So here is one of those times when my terribly hot headed over opinionated very verbal mouth could possibly have gotten me into oodles of trouble - and still may.
This weekend I was in my front yard doing hedge work and the non-sick child was out front with me playing on his scooter or bike or big wheel or skate board or what ever had caught his fancy that current 15 second period. I start to hear sirens going off around the neighborhood, so I know something exciting must be happening and police are in hot persuit. That is when a marked police car comes flying down the street- sirens blaring - and races past our house.
Now let me give you a little history here. My street is a main entrance into a large neighborhood. Because of this, many people treat it like the main lanes of a cross country freeway. They come racing through and pay no regard to silly things like, oh I don't know - speed limits.
Some have even blown past my son's bus even though the blaring blinking red lights and stop signs might have given a clue for them to stop. Un-marked police officers often sit in front of my house to help curb this issue. My point is - when I see a cop doing the same thing as the regular idiots in the neighborhood, I get PISSED.
So.... this is me.... and what does Mama Beck do? She calls - she calls her lovely local police department's non emergency hot line with a
concern. Did you read that? Yes...I said
concern -
not complaint -
concern. The receptionist takes my info, listen's to my brief concern and says someone will call me back. Thank you.
Ring Ring - Private number
Hello this is Rebecca
Hello Ma'm this is Seargent (so and so) with the (blah blah blah) police dept, how can I help you?
(
terribly sweet cooperative tone) Thank you for calling me back - I first want to say that I have lived in this city for a very long time and I appreciate all that you and the other officers do for our city. I have a concern - today I was outside doing yard work when one of your officers went blaring through here on a neighborhood street going 60 miles an hour in persuit of an emergency. I appreciate that my street is an easy cut through and allowed him to avoid a lot of traffic and several lights, but this is still a neighborhood with children playing.
Well, mam'm, let me ask you this? Did you have a radar?
(Dropping sweet tone) Excuse me?
Well, Ma'm you say he was going 60 miles an hour - I was just curious how you would know that if you didn't have a radar?
(
Pissy growl begins) No, sir... I do not have a radar -
Well, Ma'm I pulled up his GPS and he was only going 45 miles per hour.
Officer - I am not calling to debate the numerical speed of your officer. All I know was that he was going excessively fast for a neighborhood street when he had many other options, including pre-designed main streets that would have better accomodated his requirement for speed.
Well - he was in the neighborhood patrolling for safety when he received the call....
(
Starting to lose all sense of decorum) And I appreciate that. I am calling because my 6 and 4 year old play in this neighborhood - a neighborhood with no sidewalks, and God forbid my children had run into the street after a ball or lost control of their bicycle - your officer would have hit and killed them. Now like I said before - I appreciate all your officers for all they have done - including patrolling this notorious street known for speeders - so when an officer disregards the same issues of safety that he upholds - I have concerns - and I would hope that I could call and have someone listen to my concern and not be confronted with such hostility. I grew up in this neighborhood, I now live here and choose to have my children grow up in this neighborhood,
and I have a concern about their safety.
Yes, Ma'm ... I will talk to the officer in question and I will advise him that in the future perhaps a little more caution would be best.
(cold)Thank you.
Have a good day Ma'm.
.... here's hoping they haven't tagged my license plate in they system.....
Friday night - 2012. Start the night off squashing into a building packed with terribly cool and overly hormonal teens making that sucking, tongue clicking sound of disgust as the "SOLD OUT" stamp keeps going over the New Moon movie times - "Ugh, like, what do we do now?!?!?"... but I digress...... so in line, get the tickets - head to the theater and sure enough - this theater is packed too - I am assuming it is the parents of said teens, but this is just the story I make up in my brain for shits and giggles. So - find seats - sit down and realize, yes, I am going to have to spend the next three hours next to the woman who wore too much perfume for her first date with the guy who keeps getting up and down (sir, there are medicines that can help you with that going/growing problem) and above the guy who likes to talk through movies - I know this because he turned around and said - "Hey - do you like to talk in movies, cause I like to talk in movies!"
