The A A D D is in Overdrive this Morning!

During times of stress I've noticed my AADD kicks into overdrive, so this post will be a testament to that. Please be kind. :)

Did you notice the Finetune player has a new look? I think I need to make another playlist and separate the blues from the other "50-something" music I have on there.

Well, it looks as though John McCain will be our next president. Once again, the Democrats have not only started the infighting but have not provided us with a viable, electable candidate. crap. The only one they had that might have gotten a crossover or undecided vote in my opinion was John Edwards. So what if he spent $400 on a haircut. I never saw a problem with that and thought it was really pitiful the media picked up on it instead of his message about poverty in the United States. Please go here to read a very good article on what we lost when John Edwards decided to no longer run. Out of all the candidates he was the only one to give me any kind of warm and fuzzy feeling...the kind that makes you feel relief and feel like maybe it will be alright, after all. The rest of them just make me cringe to think who they will sell out to or have already sold out to.

Everyone should go here and sign up for AlterNet, a great source of information without the usual media slant.

I think I forgot to tell all of you blues lovers out there, Alex over at A Copywriter's Blues has posted several YouTube Videos of KoKo Taylor. Awesome!!! You rock Alex! I'm trying to get KoKo to accept me as a friend on MySpace and told her about you too. She's probably pretty busy so it might be awhile before I hear anything. I'll let you all know when it happens...it would be such an honor!

Most of my readers know I live with ten cats...yep that's me, the cat lady. :) I don't know what it is about me, my son, or our home that attracts animals but it's always been that way and ever since my son was born it's almost like there is a double dose of animal whammy surrounding us. We have had as many as 13 dogs, 5 cats, 3 raccoons, 2 armadillos and countless squirrels at one time. I feel somewhat blessed to only have ten cats and a couple of raccoons in the attic now. :) Anyway today it is raining and they are ALL(except the raccoons) inside! Geez, can't even take a step without running into a cat. God, I wish they would take a nap. :)

I don't remember if I posted about my longtime online friend Keltic. We met years ago when we were both trying to make a living autosurfing. That was a bust for me but anyway we stayed friends and now she has recently started two blogs of her own. KelticKaos that cracks me up and KelticCron that chronicles her finds as she starts her weight loss journey. Both of these are worth your perusal.

Besides the blues, I love Southern rock...probably because it is so influenced by the blues and I am, after all, Southern :) The reason this comes to mind is that Little Feat/Dixie Chicken is playing on the Finetune player as I'm writing this post. I sure miss them. I also miss The Amazing Rhythm Aces, Delaney and Bonnie and Commander Cody. Imagine my surprise when I went searching for links and found that most of them are all still around, doing their thing! Cool! Now if they would only come on down South and pay us a visit! Wouldn't that be an awesome concert!!!

Oh, almost forgot, thanks Ron, Keltic, Alex and Dolphin for getting me through it with the many daily emails! They were much appreciated!

K, that's about it for today. Ya think I need to go dig out the Straterra? :)

Have a Great Day and as always Happy Searching!!!

Yet Another Miracle :)

Since the day I found out I was pregnant with my beautiful and wonderful son I've known that I was forgiven for my worst sins, having abortions, and from that point on I would get my miracles when I really needed them. The child has been my greatest miracle since the day he was born. I don't know why I doubt that they will come and do doubting stuff like post about my situation and throw it out into cyberspace.
I am sorry for worrying my readers, but I am truly grateful for all the warmth and support that has been shown to me over this past week. Thanks also for taking the time to post on your own blogs to try to get us the help we needed. That was a wonderful thing to see and gave me the warm and fuzzies like I haven't felt in quite some time. :)
This post will be short, as I am still a bit drained by court and running around like crazy trying to get everything together. I just wanted to let everyone know that I have a bank check in my purse this morning that is going to the management company as soon as they open that will pay my rent through February. Oh, and there is enough money in the bank to allow me to take my test as soon as I can get the application process done. There is even some left over. :)
My son got his W-2 early (the miracle) so we were able to file and go for the RAL (refund anticipation loan) thus allowing us to have the money in time to tell the judge that we would have it in two to fourteen days, which he was fine with.
It never ceases to amaze me how people change their entire attitude when they get in front of a judge. The woman from the management company that had been such a bitch to me in November was all nicey nice and cooperative when she was in front of the judge....
Court was a hoot by the way. I recommend it to anyone that needs a laugh. Any court in the south is a hoot, except maybe criminal prosecutions. Traffic court is especially funny. Traffic court in Atlanta is the most fun you will ever have! At least for those of us that love to people watch :)
Have a great day and as always Happy Searching!

