Civility

Is civility dead? Have people forgotten their common manners?  I am afraid the answer is yes.  Thank you cards - gone.  RSVP-ing to events - gone.  Please and thank you's - gone (thanks to texting and email - keep it short and sweet).  The list is staggering.   Be loud and rude and you will make the evening news.  Or if it bleeds it leads (referring to if it's a horrible story it will lead in the nightly newscast...sad).  Anyway.  The other day I stood in line behind a woman at the grocery store who was fighting on the phone with someone....loudly.  I watched at the checker politely asked her how her day was going.  The woman ignored her.  Instead she continued her fighting conversation on her cell phone slamming on the conveyor belt all of her items.  She swiped her card grabbed her bags and left.  Didn't say ONE word to the person helping her.  RUDE.  I felt inclined to apologize to the checker, who told me it happens all of the time.  What?  All of the time?  Beyond just cell phones, what else do we see out in the world to prove the fact that civility is dead?  How about how people treat each other on reality shows and television shows?  Or how about that douche bag Kenye West who interrupted Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech for an award?  How about that Senator that yelled out "You LIE" to the President (yes the President of the United States) during a speech?

The other day I thought I would test my theory that civility is dead.  I walked around the mall and grocery store and smiled at anyone who would look up at me.  Not many looked up from their phone or just starring at the floor in front of them.  But the ones that did look up....many of them gave me dirty looks.  Like, why are you smiling at me you bitch?  I laughed.  The younger people were suspicious the older folks smiled back.  SAD!  I am fearful that my daughter will grow up in a world where people don't know how to treat each other kindly....with civility.  Well one thing is for sure, I will teach Ava how to properly address people, say please and thank you, how to get attention in a positive way, how to write thank you cards, to RSVP and for goodness sake to get off her cell phone when she is in public.  It starts at home folks and I hope you will jump on the bandwagon because where this world is going is sad.

Prayers

Time and time again I am reminded why my path was to be with Todd.  During the "single" years countless times I would feel like God wasn't listening to me....He wasn't answering my prayers.  Back then, I would have a boyfriend who I thought was wonderful....and I would pray that we would be together forever.  And time and time again....things wouldn't work out.  I know now it didn't work out because I am supposed to be with my dear hubby Todd....he rocks the casbah.  So anyway as I mentioned I was once again reminded of why my prayers went unanswered...this weekend...at a party.  I saw an ex who I haven't seen in 10 years.  Long story short he broke up with me because he felt like I worked too much, I was too focused on my career.  Many times during the "single" years I wondered if I made the right decision. Well folks let's just say....I did.  Alex married the girl he hooked up with literally the WEEK we broke up.  His friends called her the "revenge f*ck" to me.  That made me laugh back then.  Anyway.  He and RF are friends with one of my friends.  Who knew?  Small world.  Alex has not made much of himself and supports his family by playing professional poker ON LINE.  What the?

MORE and MORE

OK.  Last night in bed we were sleeping.  We both heard a "PSSST" noise.  Todd says, "Em, did you hear that?"  I said, "Yes. damn."  Two seconds later another "PSSSST" right over our heads.  We both jumped out of our skin.  Not sure what to do.  I am starting to really freak.

More ghosts...boo.

So last night Todd put the baby to bed.  When he came downstairs he had this odd smile on his face.  He told me that when he was laying her in her crib, the Sleep Sound Machine turned on again by itself.  It has an on off switch, it's not activated by a button or touch or motion.  Sweet.  And this morning when I came downstairs and turned on the tv, the tv was tuned to channel 688.  A channel called Tranquility Music.  Sweet.  When I tried to change it off of that channel it kept trying to make my buy the Pay-Per-View movie Letters from Juliet.  I turned off the cable box...and back on....same thing.  Whoa.  For the record, our tv turns on to the last channel that was on when it was turned off.  I guarantee you Todd and I weren't watching Tranquility channel 688 before going to bed last night.  Boo.

Helicopter

There's a saying that parents that hover over their kids and over-protect them are called "helicopter parents".  I see it all of the time.  Last night on Facebook I saw that one of my friends was bragging because he sold all of his kid's fundraiser candy bars for him.  Raising the money is not the lesson here.  The true lesson is having the child learn to earn money, be responsible for a goal, practice presenting an item to the public and learning how to sell.  That parent was so proud of himself, and I say shame on you.  You took away several wonderful teaching moments from your kid.  What you DID teach him was that he doesn't have to work in this world, daddy will save him and do it for him.  I remember when I was a Girl Scout selling cookies.  I worked my little tail off selling those cookies.  I never won the most sales....not once.  I was 2nd place every year.  I won 2nd place to the same girl every year....whose parents sold them for her at their work.  She never sold a single box of freaking cookies.  I on the other hand was out every Saturday ringing door bells and selling those cookies.  I wonder where the 1st place cookie girl is now?  Probably living in her parent's basement.  Ha. 

