Monday, April 28, 2008

WOO-HOO!

Major, major congrats to my dear friend Sarah (Berger) Arnold, who will graduate with her MBA on May 10.
WAY TO GO, Sarah. I am so proud of you. You are such an inspiration!

We Love You Jeanne!

My dear, dear friend Jeanne is going to have her second baby any day now ... Just wanted to leave a note on my blog to say GOOD LUCK, we know you'll do great and we love you!
That baby of course will be adorable, just as little Nate is adorable (Nate is Jeanne and Brian's first son, who is just about to turn 2 years old on May 27).
They're in Nashville.
We miss you guys and if we could be there, we would. :-)

About Those Rebate Checks

I'm crawling on my economic bandwagon.
This week, the rebate checks will start going out to millions of taxpayers.
I implore you, DO NOT SPEND IT.
I know, I know. Ya'll will say, "OK, Angie, easier said than done. You don't know the bills I have. Or I may go spend it on some snazzy suit I've been looking at, or put it toward that flat panel TV that I want."
I do know, unfortunately. I have the same bills. Actually, I have more bills now that I'm back in college and took the salary hit to make my dream come true.
But I want to tell you, these rebate checks represent what is known as Lollipop Economics.
"Give millions of taxpayers a little bit of money just to assuage them, just a little nibble so that they feel good and go spend it."
The rebates are targeted at a large portion of American society that has what's known economically as the Marginal Propensity to Consume (MPC). What is a consumer's willingness to spend if he or she is given one more dollar?
It goes back to our old economic friend Keynes (John Maynard), where if you want quick results, you give money to people who will spend.
I could go into the complicated explanation of what this means, but I do not want to bore you.
But you would be doing yourself a world of good if you didn't spend your rebate and just shoved it under mattress, or put it in a bank account where you won't touch it.

Precious Kyrmina


This time, with her eyes open!

She's adorable!

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Power of Prayer

I've hesitated to write about this, but it's obviously affected my life so much over the past year, I want to post something.
I was inspired by a person named Jim Hodge, who is the friend of a friend. Jim is battling rectal cancer.
I ask everyone to pray.
I've always been an advocate of prayer, but I never knew how much it would mean to me until I used it to lift me through the time with my mother, learning her diagnosis and seeing her battle with cancer.
People across the country prayed for me, for my mom and for our family. Catholics, Protestants, whomever. Young and old. My mother was on prayer lists across the country, especially in Ohio and Oklahoma. During the entire time, I had an amazing inner peace.
We placed our hands on her, we joined hands, and we prayed. We prayed with her, we prayed alone.
And Jim, I don't know you, but I've watched cancer. I've seen its impact on families, including my friend Lisa, aged 31, who was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer last August.
Lisa is doing well, her spirits so inspiring despite the double mascetomy and fight for her life.
The world is praying for you all, and I hope you know that.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Enchanted

I'm not a "chick flick" person.
I'm just not.
To give you an idea of my taste in movies, "Pulp Fiction" is by far my favorite movie of all time.
But I was in the mood to watch something light, and ever since "Junebug," have been a fan of Amy Adams.
And so when I heard that she was in "Enchanted," I decided that I had to see it.
This is an absolutely delightful film. Dante and I watched it at home, and even he liked it.
And that's saying a lot when it's Spring bird migration and the NHL playoffs. It takes a lot to distract Dante during this time of year.
So watch it. It's worth it. Half-animation, it takes you on a delightful trip through the world of a princess who is catapulted into modern-day New York City.
You won't be disappointed.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Grad School Reassurances

Thanks to Jami Pfirrman, who posted about her strange grad school experiences. Jami is studying to be a psychologist, God bless her.
It's the one thing I wish I could do, but I would strangle someone. I would get too fed up.
Maybe I should send my professors to Jami once she opens her practice. They need a good head doctor.
I know a few more of you out there reading this are in grad school or have similar experiences, so I'm asking you to share them with us! What's your strange grad school story?