Ok, Here It Is...We've Known It Was Coming...

Oh, God, this is hard to do....

Please see the post from December 1st for more details.

The court date for the eviction notice is set for Monday. We will probably have 5 days after that before we are on the street. Since I don't have a clue what else to do, I'm throwing it out there to cyberspace. If you have any spare change in your PayPpal account you don't need please consider sending it through PayPal to rm5000@hotmail.com . We need, according to the landlord, $1650.00. This is not right but how do you argue with a management company that has filed the court papers? Or a judge? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We would even consider a $2000 reasonable loan arrangement. Half could be paid back in less than a month, the rest monthly over the course of 6 months.

Also, if anyone knows of a social work related position that might consider a social work student that has finished her coursework but not taken the test ($220) or actually received her degree (June '08) in Jackson, MS, then this information would be greatly appreciated since I've already been everywhere I can think of. I will take secretarial work, hell, even janitorial work, to be in the social work environment...

OK, that's it. Thanks for the consideration..... If you wish to contact me please do so at the prinpronisse@gmail address. Thanks again.

The 30th Anniversary of Roe v Wade!

Richard Knerr

It is 3 am and I am awake, watching the overnight news when I heard the co-creator of Wham-O Toys died from complications of a stroke on Monday. Richard Knerr is credited with bringing such toys as the Hula Hoop, the Superball( 50,000lbs of compressed energy), Silly String, the Slip-N-Slide , the "Pluto Platter" also affectionately known as the Frisbee and my favorite SuperElasticBubblePlastic to the public light. To this day my almost 19 year old son can not pass a vending machine full of "superballs" that he does not plug quarters into it. :) Thanks for the memories Mr. Knerr!

The Social Work Podcast

Sometimes I stumble upon the coolest things! As always, I like to share them with you :) The Social Work Podcast widget is one of the greatest sources of information I've run across in a good while. It is full of many mini-lectures. You can turn it on and walk around doing other things. Having ADD, this is a good thing :) Have a listen, then let me know if you like it. Have a great day and happy searching!

A Social Work Student's Job Search

Most of you know that I have finished my coursework and have begun the job search process. Certainly, I have found links to share with you to help you with your own search. I will leave it on top for now as it is a work in progress, but will probably move it later. Happy Searching!

John McCain

Lately, it has been bothering me that the similarities between President Bush and John McCain seem to be getting closer and closer. I just don't understand how anyone in their right mind can honestly want four to eight more years of the same crap. I don't understand why any presidential candidate in his right mind would want to emulate such complete arrogance and failure. It has also been bothering me that when asked "knowing what you know now, would you still vote to go to war with Iraq?" To which McCain answered "Yes". If you look at the bottom of this page you can see I have a counter that keeps track of the cost of the Iraq war. 484 trillion dollars! I can-not-even-get-my-head-around-that-much-money! But I do know that Social Services has suffered greatly because of this war, as has the entire country.

In my search for the reasons and for explanations for John McCain I ran across this article on AlterNet that pretty much hits the highlights, here is an excerpt/summary:

"It is rare to see a popular politician mimicking a president with much lower approval ratings. (Bush has crashed into the 30s in several major polls.) Yet as McCain continues his Bushification to win the Republican base, he may alienate the very Americans he needs to win a general election.

Moderate voters were supposedly attracted to McCain's reputation for integrity and independence. If they discover that independence is nothing but a disposable sales pitch from another politician, they may oppose him. McCain must stop pandering to the radical right if he wants to hold the center.

That is why the Bushification strategy is doomed to fail -- you cannot posture a firm ideology for political advantage. You either have one or you don't. And Americans can tell."

I also ran across this article in the Washington Post that is quite long but explains why McCain feels the way he does about the war and after having read it I understand his view but I still agree with AlterNet's statement about the Bushification of John McCain.

Link to My Site...Correctly, Please!

If you want to put a link to my site on yours, please do. It is a great honor to me and I appreciate it very much. My only request is that you link with the proper name of this site, Prin's Links for Social Work Students. If you rename the site it does not help my search engine optimization or my page rank and these things are important to me.

