Well, I'm back. Former crisis ended. New crisis has taken it's place. But that's not why I'm here. I've got a lot on my mind; a lot of shit to bitch about. You'll get my rants more often, provided my empty head can remember all the shit I need to get back in here again.
     That's my immediate problem right now. Where the HELL has my brains gone? Why can I see the problems I'm going to cause myself by my actions, or lack thereof, and still not avert them? My latest crisis is my electric bill. Well, budgeting my finances to pay the goddamn bill. Well, my inability to do so and, even if I actually could budget, stick with the damn thing.
     Alright, here's the scoop. Since my licensed co-existant (spouse, ha ha) isn't working and is currently having health issues, I have to support my family of 3 on $900 a month. We get food stamps, but no help with the bills because "we have too much income". Yeah, makes sense, huh? Well, when I add up the regular expenses I shouldn't have a problem, but then I have to add household necessities, gas, pet needs and some food supplement.
     You know what? I SUCK!  I should be able to do it. Where the hell did I go wrong? Why does it seem like I can't make ends meet? Here's a list of what I have to do with $900:

Lot rent, electic/gas, cable/tele/internet, comp payment, car insurance should be in here, but if I pay that then I can't get the following: gasoline, toilet paper, dish soap. laundry detergent (fabric softener bar every 3 months), house cleaners, cat food and litter, supplement the food (you may think $481 is enough for the month, but that depends on how healthy I want the family to eat, have you SEEN the cost of healthy food?)
Then there's the other needs I have to squeeze in: clothes for my ever-growing daughter (whose hit puberty, oy!), school clothes (she has special requirements), car maintenance (which suffers so bad it's a wonder my van still keeps going), and a few other things she needs.
ALSO, somewhere in all that I still have to figure out how to pay for her dental co-pay, the old fart needs dental care really bad, I need to get decent dentures (my mouth hurts all the time with my plate in), I desperately need to get an eye exam and new glasses (I need bifocals, now. Goddamn middle-age!).
Now, the spouse does get some medical care via the VA, but he's in a "gray area" and doesn't qualify for dental, vision, or hearing.  My Medicare/Medicaid no longer covers vision unless I have an illness that directly affects vision and the dental coverage gives only the bare basics. My denture is Medicaid, that's why it doesn't fit worth a shit.

I could go on and on and on and...well, you get the point.

What I just don't understand is WHY I can't make it. I should be able to cover my important stuff, but somewhere something happened. I saw a bonus coming and, stupidly, relied on it, only to get screwed. By then it was too late. Whenever I make plans, I get screwed. Now I'm in a position where I can't get caught up. Tomorrow my electric get shut off. DHS won't help and all the community resources are out of funding. The utility can't do anything. I've fallen and I can't get up, and there's no one to help.

What's wrong with me? Why can't I do it? I can see that I should be able to, but I can't do it. Can someone please tell me what the hell is wrong with me?

LIFE, YOU SUCK! I HATE YOU! WHY DID YOU MAKE ME THIS WAY?

When will I be able to LIVE, not merely exist?

    

Sent my child for counseling and end up with CPS at my door.

