Life in the Middle

This weekend was my nephew's birthday and we had a big bash for him at my mom's house. We had Dee come for the weekend, and she is doing really well, communicating more and more with her voice board. I am really amazed at some of the things that she says and she had us in stitches a few times, I always knew that she had a sense of humor, it is just nice that now she can finally express it.

Anyway, as you know my sister has been having some really rough times, and my nephew has wanted a Wii game system for a while now. Well, my mother and I went in on one together and you should have seen the look on his face. I don't know if you know this or not, but the Wii is down right difficult to get your hands on. I am not really sure why Nintendo doesn't make them more readily available to the public, although I have heard from people that their theory is that if they hold out then the demand will stay high and so will the price and novelty of it all. I don't know if that really makes sense to me. It seems to me that the more of them they sell, the more controllers and games they can make and sell and therefore they make more money. That is just the way I see it, but what do I know about big business. We only go this one as a freak accident, I was at Walmart and was talking to the woman there about an Ipod that I was looking to purchase and they didn't have the one I wanted. She jokingly said to me that she didn't have that, but she did have a brand new shipment of Wiis that she just unloaded if I would want one. Well, I called my mom right then and there and we discussed going in on it together and getting it for Matt. Needless to say, I took that Wii home.

I don't know if you have ever gotten the opportunity to play the Wii, but this thing is really awesome. It comes with a whole bunch of sports games that you can play and one controller. Well, I know you have probably already heard all the Wii controller being a hazard stories, but really the thing is not, unless you throw the controller, which they give you a wrist band to help keep it in your hand, plus now they have even added a heavily padded skin to the outside of the controller, I guess to help keep it from going through the TV screen if you accidentally do let go of it while playing.

In any case, so far I have gotten to play baseball and bowling, both of which are a real trip. You swing around that controller like you are really throwing and batting and bowling. It is actually really neat the way the thing responds every time you swing that controller, and honestly that thing is really exercise. I found that my arms began hurt after doing those games for a while; I even tried to get Dee in on the act helping her swing the controller and she laughed and laughed as we played baseball with Matt. It was a really nice day, and I am sure a birthday gift that Matt won't soon forget!

My parents have living in the same house for several years, and they are pretty easy to get along with. Well, my mom called me and was complaining about the neighbors on either side of them. In the past there have been complaints from her about people hanging stuff on their clothes line, without there permission, a neighbor's son who had to park his pick up truck right up next to their front porch (they are very narrow pieces of property and this area seemed like a good place to extend his driveway) and then tore up the lawn when it rained, and even one neighbor putting food garbage under their back shed. Honestly, I have found some of the stories a little bizarre, but I try to listen about them and reassure her. On several occasions my father and my mother have spoken to the neighbors and have tried to explain to them about boundaries and respect for other people's property. It seems that before my parents moved in for about the past 20 years this house that they are living in had been a rental house, so apparently they just did whatever they wanted to, because after all the neighbor's didn't really own the house anyway, a third party did, so they just took over.

If you met any of these people, then you would probably understand, they are true country folk, and not to top heavy if you know what I mean. In any case, mom called me up yesterday and was completely enraged. While my parents had been away about a week ago, someone had come through their yard, and cut down two really straggly bushes up against the property line. Dad said that he figured it was one of the neighbors, but he didn't really care since they left just the flowering bushes, it looked nice. Then while dad was at work yesterday, Mom heard one of the neighbors outside with a weed trimmer. My nephew came running in and said Grandma did you know that Kevin (one of the neighbors) is cutting down all of your plants. Well, Mom knew just where to look and sure enough he cut down every last one. She ran outside, and yelled at Kevin and his response was, well it is my property. She assured him that he was mistaken and that he only had the right to cut down the parts of the plant that grew onto his property such as the limbs etc. Then he proceeded to tell her that the bushes were filled with poison ivy and that his wife was allergic and that is why he cut them down. So her answer, which I thought was a pretty smart one was, "Well, does that mean that if I am allergic to pine that I can come over there and chop down your pine tree!". Meantime, the joke really is that this man's wife never even goes outside. I think that my parents have seen her maybe 3 times this year.

In any case, I tried to reassure mom that some people just don't get the thing about respecting other people's property. Some people were not raised with any boundaries.

