a fetal position weeping about the environmentally abused world going to the underworld in an overpriced handbag that most Americans couldn’t possibly afford since they can barely pay their mortgage. Or if it is indeed a hand basket, I hope it’s not made of corn stalks since we know how much that has risen in cost due to alternative fuel efforts that have driven up the price of milk and other food items around the world. This is what NPR starts to sound like.

My solution: turn on Adam Carolla and laugh at crude jokes, his rants and bizarre segments. Sometimes I don’t care about being politically correct. They share my disgust with the current government and say it like it is. He has comedians for guests- how can you go wrong there?? Nothing is sacred.

Furthermore, I don’t watch the news at home. Our TV only knows ESPN and my 3 year old is more likely to recognize the Raider logo than a picture of George W. Bush. I’d rather watch the Dodgers win than Fox’s critique of Palin. I’d even rather watch the Angels lose than CNN’s spin on the presidential debate. At least for a little bit.

I’ll still listen to the 7:00 a.m. news on NPR tomorrow morning and depending on how much I can stomach on coffee alone, I’ll see how long before I switch stations. I know some people who never listen to the news or follow politics. I couldn’t possibly go to that extreme. However, we all need a breather once in a while and 4th grade potty jokes from a grown man is sometimes exactly what we need before jumping into the more serious business of the day.