Love

I was just looking at pictures of our wedding.  I love this one.  Todd is giving a toast and thanking my parents for the wedding.  I was so full of love and it gushed out all over the place.  He was so charming and amazing during his speech....just as he is everyday.  Thanks for choosing me.  I am the luckiest. 

Social Media

I am fascinated by Social Media....and quite frankly scared to death of it at the same time.  The voyeurism shocks me...and then it doesn't....it's human nature right?  That's why facebook is the phenomenon it is today.... right?  Anyway.  I saw it most at my 20 year high school reunion.  People I have never seen or spoken to in 20 years...(yet they are my friend on facebook) knew everything about me.  Most had never said even one word to me on facebook yet knew what I did for a living, what my daughter's name is, how many bridesmaids I had, who I still keep in touch with, how my siblings were doing...crazy. It was nuts.  So they had checked out my life without even making a comment.  I talk to so many people all the time who claim to be on facebook every single day, but never comment or post anything.  Odd right?  Part 2 of the things that shock me about social media is the sheer narcissism that runs wild in the social media world.  How arrogant of folks (including myself) to think that people want to know what I am doing, what I am think, how I feel or what music I like.  I post comments, status updates, pictures and other things on facebook all the time. Even this blog is laced with narcissism  Look at me!  Look at MEEEEEE!  Ha.  It's a crazy world out there now.  You don't need to leave the comfort of your home and still can feel "connected" with people.  Now THAT is what truly scares the crap out of me.  The lack of pure natural face to face interaction.  *Sigh*

The real inspiration behind this post is that 2 of my friends had a baby girl this week.  Everyone was so up in arms because they hadn't posted an update, announcement or pictures on facebook.  The baby is 7 hours old and her pictures aren't all over the Internet yet?  Made me giggle.  Now I am guilty of posting Ava's birth on facebook...I loved the attention.  But I had to laugh that everyone was soooo freaked that they hadn't posted....myself included.  Funny.  And to add insult to injury, we were all afraid to post on their wall CONGRATS for fear of stealing their thunder.  I had to laugh though, because the 2 people I was sure would steal their thunder....did.  Posted all over their walls CONGRATS before an "official" announcement had been made.  I mean, what if they hadn't gotten in touch with a special aunt yet?  She gets to hear of her birth from some loud mouth deejay?  Sad really.  It's a scary world.  Now I must run....a little girl is stirring from her nap.

Trifecta

We have been watching Mad Men on netflix.  We are on Season 2 about half way through.  The show is set in the mid 60s and is about a small, yet up-and-coming advertising agency.  They all smoke in their offices.  Drink all day long in their offices and during meetings and then all night long.  Woman are secretaries not managers.  Its all very 1964.  I giggle when I see similarities to radio and the ad business as a whole that I can relate to from my own career.  Anyway.  Currently on the show, a young secretary has just been promoted to a Jr. Copy Writer among a wave of all male Copy Writers.  A really big deal back in those days.  I love seeing a woman getting a shot.  Love it.  I am not going to jump up on a feminist soap box, I just like to see women get ahead. 

Watching the show makes me remember one of the reasons I started working for a former radio group.  I choose to work there because there were 3 women in the top 3 management positions at the stations...a trifecta of women.  I thought this was a wonderful thing....at first.  Especially since when I started in radio I was one of only a few female Dept Heads in radio.  In fact, I once had an old male program director tell me that when he started in radio if there was a woman in the radio station...she wasn't an employee...she was a hooker.  I told him that he must have a really good attorney.  I digress.  As I sit here thinking about my experiences working with the trifecta, I am saddened to realize that the trifecta didn't look out for their female counterparts at all.  In fact, I feel that they are harder on woman in their office than the men.  I can think of several ....ok...MANY woman who were ousted out, demoted and/or fired by no real fault of their own by the trifecta.  And ironically there are MANY sub-par men in that building still to this day working under the trifecta whom are able to fly under the radar.  Why?  You would think that women would look out for other women.  Not this bunch.  They have no tolerance for women.  You should hear how the radio market talks about the trifecta.  It's not pretty folks. It"s down right sad. 

