Polar Bear

Britain’s papers ran with a headline “Polar Bear Attacks Woman” this past week on a story about a woman who stupidly climbed over a fence and  swam through a mote to “visit” with a polar bear.

The thing that bothers me about this is that the headline makes it sound like the polar bear was ferocious and attacked the woman without provocation.  I don’t like that word “attack” when it comes these kinds of things.  Same with “shark attack” when it is really a “shark bite.”

This woman was, in my opinion, about as dense as they come for jumping into a pen with a wild animal – especially a carnivore at the top of the food chain.  Did she really think it would sit there while she posed for a picture with it? Or maybe she thought it would invite her for tea?

Seriously folks, how smart can a person be if they do something this asinine? Maybe Nature needs to work on the whole “natural selection” process before the next generation breeds.  I know that sounds harsh but even my son agrees that the next generation seems like they are dumbing down at incredible rates – especially in America but also, obviously, everywhere.

It is scary how stupid people are.  I hope the zoo charges this woman with trespassing, endangering a protected animal, and whatever else they can think of – then they need to bill her a few thousand for a “high risk” rescue.  What a dumb shit.

Gotta Go

I really have to go to the bathroom but everyone just went out in their cars so  so I think I’m stuck.  The Lt is training someone tonight so it probably slipped his mind to stop in to ask if I needed a quick break.  Hopefully he’ll come in before 3am to give me one though.  It is really a toss up right now on what I need worse – to go to the bathroom or to go to sleep.

I know it is going to be a big waste of my day tomorrow to sleep but I can’t help it.  I plan to go home and walk the dogs – then jump in bed and sleep till 5pm.  I’m even going to take a sleeping pill…or at least one of the allergy pills that makes me sleep too.

Downtown is still dead…man I hope it is a quiet night.  I’m hoping the guys don’t get bored and start looking for trouble rather than enjoying a nice peaceful night.

Dried Up

For awhile downtown was going at a mildly lethargic pace for a Saturday night but then around 2am it became as dehydrated as a dried prune.  Nothing is moving in any of my cameras.

They had anticipated a huge problem downtown with assaults both Friday and Saturday night so both City and us put on extra foot patrols.  I was rather surprised because it is a holiday weekend which means most students made a mass exodus to spend time with parents.

Last weekend the foot patrols would have been a fantastic idea – we had so many assaults in the area that I was glad I was at work instead of on the streets.

It was a big disappointment to our officer’s who volunteered to walk the streets – they were paid overtime of course but still, it was a big let down for them.

My son called me to offer to take me out for lunch tomorrow for Easter.  We are going to go to the steakhouse.  I know this means I’m going to be totally exhausted tomorrow night – I’ll be lucky to get four hours of sleep – but spending time with my child is always my first priority under the sun.  Besides, if Friday and Saturday nights were this dead, surely Sunday will be a real snoozer.

I made myself bring baby carrots to graze on rather than chips – you know, it really just isn’t the same.  Now maybe if I had dip for my carrots I would feel differently – I love veggie dip.  It isn’t even that I’m trying to eat healthier – it is that I had carrots at home and was determined not to go spend money at Kum & Go.  I can easily drop $9 in there – that is $28 a week, $112 a month – that is wasted.

Thus, since this month is so very tight financially, I am going to try not to stop at K&G all month.  If I had some chips at home, I probably would have brought them in.  It was terrible shopping for groceries this month.  I spend $119 total when I normally spend $170 for the month because nothing sounded good when I was shopping.  Now I have very little at home to eat but no money to go buy more so will suffer with what I have.  The dogs aren’t very happy that they have to eat mostly dog food.  LOL

Things

I am not having a good night. It is many things which all come back to my state of mind. I am sad, frustrated and angry. Things that seem beyond my control are eating at me and I feel guilty because I know they were probably under my control all along but I was to down to see it.

Take for instance my condo. I should, my son says, have waited till last October to move to Iowa so that the condo would not be about to be foreclosed on. He believes that if I had waited, it would have sold fast. It doesn’t matter that there are several others down there for sale and that have been for sale for a year now.

I try to explain to him that I was more than miserable down there. I had fallen into a dark abyss of despair that I could not claw my way out of. It was like trying to claw my way out of a muddy ravine – I kept sliding back to the bottom. Even my counselor was getting worried about my state of mind and my doctor was worried I’d have a heart attack because I couldn’t sleep due to anxiety.

Horrible things would visit me in my dreams when I tried to use prescription sleeping pills. Horrible, dark, scary things. I’d wake up no more refreshed than when I went to sleep and usually more down for what if even one of those dreams became a reality? Where would I be then?

The condo is just one thing. Other areas I have made great progress in and I feel good about the direction things are going. This is does not include work.

My job is constantly directed by the whim of whoever is in charge at the moment. There are rules and regulations but often they seem to bend this way or that way depending on who is quoting them. There are no clear cut answers and that bothers me greatly. I like order or at least some semblance of it.

I also hate being nit-picked to death or watching someone else be nit-picked to death. I want to buy all the supervisors the book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and It’s All Small Stuff” so they can see how being so micro-managing is hurting their staff.

We received an email today that said our facebook and other blog postings can be used against us legally and at work – even if we post stuff from home. So now we aren’t even able to express our own thoughts or partake in the internet without fear of reprisal. Isn’t that insane? Apparently everything you write on facebook or a blog is considered admissible if you ever have to go to court for anything too. What happened to the freedom of speech???

