The Price of Gas Around the World....

I have been breathing a sigh or relief lately.  I managed to get rid of my Jeep and get into a
Toyota Corolla.  And just in time because the price of gas is getting higher and higher every day.  This is not to say I don't mind paying for gas now, but if I were still in the Jeep, I honestly I don't know how I would keep from going broke. 

Is it just us?  Are we the only ones being strangled at the gas pump?  What does the rest of the world pay for gas?

Netherlands	Amsterdam	$6.48
Norway	Oslo	$6.27
Italy	Milan	$5.96
Denmark	Copenhagen	$5.93
Belgium	Brussels	$5.91
Sweden	Stockholm	$5.80
United Kingdom	London	$5.79
Germany	Frankfurt	$5.57
France	Paris	$5.54
Portugal	Lisbon	$5.35
Hungary	Budapest	$4.94
Luxembourg		$4.82
Croatia	Zagreb	$4.81
Ireland	Dublin	$4.78
Switzerland	Geneva	$4.74
Spain	Madrid	$4.55
Japan	Tokyo	$4.24
Czech Republic	Prague	$4.19
Romania	Bucharest	$4.09
Andorra		$4.08
Estonia	Tallinn	$3.62
Bulgaria	Sofia	$3.52
Brazil	Brasilia	$3.12
Cuba	Havana	$3.03
Taiwan	Taipei	$2.84
Lebanon	Beirut	$2.63
South Africa	Johannesburg	$2.62
Nicaragua	Managua	$2.61
Panama	Panama City	$2.19
Russia	Moscow	$2.10
Puerto Rico	San Juan	$1.74
Saudi Arabia	Riyadh	$0.91
Kuwait	Kuwait City	$0.78
Egypt	Cairo	$0.65
Nigeria	Lagos	$0.38
Venezuela	Caracas	$0.12

Kind Words..........

Today I was running errands.  I dropped off my daughter at her father's to celebrate Passover.
On the way home I swung by Massachusetts General Hospital to pick up my mother's prescriptions from the hospital pharmacy.

For whatever reason, her prescriptions were not ready and I was told to come back in 10 minutes.  Normally I would be a little annoyed, but it was a nice day out and the cafeteria has really good smoothies.

I took a little pit stop in the ladies room.  While I was washing my hands, the woman next to me looked in the mirror and said, "Oh...this wind is not good for my hair!"

She was a very lovely older woman.  She had an accent, I am guessing she was from Ethiopia.  She was impecably dressed and her hair looked windswept.

I said, "You hair looks great!  Windswept hair is very in fashion right now!"

She laughed and then looked at me and said, "You are a good person.  You say things
to make people happy!  Because of you I will have a good day today."

I have to say, it kind of took me by surprise.  How many times do we keep our mouths shut and let the opportunity for a kind word pass us by?  And how many times do we forget to thank someone for their kind words when we do get them? 

She wasn't the only one who had a good day.  Her kind words to me put a spring in my step.
And it reminded me of a beauty tip Audrey Hepburn once gave, "for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness."

You don't understand? Well, allow me to explain....

"It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission ... to these children."

That is what Pope Benedict XVI said.  He said he didn't understand.  This makes me very angry! It makes me angry for several reasons. 

First, for a long time, I was trying to be a good Catholic.  I was born, I was baptized, I went through many of the sacraments, I "strayed" from the church and I was trying really hard to be a good Catholic again.  And then my trust in the Catholic church was shattered.  By who?  Well, by the Catholic Church itself. 

There are MANY reasons that I am angry with the Catholic church.  Their view on gay marriage, birth control, women in the priesthood and a whole bunch of other stuff I won't bore you with.  My main reason is this.... not only were children being abused by priests, but these priests were being protected by the Catholic Church.

Now, let's really look at the statement:

"It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission ... to these children."

Well, there were priests who were pedophiles.  They took advantage of their position.  What I am not hearing is any admission of guilt, any contrition for protecting these pedophile priests.  I think a few mea culpas are in order here.  I can only speak for the Boston Archdiocese, but when they found out there were pedophile priests within the flock, instead of turning them over to the police, they were just quietly sent away to another parish.  They provided these priests with fresh new victims.

I don't care if you wear a collar around your neck.  I don't care if you took a whole truck load of vows.  If you raped a child, then you should go to jail.  If Joe Shmow down the street rapes a child, he should go to jail.  I don't see why priests are any different. 

