Frakin laptop shootin dad

I am posting this all over  the place because I think the father went WAY over the top.(Link down below)

http://www.scoopsandiego.com/news/national/dad-shoots-laptop-to-teach-daughter-a-lesson/article_85ff5db0-540d-11e1-b1cb-0019bb30f31a.html
The video is of a red faced swearing dad reading what his daughter posted on facebook about him, and being the ultimate tough guy, he shoots her computer. Well YAY for HE MAN!

Yeah, the kids acting entitled...but where did she learn to swear? It’s pretty obvious. Like father like daughter...Does he really expect that if he swears like a sailor that she won’t? With everything that happened (That I know of)  if it were me I would take the laptop away and keep it for a while to use for my own as a reminder to her of what she lost till... she stopped acting childish.

I actually did something like that with my daughter (Who is 19 now and off at college) where I took her iPod away for something snotty she did and I used it for a while till she stopped the attitude. Think I had it for a few weeks to a month or more.  It worked a lot better than wasting my money because my pride had been injured...by shooting it, or something ridiculous like that.

 I keep seeing this video everywhere, I don't like it at ALL, he has a few good points but I n my mind he acted just as childish as she did. And if this dad is abusive, as I suspect he may be, this is DAMN scary.

If he points a gun at a computer, being the "tough guy" that he is, has he ever pointed it at something else, if you know what I mean?

I NEVER spanked my daughter, or hit her, it doesn't make them respect you, it makes them TERRIFIED of you. That is WRONG on ALL LEVELS. That's where the deception starts.

 MIGHT DOES NOT MAKE RIGHT!

I am SOOOOO fraking (Oh…my Battlestar Galactica roots are showing…lol…the dictionary is trying to correct me by changing fraking to franking…its making me giggle:p) sick of seeing this stupid video EVERYWHERE!

He is an immature parent and this this video was NOT funny, or cool. If he's doing what he did in public, what is he doing in private? I don't care if his daughter did, he is an ADULT and should act like one...Listen, my daughter did things JUST as bad as his daughter did, OVER and OVER again. It was incredibly frustrating and we had to think of different punishments. But he was just shooting himself in the foot in the long run.

 You HAVE to give yourself leeway with a teenager, and doing something childish like shooting a laptop that he bought is just plain immature. It takes the leeway away with the teenager. What's he going to do when she crashes the car? (Most teens crash at least once, it’s almost a rite of passage, sadly:p) Shoot it too?

Her phone? Bang it up while he's at it is when she acts up? (Yeah, I saw the post later where she suggests it...if you ask me, now she’s just pandering...there will be even more things now where she tries to be sneaky, mark my words.)What he did was a childish act, and on top of it, he’s talking about all the money he wasted? Well, HE'S the one who shot up the laptop, and if it were me, c’mon!  I'm not going to waste money and do that. I would just use the laptop for a while and she’ll be sorry sooner she did what she did EVERY time she sees me use it. I am the parent, and not a child, I just took the different things away over and over. It worked EVERY time, even though my daughter was VERY mouthy, she came around. They can't come around if they have nothing to come back to.

I can spot an abusive parent a mile away, (I almost DIED in the house I grew up in) and guaranteed, if this guy does things like this on video, on a public forum, he does more than that off. If he points a gun at a computer, who's to say he doesn’t point a gun on HER? If Health and Welfare saw that video, they would be at his door.

As an afterthought…I just realized why in the aftermath of this why I've been so bothered. After this whole thing came out and the girl was joking about the whole thing, it hit me as off (again, I could be wrong.) It hit me right now why.

On the day that I almost died, (that’s in another blog and I will elaborate later) when the neighbors called the cops on my dad and I went to the police station for them to file a report on abuse, I made a BIG joke out of it. I was TERRIFIED of the unknown.

What would happen to me? Would I end up in foster care? Would I go from one abusive home, to another?

Another thought...When that whole situation happened, I found out from my sister MANY years later that after my dad had beaten me, he would lay out on the floor after beating me and act like I had been the one WHALING ON HIM, like I was the problem, when in reality, it was completely the opposite.

When... the cops came, he did the same thing, making it look like I was the problem, not him.

Years later I saw the police report on that day I almost died. The report actually said that I had the same temperament as my father!! I couldn't believe it! My parents were the ultimate deceptive parents to the entire town. They would make light of what actually happened, make my begging for help look like a lie when the reality was, THEY would outright lie about it. And the police BELIEVED them. Maybe the cops just didn't want to deal with it.

When talking about this video someone posted on a forum and said “Sounds like the daughter is of the same temperament as the dad and is a spoiled brat.”

I can't help but see a parallel with this kid.

Again, I could be wrong but something just doesn't seem right.

On top of this HE is speaking FOR her. My parents did that all the time. So WHERE is she?

I Tripped.

Toys R Us is a nightmare any time of year.

(On the journey back to getting into writing about my abusive home life, heres another nice detour:p lol)

I used to be a vendor for American greetings a million years ago and Toys R Us was a place we had to service for cards. I dreaded that place but the people were great there.