Sometimes I wish I could find some place far away from everyone and everything to detoxify for awhile. I just want to live a simple, non-threatening life in my little corner of the world. I do not kill, rape, ignore, abuse, etc., others but I should be able to vent on my own blog if I don’t like that others do. Shouldn’t I??? SHOULDN’T I??????

When does it stop? When do we get to live our lives in peace and contentment? When will the government, the lawyers, the institutions back off and quit choking us all to death?

Can you tell I’m tired and cranky?

Birthday

Well, another birthday is almost done and I must admit I have the birthday blues.  I really enjoyed the time spent with my son but was disappointed it went by so quickly.

I’m also disappointed that the Sci-Fi channel is playing the Pirates of the Caribbean movie which I’ve already seen a zillion times.  Was kind of hoping they’d have something good on but oh well.

I have to see when the Seabeast one is on again since I didn’t get it taped.  Eventually it will be out in the stores but it might take it a little while.

Ate Chinese food for supper – it was delicious.

46 yrs old

One year ago yesterday (14th), I arrived back in Iowa City.  Today is my 46th birthday – I’m pretty much going to do what I did last year – spend it with my son.  I look forward to it though I must admit, I’m pretty tired so hope I get my second wind.

One year…where did the time go? I really am amazed.  Wednesday it will be one year since I’ve been working for the University Police too which amazes me also.  I know that the years seem to go faster the older you get but this is just ridiculous! I barely remember last summer because it seems it went by in the blink of an eye.

This year on my birthday, I am making some of the same old promises to myself and a few new ones.  I hope they call come true.

a whole lot of nothing

This day has been about a whole lot of nothing and about multitudes of something.  Things have been on my mind today – things I don’t want to think about and yet they refuse to leave me.  I have prayed, I have read my bible and still these nagging things linger.

There isn’t any way I’m going to give substance to these things by writing them down.  Right now they are in my head and that is bad enough without putting them somewhere for me to have to see them time and time again.

Slowly the things are starting to leave me or maybe I’m managing to drown them out with movies and other thoughts.  I think part of it is the medicine I take to go to sleep – I have weird dreams and feelings when I’m on it.  The doctor said it is a form of Valium that is suppose to calm my mind down so I can sleep – maybe it is calming it so much that stupid other things are surfacing.  I’m going to stop taking them.

Runaway

Where would be a good place to runaway for a couple of days? I want to go somewhere different, away from people and everything that is bothering me.

There are cities close by I could go to but that involves people and I don’t want to have more people around.  I wouldn’t know where to go.  I suppose I will plan something for the time I have off in July – that gives me plenty of time to research a place to go.

Well, tonight was an incredibly busy night – busiest I’ve had in months.  It was ridiculous! I hate being that busy when other people are around – if I were by myself I would have felt better about it because I wouldn’t have someone looking over my shoulder all the time.  But they did jump in to help a few times so that was very nice.

It is four am now – I was going to stop at the store but decided to do it tomorrow.  Really had no desire to stop when I got off at 3am after being so busy.  It didn’t help that one of our computers were down so everything could only be run off the other one.  What a headache.

Midnight

It is almost midnight and the third shift is about to hit the streets.  They have been in briefing for the past 50 minutes or so – guess they had a lot to discuss.  Doesn’t bother me – the longer they are in briefing, the less time they are on the streets making work for me.

The traffic stop queen is on this shift – the traffic stop king just left.  He made only four traffic stops – all in the last hour or so – during the four hours I had him.  I expect she will make twice that easily.

Saw parts of the movie “Splinter” which is one I’ve wanted to see for the past two months.  It wasn’t all that great actually.  There were only five or six people in the show so not too many people died.  I didn’t catch the origin of the parasites – probably escaped from somewhere or came from outer space.  It was rather disappointing actually.  The preview looked so much better than the actual movie.

“Dog Soldiers” is about to wrap up and then some other werewolf movie starts.  I must admit, I’m not big on vampires or werewolves.  They have been done to death already and never were that interesting to me to begin with.  I much prefer mutant alligators, snakes, or dinosaurs.

I would have watched something else but, unbelievably enough, the same shows that were on last weekend are on again this weekend on the other channels I watch.  I just can’t watch “Princess Bride”, “Sleepless in Seattle”, “Bridge Jones Diary” or “Serendipity” one more time.

Pizza Pit delivered a delicious pizza to me for supper.  It is a barbecue chicken with pineapple pizza – so very tasty.  My son made the last one for me and I must admit, his is better than whoever made this one but that is probably because he puts extra toppings on for me.  He was on break so wasn’t available to make it this time.

Looks like the officers are getting ready to hit the streets now as well.  Let the fun begin.

Ah, come on already

Was watching this movie called something – not sure what actually.  It is about killer ants attacking a town in Alaska.  Hard to believe, yes but whatever – it was on Sci-Fi so that should give you a clue.

What I don’t understand is why it is the wench always breaks when a person needs it the most or the truck suddenly stalls as the ants get close after running perfectly all through the movie.  Just how dumb do they think we are? Just once I would like to see a sci-fi movie where people weren’t as dumb as these guys. 

Oh, lets not forget the matches that won’t light and a lighter that only delivers small sparks.  Not to mention, none of the people smoke so why are they carrying matches and lighters?  Do they really have to insult us this much?  They are blowing up a dam to drown the entire valley full of ants…um, don’t they know ants can swim?

I haven’t watched that much tv in the past month – just nothing on any good.  Today is no exception.