Support The Rabid

Did you watch the Office last night? If you haven't seen it you're missing a glorious performance. If you would like to see it, go HERE and then don't read on (cause I'm about to ruin the surprise).

The show was all about rabies and they had a 5k fun run in support of it! Huh. What are the odds? They have bracelets too.

I feel so honored. You can purchase your's HERE!

Voucher Smoucher

I love a good controversy. And the Utah State Voucher War is a good one!

I think a little description of the rabidrunner political orientation is in order. I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. We all know I’m a registered Pervertarian but that has nothing to do with politics. If I had to choose (and the way things are looking, I might have to one day), I’d be a Libertarian. Why you ask? It’s simple. Don’t tell me what to do - AND - I don’t mind a little taxation here and there, but please let me keep as much of my hard earned money as possible.

To save you the agony of deciphering where I stand on this whole Voucher issue, I'll state it clearly: I want vouchers. I want a choice in my child’s education.

As it stands now, you pay income tax, you pay property tax, you pay sales tax. Then your child gets to go to the assigned school and your child gets to have the assigned teacher. It’s not a bad system, really, when it works out. Lucky for us it is currently working out. But if it doesn’t? What do you do? You pay income tax, you pay property tax, you pay sales tax and you pay for private school.

So here are some thoughts to munch on:

All income tax gathered in the state of Utah is used for education. This means 10-30% of all of the money earned legally in the state of Utah is used to educate our children publicly.

The voucher is based on the federal eligibility guideline. Which means if you qualify for free school lunch, you qualify for the full $3,000 voucher. For example, if you are a family of 4 (2 parents, 2 kids), your income must be under $38,203 to get $3,000 for each student you have in a private school. For every 25% increase in household income above the eligibility guideline, the voucher payment goes down $250. In the same family scenario mentioned above, suppose the household income is roughly $96,000 a year. That would give our 4 figured family a whopping $500 (per child in private school, a max of $1000 per year). Look at the voucher make the rich richer.

I know a few people in the 80 – 120k per year situation. Most of them are unable to cough up enough cash to send their kids to the private school of their choosing. I’m sure the $500 a year will send them in droves. Because private school is that cheap. If you’ve done the research, you will find that most private school tuition is roughly the same as our local colleges. Right Vera?

Another argument I’ve heard is that all of the “dumb” kids will end up in public school. That is already happening - only it’s among certain schools within the system. When you don’t like the school you’re assigned to, you move. If you get enough snooty people moving out of the slums, the slums will become slummier (or more slummy?) Anyway, my point is - we’re social classed beings and we’ll do all that crap the educators are so afraid of without the help of the vouchers. Just take a gander at Southern California. They buy their houses based on the schools in the area or they go to a private school. They don’t have vouchers (but they DID have a voucher war similar to ours a few years back).

There’s also the “don’t take any more money away from our teachers” argument. To this I answer, how many times have we given the school districts more money for teachers and of those many times, WHEN have teacher’s received a pay increase for it? (Maybe the Winder would care to comment on this one.) If each school district loses $100,000 (but is still receiving $700,000 for kids that aren’t even attending their schools), maybe they’ll be forced to manage their funds more sensibly. Just a thought. For example, don’t spend $600,000 on a new cafeteria at Orem High School when they’re going to tear the whole school down in two years and rebuild it (that’s a true story by the way).

I’m not anti education. I’m not anti public education. I just want a choice. And a slight lift in the financial burden might help.

Here are my sources (I'm too busy researching to make it fancy and marked up):

• http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/governance/notices/iegs/iegs.htm. (Federal Eligibility Guidelines)h
• http://www.livepublish.le.state.ut.us/lpBin22/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=main-j.htm&2.0 (Individual Income Tax Act)
• http://le.utah.gov/~2007/bills/hbillamd/hb0148.htm (H.B. 0148 - The Parent Choice in Education Act).
• Cousin Brad in California.

a-MUSE-ing

As mentioned earlier, Vera and I were able to enjoy yet another fabulous MUSE show. The day was September 12, 2007. The weather was sunny. It was a day like most days, except Spouse was in the middle of some Elk Bow Hunt (I wonder if Elk Bows would look good in my hair) and I had new eye shadow (a rainbow mix of black, charcoal, silver and white). The plan was to leave at 6:00, have dinner and show up fashionably late to our reserved 3rd row seats.

I started the makeup application around 4:00 then added more around 5:30 - which subsequently made me look like a 45-year-old drag queen instead of the 35-year-old wonder that I am. I squeezed into my tightest stretchy jeans and wore my tallest sandals (all of 2 inches). I chose to wear this black and bright blue tie-dyed number that coincidentally was purchased at a maternity shop after I calfed the last yahoo and dropped 65 pounds (pregnant people don’t wear tents anymore!)

Enough of the preparation. I couldn’t find a babysitter, so Spouse had to come home early from his hunt or skip the day entirely…that whole week was a blur to me so I don’t exactly remember (a Hunter’s Wife Coping Mechanism I’m sure). Vera’s office mate, Arab Lover (where have you been lately?), was deathly ill so her ticket went to the son of Running Brother Bruce. In all of his 21 years, he has come through for us a many times. He’s always ready for anything (duh! MUSE? Who’d pass that up?) and he’s not concerned about having two wanna-be-hip-and-edgy old ladies for dates.

