Can we elect her?

I watched Michelle Obama's speech online last night (yes, I'm a bit behind), and if I could vote for HER for president, I would gladly do so. What an awesome speaker.



I also watched Hillary's speech live last night and think she did a great job with a very difficult situation. I really did think she would make a great president at the beginning of the election, but by the time she and Obama were neck and neck, and trading nasty words, I really didn't care for either of them.

That being said, I wish I were as passionate as Barack Obama as most of his supporters are, and I'm trying, but for some reason I just can't help but be skeptical...of both his relative inexperience and our nation's (not my) ability to see past his skin color. I really wish there were a democratic candidate I really felt strongly about, and that I could strongly support, instead of just voting against the other guy. Sigh.

Virtual School Rant

I heard a report on the radio yesterday that virtual schools may soon become the only way our children are educated, and I almost drove off the road. Instead of actually going to school, our kids may soon just sit at their computer and learn from lessons that teachers post online. Here's what I heard.

The scary part is that they were trying to make this sound like a good idea! School budgets have been slashed, and educating students virtually is so much less expensive than the cost to send them through the public school system. Kids can learn at their own pace, and supposedly kids being taught virtually perform higher on test scores. Currently about a million kids in the US are being taught virtually.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a horrible idea??? First of all, kids learn their social skills at school. They learn to make friends and interact with other people. They learn discipline...they have to be somewhere at the same time every day, and if they're late they get in trouble. They get some (probably not enough) physical activity. If you no longer GO to school, these things will all be eliminated. Not to mention how are parents supposed to go out and work if their kids are home all the time!

My generation, Y, is already causing a drastic change in the workforce. We are a completely different animal than previous generations with our style of working, our expectations and our skill sets. But I feel that our generation is still contributing to things in a positive way. The generation below me will be even drastically more different, growing up with computers and cell phones and texting (don't even get me started on how texting is single-handedly ruining the grammar of this country). Now imagine if the following generation grows up sitting in front of their computers all the time, not even going out in the world to go to school. Can you even picture what these kids will be like when they get out into the real world? Sure they might be wizards on the computer, but how will they interact with clients? Coworkers? How will they learn all of the important non-education-related things that the rest of us have learned at school?

The report went on to say that with education budgets getting slashed left and right, soon virtual schools may completely replace brick and mortar schools, while the alternative could be no education system whatsoever. SERIOUSLY?!?!?

Can we please stop bombing Iraq long enough to give our kids and their kids the future they deserve? Yes, I understand that sometimes war is a necessary evil, but I just can't even fathom how they can spend billions of dollars on a war when they can't even properly take care of the people in our own country. Yes, I realize we are so lucky to live in America, but we still have issues. The education system is one of them. A real issue, not a virtual one. Can we please work on fixing it?

Hey Fay, whaddya say? Stay away another day!

As evidenced by the proliferation of rhyming in this blog title and a late-night trip to Walmart last night (which must really signify desperation because I HATE Walmart!), the hurricane threat is getting to me. :P

I didn't even realize there WAS a hurricane until yesterday afternoon, but now I'm getting a bit worried. While recent projections here and here show it heading to Ft. Myers, you know those pesky predictions are rarely accurate. After all, Hurricane Charley was SUPPOSED to hit us, and it hit them instead. Granted that was a big storm and this is just a little one, but still. After Hurricane Frances became an uninvited guest at our wedding in 2004 (has it really been almost 4 years already??), I'm not the biggest fan of hurricanes. :)

And now for a rant. As I mentioned before, Glenn and I went to Wally World last night to pick up some bottled water and an extra cat carrier since we're up one cat since the last hurricane season. What a madhouse! Every time I go to Walmart, I leave saying "that's the last time I ever do that," kind of like I used to do with drinking in college. But just like that one magic time I finally realized that drinking (and the inevitable miserable sickness afterward) just wasn't worth it, I think this trip to Walmart did the same thing. There were boxes and carts everywhere, it was dirty and smelly (YUCK!) and the people were just as "delightful" as ever. (I won't even get into the people in front of us in line who made the ridiculously long lines manage to take even longer.) We both really felt gross after leaving, like we needed to go home and sanitize. After being in our nice, pretty, CLEAN Target the day before, it was quite the contrast. While Walmart has a new logo, I think the quality of the store, at least the one in New Tampa, has gotten exponentially worse. Boo Walmart!