My Night With McCain

Very intriguing title, no?
I got recruited to help with the Sen. McCain fundraiser in Oklahoma City this Friday night. I'll be helping with the press conference, signing in press, handing the microphone to people, etc.
How fun!
I know this will shock a lot of you, but I have to come out of the closet about something.
I'm no longer registered as a Republican.
It's true.
I thought it best that I come out here on my blog. I am registered as an Independent.
It wasn't shocking to me, really. I've always been more of an Independent thinker. I sincerely vote for the politician, not the party. I think it's dangerous over a lifetime to strictly stick with one party.
I just do. And to be honest, I have always thought that way. It's just not realistic, in my opinion. I will, however, always be more of a conservative thinker than a liberal thinker, though. I know myself, I know what experiences I've had that have influenced me.
But I do like McCain. I first met him in 2000 at the West Side Market in Cleveland. I like what he told the folks in Michigan this past year: the jobs aren't coming back.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I like that he had to tell people that the jobs aren't coming back.
But I like the fact that he was honest and blunt. That doesn't mean that I will vote for McCain. At this point in the Election Year, I do not know who will get my vote. I like Clinton, and I really think that Obama's rise is miraculous, a wonderful sign for the state of the American collective psyche.
This is a pivotal, turning point year for American politics, and I hope everyone is watching.

The Turtle Family Renamed

Ollie and Gingy have surprised us.
(For those of you who don't know, Ollie and Gingy are the two three-toed box turtles who live in our backyard.)
I was way excited about finding Ollie on Sunday, then discovering Gingy on Monday morning as I sat on the deck drinking my coffee.
There are wonderful moments in life, and discovering nature like this, for me, is one of them. It was right up with discovering 11 long-eared owls in one tree a few years ago in Ohio.
But I didn't expect to find the kind of nature I found on Monday afternoon when I went to check on the turtles.
First, I must paint the picture. On Monday afternoons, I am usually home. This Monday, Aracely was visiting me. She is a 16-year-old lovely young lady from Honduras who I am tutoring in English.
Excited as I was about finding the turtles, Aracely wanted to go see them, too.
She found them.
When she found them, Ollie and Gingy were mating.
Aracely says, "What are they doing?"
I said, "We'll have babies soon."
Now, the turtles have been renamed Romeo and Juliet.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The Better Side of B

Graduate school is good, but professors are strange. More than half of my work has been making sense of strange profs. Maybe it's just the economics department. Maybe not.
My manager, Tina Marie, whose husband will soon be a philosophy professor, has assured me that professors are just a strange bunch.
This was proven to me again this week when my World Economic Development prof handed back our midterms.
My grade was a B (arrow). Sincerely. The B was there, and so was an arrow, right beside it.
Confused, I said, "Dr. Kondonassis, what does this grade mean?"
He said, "That means you earned a grade that's on the better side of B."
Further perplexed, I said, "Isn't that an A?"
He said, "No."
Dr. Kondonassis has been teaching at the University of Oklahoma for 50 years. He retires at the end of this semester, and I am not the only student who is perplexed by his actions.
Two weeks before Spring Break, we took what we all thought was our Midterm. It smelled like a Midterm. It looked like a Midterm. On the syllabus, it says, "You will have one midterm, one paper and one final exam. That is how you will be graded in this class."
We take the test, which Dr. K calls, "an exercise."
In his thick Greek accent, he says, "I give you exercise to see how you understand material."
For me, my mother died, so I was gone for one week (the class only meets once a week, so a lot happens in one class), and I come back. I go to Dr. K's office hours, and I ask for my Midterm.
He hands the paper to me, and there is literally a check symbol on it. (Keep in mind that this was an intense essay exam in which you have to integrate all the economic principles and theories).
I said, "Where's the grade?"
He said, "You got a check. That is good."
I said, "Yes, but where's the grade? How did you grade my midterm?"
He says, "Oh, that wasn't your midterm. Your real midterm is next week."
You can't mess with a person who's in grief. I had studied so hard, and so had all the other students, for what we thought was our Midterm.
And now I had to take the REAL Midterm?
He administered a test to us, calling it our real Midterm. All the other students were perplexed. But we took the exam.
And then he gives me a "B" arrow.
I swear.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Our Three-Toed Box Turtle Family

Our house in Oklahoma has five acres of woods behind it, and this year, we took down the privacy fence that separated our property from those woods. Our big project has been cleaning up the area behind that fence (various people have dumped all kinds of stuff back there, and we really wanted to open it, clean it and get to enjoy the Spring green and other nature that comes from those woods).
So in between school and work, we've been out there on the weekends (spring is Oklahoma's most gorgeous season, just beautiful weather). We were out there this weekend cleaning up remaining leaf piles and planting lilies, daffodils and onions just to grow in the woods, and we found a true treasure .... a family of three-toed box turtles.
Ollie was hiding in a leaf pile. We found Gingy this morning, so named because he has a flaming red head.
We have awesome other wildlife, too, including a Mama possum that Dante saw creeping along the backyard with her six possum babies riding on her back!
Oh, and the fox that we've caught sleeping in our bamboo garden...too cute!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Told you she is Crazy