The first day I was there being trained I was with 2 women who were training me and some associate had left a bike ramp right in the walkway which I DIDN'T SEE.

 I tripped over it, fell down, hit my head,. passed out, and convulsed (Which I've never done)

Next thing I know I wake up and all the employees are standing there staring at me, there’s some ambulance guy standing by me asking me questions trying to keep my attention on him. I turned my head just in time to see another guy coming at me with a needle. I said

"PLEASE! TAKE MY BLOOD! I want my boss to know I'm not a drug addict!”

Next thing I knew, they brought a gurney.  

I was paraded through the store, customers and employees alike staring at the half conscious moron who had tripped and knocked herself out.:p ( Hey…I blame the bike ramp:p)  

They brought me to the hospital, attached these electrodes to my head to monitor my brain, and I met the big boss of the area in the emergency room in a dressing gown. NICE. Ya  gotta wonder what was going through his head. Insane woman? Scammer? Brain damaged moron…I mean, there WERE wires all over my head.

As I’m meeting with him, trying to keep my backside covered some other woman partitioned off on the other side of the room started screaming in this guttural hysterical voice "I WANT AN ENIMA! GIVE ME A ENIMA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!  Later she was screaming that she wanted her cigarettes, I'm thinking they must have sedated her later so she was finally quiet. My boss must have been thinking uh…”all in a days work”? (I worked with them for another 2 years, so guess I wasn’t crazy after all…Or was I?;p)

I wrote a silly song about it. I’ve sung it with my guitar at open mics just for a laugh…(Not one of my better songs, but it got a laugh out of it) Some of you on facebook who know me from my old open mic days might remember it. One time I even forgot some of the words and I kept repeating “because I tripped” until the crowd joined in and it was one of the most memorable open mics I ever went to, I was laughing so hard.

As I went off to my new job I was feeling pretty hip.

Going to my new job which would teach me not to trip.

I learned about the business, it all was going well.

Little did I know that it would all soon go to hell.

Because I tripped. I tripped.

Went into the toys r us and fell there on my hip.

I could kill the damn associate if I only had the will. Something long thin in the isle I knew then when I tripped.

As I fell I heard the women scream, no one could break my fall.

The anguish the embarrassment, the craziness of it all.

The women tried to help my there I tried hard to get up. But everything went black at once because I'm such a klutz

because I tripped, I tripped.

Paramedics asked If I'm on drugs I told them what the %$^& ??

Because I tripped, I tripped.

So now I'm in the hospital they monitor my brain, they ask me lots of questions

taking blood from every vein

because I tripped. I tripped.

I'm wondering if they just think that I'm really insane. The first day at my new job they should really check my brain.

Because I tripped.

Well, hey…at least I got a song out of it.

IIIII AM A CHILD OOOOOF GOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!

That last blog brought back a memory that makes me giggle.

Just to give you some history…I lived in a small town in Idaho, it’s at sea level, and has completely different weather than the rest of Idaho. There was another town half an hour away, and you had to go up this GIANT hill to get there, driving carefully (Especially during winter, it was quite a curve AND up a gigantic hill, then back down a VERY big descent to get back home.) The weather at the top is quite different from the weather at the bottom. It would be raining down below, and then up above  at the top of this giant hill, it would be snowing. I was glad to be living at the bottom of the hill in the valley. I LOVED the weather. It would get up to 110 for at least a week in the summer, and you hardly EVER saw any snow. I grew all kinds of vegetables, the best tomatoes I ever had on half an acre. My daughter Whitney used to read her children’s books under the cornstalks.

We even grew pumpkins. PERFECT weather for crops.

Washington, I’m afraid, just doesn’t have the weather that Idaho does and I just can’t grow tomatoes like I did there.

And yet I would never go back.

Idaho, when the paper mill REALLY got going in the summer was TORTURE.  

It’s a shame that town has a paper mill. When that thing blew off smoke, it smelled like cooked cabbage, or dog poop, depending on who you talked to.:p

People told me that it was better than years past.

One woman who used to work at the plant there told me that no matter what shoes you wore, as you walked across the room at the plant, your shoes would actually stick to the floor and start to melt as you walked across it. The houses in that town would get covered in sticky, black goo years back. I can’t imagine that could be good for anyone. One person told me that that town had the highest Asthma rate in the country. I never checked on that so I don’t know if it’s true or not, but my husband and I both ended up with Asthma after living there so that’s saying something.

Anyway, every once in a when  you would be minding your own business in the summertime, white stuff would start drifting on by, like it had somewhere to go. It DIDN’T have anywhere to go, so we were stuck  with it getting all over our yards, our trees, the roads, and if you were unlucky to be out in it, your hair, skin, clothes, or anywhere else it decided to go. (WOO WOO!) There was a “Pond” where the stuff would come up and just float away , cover the roads, the town and everything in between. We used to call it P________ snow… fill in the blanks…I can’t, I don’t want to get in trouble for naming the plant.:p

We lived there a long time, and went to a church with some really good people. I worked with the teenagers a lot. I loved how they weren’t “cliquish”. They would stand in a giant circle and everyone was included. My class was no different. I loved it. Years later that changed. It’s amazing how one or two people can change everything and make life better for people, or worse. Teens need acceptance worse than anyone does so it’s a shame when the adults add to the problem.

