My Nurse's Name is Mary Jane:
Howdy friends. Hope everyone survived the Turkey Holocaust. I still feel bloated and lethargic but at least i'm well-fed. Now before you move forward on today's blog, you're going to have to read this article...or at least get the general idea because the topic for today is Medicinal Marijuana
cnn.com article
Did you read it? Matt, I know you didn't but that's okay... I'll give you a run-down. There are a number of states currently fighting to make it legal for citizens to use and grow marijuana for medicinal purposes. Now when I say medicinal, i'm not talking about a slight cataract in your eye so don't go running to your eye doctor asking for a prescription. I'm talking about the truly sick...cancer...that kinda thing.
Let me first step up and say that I don't see why marijuana is illegal but I think that if the government had it their own way, DANCING would be illegal so thank your lucky stars you can still go to a strip club (for boys or girls that is) or buy a beer (even if it does lead to wife-beating and a lot of car crashes).
So that being said...the recreational side-effects aside, pot does have some qualities that are redeeming in the eyes of a sick person. Have you ever seen a person undergoing chemotherapy? Have you ever known someone with the sort of sickness (like Krones Disease) where not only do you not want to eat, the thought of food makes you feel like you're going to die? I have and I'm sure most of you have too. In that article I linked, it mentioned a women who had gone through something like 12 different medicines to help keep her weight up and help her relax. None of them worked. And she basically says in the article, "without marijuana I would die...my son would not have a mother...my husband would not have a wife."
Folks, this is not the talk of a strung-out, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, pot head. This is someone who just wants to survive. So i guess question is: Should the Government drop the hammer on medicinal marijuana across the board or should it be case-by-case?
No, I am not one of those "LEGALIZE ALL DRUGS" hippies who dream about moving to Amsterdam and living on a staunch diet of hash brownies, hash pancakes, hash pizza, etc. But the Government needs to take a wider look at what's going on. In a time when morals have come into play so strongly, how can we slam the door shut?
Watch CNN to find out the outcome of this topic. In the meantime...what are your opinions?
Alright, lets be honest for a moment. How many of you woke up extra early to drag your turkey-bloated arses to the shopping mall? I know at least one of you had to have. And thus begins the madness that is Christmas. Its now safe to put up Christmas lights (if you've taken them down from last year). It might even be proper ettiquette to raise a christmas tree...i don't know.
Malls are bad enough during the "off-season." But that timeframe between today and December 24th is downright terrifying!
Personally, Christmas itself scares the living hell out of me. Its a really akward time of year. And you all know what I mean. For starters, trying to pick something out for people stresses me out. I'm the kinda guy where I'd much rather give you money and say "go get what you want." I'm the type of person who would rather let YOU go get what you want rather than me try and wrap something thoughtful, meaningful, personal, and worst of all unique into a bubbly x-mas package. And I"ll tell you why...because I HATE GETTING PRESENTS. Now don't get me wrong...getting stuff is a lot of fun, when its the RIGHT stuff. But how often is it right?? Three-quarters of the time you're putting on the holiday poker face. You know exactly what I mean.
Its Christmas day....you're at Aunt Gertrie's house...she hands you a present...you stare at the beautiful box sitting on your lap. Most people think you're admiring the colorful christmas wrapping paper that includes a snowman with an Elvis wig and sun glasses. But you're not. You're rehearsing your reaction. You're running down the checklist before you tear open the box. Okay...not too excited, don't over-do it. Don't look too bored. Don't appear to be shocked.
Because you know very well that inside that box is the same damn sweater she bought for you last year. The same one you wore to Christmas dinner THIS year even though the sleeves are too long and the color is a little too close to pink for you to handle.
And, yes, it IS the thought that counts. But all you're thinking is "is this worth a trip to the mall to exchange?" And this leads me back to my original point I was trying to make.
Malls at Christmas time...love them or hate them??
Happy Thanksgiving Blog...
Well, here we are again...Thanksgiving Eve. The night before the Great Turkey Holocaust. The day before we all prepare to gorge ourselves on mounds of food and overdose on family members that, under EVERYDAY circumstances, make us a little crazy.
When I was a kid, Thanksgiving always ended up being somewhat of a spectator sport at my house. My family is one of the more...um...boisterous(?) families I know. You could be sure that, at some point, something comparable to a barroom rumble would go down. It got to the point where we started actually videotaping our dinner because we all knew someone was going to flip out at some point. No, i'm not lying!