If the Pope is interested in healing wounds.... I have a suggestion.  (And again, I speak for those of us in Boston.)  Give us Cardinal Archbishop Bernard Francis Law!  Send him back to Boston and stop giving him sanctuary like Quasimodo in Notre Dame!  That man knew there were priests abusing kids and did nothing.  Even worse than nothing...he was ok with just shuffling them around to new parishes so they could abuse more children.  And when the shit hit the fan, he boarded a plane to the Vatican.

Let's just keep something in mind....Pope Benedict is not some new guy who had this thing fall in his lap.  He was a trusted advisor to Pope John Paul the II.  He knew this was going on before he became the Pope.

Bernard Law protected pedophile priests, the Vatican protects Bernard Law...its like some kind of sick circle.  Pope Benedict XVI is the head of the Catholic Church and he says he is ashamed. 

He should be.

Hey Harvard!! I Want an Apology!!

As I have mentioned before.  From time to time, things fall into place in my life.  All the bills are paid.  No one is sick.  Job satisfaction is running high.  Things look rosey.  When this happens I find something to bitch about because I am just happier being bent out of shape about something.

I was thinking the other day about how lucky I am to live in Boston. (Granted I live in a burb now, but I was born and raised in Dorchester, yes, I'm a Dot Rat.)  When you live in Boston, you live among some of the best hospitals in the world.  You are within reach of some of the most historic places in the country.  You are a stones throw from top level universities. 

I started to think about all these colleges and universities, Boston College, Boston University, Tufts, Emmerson, Wellesley, the University of Massachusetts (I went to UMass Amherst) and of course Harvard.  Hmmmm...Harvard.

From time to time my department has an intern or two from Harvard.  The majority have all showed up with an unbearable sense of entitlement.  I have caught Harvard interns rubbing their school in the faces of other interns that might go to state schools or just another school that isn't Harvard.  Gotta say it really pissed me off because I went to a state school and I feel I got a prefectly wonderful education thank you very much.

So if these INTERNS have such a huge sense of entitlement, imagine some of the Alumni.  Keep in mind, I am not saying ALL Harvard interns and alumns are jerks, but I've come some Harvard alumns and interns that just leave me baffled.  How do you carry around such a huge ego without a hernia.

So I started to think about some famous Harvard Alumns:

Jeffrey K. Skilling - This former Enron CEO is a graduate of the Harvard Business School.

Paul Bremer - This captain of industry was supposed to bring order to Iraq, instead he made everything worse and misplaced 9 billion dollars.  He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School.

George W. Bush - Need I say more?  He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School.  Do we see a trend here?

Cardinal Archbishop Bernard Law - This "man of God" protected pedophile priests.  Instead of turning them into the authorities for child rape, he just moved them to other parishes, so they could rape other children.  He is a Harvard graduate and currently hiding out in the Vatican.

Alberto Gonzalez - Do we need to go into this?  He has a Harvard Law degree.

The Unibomber - enough said.

A Trap for a Leprachaun.....

To the untrained eye, the above photo looks like a pile of junk.  In actuality, it is a very intricate trap to catch the elusive Erin Greenius Gold-hordicus....better known as the Irish Leprachaun.

My daughter got it in her head that this year, she wanted to catch a leprachaun and for weeks she has been planning a trap. She was planning to use a shoe box and spy equipment to catch the little green guy.  However, she made a fatal mistake.  She asked Mommy for help.

I really got into this little project and had a lot of fun with it.  Many times my daughter and I got
into fights regarding our creative vision for the trap, but in the end, we compromised on a lot.

As you can see, this is a plastic salad bowl propped up with a glue stick.  Under the bowl, we laid out the bait, coins and gold (costume of course).  What you may not be able to see is a piece of thread that is wrapped around the glue stick.  The thread was fed through short straws taped to the top and back of the bowl.  The thread is then tied to a piece of jewelry.  When the leprachaun takes the gold, he inadvertantly pulls the glue stick out from under the bowl, trapping him underneath.

But don't feel bad, there is a little cup of water and an oreo under the bowl.  This way the leprachaun wouldn't feel hungry or thirsty while he was trapped.

My daughter was very excited and woke up extra early on St. Patrick's Day to find that the trap had in fact been sprung.  But the leprachaun pushed the bowl to the edge of the coffee table and managed to escape.  But she was still excited to see that our trap worked.