As I have stated before I really enjoy reality TV. I think that it is very interesting to watch what people do and how they react. There is a relatively new show on now which is called the Moment of Truth. This show is a little out there and I am not sure I really like it, but I have watched it a few times. I actually saw this show last night, and quite honestly there were 2 people on there. The first was a man; he was a Mormon, which it seems that they have used a few Mormons already on this show. I think that perhaps it is for shock value or something. I think that they are hoping that the family's reactions will be more severe than those of an average family. I am not really sure but the person that I really want to talk about was the woman who came after this guy.

Now if you have never watched the Moment of Truth then this is what you need to know. The people on this show are asked 100 questions while being polygraphed before the show. They seem to know a lot about these people, and I am not exactly sure how they find out all the dirt about them, before hitting them with a bunch of questions. It is obvious; however, that they know what the big button issues are for each person. In any case, when they are on the show, they must tell the truth and the questions will be asked in any order and they use their previous polygraph test to tell if they are telling the truth. Now the woman that I want to talk about was a mother of 3 and a volunteer firefighter. The first question this woman was asked was "Have you ever given your children something that you had stolen from the store?". Her truthful answer was yes, and when the host asked her for clarification of what she had stolen and given to her kids, her answer was it could have been a lollipop, flower, or a book, there were too many instances for her to count. The next question was had she ever stolen from a neighbor. Again she said yes, and that she had gotten angry with the neighbor, stolen their photo album and burned it for revenge. The next question was have you ever stolen anything from a relatives house and again the answer was yes. Have you ever cheated on a Red Cross First Aid Exam, and again she answered yes. Then they had her fire chief ask her if she had ever ignored an emergency page from the fire house, and again her answer was yes. Well, the thing you must know is that the whole time this woman is smiling and laughing about all these questions, like of course her responses are totally normal. Her husband does not seem the slightest bit shocked by any of her answers, but her father looks like he wants to die out there. Now here she is admitting all these horrible things about herself and the next question comes it is "Have you lost physical attraction for your husband since you have been married". She answers no, and the lie detector says that is a lie. She goes off the stage crying. Now she loses all the money, and she just said all these horrible things about herself and doesn't care about that, but she was afraid to upset her husband. The whole thing was just dumb.

I just don't really get how she could sit there and say that she was a liar, shoplifter, and cheat, but yet she couldn't say that after having 3 kids she was not as attracted to her husband any more. Of all the things to lie about and the people always seem shocked at the questions, which to me just seem a bit bizarre. If they ask you all the questions in advance, then why are they surprised at the questions when they are asked them? And if you know that they are going to ask you a question that perhaps your family or spouse doesn't know about, why is it that you would not go home and confess before going on the show to save everyone a little bit of embarrassment? I am not sure I get the whole concept. Whether we get it or not, I am sure the show will keep coming on, and such is life I am afraid.

I ran into an old friend the other day - Roshani, who lived for a whiles here in Indianapolis - and we got talking about everything and nothing. I told her about my trials and tribulations (which I won't go into here), and she talked a lot about the past few years of her life, mainly her ten months in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, which is where she was most recently. Anyways, she had what sounded like a pretty awesome time out there.

The people are amazing, she said, especially considering everything they've been through there in the last century or so, and she was made to feel welcome wherever she went. She was teaching a little out there, but she'd saved up enough cash back in Indiana to keep her going out there for a long time, mainly because the exchange rate is so low. So she taught english, a little French (which I did not know she could speak!) and some other bits and pieces, but mainly she just lived there, building up friendships, settling down a little. Some of the people she's met she'll be friends with for life, was how she put it.

Anyways, there was one particular story stuck out for me, probably because I've been thinking of doing a little travelling in the not so distant future. She'd got a nippy little vehicle from some car hire place out there - nothing fancy, just something to be able to take the odd trip outside the city and go see some of the amazing ruins in the countryside there. So, in her last month there, she decided to travel a little further afield, see some pretty rare sights, get to know the country that little better. One night, she's driving back to the house she's staying in - with a family about 100 km north of Phnom Penh - and out of nowhere an elephant comes lumbering out of the brush and into the middle of the road! She swerves at the last minute, and goes smashing into some trees. The car was totalled, and she needed treatment for whiplash and some minor cuts at the local hospital. Her travel insurance covered it but, still! How cool is that! - How did you get that scar? I nearly crashed into an elephant! Wow!