Tough times

I feel like many people around me are having a tough time right now. My friend buried her son after a fatal car accident on Labor Day weekend. Two of my friend's dads are in the hospital with serious issues. My mother in law had 2 serious back surgeries last week and is in a ton of pain. My friend just had to put her dog to sleep today. My friend had a meeting with her bosses this morning at 10 am that she had a feeling was the end of her time at that job (radio sucks). My friend is having teenager issues. My friend can't buy a break health wise.  My friend just spread her dad's ashes and is struggling with his death all over again. My friend is having issues with a tenant that is involving court. Several of my friends are super sick with colds right now. My friend's 14 year old daughter had a tumor removed from her head and throat last week that was the size of a softball. They had to peel the skin from her face back to get to the tissue and bone effected by the tumor. She has lost a good amount of sensation in her face area and will need a full face reconstruction. Did I mention that she is 14 freaking years old and should only be thinking about what she is wearing to the Homecoming Dance. Some times I just don't understand why life hands us these trials??? Deep breath.  I have to remember a quote that I love....and repeat it over and over.  “I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much.” - Mother Teresa

Ghosts

OK. I may be crazy. But I have witnesses.

When I lived in my downtown condo the land it was built on was an old burial ground that was supposed to be moved when the building and developments started. The story is (read link) that when the city was ready to build on that land and the families of the deceased were asked to move the bodies/graves, but few did. Most of the bodies were those of vagrants, criminals, and paupers...so they didn't get moved and the city built on top of their graves. I cringe when I see stories on the news of bodies being found like recently at the Denver Botanic Gardens. (Note link attached is from 2008, but it was the best and most complete story on it I could find right now). It just happened a few weeks back...again. They were digging to build a new structure and found bodies. DBG is 2 blocks from my condo. OK. Scene set. Here are some things that have happened to me....that "could" be ghostly encounters from years ago....and then again recently.

My brother Bob and I were playing board games at my condo. All of a sudden the sound on the TV went down to mute. We could see the volume display on the TV go down tick-by-tick. I say, "did you do that?" Bob says, "No, where is the remote?" We both look over and it's on the table across the room. Bob and I freak then notice lid on the trash cans is swinging back and forth and back and forth. He jumps up and tells me he is getting the eff out of there. I beg him to stay. He says he's freaked and wants to go home. Sweet.

Several times while sleeping in the condo I have sworn that I felt someone touch my face. I would open my eyes and jump thinking someone was there. I was alone.

Many times I would be sleeping and feel something jump on my bed, like a cat or a small animal. I would wake up and look for my cat and she wasn't there. My friend Kathy SWORE once that she saw a white cat sitting on my kitchen chair. She swears she saw it and then she blinked again and it was gone.

The day I was moving in with Todd, I was coming from the condo with one of the last loads. The glove box on my car flew open and all of the contents flew onto the passenger seat. Not just fell out...shot out of the glove box. I didn't hit my breaks or hit a bump. It just happened. When I got to Todd's I was unloading the stuff. I walked back out to the car parked in front of the house and the doors locked. I went back inside and said, "oh haha, funny, lock the car on me as I am walking up to it." He said, "Eh, Em, the keys are on the table, I didn't do that."

After I moved in with Todd we were working on the condo on weekends to get it ready to put it on the market. TWICE we came back the following weekend and every light in the house was on. I am veeerrrry careful to make sure I turn the lights off...and would never leave ALL of them on by accident.

Now things have been pretty quiet around our house for a while. Sasha the cat has always starred at things over my head (yes, only over MY head) and hissed and then ran away. She does that often and mostly when I am sitting in the living room. We have been just ignoring that for the most part. Until recently. More things have started up again.

Ava has a baby swing we keep in the livingroom. About 2 months ago I was feeding Ava on the couch and Todd was making dinner in the kitchen. All of a sudden the baby swing started swinging back and forth. The cat was upstairs. The dog was outside. No one touched it. And it was swinging back and forth and back and forth.

Ava has a painted picture hanging in her room of a white kitty and flowers. It hangs above her changing table. My grandpa A painted it for me when I was 10. Very sentimental. When she is laying on the changing table she often smiles up at the painting and coos like she is looking at someone. Todd was the first one to point that out to me. It's kinda freaky.