I understand that some of you are just getting started with your own blogs and might not know about such things and they are not important to you...yet. Believe me they will be. It is a wonderful thing to watch your little labor of love rise in the search engines, watch your Technorati authority rise from 6 to 17, and to discover that you have a page rank of 3 :) These things are important to me not because I have ever made a dime from this site but because it lets me know what the cyber-world thinks of my blog. Besides if you are a social work student then it borders on the big P word if it isn't documented/linked to correctly and I've already had issues with that word. (see archives, November, 24, 2007)

Again, please feel free to link here, I am honored that you think highly enough of Prin's Links to do so. As always, Have a Great Day and Happy Searching!

Dear God....

Thank you for letting me have my sense of humor back..... :)

Today I found a site that I am so impressed with I have asked it's owner to marry me :) It is a site dedicated to the blues, of coarse! If I was going to dedicate a site totally to the blues I could only hope that it would come out as great as this one. It is not only informative but it is also beautiful! I mention this because it is a blogger site and it amazes me that anyone could make a blogger layout turn out so well. Please go here to Crossroads Club 27 to check it out. There are many links on the right hand side of the blog that are worth your while. The widgets with pictures of the old bluesmen are great! The only thing that disappointed me a bit was that he didn't include KoKo Taylor in his lineup...but that's forgivable :) Oh, and if you would like some awesome blues art to go with your music check out the totally awesome Grayart's page!

Have a Great Day and Happy Searching!

Me and My Hoopdee....

Today I want to talk about drivers, their cars, the environment and me and my hoopdee. I found this hilarious and very informative article in the Washington City Paper Archives this morning when I was searching for how to spell hoopdee :) If you want a laugh with your morning coffee go check it out!

Every morning I take my son to work in rush hour traffic. Every morning I come back home pissed off at some stupid driver that almost cost us our lives. Inevitably it is a black female on a cell phone driving something like a Ford Excursion or something equally as insane for the environment. Apparently, I have pissed them off because I, in my 1988 Nova, am not going fast enough for them, so they must floor it to go around me, using an untold amount of gas in the process, only to get to the next light right in front of me, never missing a beat on the phone.

I have driven all of my life. I think I learned how when I was eight or nine on an old 1960 Datsun pickup truck that my uncle used for the farm. I think all of us kids learned how to drive on that truck. I have driven standard shift cars and trucks for the most part all of my life. That is until I got a job as a courier in Atlanta. All day long, sometimes 12 hours in Atlanta traffic will quickly wear out the wrists with a standard shift vehicle. The happiest day of my life was when I traded in my 1993 Toyota extended cab truck for a 1995 Subaru Legacy wagon. Not only was it automatic but it also had all wheel drive. If you have never driven a vehicle with all wheel drive then you have never really driven, period. I would be going 70 or better in the pouring rain on the interstate with 18-wheelers passing me or me passing them...not one shimmy, sway or anything else scary. That sucker held the road like nothing I had ever driven before or have driven since. I felt like a god. I think it was in that car that I really learned how to drive, drive fast and drive fast and safe. I credit Atlanta and my courier job for preparing me for my next crap job here in Mississippi as a cab driver. It was the only job I could find here that would pay me anything near what I was used to in Atlanta. Of course, no one told me at the outset that I would have to drive 20 hours a day, as fast and as well as I could, to make that money. :)

Anyway I digress as usual. My point is that this morning I am pissed at all drivers out there that intend to drive the biggest vehicle they can find as fast as they can. The next time you find yourself frying during a Mississippi July you can thank yourself for contributing to the fact that we don't have an ozone layer anymore to protect us. Me and my hoopdee will just keep plugging along, knowing that on any given day we can out-drive you... should we so choose :)

I took a break...so shoot me :)

Finally I passed algebra! Now I can study for the licensure test and after 5 years of struggle and deprivation maybe I can go do what God put me on this earth to do...serve. I have to pass the test first :) I hope all of you had and continue to have a great holiday season and didn't let the commercialism get to you. :)

I've told you all about my friend Amerah before. She sends me stuff from time to time. Some of it makes me cry, some makes me laugh, some make me think and some of it is just plain worth sharing. This one is worth sharing. Click here.