So I looked forward to Thanksgiving like it was a World Fighting Championship title match cause I knew that someone (ie: one of my sisters) was going to end up flipping their wig and running out of the house. These were great moments for me....they were my "Kodak moments" if you will. The kinda moments that made you a little giggly and excited but sick in your stomach all at the same time. And it was always Thanksgiving.
Our family does a lot of stuff together...Christmas, The Great Halloween Pumpkin Carve-Off, July 4th...and usually they all go off without a hitch. But there is something about Thanksgiving in my family that just sets them all off. I don't know if its that sleepy turkey drug (triptofan?) or the stress of preparing a huge meal or coordinating the dessert trays...i don't know. But it turns nuts. I won't mention any names but at the height of drama, anonymous family members have been known to offer all sorts of threats involving:
1. The electric meat cutter
2. The Turkey baister
3. The Candle wand (you know that big clicky thing that you light candles with)
4. A butter knife
5. Something to do with a foot and "where the sun don't shine"
6. The lawn mower
7. Kicking dogs down steps (i wonder who that one came from??)
8. Kicking kids down steps
9. The gravy boat
10. And my favorite...Hot mashed potatoes and boxer shorts....
So that being said, Thanksgiving was always great when i was growing up...tons of material to work with. But somewhere down the line, my happy train came screeching to a halt. That all happened about the time I bought my own house. I still remember the horrible day like it was yesterday. We were sitting at my mom's dinner table discussing the upcoming holidays. Everything was fine. No reason for alarm. And, my then-girlfriend (now wife), still being the Witmer-Family green horn that she was, brought everything crashing down around me with one tiny sentence.
We could have Thanksgiving at our place.
I couldn't believe it...i heard the words coming out of her mouth in slow motion and still i could do nothing to stop it. Had there been food in my mouth, i'd be dead from asphyxiation. I sat there stunned as that sentence rolled off her tongue. I mean, what could I do? Pull a Steven Segal and hurl a butter knife at her head??
I imagined myself diving across the table in one of those action-movie slow-mo's screaming "noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!" as I flew through the air. But no...i just sat there, eyes big as saucers. And as my saucer eyes wandered from my wife to my mom I knew what had happened.
The damage was done.
My mom looked as if someone had just lifted a minivan off her and suddenly she was walking on the moon. I looked over at my step-dad and he smiled at me. It was the smile of a carnival barker who just took $5 from a kid to see the Amazing Toad Boy, knowing very well that it was just a kid with a couple warts. He's just passed the torch to me and I wanted to light him on fire with it.
I'd been duped. screwed. horn-swaggled. And suddenly, Thanksgiving was another one of those holidays I could just do without (like Christmas...sorry folks...can't handle that one either).
So this year, Thanksgiving is at my place. And YES, i'm going to put the video camera up in the corner of the dining room. And YES, I'm hoping for some more creative threats and a few stomping, angry feet. And with any luck, my dogs will survive the weekend without a single tumble down the stairs. .....
Okay...my first blog since the demcrats failed at what should've been a home-run. Lets face it, bases were loaded, Kerry was ready to hit a grand slam out over the cheap seats and into the parking lot. So what happened?
Aside from the fact that middle america is stuck in some sort of alternate reality where its still 1959, I think the Blue Boys really dropped the ball. I sat in a bar last weekend discussing this with a few of my "Less Conservative" friends and we all came to the following conclusions:
The following issues are losing points with a majority of redneck christian america:
- Abortion
- Gun Control
- Gay Marraige
ANNNNNND...here was the real joke to me. Bill Clinton. Nice guy...hell of a hairdo. But lets face it. Not the greatest image and not the greatest representative in a battle of morals. Why they had Clinton up there smiling and waving was way beyond me. They would've made off better with Hillary Clinton or even George Clinton....we want tha funk!
So yeah, I was in shock...Im still suffering from a bit of post-election depression. At least Pennsylvania went to the blue.
But as shitty as I feel about America in general at this point, the only way we can make a change is actually stand up and do something. NO...i'm not talking about moving to Canada or taking pot shots at government figures...that's ridiculous. For those of you that want a change like I do, you need to let your voice be heard. You need to speak up for the common sense of the world cause it seems to be lacking as of late.
And to those of you who still didn't vote...you should really think about your surroundings. Think about what's going on around you and ask yourself if you can keep wandering through that dark murky tunnel...remember, you may be comfy but your children are behind you.