The car locking thing has been happening more often. Todd has even witnessed it. I could have a short in my locking system. I could I guess.

The other night we both were up with Ava. She was fussy and we were taking turns rocking her. All of a sudden the computer monitor came on in the baby's room and lit up the room with light. Todd was sure the computer was on "sleep" and Sasha hit the mouse. He went in the room and the cat was not in there.

This weekend, the radio on my bed side table turned on LOUD. It happened 3 times. The alarm was not set. It just oddly turned on....3 times.

Not sure what to do.

Years

Everyday Ava and I go for a walk. We bring Barkley the dog. I love this dog, I do, but he is a huge pain in the arse around walk time. He starts starring at me with his gross pink lipstick woody. He also follows me so close that he runs into me all of the time and I step on his feet all of the time. Annoying to say the least. Oh and this same series of annoying behaviors starts at 4:59 pm...because he usually gets fed around 5 pm. Sometimes I really hate him. Ha.

Anyway. The real point of my post to to vent about his actions ON the walk. I can deal with the stupid pink lipstick and the following me around. However, I cannot deal with his crapping on the concrete sidewalk every time we go for a walk. Believe me. He knows he's supposed to poo on the grass. But he is so excited in the first 3 minutes of the walk that he drops trou and shits on the concrete. EVERYTIME. Every day I am trying to make a mad rush to the grassy area down the block from the house. (Insert here a picture of me, pushing a stroller, black lab at my side...running 100 feet to the grassy area.) Every day he craps on the concrete. And generally he picks a house where the homeowners are outside or sitting in their living room in plain sight. Sweet. And he is such a douche bag that he walks and poops at the same time, so he leaves a long wet trail of poo. I curse his name and grab the plastic bag. I can't reallly pick it up because it's so soft so I am more finger-painting with it with my plastic bag. I want to kick his ass every time...but again...remember...I have an audience with the homeowner being right there. I have been told the fine for animal cruelity to a dog is pretty steep....so anyway. Regardless, I am pretty sure I am going to bury this dog in my backyard. I swear every time he does this that this is the LAST walk I will take him on....but I take him everyday because I know it will add years to his life to get the exercise. The thing is....I am pretty sure his antics are TAKING years off my life. Growl.

Normal

Normal is good. Our lives are back to normal after 4 days of a hot mess. I had my 20th high school reunion on Friday (picture of us before we left above). The reunion was in Lakewood and my parents were watching the lil monkey so we decided to let loose and party...then take a cab to my parent's house for the night. FUN! We got home on Saturday morning to find that our house was 91 degrees inside...at 10 am. It was supposed to be 102 degrees out that day....and more record breaking heat for the next several days. Sweet. After some investigation we discovered the AC was broken...not just off. Good. Freaking. Lord. HOT. The picnic portion of the reunion was later that afternoon and after spending several very uncomfortable hours in our 91 degree home....we got a hotel room down the street and headed to the pool. We never made it to the picnic part of the reunion. Who cares. It was Ava's first time in a pool....and that was fun.

She loved it and will soon be my little fishy I am sure of it. Anyway. Long story short we spent the next 3 days shuttling ourselves from one air conditioned house to another...and shuttling our pets along too. It was just nutty hot in this house. I know alot of people live without AC...but we don't. Not with a 3 month old. Even our pets were pissed off. But we are back home today and the AC is working. Hooray. All is normal again. But this family is tired. Ava has napped off and on all day. Barkley the dog did not even ask for a walk today (really really odd). And Sasha, the glorious black cat, is back to sunning her self in her window meowing at the birds on the roof. Normal. And normal is bliss.

Priorities

I have seen the movie Beaches about 100 times. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. I love Bette Midler. Meeting her was truly a thrill for me that I will never forget. I have always thought the movie was about two women and their friendship. And yes, the movie is about that. But as I watched the movie today with Ava on my lap I found new meaning in the movie. It's about priorities. Plain and simple. I watched each woman make different choices throughout their lives....and those choices were based on their priorities. CC Bloom, Bette's character, always put herself and her career first. She was a ladder climber. And yes, she was very successful....and yes...she found her career dreams. But she was also very alone. The part in the movie where she agreed to go spend the summer at the beach house with Hilary and Victoria was such a growing stage for her. She finally put someone else first. I cried. I looked down at my beautiful daughter smiling up at me and cried. Priorities are the center of our lives people. My priorities now are Todd and Ava....OUR family. And...I am happy.