Also my friend Alex over at A Copywriter's Blues has paid me the highest form of a compliment on his site and has given me one of the greatest Christmas presents I have ever received. If you are into the blues go check out his site. It is an awesome video collection of all the greats...even some international greats you might not know about :) While I was on his site I started wondering if there was a site that compared blues styles so you know me I started looking for links and found a great one, The Sutton Blues Collective. It has much information that I've never seen on a site before. The information is also written in a short and to the point manner. The link is for the homepage, just scroll down and click on Blues Styles to find out about all the different types and styles of the blues.

The next two (maybe more) posts will be me trying to make some money with this blog before I get evicted and don't have a place to write anymore...so please bear with me. I don't intend to get away from the original focus of this blog but...oh, well sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do :) Have a great day and as always Happy Searching!!

It's Saturday Night and I Have the House to Myself!

The first thing I did was turn the blaring football game OFF! Next, I turned the finetune player up fullblast. The Yardbirds "Train Kept A Rollin" came on first, then George Thorogood "Bad To The Bone". WOO HOO I'm liking this!
The boy went to spend the night with a friend of his and from there will go to mass and then to youth group. This means I have the house to myself until three or four tomorrow afternoon. Whatever shall I do??? The hot water is already running...complete with bubbles and all the smell good stuff I can find :) Might even shave my legs :) Once I soak for an hour or so then I think I'll put on clean sweats and make my plan for tomorrow.
Because the economy is so bad and groceries and gas are so high I think I must revert back to doing the sale paper Wal-Mart thing. Usually it doesn't pay me to do that because we live a good way from Wal-Mart and I hate the crowds and the fact that it is merchandised to make me purchase things that I normally wouldn't. If I stick to my list and don't look up I think I'll be alright. It's like a test of wills when you go to that place. Besides my theory is if you just pick a store, any store and learn it really well (like when they have sales on what you use) you can do as well there as at Wal-Mart. Plus if you shop there all the time then at this time of year they send you little thank you incentives. Mostly, I shop at Kroger. It's the right size...I don't have to walk the equivalent of two football fields to get what I need, then another to get to my car pushing the loaded buggy. Last year, Kroger sent me several coupons for money off my entire grocery order. It seems like it was $16. It seems like the total for the entire holiday season was around $60. Now, to me, that's pretty good. This year it's not so much. I guess the economy has hit everywhere. But it is still substantial with the other coupons they send and the regular double coupons.
Some of my friends freaked when I told them I was moving to this part of town. I moved here because at the time I was on foot. In fact, I found this duplex complete with laundry room, two bedrooms, a yard for the boy and the cats and a covered carport when we were two days from the sheriff coming to throw our stuff out of where we were living. I thought God had directed me to this place. This apartment is a block from a bus line that is as frequent as any in town. There are two grocery stores, a drugstore, a convenience store, a Fred's, a Roses, a cleaners, a laundromat and many fast food places right within walking distance. I thought I had moved to heaven when we first moved in.
It was a real fluke finding this place. It was November and still hot. I had taken the bus over to check on a complex type apartment and the jerk that was the manager condescendingly told me that they would check my credit. A foreclosure, I assumed, would not allow me to get that slum apartment, so I just started walking back up to the bus stop when I noticed what seemed to be a neighborhood much like where were living and even had "circle" in it's address...it was too much of a coincidence so I decided to go see if there were any vacant houses that might be for rent. I walked around the entire circle and only saw one that looked like it was in the process of being renovated and not finished. So I kept walking. The circle has two cut through streets and I had already been through one of them and was starting to get really tired, not to mention really sweaty. The little voice said "go on and check out the other cut through street". I had to force myself to do it. I got to the end of the street and there it was. It looked like it might be a duplex and I've always liked duplexes...only one close neighbor :) It was a really pretty blue and it looked well-kept and best of all the carport looked empty. I remember thinking...now if someone lived there surely something would be in the carport, pack rat that I am. I went up to the front apartment and knocked on the door. A surprised black man came to the door...even more surprised when he saw me, a big 'ole red-faced sweaty white woman :) I asked him a bunch of questions and he stopped me and said if I could wait about 30 minutes or so that the landlord was on his way over and I could ask him all that.
Hughey, the landlord was sent to me directly from God and I know that to be fact :) He let me rent the apartment without a credit check, he let me have my cats "I'm not going to tell it and if you don't mention it, the owner will never know", wink, wink. Hughey did so much for me and I will be forever grateful to him for it. He let me slide on the rent until I got my first financial aid check from school. He gave me rides when I needed to go to DHS. He would even consider property in lieu of rent sometimes, if he could use it :) I could not have asked for a better apartment manager. Then he had a falling out with the owner over the owner not paying him for work he had done to the owner's other houses. The owner got another manager, Sandy... another Godsend. He was just the sweetest man, in fact his entire family was that way. They all took care of me with whatever this old house needed.
Now, I tell you all that to tell you this...about two years ago the owner decided to get out of the rental housing business and he sold all his properties. WOE IS ME :) It has been s**t ever since. But the last management company was pretty good. At least they understood that I was a single female with cats and a kid and they were careful who they rented the front apartment to. Now the new owner has changed management companies because he wanted to consolidate all his properties into a management company that could handle all his properties. To make a long story short, we might get evicted right here at Christmas. I could tell when I went to talk to the woman that she wasn't going to lift her hand to help me and she didn't. Even though the former management company told me that the owner was pretty easy to get along with and would probably cut me some slack since I had to put $1300 worth of new steel doors on this house so we would be safe in here. That's another story for another day though. When she called me back to tell me that he said to go on and start the eviction proceedings I could tell by her voice that she was taking some delight in telling me that. I doubt she even told him about the doors. I know it is time to move away from here but we can't do that until I get out of school and get a job. Hopefully this will happen soon :)
Anyway, I said all of that to tell you why you now see the Smorty widget on here. It was never my intent to make money from this blog. I just wanted to make a contribution to the field of social work and help my fellow students. From time to time I will be reviewing non-socialwork related sites to try to bring in some money from this site. I ask for your tolerance and your prayers :) We'll be alright...I know God did not bring us this far to let us fall now. :)
It is always very draining for me to write about my personal stuff so I think I will go enjoy my bubbles now :) Have a great weekend and as always Happy Searching!