OK, I'm done ranting. Everyone do me a favor and visualize Fay leaving us the heck alone this week!

Yee-haw!

Most of you probably know that I'm not the biggest fan of country music, to put it mildly. So when my friend Devon asked me to go out country line dancing this past weekend, I was a bit wary, but decided to get over myself and just go.

Surprisingly enough, I had a great time! Devon, her friend Tammy and Tammy's sister-in-law Bree and I went to the Roundup on Saturday night. I was the DD, which was partially so I could keep my brain functioning long enough to learn some line dances, and partially to avoid puking my guts out. Jenni + alcohol = puke city, which is never a fun thing when you're out at a bar. :)

Bree was a great teacher, and soon I was out on the dance floor holding my own. I certainly wasn't earning any style points, but I was proud of myself for keeping up. Among others that I don't know the name of, I danced to the Boot Scootin' Boogie, Darlene, Neon Moon and Cotton Eyed Joe. There were a few that I attempted and failed miserably because they were so darn complicated....spins and turns and jumps, and yikes, get me out of here! But hey, I survived and got some exercise in the process. :)

We left the bar at 2am, and after a trip to Steak 'n Shake and driving everyone home, I got home around 4:30am, which is the latest (earliest?) I've been up in ages. So while I don't expect this to be a regular occurrence, I'm not ruling out a repeat performance of my mad line dancing skills. :)

The Girls

I was very sad when Gilmore Girls went off the air a few years back, but I've recently discovered re-runs of the show on ABC Family, and I've been DVRing them every day. When I watch each episode, I'm reminded why I loved the show so much when it was on. The mother-daughter-friend dynamic between Lorelai and Rory is just so wonderful, and their fast-paced, witty dialog is unlike anything else on TV. It's just so freaking clever and intelligent and FUNNY, and I laugh out loud frequently during my Gilmore marathons on the weekends. (There's something to be said for watching any show back to back without having to wait a whole week for the next episode.) In addition to LOST, which is just a whole 'nother level of obsession, I think Gilmore Girls is officially tied as my favorite TV show of all time. If you haven't watched it, you should. ABC Family every day at 5...set those DVRs.

Weight Gain 4000

Kitten food is like a drug in the McKay household. I call it Weight Gain 4000 (South Park reference) since it basically just makes them all fat, or big-boned as Cartman would say.


Since Sophie is still a tiny girl, I give her kitten food twice a day: once in the morning and once before bed. Since I despise canned food, I stopped giving it to her a couple of weeks ago (to Zoey and Kenny's chagrin), and have just been giving her dry kitten food. Well the three "big kids" in the house absolutely adore it.

So we've developed a routine, and it's driving me bonkers. I used to be able to shut Sophie in the back bedroom with her kitten food, then go let her out 15 minutes later when she was done eating. But the other cats sit outside the door like vultures, and apparently Sophie now has ADD. The minute I leave the room, she comes and sits by the door and whacks her paws under the door at the other cats. So even if I leave her in there for 15 minutes, she doesn't eat her food! So then I have to go in with her, put her up by her food and sit there while she eats, as if I don't have anything better to do. In the meantime, the other cats start to get antsy, and Zoey literally sings and warbles by the door because she wants in. Once Sophie decides she's done, I let the other cats in and they all (especially Bailey, who really loves Weight Gain 4000) make a beeline for the food dish and scarf up her leftovers.

Pretty soon I'm going to have three very large cats!