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351730,00.html

Now, no one can decide if the infamous Yale art student was telling the truth or not about her induced miscarriages.
Either way, SHE'S CRAZY.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Good, old-fashioned Crazy

In case you haven't seen it yet, a news story today tells about a Yale art student who induced abortions on herself and turned it into an art project, in which she included blood from the induced miscarriages.
Find the story here. http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24513
Yes, I've made a judgement that she's crazy. I'm calling a spade a spade.
Why does this bother me? Well, first of all, we're giving publicity to a crazed person who probably should be on meds and/or hospitalized.
Secondly, this is the impact of living in a rich society. For example, if this art student needed to work for a living to make ends meet, she wouldn't have time to induce abortions on herself and then turn it into an art project.
I've been exposed to more than my fair share of young people who have more money than they know how to handle. (On the OU campus, for example). In many cases, they haven't been taught to think critically let alone have to work for a living.
Get a job. Be productive. As I tell my nieces and nephews: "You have brains, use them. Use them for good in this world, not for evil."
Apparently, if the brain is corrupted by crazy, then you're not going to be able to use it for anything. So don't do drugs. This Yale student needs to go find a hobby.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Cutie Kyrmina


My niece is adorable. This is a photo of her that her father (Dante's brother) sent over this morning. Her name is Kyrmina. I just had to share the photo with everyone!

Friday, April 11, 2008

Is Jesus a liberal?

Sticker seen on a car in Oklahoma: "Jesus is a liberal."
Angie's response: "And God's a conservative. That's why He's in charge."

In the Eye of the Beholder

There's quite a stir on the Internet about the photo of Vice President Dick Cheney, allegedly watching a nude woman, whose image apparently can be picked up in the sunglasses Cheney is wearing in the photo.
But I urge you to look again. See the story and photo here at a link to Fox News. Cheney is outside, as can be seen from the green (obviously out of focus) background, his sunglasses, etc.
He was supposedly fly fishing in Idaho.
But look closely at the image in the glasses. Doesn't it appear as though the "image" is that of someone indoors, for example, in a bedroom? How is that possible if Cheney is outside?
Something is fishy about this image in his glasses, like someone was getting busy with Photoshop.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350272,00.html

Sunday, April 6, 2008

The Smurfette Story

It's always been my goal to have fun. Make life unpredictable and plant unexpected laughs. The people to whom I am most close all have this in common: They make me laugh. And I think I make them laugh, too.
I've always said, "Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive."
So you can imagine my fun when I went out for pizza with my friends on Friday night, and the pizza place ... well, let me paint the picture.
It's a small place called "Sauced" in the artsy district of Oklahoma City known as the Paseo district. You walk up, you order ONE slice of pizza, and you can get whatever you want on it.
Best. Pizza. Ever.
So the cashier (a young unassuming man) says to me, "I need a name for the pizza order."
I said, "Smurfette."
He was confused. He says, "No, really. I need a name for the pizza order."
I said, "I know. The name is Smurfette."
He takes the order, gives me my receipt... 10 minutes later, I and my three friends are sitting out on the crowded patio at Sauced and the waitress comes out and yells, "Smurfette, I've got your pizza."
CLASSIC!
Try this: Next time you go to a place like Starbucks or out to dinner where they need a name by which to call you, make up a name. Serious fun. Especially if you say, "The Simpsons," and then when they call the name, yell out, "Whoo-hoo" like Homer.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Death Becomes Us

