They're not really telemarketers....it's the sheriff's department, or the state police, or the fire dept retirement fund. Holy shit! They call all the freaking time. Last night around 8:30 the state police called. Dh told them he was eating dinner. Just a minute ago the phone rang. I picked it up. Dead silence. I almost hung up as I usually do because that's a sure sign of a computer placed call. Finally this deep monotone voice comes on the line and says "is this Mrs. XXXXX?" (The voice was eerily familiar....like the voice that woke Elaine Benes up in the middle of the night from the AMA.) I said yes. The monotone started the spiel. I interrupted and said "Look, we already got a call last night." The voice said "Are you going to make a contribution today?" I said no. Silence. Finally the voice said 'fine' and hung up.

The day before yesterday I got a call from the sheriff's department. The man asked me how I would feel if my child disappeared. WTF??? He then proceeded to talk about how much money I could contribute to wtf-ever he was trying to promote. I said he could send me any paperwork involved but that I wasn't going to commit to a dollar figure on tape...he said I was being recorded. He continued to pump me for a contribution. I said if you send me the paperwork I'll send something in but I will not give you a dollar figure over the phone. He said thanks and hung up. Jesus. If I don't give them at least $20 they don't want anything? WTF is up with that?

Even if you say no to these people they still call back every freaking day. I'm to the point that I don't want to answer the phone anymore. Who does one complain to about something like this? I pay so much money per month just for the privelege of having my phone hooked up and I have to deal with this shit? Grrrrr!

I have a few minutes before I have to go pick up the kid from preschool and while I'm waiting for the building inspectors to show up. So much trouble for a 10X14 foot space. Go figure.

Watched dodgeball (movie) the other night. Stupid but it had it's moments. Ben Stiller gives me the creeps. The best part was the cameo from Lance Armstrong. That was a shocker. Speaking of Lance, he has finally announced that he will be competing in this year's Tour de France....going for his 7th consecutive win. Can he do it? Yes, he can! I used to make fun of dh because he is riveted to the tv during the tour but now I find myself drawn to it as well. Can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Speaking of dodgeball...when I played it in school we called it Slaughterball. I loved it because I was good at it and I could pound those assholes who were always beating up on me throughout the week. Funny thing...I was always picked last...it never failed...but most of the time I was at least one of the final four, if not the survivor. I really hate popularity contests.

Speaking of popularity contests...Faith doesn't seem to be winning any at Mama-Drama. I can understand it to a degree. When she bugged out MD was little more than a soapbox for people to bitch and moan about AW and scammers. Now it is a community and some people feel like she is an outsider coming in to rock the boat. I don't know how I feel about it. I'm disappointed that she wouldn't sell MD to me. Some days I feel like saying tamp it. I've put in a lot of hours at MD, I've crawled all over the web trying to learn how to take care of business so we wouldn't have to rely on anybody else to run it. I've searched for new things to add that would keep it fresh and I've tried to make sure that all the technical stuff got handled. That wasn't always easy because I seldom got responses from my PMs or emails. I was really afraid that the domain was going to lapse since it had already "expired" by the time Faith renewed it. At least I don't have to worry about that for two years. :o) After all the jostling, the corrupted data, the board wars, and the schism taking place, it's a wonder we're here at all.

What else can I go on about? Gardening? I've only started one flat so far. 24 broccoli, 12 tomatoes (brandywine), and 36 peppers. We went to a family birthday party at Bill & Jen's on Sunday. (That deserves a post all on it's own.) Granddad (dh's) asked me about the garden and put his "order" in for some pepper plants. FIL put in his order for tomato plants. Both are millionaires. You'd think they could spend a couple of bucks and buy them at Lowes.

Speaking of money...I spent a large portion of yesterday online researching schools. Dd will be attending kindergarten this fall. Woohoo!!!! I am not happy with the SOL scores from the public school she would be attending. There is a newer school, which is closer, that has much better scores, but has many more students and is out of our zone. And there is a private school that interested me a great deal. I broached the subject with dh when he got home and he shot it down in a heartbeat. He doesn't want me to homeschool and refuses to send her to private school because he doesn't want to change his standard of living. What freaking standard of living??? He comes home and parks his ass in front of the tv. Yeah, that eats up a lot of funds, particularly since we have basic cable because he won't pay for a better tier. He went to private school the whole nine yards. It was wasted on him. I told him last night he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed so private vs public was no indication of intelligence. BUT the private school offered more than the basics.
I remember back when I was in highschool we had two english classes: mainstream and honours. They had to do it that way because you couldn't grade on a curve if some students were A+ and half the class would fail. By moving the higher scoring students to the honour's english class you could now grade on a curve and those students who were getting 70s and not passing were suddenly the high scorers for that class. Pretty sad.

Well, the inspector showed up and I'm embarrassed that he saw my messy house but the room has finally passed all inspections. Time to pick the kid up from school. Hey, the sun is shining!