     Okay,  I'm confused.  When I was a kid my daughter's age I got a butt-whooping when I did wrong, soap in the mouth for using bad language, and slapped for back-talking.  I grew a with common sense and morals.  As brutally tortured as I was by the bullies in school I would have not been blamed for my actions if I had taken a machine gun to school and blasted everything.  My peers knew, the teachers knew, even witness a bullying event in front of the whole damn school during a pep assembly where our choir was going a song-cheer, and little, if anything, as done to stop it except to tell me to just ignore them.  Because of the spankings and slaps I got I knew that as response as severe as killing and injuring was wrong. 
     Nowadays I have to tolerate my child's frequent temper tantrums that occur for no real reason other than she doesn't want to do her work or even just be quiet and listen.  She's been getting counseling, which I now think is more like the counselor trying to get shit on me to get me into trouble. 
      My kid's problems started a little over 3 years ago when I got stupid and let my step-daughter's family move in with us because, once again, the got evicted.  Seven months later they finally left, but it was too late.  My polite and helpful little angel turned into a screaming mimi and very bossy and demanding.  Things were starting to come down a tad until I got stupid again and let another friend stay (he was fixing on my van and here all the time anyway because he's homeless).  Another bad idea.  He's a know-it-all snobby prick and nit-picks at the kid.  Both mine and my daughter's counselor's said he needs to go.  I finally pulled up the courage to tell him only after my kid barged into the house after a session and told him "My counselor says that you causing us all the stress and you have to get out!"  He left for a while, but would still stay once in a while when he had his daughter for visitation. 
     NOW, I'm at it again.  My sister-in-law hooked up with this guy and went to a party at his brother's.  She got shit-faced and took a few too many meds on top of the alcohol during a nervous breakdown.  I took her to mental health and ended up becoming her caretaker and with her came her 2 teenage daughter's, one of which has ADHD (goody), and the other who's so much into computers that it's a big fight to get her off.  And, of course, her boyfriend, the snob.  Seven people in my 2 bedroom trailor, 9 on the weekends when dude and my spouse have visitations with their daughter's from their marriage to the same woman (the mother of the first bunch). 
     Anyway, my daughter is still having temper tantrums, mostly over homework she wants help with, but actually wants us to do for her that according to her we don't do right in the first place.  The other day she had 2 shit fits, one in the morning because she forgot to finish her project (my fault for not reminding her, snort) the later one over homework.  I was helping her find her answers in her book, which she says doesn't tell her anything, and started getting interested.  She was fiddling around with a pencil sharpener and I was doing the assignment out loud.  She started screaming at me that she wasn't ready, and off on a tangent she went.  All of us were trying to convince her I was doing nothing wrong and trying to calm her down.  I got frustrated with trying to calmly talk to her and slammed the book shut and bopped her on the head with it (not hard, just a bop).  Dumb.  She just screamed louder and said, what we all thought was the "F" word, so I reached over her head and gave her a firm tap on the mouth.  Made her madder, still.  She elbowed me, I swatted her on the hip (couldn't reach her butt) and she hit me again.  I told her to go to her room and time out for a while, she refused and kept screaming.  Dude picked her up (a wrestling match) and carried her to the room where she took her time-out (BWAHAHAHA!  Time out?) slamming the door, throwing things at it, saying horrible things and screaming. 
     Since she started seeing her counselor I've kept a log of her fits and my reaction.  I admitted to a swat, bop, or pop when I did them.  The bitch called CPS.  Got mixed signals there.  It's okay to give your kid a swat on the behind, but don't leave marks.  If the kid makes a move that causes you to accidentally bruise, cut, or mark the kid, they get taken away and you go to jail.  It wasn't an intentional injury like welts from a beating or broken bones or deep bruises, just an accidental circumstance of a move within a move, neither of which could be stopped in the nano-second that it occurred.
     I'm suffering the consequences of letting her get away with a little too much, and now trying to bring her back down to earth.  Apparently I'm a shitty parent.  I'm not coming down hard enough on her, but I'm being "abusive".  It's all my fault.  She is suffering because I loved her too much in the past, am sympathetic and helpful to others, am trying to make her learn to be responsible for her actions, and trying to turn her back into the sweet little girl she used to be.  I'm only doing what I know worked for my parents with me, but am being frustrated in my efforts.  My daughter has all she needs, but not everything she wants, can't have her way all the time and subjects my already tattered nerves to tantrum torture and I am not allowed to defend myself against it. 
     The kids today laugh at "time-out" and "grounding".  Look at the difference between my growing up years (66-84 birth to graduation) and the heathens today.  How many school shootings, suicides, drugs, robberies and shit was on the news in my time versus now?  My generation got a good beating when we deserved it.  We had to be social creatures.  We knew right and wrong and made the choices, accepting the responsibility of that choice.  Now, extrememly violent gangs, drugs, blowing each other up over the stupidest damn shit...they have no social skills and get no beatings.  Excuses are constantly being made for them by CPS and others of the same ilk.
     So, if my daughter grow up a junkie, killer, or welfare baby machine it will be all my fault for loving her and trying to help her grow up a responsible, social, learned person.

Please, shoot me now.

