Germany

Can I go back to bed now?

What a Friday.

First I wake up to find out that WAMU (one of my US bank accounts is there) has failed and been taken over by the feds… with a partial buyout by JP Morgan Chase. It’s supposed to be business as usual… However –

I went and checked my other bank account – which I had transferred funds to and paid a few bills (I have a credit card there) as well. On both the payments from mid September it said “On Hold – please contact issuing bank” which was, of course, WAMU. My reason for transferring? I wanted to make sure that I had some somewhere else in case what happened – well, happened.

I didn’t panic – and yes, most of my funds did remain in WAMU – I moved enough to simply make sure that if there was an emergency I could get back stateside in a hurry.

So, I guess we’ll see how it turns out in the end, and hope for the best.

Then, I checked my email. In my email was a lovely letter from Ryan Air, telling me that my flights for my october vacation had been changed – significantly. Instead of going from October 29-Nov.4, they were moved to October 29 – Nov. 3 – did I still want the tickets?

Well, after researching, I did find later tickets (departing same day – getting back a day later) for 109 EUR – not the 56 EUR I had paid for the previously mentioned ones. So, either I take their crap flights (and lose a day of my vacation holiday) or I cancel them and buy different ones.

Needless to say I will be on the phone (NOT HAPPY GIRL) with them later today insisting that they change the second return flight to the one on NOV 5 (a day later rather than a day earlier) and NOT charge me any fee, and credit the cost of my call AND provide me some kind of bonus as well. *grumble grumble*

And to top it all off, I went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I decided to open a can of instant latte macchiato mix, and boiled the water to make it. I read the instructions – 5-6 heaping tablespoons of the mix into a 8 ounce glass. Add hot (but not boiling water) and stir.

I did.

And then, I decided to taste it. It was like foamy coffee – with salt. We’re talking so much salt that it just was like pouring salt in your hand and licking it off.

Mind you, I drink proper latte’s almost every day at work, so I know what they should taste like. This wasn’t even close – or a quite simply a poor imitation. This was something I don’t even recognize as being drinkable. It got dumped out, down the sink, and then the rest of the mix tossed. I wound up with tea and breakfast granola bar instead.

Anyhow, I decided that it was Friday, and quite simply, the start of a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”. So, I’d try to find something funny to make myself laugh – at someone else’s misery. This – really – took the cake.

A blog listing the top 10 worst cover songs ever.

Now, mind you, I thought that the Celene Dion version of ACDC “you shook me all night long” was pretty bad, but at least it was put my fingers in my ears tolerable.

This, however, was by far the worst – and I actually liked the 1981 Soft Cell and 1990’s Marilyn Manson remake of the 1960’s song…. Tainted Love.

I mean this was so bad, I felt like I needed to take a shower, clean out my ears, and burn my computer after watching it.
It did, however, make me laugh that they had the nerve to perform it, and be glad that it wasn’t me performing that crap ever.

The Runner up? Brit’s version of “I love Rock and Roll”. Um… well, here ya go.

Finally, for a few shits and giggles – the ROCK version of “baby got back” by the Throwdown.

Yep, I’m feeling better. Oh, and I’m going back to bed. Maybe when I wake up again, I’ll realize it’s all just a bad dream… (probabally not but worth a try, right?!?)

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Photo Contest Update…

Good Morning!

If you remember in my blog a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I was a Semi Finalist for the Photography contest at work. After nearly two weeks of voting amongst my colleagues, I found out the results this morning.

I didn’t win for my category or the overall.

I’m a bit bummed, but then I rather expected it since my personal photograph wasn’t my favorite. Instead, the one that won in my category was the leaf on a rock with water droplets. That’s cool to me though – I really liked that one and the one of the lotus reflected in water. I figured after seeing the competition (and the fact that I really didn’t like mine all that much) it wasn’t a sure bet.

On the brighter side, however, I had entered a different contest for

http://www.worldofgood.com

and promoting it as a Fair Trade website. I was entered into a drawing and won $50 US to spend on that website (I found that out today too).

Since I was planning on doing a fair trade themed Christmas anyhow this really makes it that much easier for me to order from this site (and a couple others) and get the items I wanted as gifts while purchasing items that are eco-friendly AND bettering the welfare of some of the people in rural communities.

I suppose if I had to choose, I would have liked to win the photography contest – but in the end, I’m pleased that something else close to my heart (and even more so – the people and communities I’ll be helping by purchasing fair trade items).

So, in some small way, I’m a winner – and a so are a whole bunch of others.

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Why ALL WOMEN should Vote

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

(Lucy Burns)
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because
they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson‘s White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/n wp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

Personally, I strongly suggest we all take a moment to watch HBO’ s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that We women could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say.

All these years later, voter registration is one of the things that I have been doing this election. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for many. Frankly, I’ve been told by many who never took advantage, that voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient – or didn’t really Matter.

And so, now comes the question I pose to you.

‘What would those who fought so hard for their right to have a say on who leads our country think of the way I use, or don’t use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The right to vote, needs to become valuable to all of us – all over again.

HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party – remember to vote.

History is being made.

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