As a medium, I am usually called upon to advise people about their personal lives and choices, and occasionally asked to do something really juicy, like talk to active spirits, or investigate haunted locations. My dream last night involved both: it was an epic story of two ghosts who needed counseling.
I was invited to the scene of a haunting, a rambling Victorian house, where I identified two distinct spirits: an angry, controlling one, who seemed determined to thwart any remodeling project, and a tricksterish one, who seemed to delight in making messes. The owners of the house, a young couple who were attempting to convert it into some sort of hostel, were frightened by the strange apparitions and frustrated by the monkey-wrenching, and begged me to help.
I caught a glimpse of the more severe spirit in a mirror: a small, tightly-laced, furtive woman in Victorian dress. Her goal seemed to be to preserve the architecture in its original state.
The other ghost treated us all to a display while I was there. A wild-eyed young man, wearing a straight-jacket, dove into a tray of green paint, sending it splattering all over. I knelt next to him, as he thrashed on the floor, and asked him about himself; and about the lady.
"She said she adopted me!" he crowed gleefully, tossing his head like an unruly paintbrush, "She said she would tame me, yet! But it cannot be done! I shall never behave! And now that she's gone, how can I be redeemed?!"
I did some historical research.
I found a photo of the lady I'd seen in the mirror. It seems she'd inherited the house from her father, along with a considerable fortune. She never married, and died a recluse, leaving the house and money to a local orphanage.
Among her few servants was an alumnus of that same orphanage: a man many years her junior, who was known for his ridiculous, disruptive behavior. She took him in, and employed him until her death, after which he was institutionalized, and lived out his days in a mental home where, between shock treatments and other horrors, he amused himself by throwing food, and painting with his feces, for the benefit of the nurses and orderlies.
I sat alone in the house, and asked the spirits to speak with me, to let me into their secret world. I was filled with an image of the two of them: she, clutching a riding crop, breathless from punishing him, and he, prostrate at her feet, suckling at her stiff boots; both of them very aroused.
I could see the situation clearly. In my culture, today, they would be regular kinksters. He might ask her to cinch the straight-jacket a little tighter; maybe to lock him in a closet. She might write to Dan Savage for advice on handling her bratty bottom, and make it clear that she was happy to give him the punishment he was seeking, but that playing with feces really crossed her boundary. They could have attended BDSM social events together; she could have enjoyed her tea with him happily leashed at her feet.
But in the time when they were alive, their pairing would have been a source of deep shame. No wonder she never married.
I returned to the owners of the house with my report. I recommended that we speak to the ghosts, and try to let them know that it was ok to let go of old patterns, and simply be a couple. They should be informed that they were frightening people in the present, and that no one minded them enjoying their kinky love, as long as it wasn't disruptive.
"You can be with her now," I told the straight-jacketed spirit, because you have died, too. You don't need to search for her any longer."
"You are so lucky that you are both dead," one of the owners of the house chimed in. "We have to worry about every-day stuff, like fixing the roof, earning money, and what's for dinner, but you two are free to explore one another for eternity, in a way we can only dream of."
"...As long as it is in a room that no one else is using," his partner added.

I'm going to school online, which is really hard when your internet is down. I went to the library, but for some reason they wouldn't trust the server certificate from the school, which is weird because they usually do. Finally got on, and then the school site went down. Frustration.
Went to Safeway the next day, to use the wifi. Turns out their wifi is mostly so you can shop @ Safeway.com, and if you want to do homework, it kicks you off every 15 min. Further frustration. In all that getting kicked off, I didn't get to look up the exact location of my mid-term. Babysitting expired, and I had to get home.
My wonderful boyfriend Will came over the next day (the day of the test)and fixed the internet. BLESS YOU, WILL! When I got back on, I realized the mid-term was at a campus in another town! I don't drive, and I realized with a panic that if I waited for the babysitter to arrive, I would be SOOO late, I'd miss the test.
More blessings to Will, who stayed until the sitter arrived (and stayed on, and cooked dinner!).
I jetted out the door, and pedaled like mad to the train station...
FLAT TIRE! No kidding. So I ran to the station, missed the train, got the next one, and got to the Rose Quarter transit center just in time for the last possible bus to get me there on time. Stupid bus never came. 7 min later, I was in a sweaty panic.
Thinking fast, I hopped another train to downtown, caught a different bus, and actually made it on time!
Phew!
Still waiting on the test results...

From Adbusters:
https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/90/eat.html

In 1968 Stanford psychology professor Walter Mischel tempted hungry four-year-olds with a delicious deal. His researchers placed children, one at a time, in a room where they sat alone with a puffy white marshmallow. The children were told that they could either eat the marshmallow right away or they could wait for fifteen minutes – at which point they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. Then the researcher left the room.

One third of the children gobbled up the marshmallow right away.

One third controlled their appetites for a little while but eventually caved.

One third resisted temptation for the full fifteen minutes and received their reward.