20

Both Todd and I are attending our 20 year high school reunions in July. Two weekends of reunions. Wow. It's been 20 years since we graduated from high school. Wow.

We told Todd's dad this weekend about the upcoming reunions and he nearly fell off his chair, "I can't be the father of someone who is going to their 20 year high school reunion, no way." We all laughed. I didn't feel so old after he said that.

I am on the planning committee for my reunion. At my school, the administration instructed the Homecoming Queen, Class President and Head Cheerleader that they were responsible for planning the reunions. I was Homecoming Queen. Blah blah blah. Anyway. (I was Prom Queen too...boyah!) Just kidding. No really I was. I was kidding about the boyah. Anyway. At the last meeting I felt like no time had passed since high school based on the behavior of the committee members. Background to this story is this...we did not hire a 3rd party reunion company to plan the reunion. The reasoning was to keep the costs low. Plain and simple. We are relying on word of mouth, flyers at our high school for grads who call for information, ads placed in our local newspaper, and social networking like Classmates.com, Facebook and google to get the word out and find people. We are doing OK...not great... at finding people. OK back to the story. At the last meeting one of the committee members actually said out loud, "well I am only looking for the people I care to see, I don't have time to look for everyone." I said, "so you are only looking for the popular kids?" To which she replied, "yes." I puked in my mouth and found a way to excuse myself from the meeting. Horrified. Some things never change. So I am trying to spend a little time each day looking for the non-looked-for people. I am having some luck. I hope they never know that I looked for them because I figured no one else on the committee would. Sad.

I do...now and forever

Todd and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary a few weeks back. It was glorious. I fondly remember raising a glass *clink* on our 1st anniversary praying that we would either have a baby or at least be pregnant by our 2nd anniversary. *Sigh* We both teared up at Jax Fish House as we remembered that cheers/wish/dream and smiled when we spoke of our beautiful Ava Jean. She really is a blessing. We have such a blissful love and now we get to share it with Ava. Oh sweetie...I do....I do now and forever.

Our 4 year anniversary of DATING is this July 4th. Four years. Feels longer. Feels like we just fell in love. I heart you Todd. You are my inspiration. You are my love. You are a wonderful father to our baby. I am the luckiest.

Ava's blog

I have created a special blog just for Ava. Pictures of her. Videos of her. A log of her new adventures and accomplishments. I am for the most part going to keep this blog about the nutty things that happen in my life and head. Just an fyi.

Money Tree

Recently we bought a few new plants. Lucky for us, they had those annoying black fruit fly bugs in them. So...we got a bunch of those nasty ass bugs flying around. They also made a nest in my fish tanks...sweet. My fish were thrilled to have fresh flies to feast on...me...not so happy. They also made nest in several of my other house plants. SUCKY! I had tried several things and was almost rid of those lil bastards, and.....dun dun dun....Todd decided to spray the plants with RAID. Yes. Poison. Shockingly the POISON he sprayed on my plants...KILLED nearly all of my house plants including the beloved Money Tree. (I love you honey...but really...POISON?) Now, you NEVER get rid of or kill a Money Tree...NEVER...it's super triple dog dare bad luck. I was horrified. All of the leaves fell off the Money Tree and all was left was this ugly 3 foot stick....potted in a pot. I am not going to have some ugly ass stick in my house without leaves so I take the stick cut it down and put the roots in water...and said a prayer. Woo hoo! The Money Tree has sprouted and we are in luck peeps. Whew. Go Money Tree....make mama proud....oh and make me some money!

News

I think this picture is funny...not funny ha ha...funny odd. I am certainly not making light of the spill in the gulf...quite the opposite. I have been really bothered by the news lately. I think everyone has been. The oil spill in the gulf is heart breaking. I can't stop thinking about the people, families, businesses, animals and so many more that are forever changed. And there is no end in sight. Everytime I see a picture of another animal covered in that black mess...my stomach hurts. I wish I knew how I could help. Feeling helpless is such an isolating feeling.

The local news is all over the story of a woman from Longmont Colorado who suffocated her 6 month old baby boy. Huh? A story like that would have made me very sad before, but now that I am a mom, I feel devastated. I can't see her face, or the picture of their family with that sweet baby. This nut case mom thought her baby had Autism so she put a plastic bag over his.....I can't even type it...my hands are shaking. She did that and then left him alone and went to BED!!!!!! Growl. I know so many people who would LOVE to have a little baby...with or without Autism...and she does the unspeakable. The awful thing is that the baby's dad was sad but not surprised that she did that. WHAT THE? Shame on that dad for not protecting his boy. Shame-on-him! Now she is claiming that she has postpartum depression. I know that is a real thing, but it's not an excuse to NOT get help.
I am just appalled.
I am just heart broken.
I just want to kick that woman's ass.