Please take the poll on the left hand side of the blog

Some of you might be wondering why I never posted about the meeting I went to where I was invited to represent the underclass for the new website design of my university's social work website. Before I get to it...yes, I am the queen of the run-on sentence :) I went to the meeting the day after we got back from the blues trail excursion...which was great, by the way. So I was kind of dogged out and admittedly not very coherent. It seemed to me that they were not at all interested in or impressed with what I spent the entire summer working on. It seemed to me they were only interested in getting it done the easiest and quickest way possible, even though I offered to go sit with the IT people and learn how to do the coding. In all fairness I can understand the mindset...not having an on staff programmer would make you opt for the quick, easy and simple route. But the reason why I haven't posted about it until now is that in the course of the discussion one of the instructors from the PhD program said that my site promoted plagiarism. Ouch! Punch me in the gut why don't ya :) Now, I cannot for the life of me see how providing links to valuable resources promotes plagiarism so I have stewed on it and gone through all the grief stages about it and have finally decided to put up a poll to see what my readers think. According to sitemeter there are about a thousand or so of you out there. It would be great if I could get a few of you in here to respond to the poll before I lose my mind over this :) Thanks so much!

Yeah!! A Cold Snap! Finally We Can Move Again, Here in the Deep South!

Finally the first cold snap! I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. Here in the south one of the things we think about doing when the weather turns cold is cooking. We love to cook and we love to eat. I thought it would be interesting to find out what other people like to cook. I started a thread last year in a forum I visit regularly and got many great recipes from it for holiday dinners. So I will start it off on my blog this year. Anyone is welcome to post their recipes here in the comments. This recipe also makes great cupcakes, just put a hershey's caramel kiss on top while still warm for the topping. :)

Better Than Sex Cake

1 butter recipe yellow cake mix
4 large eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 1/3 cup water
1 small pkg instant vanilla pudding
1 8 oz container sour cream
1 bar german chocolate
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Topping

1 large bag Rolo's candy
1 - 2 tablespoons milk

preheat oven to 350. grease and flour large bundt pan. In large bowl combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil and water. mix until well blended. add eggs one at a time blending well after each. place german chocolate in small nonstick skillet and heat on low until in a soft melt state. mix into cake batter. fold in sour cream. fold in chips, coconut and pecans just until evenly distributed. pour evenly into bundt pan. bake for approximately 55 minutes. check at 45. may take longer. cake is done when inserted knife comes out clean. allow to cool in pan for 15 to 20 minutes. invert onto coverable cake plate and allow to cool completely. cover tightly and let sit for at least two days, if you can wait. if not, it's great warm. but the waiting allows the flavors to mellow some. in a large nonstick skillet unwrap rolos and place the candies big side down add 1 tablespoon milk. heat on very low heat stirring occasionally. add milk until just able to stir and no more. if it's too thin it will run right off the cake. allow to cool then pour evenly over cake. i usually use a 2 cup glass measuring cup to do this. makes it easier.

