WHOLEY Hottie?

Sunday was a good day.  Although it had all the makings of a normal Sunday; a longer-than-necessary after church meeting, laundry piled high, a vacuum cleaner in the middle of the living room floor, this Sunday was special. Donning only the sparcest of makeup and no hair products whatsoever, I headed out to Whole Foods to buy bread, juice boxes and string cheese in black Capri pants and a tee shirt that came from the top of the laundry pile. Little did I know that this very brief shopping trip would make me feel like the sexiest MOFO in Cleveland Heights. It must have been the shoes.

At the very last moment before leaving the house, I switched from my white sling-back Easy Spirit walking shoes to my black, heeled Mary janes. A bold choice considering the total lack of effort that went into the rest of my look perhaps, but this is Sunday. I should dress up a bit. I got in the car with my tote bags in hand, and off I went to buy organic goodness for my son’s lunch.

I don’t know about you, but for me, the clicky clack of high heeled shoes on floor makes me walk with my head a little higher, my hair a little bouncier, my face a  little smilier.  I pranced around Whole Foods sampling this, looking at that. In the dairy isle, after comparing one string cheese against the other, I passed a man who looked at me as if he knew me, or at least that is what I thought. He did that double-take thing, where I presumed he was thinking, “I know her. I wonder if my kid plays T-ball with her kid?” I smiled and walked on.  Later, as I was deciding whether or not to buy the delicious roasted red pepper hummus that was not on my list, the man passed again.  This time he stopped, turned around and said, “Excuse me?”

Ah, here it was, the “Don’t I know you from….” but it wasn’t.  I was totally shocked when he said, “I noticed you before, and my name is Eric, and I don’t know if you are married or not, but I just wanted to meet you.”  Blush.  Gush.  Aw shucks!  The best part about this whole exchange is that this was possibly the most attractive man that has ever approached me and definitely the most attractive man that has ever approached me sober in poor lighting.  Couldn’t he see I was wearing no makeup? That my black Capri pants were wrinkled beyond acceptable? That I had juice boxes and string cheese in my cart?  “I’m sorry, I’m married….but thank you!” 

What a great day! It must have been the shoes.

Now that Charlton Heston is dead, can we talk about gun control?

Last week in the Cleveland Plain Dealer,there was another story about a child who was accidentally shot and killed from a found gun in the hands of a curious kid. Sorry NRA, but kids don’t kill kids, guns kill kids. I just do not see any validity to arguments made by the National Rifle Association when it comes to hand guns. You might expect that kind of reaction from me because I am one of those liberal, suburban moms who shops at Whole Foods and approves of same sex couples adopting international children. However, if you look closer, you will see that I don’t fit the anti-gun mold. In fact, I am not anti-gun, I am anti-hand gun. I don’t know whether or not that makes my argurement more valid in your estimation, but I’m going to presume it does for the sake of this post.

I was born in a small town in Pennsylvania where it seems that everyone hunts. Even I have “bagged a critter”. (That poor raccoon!) Where I am from, school is cancelled on the first day of deer season, and pictures appear on the front page of the local paper the next day of 12-year-olds holding the antlers and their first kill. In the house where I was raised, my family proudly displayed an 8-point buck’s head on the living room wall. We named him Lance. Even today, when I go home to visit my parents, it is not a rare occurrence that I go with my dad to shoot cans or targets with a hunting rifle. Guns are everywhere in Northwest Pennsylvania, and yet I don’t think we have ever had an instance of a death of a child because another child found a hunting rifle and accidentally shot his friend. That is not to say there haven’t been hunting accidents or deaths caused by shotguns, but when we are talking about kids finding hunting rifles that end up to be the death of themselves or a friend, it simply doesn’t happen. 

There are two reasons that this is true. The first is that small children cannot manipulate a hunting rifle or a shotgun. The guns are large, heavy, difficult to load, and children do not have the physical strength required to cock the rifle to ready it for firing. The other reason is that hunting rifles are made for hunters to hunt. Hunters respect guns in an entirely different way than the average “gotta get a gun to protect myself” kind of person. Hunting rifles are not concealed weapons. In fact, most are probably prominently displayed (unloaded) in some sort of gun cabinet or over a mantle. Children who grow up seeing these guns every day have a better understanding of their function and appropriate use. They learn at an early age that gun equals death, because they have probably eaten whatever it is that those guns have killed. Handguns by contrast, are designed to kill people. That’s right, they are people killers. If you have a hand gun to protect yourself, you are saying, “I intend to shoot a person with this gun if he messes with me, or my stuff. ” Isn’t there something wrong with that? I think so.

Now, I am sure there are extremely responsible hand-gun owners out there. I do not just assume that everyone who owns a hand gun, leaves it unlocked within arms reach of a crib. But guess what, NRA: There are idiots that do, and those idiots are the ones responsible for the thousands of kids who accidentally shot and killed themselves or their friends. We have to protect kids from those who are IRRESPONSIBLE. The fact is that there are stupid, careless people who leave a loaded gun in an unlocked drawer in their home and assume that by telling a five year old to stay out of theirr room, that the child will obey. 

So NRA, I’ll make a deal with you, if you can prove to me that every person who owns a legal or illegal handgun is a totally responsible owner who leaves it unloaded in a lock box with the safety on in a hard to reach place and that they also have bullets in a separate secured location, I will say, yes hand-guns are super! Oh, you can’t promise what idiots will or will not do?  Then what gives you the right to speak for them or their poor children?

 

To see Charlton Heston’s gun collection, click HERE!

Facebook makes my face frown

     There is nothing wrong with me. I know this to be true. And yet, I have been told by countless people who I know and love (as well as those I don’t know at all) that there is. My name is Bethany, and I am not on Facebook. For the record, I also do not belong to any internet social networks or post on message boards. I have been told that I am missing out on all kinds of fun and opportunities to connect, but am I? 

     I will admit that I begrudgingly have a MySpace account. However, I only have it to get a handle on what my niece and nephews are up to (and Dear Lord, I wish I didn’t know!) I have never updated it, formatted it, blogged on it, added pictures to it, uploaded a song to listen to while you view it, or asked people to be on my friend list. I think I have a total of six MySpace “friends,” one of which is Tom the helpful MySpace IT guy.  

     I guess I am from the old school. I like to actually talk to my friends face to face. I like to throw parties and invite my own social network to attend. I choose to email or call friends I haven’t heard from in a while. Sometimes, I even write letters! I still communicate with the friends that I want to stay in touch with from high school and college. And to be quite honest, I really have no desire to hear from a guy who had a crush on me in 8^thgrade or some vaguely familiar Alpha Delta Pi that I took Intro to Psychology with. I don’t need to validate myself by having hundreds of “friends” listed on a web page. I don’t need to connect with “moms just like me,” because my best friends ARE moms like me, and we make a point to get together whenever possible to drink wine and talk about parenting, marriage, hopes, dreams, and who should win on Rock of Love 2. (Go Ambre!)

     Don’t get me wrong, the internet is a great tool. E-mail is vital to my life. Instant messaging with my best friend from work all day is sometimes the only thing that gets me through the day. I am happy to use the web to look up information and locations, do some personal banking, play Bejeweled or read the news and reviews from around the globe. But friendship is personal, isn’t it? It is for me. So thank you, but no thanks. I will decline your invitations to join Facebook or to make me your friend on MySpace. I have a party with my friends to plan.