Thirteen years later Mischel did follow-up research that found dramatic differences between the two groups (the gobblers and the resisters). The gobblers, now high school students, were more likely to have behavioral problems and low attention spans, and they found it difficult to maintain friendships. Meanwhile the resisters were thriving. They averaged 210 points higher on their SAT scores than the gobblers. Mischel continued tracking these groups into their late thirties and found that, as adults, the gobblers had more weight problems and were more likely to have had drug problems too.

Mischel’s study points to the need to teach our children self-control, to give them the tools to resist the temptations of consumer culture and the notion that all wants must be immediately satiated. According to Mischel, the daily rituals and activities that go on in the home can be a training ground where we teach our children how to think so they can outsmart desire. Simple things – not snacking before dinner, saving up allowance, not opening gifts until Christmas morning – are actually important exercises in cognitive training that equip children to resist.

When one in two adults are overweight, when obesity has become the number one health risk and when financial meltdowns are caused by the lure of easy credit and the desire for luxurious marshmallowy castles, it is past time to act. We must learn to resist. The marshmallow has been winning for too long.

—Andrew Tuplin

Wouldn't ya know it. I get all the way through Pedalpalooza without a single scrape, and then eat gravel on my way to the grocery store!
Don't look at the pic if you're squeamish!

Closing the budget gap
These are reductions I have proposed to the Portland School Board:
* Cuts to central operations and supports: $3.1 million, including up to 25 full time employees.
* Special education and English as a second language: $4.6 million reduction, including up to the equivalent of 52 full time teaching positions. We will ensure compliance with federal and state regulations.
* School staffing: $11.6 million reduction, including the equivalent of up to 126 full time teaching positions. (

...is NOT what this blog is for,
but since he has time to post lies all day, and I'm busy with his kids and my homework...
Well, I guess I ought to keep the record straight, somehow.
Here is a rare example of someone correcting Dingo's insane stories:

So I found this puppy and reported it to Animal Services and posted online and took it around the neighborhood, etc. We've had it here about 3 weeks and we've become very attatched. Yesterday, a family shows up and asks for their puppy back. All the kids are really upset, and so am I, especially because she had an advanced case of worms when we found her, was unregistered and sickly.
We are all in love with her, especially my old dog, who's often bored out of her mind, when we are busy.
My boyfiend & I have been looking into the protocall for puppy-care, i.e. worming, vaccinations, spaying, registration, crate training (she has a house-pooping problem), and how much that all costs and what it requires; and feeling like this dog should have had all of that before it got a chance to end up running around in the street, dying of parasites. I couldn't bring my self to give her up without a guarantee that she'd be properly looked after. But it was breaking my heart, because they were clearly as fond of her as we are.
I feared there was no easy answer.
Then I learned that the family was just about to take a road trip, and I thought, Geez, there's plenty of time to discuss this after their trip, without a bunch of upset kids hopping around, freaking out, climbing all the fences & spilling out into the street...Whew!
So I asked for their phone #, & if we could discuss it when they got back.
The lady's response surprised me. She said the puppy was clearly very loved and happy, and that puppies are like little kids: they need to run and play, and we have a bigger yard, and we're obviously very nice to her. She said she'd bring over the dog food & jackets they have for her at home, and she asked if her kids could come visit.
That was intense. The kids were really nice, and about the same ages as my kids. They actually fit in really well, at my house. But how often do I need a storm of that kind of energy, when I already live in that climate?
It's really kind of a commitment. But here's the thing: My 4yr old has very few friends in the neighborhood, and it could be a really good thing.
So the puppy looks like she's staying here.
Here's a weird thing: My 11yr old acts like she "won." She decided that she hated the girl who lost her dog, and heard everything the girl said as mean and ugly. I saw a very nice and polite kid, about my daughter's age, who misses her puppy.
When we discussed it among the adults in the house, we made the "other" family into a cartoon "Other," and said comically ugly things that were utterly outrageous, like, "those weren't worms, they were balloons of heroin. She was being ABUSED!" (I didn't say that in front of the kids, by the way...) But of course I didn't actually hate them, I was trying to separate my possessiveness from my protectiveness, using humor to sort out my feelings. But my kid just really hated the "Other Girl." That made me sad. I guess they should hang out...

it would be SO EASY!

I'm part of an exciting new household I like to call "The Fire the Landlord Project," here in Portland, OR.
We have 3 kids, two empty rooms, and NO NANNY!
My best childcare person (my amazing daughter!) just went back to school, and my housemate's daycare just had a crisis, leaving us with busy schedules & busy pre-schoolers. Whew!
I can offer FREE RENT & MEALS in exchange for up to 30hrs of childcare a week, and cash in yer pocket for anything above that. Your child would be welcome.
Please help save me from the craigslist hell I'm in, & pass this on...

The story of the last 10 years: Six houses, each more communal & livable than the one before it; my family is thrown out because of the unstable housing market. It is slowly reassembling in my head, in the form of a musical theatre parody. I am a grumbling Grrrl Tevye, packing my family's ragged belongings, bidding a tearful farewell to one more beloved Anatevka.
Yet another landlord has kicked us out, so he can sell the house. We are trying to convince him to sell it to US,