Next year my trap will be better!!

Project Runway is Ruining My Life!!!!

I've become addicted to Project Runway.  I ended up catching a Project Runway marathon a few weeks ago and I became hopelessly hooked.  I loved the drama, the fashion, the cattiness. 

And I found myself learning a lot about the world of fashion.  How a designer becomes inspired by something.  How much of themselves goes into their designs. How each creation is almost like a snapshot of who the designer is as a person.

Now, lets look at this through the eyes of a TV professional like myself, I work for a PBS affiliate.  I am quite the media snob!  This program was not on Fox.  It was on Bravo.  I like Bravo, I like to think there was a lot of educational content.  I was impressed with what I took away from Project Runway.  And "Fierce" is now part of my vocabulary again.

I learned about what looks good.  What looks commercial.  I look at clothes with a much more critical eye. 

Now let's keep in mind that I have lost a lot of weight.  Before my wieght loss I was more concerned about finding clothes that fit rather than how they looked.  And because my self esteem was at an all time low, I was generally always in jeans and sneakers. 

Today I dropped by Marshalls.... there were so many cute things that I wanted to buy.  But not like the stuff I used to buy.  Things with little accents.  Things that had belts or interesting patterns or weavings.  Things that were FIERCE!!  Now I am much more conscious about what I put on my body.  And because I'm smaller than what I was, I am more willing to push the envelope of fashion a little more.

I don't think my wallet can take it!

DAMN YOU TIM GUNN AND YOUR FABULOUSNESS!!!  YOU DID THIS TO ME!!

I Haggled and I liked it!!!!

I have been in a little bit of a panic lately.  They say that by the time Memorial Day rolls around, gas in New England will cost $4.00 a gallon.  I drive a Jeep.

And since I have to commute to work, gas costs soooo much!  Filling up my gas tank is sooo painful. And if I stay in my Jeep any longer I won't be able to buy enough gas to get me to work and back.

Ok...before anyone says I should take public transportation...here's the thing.

School for my daughter starts at 8:30.  If I take a bus...a train...and another bus then I will be VERY late for work every day.  Now my daughter has an afterschool program.  I have to pick her up by 6:30pm.  If I get there late, then I have to pay $5 for the first 5 minutes and $1 for each additional meeting.  And if I take public transportation home, I will be late picking her up.
Ugh...so I have to drive until I find a job closer to home...I'm looking.  But thanks to our current economy, jobs are becoming scarce.

Anyway...I've decided to get a "new to me" car.  I don't need a new car every three years.  I just need something dependable that will get me to work and back.  I need a car that sips gas like a fine champagne and not like a drunken frat boy chugging beer during Rush Week.

After A LOT of research, I have selected a Toyota Corolla.  I test drove some cars and found one that spoke to me. 

The salesperson was a woman, her name is Kathy.  She was also a single mom.  She was from El Salvador, my dad was from El Salvador.  She has a 7 year old.  My daughter is 7.  We got comfortable with each other.  Ok....we were now sizing each other up.  I'm comfortable with her, so she must be thinking she can ask for a lot.  I'm thinking that now I can push the envelope farther.

After the test drive, she says:

Kathy: the car cost this much....

I didn't even look up from my cell phone

Me:  How about this much....

Kathy: Let me talk to my manager.

(He said ok.)

Then she starts doing the math.

Me: Wait, how about my trade in?

Kathy:  I thought you weren't going to trade in your car?

Me:  I said I wasn't sure if I was going to trade it in and I was going to think about it.....now I'm done thinking about it.

She comes back with a VERY low amount.  I wasn't surprised, I drive an 11 year old jeep with a zillion miles on it.

Kathy:  We'll give you this much for the jeep

Me:  No...this much

Kathy:  Let me talk to my manager

(he said ok)

In hindsight...I think I could have talked them down even lower.  But here is something you may not know about me.  I DON'T HAGGLE.  I never have.  My mom and  her brother are pros at haggling.  I just can't do it.  But this time, I did it. 

At one point, after she told me the price, I just sat silently and did numbers in my head. She asked me what I was thinking about and I said that I had a song stuck in my head.  To which she replied with a grin, "Oh really? What song?"

Nothin' Goin On But the Rent!

I talked to my ex-husband who was a car sales man at some point and he said I did good.  Yay me!