I was about 25 when I discovered this recipe and was experiencing a particularly long "dry spell" and at that time I had a really hard time trying to say that it was not better than sex

Today I Want to Talk About---Billary....

You cannot imagine the weariness that overcomes me whenever I hear yet another person making my home state the butt-end of a point they are trying to make. It used to make me violently angry in my youth. Seems that it is so easy to just use Mississippi for any analogy from taking a dump over the state to proving your point about backwardness. I just wish people would realize that it was only a select few that sealed our fate many years ago. It was not me. I come from a long line of people on the other side. People that did not agree with the politics of the day and stood up against them. Newt Knight was my great grandfather on my mother's side. If you want to read a glorified, fictionalized account...the one I grew up believing, read Oh, Promised Land and then Tap Roots by James Street. There are three more in the set but these two give you the gist of it. Mr. Street died of a heart attack the year I was born. I wish I could have met him to thank him for giving a little girl something to be proud of in a world that hated her on many levels.
The first hatred I experienced was because my mother was a single parent in the fifties. I had to be a bastard and she had to be a whore. We were neither. My mother was a voracious reader, devouring everything she could get her hands on until the day she died after finishing the New York Times Sunday Crossword puzzle, an award winning critical care nurse and made more than most men of that time. My father was a bohemian artist too free to be held to the responsibilities of family life. Ventana Abierta gives a very good description of the bohemian artist on her blog. I understand my mother more than I ever did, now that I have raised my own child alone.
The second hatred of me was because I was an overweight child. People could be so cruel back then. It's funny now...you don't get that so much, now that everyone else seems to be catching up in the weight department. :)
The third hatred I experienced was because I was caucasion. Until I was seven or so I lived in ignorant bliss, happily playing with whomever I pleased. I was never told I could not socialize with people of different races. Maybe I should have been. I know it would have saved me quite a bit of heartache if I could have remained forever blissfully ignorant. That was not to be the case.
The Freedom Riders (the short version), for a more complete history (the legacy of the Freedom Riders) came to town when I was seven and for the first time in my young life I saw fear in my mother's eyes. Can you imagine being barely 30, a single parent, working nights so you can get your child to school and not knowing if the place you lived was going to go up in flames like what was happening in Alabama? If you've never lived under Marshall Law then how can you understand?
From that point on, how I approached my life changed. I sought out people of other races to talk to and learn from and learn I did. I've been very fortunate to have known and been understood by many people of other races. I've always thought that I was born with an old bluesman's soul because that is where I am most comfortable and people that really know me understand that and relate to it on that level.
Getting back to "Billary." Speaking of "backward" just the very idea that she would use Mississippi in the context that she did shows the world her very own backwardness. I think she should go here and answer the questions posted in the comments. When she can give reasonable and creditable answers to the questions posed in the comments of this article I might reconsider her as a candidate. Yes, I was considering her as a candidate, as I think a lot of women voters were here in Mississippi. More apparently than her numbers were telling her, but she probably cured us of that consideration by her comments.
I am so tired of being called "backward" I could just scream.... so for my readers that aren't from here and can only judge by what they've read I have found some links for you that will tell you some good stuff about Mississippi, if you're willin' :) They can be found on the left sidebar as always.