One Hail of a day

Well well. We had one hail of a day yesterday. Pun totally intended. It was around lunch and Ava and I were headed to Target. I got pretty much all the way there and realized that I didn't have the thing I wanted to return. Duh. So I turned around and headed home. On my way home I stopped at the bank. In that time the skies opened up...in minutes it was pouring rain so hard I couldn't see and the hail...oh my the hail. I was about a mile for home and decided to make a run for it. (The bank that I was at was all over the news showing all of the damage to the employee's cars...yikes) Anyway. I fly home and get in the garage and that is right when the ping pong ball sized hail started. It was nuts. I knew that it wasn't a good idea to make the trip from the detached garage to the house so I got in the back seat with Ava to ride it out together. Then, I heard the tornado sirens. Hell. We are sitting ducks in a garage during a tornado. So I find a lawn chair cushion and put it over Ava in her carrier and make a run for it. I get the ever lovin crap beat out of me...hi..can you say bruises? I ran through ankle deep hail to get inside. I took this picture about 5 minutes before I made the run for it.



We get inside and hunker down for the rest of the afternoon in the downstairs bathroom. Me, Ava, Barkley (dog) and Sasha (cat). At about 1:50 pm, Barkley starts whining and pacing. Come to find out that 2 tornados touched down less than a mile from our house at that very moment. I guess moving forward Barkley will be my tornado siren. Scarey. All in all we weathered the storm. We didn't lose any windows...which is very lucky. All of our neighbors on both sides and across the street lost many windows. We lucked out because before I left for Target I opened all of our windows because it was 75 degrees and sunny...and didn't look like rain. Our screens are torn out and I had to clean a bunch of huge ass hail up...but no windows. And..windows happen to be the one thing our HOA doesn't cover. Phew. Other damage, my flower gardens, our deck has some quarter size dents in the wood (fixable) and our roof looks pretty beat up...but that is covered by the HOA. At the end of the day, no one got hurt.

Here are some pictures of the 2nd storm that blew through at 7 pm last night. Seriously? Ha. By the way...the hail had all melted from the earlier storm...so this is all new hail. Sweet.





I had nightmare last night about the storm. Before leaving for Target I wanted to go for our daily walk. We go about an hour around the neighborhood. Imagine if I was 15, 20, 30, or 60 minutes from home in that storm. My nightmare consisted of me trying to find a house to let us in from the storm and no one would. I then put my body over Ava in her stroller...only to be knocked out by baseball sized hail. In my dream....all I can see is black...and all I can hear is Ava crying in pain. It was horrrrrrible. I can still tear up thinking about it. Sigh.

Moving to Mexico

Dear President Obama:

I'm planning to move my family and extended family to Mexico and I would like to ask you to assist me.

We're planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and we'll need your help to make a few arrangements.

We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws.

I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Calderon, that I'm on my way over?

Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.

3. Please print all Mexican government forms in English.

4. I want my kids to be taught Spanish by English-speaking (bi-lingual) teachers.

5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my kids to see the American flag on one of the flag poles at their school.

7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.

8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.

9. I do plan to get a car and drive in Mexico, but, I don't plan to purchase car insurance, and I probably won't make any special effort to learn local traffic laws.

10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from their president to leave me alone, please be sure that every patrol car has at least one English-speaking officer.

11. I plan to fly the U.S. Flag from my house top, put U S. Flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.

12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, or have any labor or tax laws enforced on any business I may start.

13. Please have the president tell all the Mexican people to be extremely nice and never say critical things about me or my family, or about the strain we might place on their economy.

14. I want to receive free food stamps.

15. Naturally, I'll expect free rent subsidies.

16. I'll need Income tax credits so although I don't pay Mexican Taxes, I'll receive money from the government.

17. Please arrange it so that the Mexican Gov't pays $4,500 to help me buy a new car.

18. Oh yes, I almost forgot, please enroll me free into the Mexican Social Security program so that I'll get a monthly income in retirement.

I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all his people who walk over to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that President Calderon won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.

Thank you so much for your kind help. You're the man!!!