Does death bother you?
It doesn't bother me.
It used to.
Maybe it started with the first funeral I attended at age 7. I remember seeing my father's lifeless body in the casket, the shock dulled only by the excitement of the limo ride.
I was 7. Little things meant so much.
I remember getting on without him, and then losing my godmother and uncle within the two years after that. The last memory I had of my godmother was seeing her drink milk out of a glass at our kitchen table. I forever thought that glass was cursed after she drank out of it and died shortly thereafter, and I never would drink out of that glass again.
I tried to get my brother to drink out of it, but he outsmarted me.
We were a close, small family, so those losses were tremendous, especially in light of losing my father in 1983.
Life moved on and I would attend more funerals, the most shocking happening when I was a sophomore in high school. My cousin's baby son, aged 10 months, had died. Babies weren't supposed to die.
I was warned 15 years ahead of time that Chris Goddard would die. Chris was one of my greatest friends when we went through high school together, and I saw him go from walking on two feet to being wheel-chair bound by the time we graduated high school. He had Friedrich's ataxia (a form of muscular dystrophy) and we knew he would die by the time he was 30.
Variously, I've seen several friends killed before their time in car accidents. Those deaths shocked me, saddling my soul with grief.
So when a friend said to me today, "You're so strong," I appreciated the compliment. It's actually not that I'm strong. I've just developed a life philosophy that death is a part of life, an integral process that reminds us of how limited our time is on Earth.
I mean, think about it, where would we be if we lived forever?
The Earth would be really crowded and Ted Turner would have more to complain about. Jerry Seinfeld said it best when he said, "When you look at babies, remember this: They're here to replace us."
Indeed.
Plus, we'd never apologize to each other. I know I wouldn't have apologized to my mom (our relationship, admittedly, was tumultuous at times.) I know for sure she never would have apologized to me.
Like any self-respecting writer, I work best under deadlines.
I have mourned and will continue to mourn for my mother. It won't happen in a day, it won't happen in a year. She and my father created me and I developed inside her, I was connected to her, for better or for worse, for 32 years and 9 months (the time it took for me to bake inside her).
And trust me, my mother wasn't an easy personality. Dante and my brother are great sources on this. She was mean on good days and meaner on better days, a complicated mix of emotions and fear.
I will heal in my own time, as grief is an intensely personal process. I cried as I walked through Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on Monday, ready to board my plane and realizing that she wouldn't be there for me to call once I deplaned in Oklahoma City.
When we talked on the phone, I would have to scream in the phone because she refused to have volume control, although she was deaf and wore a hearing aid.
Me: "Mom, I'm home."
She: "What are you doing with foam?"
Me: "I said, `Home. I'm home!'"
She: "You mean the plane didn't crash? Why do you fly so much?"
That was always our conversation. She was always ready to plan my funeral as I stepped onto a plane. She couldn't face her fear of flying while on Earth, but she faced her ultimate fear when she died last week.
And one day, my funeral will happen. But for now, I walk the Earth and I am living my life, the life that she gave me.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

We the Living

It's one week since my mother died, and so many people have asked, "What can I do? Please let me know if there's anything I can do."
At Mom's funeral service on Saturday, Deacon Mike from Saint Stanislaus said it best when he said, "Go, live your life. It's what God wants you to do."
So, there are a few things that any of you can do.
1. Please, go live your life. Here are some ideas: Dance (Mom would have liked that) or laugh or do something kind for yourself or someone else. Sing at the top of your lungs, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows my sorrow," OR, sing, "You're going to miss me when I'm gone," as those were two of Mom's favorite lines.
Read a National Enquirer or drink a Pepsi or eat a salami sandwich. Mom would have liked that, those were some of her favorite things after cigarettes. :-) We have all predicted that consumption of Pepsi and National Enquirers will drop dramatically now that Mom is gone, God love her. Plant a rose bush in your yard, as Mom loved rose bushes.
2. Give blood. Go to your local blood bank (I promise, it's not scary if you haven't done it before), and I ask that you please give a pint of blood in loving memory of Betty DeRosa. Plus, most blood banks give you cool incentives to give blood, like a t-shirt or a pie (in some special cases). At the very least, you'll get cookies and juice.
When she was going through cancer treatment, she needed all types of blood products. There are many cancer patients and other folks who need blood and blood products. As you're doing it, think of my mother taking her blood transfusion, cursing out the nurses, and saying, "Ew, that feels yucky."
3. Make sure that you and your parents (if they're still alive) have adequate life insurance. I won't go into the details, but we spent a lot of time making sure that my mother at least had adequate coverage for the funeral expenses. Trust me, 10 years ago, my mom didn't have adequate life insurance. So we addressed that.
When she died, she didn't have much life insurance, but the policy was enough to cover those funeral expenses. And GET A LIVING WILL. I've now seen several people die who had to be taken off life support. This is not the same thing as a will. Remember the Terry Schiavo case? Schiavo did not have a living will, hence the battle between Schiavo's parents and her husband.
This is how your wishes are respected if you are ever put on life support. Do you want to be left on life support or taken off?
You don't want to put the people you love through that agony, trust me.