Trail of the Hellhound

Tomorrow my son and I will be heading up old Hwy 61 in search of The Hellhound and the Blues Trail
The plan is to leave Jackson about 10 am(snerk :)), drive over to Vicksburg and head north on Hwy 61 from there. We are going to stop at the Onward store about 30 miles north of Vicksburg, where Teddy Roosevelt did not kill the bear, for one of those awesome cheeseburgers and some conversation. Then we are heading on up to Clarksdale. We will wander around Clarksdale all day searching for the crossroads where Robert Johnson reportedly sold his soul to the devil for his dazzling guitar technique. Once we leave Onward we should be able to tune into 1450 AM WROX and rock on out to some blues on the way up. In Clarksdale we'll go to the Delta Blues Museum where we can see Muddy Water's cabin and interesting photo exhibits. Then we'll eat at Madidi, Morgan Freeman's restaurant that's supposed to be fancy smancy. Hope they'll let us in without a tie and dress up clothes :) (just called for a reservation, the lady that answered said "just wear some clothes...we'll be good" :)) After the meal, to wake me up enough to drive out to the woods I think we better go over to Ground Zero Blues Club for an hour or so. I want to try to find the authentic rural juke joint Po Monkey's Lounge *near* Merigold reportedly after turning left on the main road immediately there is a fork in the road take the left fork and then take the first gravel road on the left and it's on down in there somewhere. If I'm never heard from again just know that I died happy....wallowing in the blues. Hopefully we'll make it on into Memphis following old Hwy 61 so we can visit Sun Records, BBKing's Blues Club, the Orpheum and the Peabody to watch the march of the ducks on Saturday.
This is the first "vacation" my son and I have ever had and hopefully all of you will have as great a weekend as we are going to have! I still can't believe my 18 year old son suggested that we do this :) I guess raising him on gospel, spirituals and the blues from the cradle did some good. I always hoped it wouldn't warp him and of coarse it didn't. :)

The Busiest Time of the Year for a Student :)

Today I have added yet another blog linking to this main page. It is not complete so please bear with me. This one includes criminal justice, juvenile justice and child welfare links to resources. With the addition of this one there are now six separate blogs that link to this main page. Cool, huh?
Because of my work on this blog I have been nominated to be the undergrad representative to work on the committee that will re-invent my own university's School of Social Work page. More about that later, when I know more. I have also been asked to create one for the Criminal Justice Department. So much to do..so little time....I'm lovin' it :) Have a great day!! Happy Searching!!

Abortion

Tough subject to take on, right? Today I saw the man that spearheads the anti-abortion protests of the one abortion clinic we have left here in Hades where I live. He was overseeing the "worker" landscapers and from what I could hear, was being very respectful to them. I felt as if I was in a parallel universe...a place where everyone treated everyone else with respect and courtesy. This has not been my experience with this man and I do believe he recognized me but could not remember from where. While waiting on my son to get off from work I had about 15 minutes to observe him and observe him I did. You see, I truly despise this man and everything he stands for. As I watched him I could not believe what I was seeing....a seemingly gentle, caring human being. I almost felt as if I were being transported back to when I used to disassociate to block the sexual abuse I suffered most of my life. It felt as if I needed to leave reality to comprehend that this very same man that had harassed me and every other woman in this town who had made the excruciating decision to end their pregnancy, could possibly be a nice man. The lengths he would go to, the tactics, the language were some of the most horrible forms of abuse I have ever witnessed.
I have never understood how a man can justify taking up the fight against abortion. It is my belief that if 100% of men were to accept 100% of their responsibility for the children they father then there would be no need for abortion, except in cases of rape or for medical reasons. I would be willing to take a guess that 80% of abortions would be eliminated. Yet, you see them out there, protesting with such vehemence. They stand outside abortion clinics yelling terrible things to women who are about to go through one of the most traumatic events of their lives. What purpose does this serve? Don't they know that they cannot say anything to us that we have not already said to ourselves? Does showing us gruesome, blood and guts, pictures of partially birthed fetuses really serve a purpose? If so, I want to know what purpose that is. Is the purpose to make us never, ever have another good night's sleep? Is it to make sure that we carry guilt with us about the decision we had to make until the day we die? We already do that. Rest assured you can not punish us or make us feel any more guilty than we already do. Again I ask, what is the purpose? Who gives you the right to abuse us in that manner? Certainly not my God. My Father loves his children and when we are ready to be forgiven will open His arms and welcome us to be forgiven.

So I was Wrong :)

In the spirit of professionalism...the music player will not start automatically from now on. You can still play it by hitting the play button. I want my readers to come here to discover the wealth of information I have uncovered on the web. If the music offends them or scares them away before they have time to do this then I have not truly done my job. So, for those of us that can not live without music to work by, it is still there to enjoy. Now the reader has a choice as to whether or not they want to listen. :) Have a Great Day and Happy Searching!