She says she regrets nothing. Glad it happened. Just for the story and the sight of an elephant in her headlights. She never knew what happened to that elephant, but she's happy enough that she didn't hit it. I tell you one thing, hearing that gives me itchy feet! Maybe I'll do some travelling myself soon…

I went to my sister’s house for dinner last night, and she was all excited about a volunteering opportunity that she had just found out about. It seems that she had been watching Dr. Phil last week, and they had done a show about helping kids. She has always been the type of person who likes to help others, and so when she was watching this particular show, they spoke about volunteers needed for an organization called CASA. In short, Dr. Phil and his wife are becoming spokes people for this organization. She went on to tell me that being a CASA volunteer will allow you to help children whose families are in crisis. A CASA volunteer has to go through 36 hours of training and make a 2 year commitment to the cause. After the training portion, your job is to meet with children who need representation in court and trying to figure out what is their best option. For instance, you will help with decisions on custody and placement for children with bad home lives. You will not only interview the kids but the grown ups involved, check out living conditions, talk to school psychologist, social workers, and teachers, to try and help represent the child’s best interests. Then after the interviews, etc, you will put all your findings into a report, and will need to appear in court to testify if necessary. You are basically the eyes and ears of the court, so as to cut down on the man hours that are needed to make decisions in the best interest of the child or children involved. This does not just mean putting the child where they want to go, but making a tough decision for the child which is in their best interest in the long run.

My sister told me that she already received the application and submitted it. I asked her if she really thought that she had the time to invest in doing something like this, and her answer to me was, how could she not? I should have known. Anyway, after talking about it a little more, I really thought that it sounded like a worthy cause and I told her to get me an application and I would do it with her. After all, life is really about giving back, isn’t it? I just am glad that as a child, I myself had a stable home life and did not have to face a lot of the things that the kids today have to face. I know if I were a child in this tough situation, I would really want to feel like someone was there just to be on my side and to represent me and my interests.

I think that this will be a really worthy cause to work with kids and help them get what they need. I look forward to the challenge of it. We are really hoping that we can do our 36 hours of training over the summer so that it doesn’t interfere with our school schedules. I am sure that Mom can watch the boys while we go to training together. It will be really nice to get to spend this time together as well.

Well, David Cook did it, he beat out David A for the title of American Idol. It is a bit upsetting to me, I mean I think that David C is a very good singer and entertainer, but I really thought that David A. should have won. I mean he definitely is more naturally vocally talented than David C but he did always seem a little timid on stage. I really thought however, that immediately following those performances on the last night, that David A looked awesome, and David C looked a little weak in comparison.

I actually got to learn a little bit about the behind the scenes at AI when I went to see Colton Berry in person. I got to see him perform live, and he also talked a lot about the AI experience. In case you don't know who Colton Berry is, he was one of the guys who made it to the top 20 but then got taken off soon after. He told things about AI that just amazed me.

He talked about his first audition where they filled an entire stadium with American Idol wanna bes and called each one down one at a time to sing. When you got down to sing in front of several producers they only let you sing a few notes and then they said whether you were in or out. He sang a few notes, and after he did they said they weren't sure on him and that he would have to audition in front of Nigel Lythgoe (From So You Think You Can Dance). Apparently, he is one of the producers of AI as well. Well, he said that he sang in front of him an entire song, and when he finished Nigel said that he really couldn't sing, but he had great hair so he was putting him through. I thought that was really interesting.

He said then he got to come back a few weeks later, and audition in front of the judges. The whole time, he couldn't let anyone know that he was going to be on American Idol. Then he went back and made it through with the judges, and then he had to go home again, and still couldn't say anything to anyone. Then each time he went back to AI he couldn't tell anyone when he came home that he was progressing, and eventually just lied to people and told him that he was going out of town for a while to visit friends. He said that he began this process in August, but that the shows didn't actually start to air until December, so he said it was a very long/secretive process. He said that he became really good friends with the other contestants, and said he still keeps in touch with them. He also said that the one guy who didn't make it into the top 20, you know the guy who was living in his car, actually has since gotten a recording contract and is doing fine. He also talked about how small the set on AI is, he said it looks really big on TV but it is like being in a cardboard box. And he said that the microphones that they hold actually don't do anything, they are just for show.

For a big AI fan like me, it was a real treat to get to hear about someone's first hand experiences with the show. I really enjoyed getting the inside scoop.