Shelley’sTangents

So I origianally wrote this to Dan as a way to vent about what happened, but I thought I would put it here because it was that special…. somethings have been changed so that others would understand.

I got the audio cd for Shannon’s Little Lincoln (her cyber school program) finally after not recieving it with her other material.  It didn’t work this morning.  I called the software guy, Joseph, and I know their names because of how much and how long I have been on the phone.  He walked me through a few things, and went ‘huh…’  So I knew it wasn’t really good that he did that… Apparently my dvd rom was not being recognized by the laptop.  How?  Hell if I know.  It worked about a week and a half ago then I started to have problems.  So I call up Stephen from the cyber school IT department, after going through her instructional supervisor and an operator.  He said, “interesting”.  Not another good word.  I had him remote in to the computer.  He found that it wasn’t but we could try a roll back.  So I shut down the computer and kept hitting that home key until it popped up.  From here my options were everyday up until a week ago or INSTILLATION!  So of course you know the week ago didn’t work and he went ‘huh…’ He privately looked on the computer for about 20 minutes, couldn’t get it to work so he called me back and we had to go all the way back to before I got this damn cursed thing.  Thankfully that worked and I say thankfully because if not, I would have had to send it back to them for them to try and see if they could do something else.  So, from there I had to connect back onto my wireless, which thankfully I remembered Dan telling me what my key was because after an hour on the phone at this point after the 20 minute wait, I really didn’t wish to have to call Verizon, and go back to the remote thing, install the printer, wait 5 minutes for it to print a test sheet of two little pears and install Little Lincoln all over again.  That has been installing for about 20 minutes as well by now, with uploading the usb thingie and the update they send out. It actually wound up taking a bit over an hour for the full update to finish.  I lost all the things saved on her computer for her school… computers hate me….

I’m not completely against someone taking another’s lyrics and changing the music to fit their style, that makes things interesting, but if a group does it I just wish they would make sure the song doesn’t completely suck.  It’s just not possible to take a great song, set it to some awful music and have someone who cannot sing and think that it’s going to come out alright.  Think!  As a musician, your taking a classic, well loved song and killing it.  Write your own lyrics and leave Johnny Cash, Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles alone.  The other funny thing about this is that the beloved Elvis did the same thing.  Go listen to Hound Dog by Big Mama Thornton and you will have a new found appreciation for it and understand the lyrics better.  It’s simply a song for a woman to sing and doesn’t really make sense with Elvis covering it.

So, Shannon was given the choice of languages to start learning,French, German, Chinese or Spanish.  Me in all my wisdom decided to let her choose.  Why not?  I figured she would pick Spanish like Dora or at least Chinese like Kai-lan.  Not my daughter though.  Nope, she picks French because of Ratatouille.  Not that I have anything wrong with learning it, because let’s face it, I have to learn it along with her, but Spanish would have been at lot easier for me at this point.  I’ve had five years of it in high school, so you would think I would be able to just pick it up again.  Now, I’m learning a completely new language and let me tell you the French have an odd way of spelling and pronouncing.  I know English is bad, but I’m really struggling kinda with the spelling.  The pronouncing?  Well, let’s just say I’m southern French.  Funny part is, Shannon’s actually doing well with it.  I’m just hoping she doesn’t change her mind in two years to go to Chinese… Oh, well.  Bonsoir.  A plus tard.  Au revoir.

The candles were lit, the pumpkins a glow and the children filled with anticipation.  Ariel and G.I. Joe was ready to be off.  So amongst all the goblins and ghosts my two little children set off in the ever popular search for treats.  The treats were plentiful and easy to find and thankfully easy to put into her pinata to be given back out the next day.  One can only handle so many sugar rushes…

Actually I hope that next year I can take them trick or treating with Dan and then maybe on to a bonfire that night.  All of us sitting around a bonfire on Halloween would be an excellent way to spend the night.   As it is now, I always put up at least one jack ‘o lantern but usually two and on Halloween and All Hallow’s Eve, I put candles in the windows.  Some silly superstition about the light keeping away spirits, but it’s something I have done since I was 16 or so.

And while I’m on the subject of Halloween, why is it that people are afraid of that holiday?  You may be thinking, like who, and I would answer a lot of Christians.  It has went from celebrating Halloween as a day that the spirits could intermingle with the living to a day where we dress up, and either go trick or treating or go to a party, to now they will call it a Fall Festival.  Honestly.  I mean it’s bad enough that the reason All Saints Day is November 1st was created was to discourage people from celebrating Halloween, but do we have to change the name just so some people don’t get upset and think that everyone is worshipping some form of evil deity.  I’ll stop now, because that is going to get me into my discussion about how some Christians need to calm down and maybe stop judging people. 

So anyway, I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!