     Okay, it's official.  I have finally lost the last little bit of what was left of my mind. 
     I have always been a generous, caring person, but in the last 3 years I have surpassed my limits.  First, I let my husband's second ex-wife, her boyfriend and her two girls (one of whom is my step-daughter) move in after they got kicked out of yet another apartment.  It was supposed to be for a little while until they find another place.  Seven months later, they finally leave.  It was commplete hell.  My step-daughter has a myriad of mental issues, all of them making her a royal pain in the ass, and my daughter went from being well-mannered and friendly to bossy and bratty with a penchant for some nasty temper-tantrums. 
     After they finally leave we are a nice little family of three again until I got stupid and let another friend move in.  He was working on my van, homeless and here most of the time anyway. Another big mistake.  He turned out to be a snobbish, know-it-all, prick that overshadows his kindness.  I finally get him gone after a few months, BUT then he meets my sister-in-law and guess what?  Right on, y'all, they fell for each other..  What a mix, too.  She's got some serious issues herself and two girls, a 16 yr old computer attachement and a 13 yre old with the same issues as my step-daughter.  They end up here after my sis gets drunk, depresses, mad-as-hell and takes a small overdose.  She hits bottom big time and I rush her to the mental health clinic.  Now I'm her caretaker. 
     TODAY, I come home from errends to be met at the door by my other (spouse) asking me if I want the good news or the bad news.  Oh, shit, now what?  He informs me that his other daughter and her sister (sis's boyfriend's daughter by my others 2nd wife) will be staying for a while because the arrangements made by their mother to stay with the last friend she had in the world didn't work (the mother, having been thrown out of her 3rd place in 3 years, not including mine, had managed a job in another state, but could not take the kids because the courts and their fathers refused to allow it).  Anyway, my other states that we, most likely, will have my step-daughter for the rest of the school year.  Her sister and her Dad will be staying, for I don't know how long, until he finds his own place (he is unemployed and a student).  We now have 9 people living in my 2 bedroom single-wide trailor home.  Yep.  9.  4 Adults, 5 girls, 5 cats,  2 fish, and a partridge in a pear tree. 
     That's the bad news.  What the hell could possibly be the good news?  If my step-daughter stays we'll be requesting child support and her SSI check sent to us.  A little extra income.  Riiiiight.  What are the 9 of us living on at the moment?  My disability, my daughter's SSI, and my sis's disability, about $1300 a month.  Yes, we get food stamps. 
     $1300 sounds like it should work,huh?  NOT!  $225 lot rent, $227 a month gas/electric, $200 a month cable/phone/internet which will most likely grow to add a 3rd television and a 2nd telephone (16 year old, remember?  And two 13 yr olds with friends to call).  Then there's the cost of the gas needed to take 4 of the five to school (no bus and no money to get 8 public trans passes), the cost of all the household necessities, in bulk.  No house insurance, driving dirty.  Seriously bad juju gremlin casting bad vibes around.
     Soooo,  that's the story of my life.  Trying to live by the "what would Jesus do" creedo.  Of course, with my luck, Jesus would have the balls to tell these people to get their heads outta their asses and deal with their problems and tell me to take some of my own fat ass and make a pair of balls. 
     Is that really all it takes?
    

Ross Perot, where are you?

     Okay, I guess I need to stop watching the news.  Every time they bring up the problem with unemployment I wanna scream at the top of my lungs from the tallest mountain, "WHY IS OUR CONGRESS SO STUPID?! (stupid, stupid, stupid...).  They whine about and blame the President for the jobs issue when, if they would pull thier heads outta their asses, they would see that they are the reason for all of this.  Ross Perot warned them that the NAFTA bullshit would ruin our country, but NOOOOOOO, they had to kiss the asses of the rich industrialists and send our jobs overseas so the companies could save money they would spend on taking care of it's hard workers and keep it in their bottom lines.  Bastards.  You wanna save our country?  Tell our employers to shove their greed up their asses and start coughing out the dough.  Bring all of or work back here.  Screw Japan, China, Mexico, Taiwan, and Hukki-Kabki BFE.  It's abot time some other country kissed their asses and helped them out.  We're in deep shit here and it's about time Congress got it fixed.  No more anything being made elsewhere.  We were doing awesomely when we made our own products to fill our own needs.  And we knew that what we made was quality stuff.  China is poisoning us with lead, Japan is sabatoging us, Mexico has the dope all over everything.  Enough already.  Let me say it again.