Movie starts. Well - you can pretty much forget about any outside distractions in this movie. WOW. To say this movie is visually stunning is an understatement. And loud - but good loud - like you are so invested in the visual and sound that you have no choice but to pay attention to the screen. There is no mind wandering here. Now - the story can be terribly predictable and somewhat schmaltzy, but you expect that in a Hollywood epic like this. I forgave the schmaltz because of all those beautiful sequences that were brought to life on screen - I can only imagine how amazing this would have looked on an IMAX. I am not giving anything away here (see movie poster above) - there is one sequence where my prediction that California will eventually fall off into the ocean does just that. It starts with a man opening a car door and you see the asphalt crack and it leads you on this 15 minute journey as the movie slowly pulls back the audience perspective - crack leads to houses crumbling, leads to city blocks crashing, leads to neighborhoods sinking, leads to cities disappearing, leads to final shot of California slowly slipping under the foam of the Pacific Ocean. Like WOW - I am not sure I took a breath during that sequence - WOW. The movie ends with this happy resolution music and I turn to my husband and say - "what the hell is the happy music for?!?!? WE ARE ALL DEAD?!?! How is that happy resolution??!?" This minor meltdown leads to laughter three rows up and three rows down... I guess I like to talk in movies too.....
No - I didn't see it four times - not sure I could. Just as the visually stunning moments of the impending doom in 2012 made me sick to my stomach, this movie made me sick to my stomach with disgust. Disgust at the reality that abuse - evil abuses - as shown in the movie Precious happen everyday in homes all around us. Children everywhere suffer in pain with no idea that a better world exists and that they are in fact precious. There are moments in this film that had me gasping, grabbing the armrests of my seat and trying to get up in shock of what I was witnessing. And I wish I could say that they had over dramatized some of these moments with "dramatic liberties" but that was not the case. There was a great amount of truth in the everyday casual manner that dialogue was delivered and the verbal blows that cut so deep. It hurt deep to hear another human being in the process of being verbally whipped into submission and oppression. It stung your eyes to see the emotional scares and baggage this young woman carried as a result of her hopeless situation. Tough to watch, but well worth the journey. 
How is it possible that on the same day - within 10 minutes of each other - there are two news stories so related yet so polarizing. 
Oh so close, yet so far away! Here I am days away from my goal and I completely forgot about this dear ole blog last night. 
So Max was sick yesterday and today. It started when he got home from school yesterday. I didn't go straight home from work yesterday- so by the time I saw him last night before bed time, things had gone somewhat downhill. My mother, who had picked him up from school warned me.. he has a bit of a cough. Well, by last night we had a tummy ache, headache, and we asked for soup even though his favorite- PIZZA - was sitting right there for him - so I knew something was wrong- Max NEVER refuses pizza. 
Why WHY W-H-Y must I be the that person? Ya know the one that sits on the floor of her kids room crying as she goes through the bins of baby bedding that was stored away for the next baby that is never to come? The one that mourns over waffle makers she she got as a wedding present 10 years ago and has used, oh maybe twice?!?! The one that has to get angry to purge?
Dear Breast Cancer Awareness People,
Dear Norway,
Dear Walt,
Dear Scale,
Dear Biggest Loser Season Cast,
I have mentioned this before, but to catch others up, Max is in a dual language program at school. This is his second year. 90% of his day is spoken in Spanish. Now for those of you who know us in real life - the cultural backgrounds of both my husband and I are about as far from any Latino based culture as humanly possible. Where Latinos dance around hot climates to keep themselves cool - our ancestors jumped and kicked in remote villages near the Caucus mountains to keep warm. So - other than a few words picked up at daycare or on Sesame Street - Max has no background in Spanish whatsoever. Amazingly - this has not been a problem. Max has picked up a remarkable amount of Spanish and still manages to continue on a regular academic path.