We arrived during the first opening band (we were lucky to have two opening bands for this one). They were called Immigrant and Vera said they need groceries (meaning they’re skinny). One was dressed like a pilgrim. All had thick, dark eye-liner which made me think that I should have spent more time and added that to my eye shadow.

The second band – are you ready for this? – was Juliette Lewis and the Licks. Yes. THAT Juliette Lewis (Christmas Vacation, Cape Fear, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Natural Born Killers, etc). Seriously, you should check her out. Her little series of songs was entertaining. She sang and jumped around and cussed in white vinyl pants and a wife beater. The band was unlike her… 20 years younger and talented. Vera commented repeatedly with “The band's good. They just need a singer.” Either way it was very entertaining.

And then there was MUSE. I would categorize MUSE as intense, highly talented, classically trained, sometimes hard, always dramatic rock-n-roll. Music to me is emotion. And MUSE has it all… love, hate, bitterness, gratitude, angst, sadness, excitement, regret. The only emotions I would say they are unable to convey are melancholy and indifference. It all takes me to a very, very happy place. Seeing MUSE live is definite euphoria - especially when I’m wearing my drag queen eye shadow.

Don’t Use Drugs… Take a Hot Shower!

I used to be married to this one guy… we’ll call him “Jimmy” (actually we do call him Jimmy because it’s a name that can roll off an angered tongue without sounding angry). So this Jimmy guy had a Prescription Pill Popping Problem or PPPP. He was also a guy who valued discipline (go figure) and self-denial (what a Paradox for that PPPP!) and expected those around him to do the same.

Jimmy would ride my case about the many indulges I partook of on a daily bases. Things like bread, steak, gum, mashed potatoes, pillows, toilet paper, etc. The kicker to his tyrannical attainment was the wicked and baneful Hot Shower. Yes - a hot shower was off limits. There was many an argument over the temperature setting on the water heater.

I was taking a shower the other day (A Hot One – mind you – I’ve had a Hot One every day now for 10 years)… anyway, taking a shower and the solution to the War on Drugs was revealed to me through droplets of hot water and steam. If poor Jimmy would have taken a Hot Shower every morning he wouldn’t need 25 percocet to make it through the day.

I’m working on T-shirts.

• Take Showers Not Drugs
• Keep drugs at bay… take a hot one today.
• D.A.R.E to do 121 not heroin.
• Spend your drug money on your water bill.
• Lather up a clean blood stream.
  
  Others?

Tragedy

There’s been a tragedy (I'm not talking about the Bee Gee's tune) and I am besides myself.

Somehow, yahoo #2’s Sprite has collided with the one and only worldly thing in the universe that ALWAYS gives me true happiness. It’s the device in my car in which CDs are loaded - but more importantly it’s the device in my car that I plug Sanchez into (Sanchez is my ipod - who carries CDs around anymore?) AHHHHRRRrggg! It must be replaced. Yesterday.

In a much more positive note – Vera and I treated ourselves to the 3rd row of MUSE. Sadly, I have no photos with the famous this time (unless you want to count the photo I was able to land of the drum tech for My Chemical Romance chowing on a tin foil dinner). Please check again later for a full report.

70

That's how many miles I need to run this week. Wish me luck and send all your Karma and Karbs!

Hi-YAW! Kinsei!

Spouse and I were out dating last night. We enjoyed two (three including the lettuce wraps) highly palatable dishes from the China Beast Row located in the mall. After dinner we still had a couple of hours to burn before the babysitter expired (and hence turn back into a pumpkin), so we began to discuss what to do next. Spouse was interested in the smelly stuff at bed, bath & body (kidding! He wanted to look at sporting goods), but I was interested more in extending the evening’s culture. We’ve had Chinese food (authentic I’m sure) - let’s take a gander at Japanese running shoes!

Enter the Asics Gel Kinsei.

This whopper has a price tag of $164.99. Right now, I’m going through a pair of shoes about every two months. This shoe is ridiculously out of the question. Who can afford $1200 a year on shoes? (I took the liberty of rounding up for effect.) At this point I’m curious and I confront the 22ish Newlywed Sales Guy.

Me: “What’s so great about the Kinsei?”

22ish Newlywed Salesguy: “This Kinsei is similar to the Nimbus but it has more structure. It’s more for your marathoners and your sprinters.”

Huh? I swear I heard that sound of the needle from a record player being yanked across vinyl. (Many refer to this as “rap,” but I’m thinking it’s more aligned in the Hollywood Sound Effects category.)

I’m imagining that you, my faithful reader, are sporting the usual what-on-earth-is-she-talking-about-this-time look. Let me explain. Marathoners and Sprinters are completely different species. Marathoners run long and Sprinters run short. Some might think that the difference between the two is similar to that of a Horse and a Zebra. But I disagree – Marathoners and Sprinters have as much in common as tigers and big horned sheep. Therefore, Marathoners and Sprinters will rarely train/run/race in the same shoe.

I didn’t buy the Kinsei or any other shoe from 22ish Newlywed Sales Guy. But I did buy the Asics Gel Nimbus from 26.2 Running Co in the fruitful city of American Fork. They know the difference between Sprinters and Marathoners.

Juicy Pants

I’m not seeing the “Couture” in these Juicy pants. High fashion? Doubtful. Look at me where I’m sure my dad doesn’t want you looking? Oh yeah.



I need some that say "Dry and Leathery."