IF YOU BRING THE GODDAMN JOBS HOME FROM WHEREVER, UNEMPLOYMENT WOLD VIRTUALLY DISAPPEAR.  INCOMES WILL SHOOT UP, FAMILIES WILL MAKE IT, BIG BUSINESS, AND EVEN SMALL BUSINESS, WILL BE ABLE TO TAKE GOOD CARE OF ITS WORKERS AND THE GOVERNMENT WON'T HAVE TO BICKER LIKE LITTLE BABIES ABOUT WHAT IS GONNA GET CUT.

Bring the jobs back home.  More taxes will come in.  Less will be spent on trying to insure the people because that responsibility will become the businessess ( and if they don't do it affordable and correctly they will pay very steep fines).  We can buy our own food, pay our own bills, live in our own homes, and actally living our lives rather than merely existing. 

Ross Perot warned you, you ignorant bastards and you didn't listen.  So, FIX IT!!!!!!!

Ummmmm....

     Don't you just hate it when there's a million things in your head you could write about, but can't decide which subject to use?  I could write about my feelings about the death penalty, government, being low income, my college experiences...Now you know why I call this blog Brain Farts.  Do they make Bean-O for that?

Sometimes technology sucks

     Here I am, thinking of a dozen things to write about, but the only thing I'm saying is, sometimes, technology sucks.  My laptop isn't very old and I've already had too many issues with it.  In a week's time after I got it the dang thing went from speedy delivery to slower than snail's pace.  The keyboard is already coming apart and the keys don't like to work unless I bang on them.  Of course, I admit, that eating, drinking, making cigarettes, and whatever near it is not a good idea, but it is hard as hell to clean under these keys. 
     Then there's the screen.  The slightest touch and you have mega-smears.  What are you supposed to use to clean a plasma screen?  And how the hell do these little goodies that mess up your computer get thru the dang ani-virus/anti-adware/anti-spyware program that costs a small fortune? 
     Here's the rub:  is there anyone left in this world who can do anything without the computer?  When I worked at McDonald's, one time, the computers went down.  I just figured that things were gonna end up a bit slower, but you know what the management did?  CLOSED THE STORE!  I almost plotzed.  Why? I asked.  Well, the cash registers won't work so the orders cannot be displayed on the screen and inventory cannot be accounted for.  'Scuze me?  Nobody can do math?  Nobody can write?  Nobody can read?  Hell, I was ready with a calculator I had in my car, a pen, and scrap paper.  I said get a cash drawer out of the safe, it's not closed anyway.  Let's get this moving.  They looked at me like I was insane.  I was told they can't do business that way and closed the store.  On my way out I was telling customers that we were closed due to the comps.  They looked at me like I was insane.  One guy banged on the drive thru window and bitched out the manager for being stupid.  "Get dome paper, a pencil, a drawer of money and get busy!" he screamed.  He was told they can't and shut the window.
     What in the hell are we going to do if the power goes out for good?  We are living our lives under the command of technology.  We are in serious trouble.
     Ever see the movie WALL-E?  That's us in a few years.  Yikes!

Song of the Times

     There is a song written for darn near every occasion.  At a lot of weddings you might hear Keeper of the Stars" by Tracy Byrd or "I Swear" by John Michael Montgomery.  At a funeral "Be Not Afraid" or "On Eagle's Wings".  To celebrate a pregnancy "Havin' My Baby".  All you need to do is listen.  I have found a lot of songs that represent my feelings thru my depression and plenty to express my love to someone, but there is one song that always popped into my mind when I am overwhelmed by my really crappy financial situation and I realized today that it should become our National Anthem with the way things are right now in our country.  That song is performmed by my favorite music group STYX.  The song?  "Why Me".  It sooooooooooooo covers the way things are and how people are feeling about it.  Here's the link to it on youtube:  http://youtu.be/q3M0c7a-3aI.  Another good STYX song for our nation is "Suite Madam Blue" (http://youtu.be/YGXYiIDTPDI).  It was intended as a tribute to our country, but I see it also as a song that questions what has happened.  We used to be the nation on top of the world and now we are falling.  It addresses the desire of those who will still fight for our country, but at the same time, wonders why?  What happened? 
     So many songs, so many purposes.