The really young kids were a precocious bunch. They made me giggle all the time.

Our church would have periodic times in church where the kids would be singing for the main meeting.

They would have memorized parts that they would go up to the mic and say what they memorized.

 As they sang their songs and did their parts everything was going as planned. Then one especially precocious little guy got up, wiggled  around and swung his arms back and forth saying into the mic  at the podium“IIIIII am a CHIIIIILDD  OOOF God”. The next kid got up, not to be outdone saying a little louder “I AM A CHILD OF GOD”. The next ten kids or so got up, getting louder and louder, until the last kid got up, (By then it had been worked up into a fever pitch and was sooooo loud that if anyone would have gotten in the way it would have been like being in the path of the tornado.) the last kid SCREAMED ‘IIIIIIIIII AMMMMMM  AAAAA CHIIIILD OFFF GOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!! “  Their  teacher, thoroughly embarrassed and bright red (Though the rest of us were laughing SO hard that tears were coming to our eyes) somehow got the screaming, jumping,  kids to actually sit down and suddenly,  it was over.

Amen:P

Can't you just SAY it?? ? Singing Disaster

Its amazing what embarrassments parents can bring on a child.

As a teenager, singing was what I loved to do, and I felt that I was pretty good at it. When everything else was falling apart around me, no matter what happened, no matter how many times my sisters would make fun of me singing, (I almost quit singing because of the enormous amount of teasing my sisters did, making fun of my voice.  To my mother’s credit, she encouraged me there when no one else did; so I sang, despite my sisters teasing.) I felt good when I was singing, even when everything else was hard, and life seemed unfair, I could sing. I remember singing Billy Joel’s “My Life” over and over whenever I got punished and I was grounded to my room, or after I got beaten up. They might take what little freedom I had, but they couldn’t take my VOICE!

  I would sing in church frequently, not much as a teenager, but a lot as a young adult.                    

 When I would perform in front of people I would always pray before that and say, “Ok God, do whatever you want with my voice, take it and make it the way YOU want it to be- not the way I want it to be”, that way I wouldn’t be afraid and I knew my voice would be ok, no matter what my voice did it felt like that whatever happened, it was supposed to be that way.. It kinda took the pressure off of me, and gave it to the ultimate do gooder, if you know what I mean.

One year I had decided to do a song that had a speaking part in it, one for a woman, and one for a man. One was a woman talking about an experience with Christ; the other was of a “blind” man who had been healed by Christ.

I thought since my parents were right there, that I would ask them to do that part . ( I wasn’t living at home anymore, but went home when my dad wasn’t there to do laundry)  so I asked my mom if she would do the woman’s  part, and if she would ask my dad if he could do the man’s part.

I went through the song over and over, getting it ready. It’s a beautiful, peaceful song, talking about all the miracles that Jesus did.

The day came to sing the song in Church and I said the prayer I always did, asking him to take my voice and do with it what he wanted to do with it. And I felt calm. I got up and started singing.

My mom got up for her part, she did fine.

Then my dad got up by the podium. He didn’t stand at the microphone, like I had asked him to.

He stood way off to the side of me. He literally SCREAMED at the audience  “I WAS BLIND, BUT NOW I SEE!” AND WITH MORE THAN JUST MY EYES…I THANK GOD HE CAME!!!!!!”

He might as well of  just punched the front row parishioners right in the face the way they were leaning WAAAAY back in their seats looking like they’d just been assaulted.:p

 I was SO embarrassed.

And THAT was the last time I ever asked for his help with a song.

Almost drowning at Erie "Lake" (Peninsula)

(I am SLOWLY getting back into writing, (since moving...Thanks for your patience dear reader:) And I do mean dear...I really appriciate your being here with me as I talk about my life. 

Feels a little bit self indulgent, yet I know this is what I need to do. If anyone who has been through abuse or a near death experience can find help or solace in any of this, it is worth writing this to me.

When I was little I remember my parents went on vacation without me. I don’t know if my sisters went with them or not, but they weren’t with me, and they didn’t stay home, so I’m assuming they went with my parents.  Interesting. I never thought about that before writing this.  But I know that my neighbors actually took care of me while they were gone.

The Brocks.   Ahhhh, the Brocks. I loved them.

My favorite hangout when I was a child was on their land. There was a stream running through the front of their land with cattails and tadpoles EVERYWHERE…tadpoles were fun to catch.

 They had a HUGE field with killdeer (birds) that chased me as I screamed bloody murder through the long grass.  The females laid their eggs in a nest on the ground,  and they protected the nests ferociously. They ran at whomever, whenever anyone even got near the nest. They terrified me. That nature to protect is so inherent  in those females.

What happens to the nature of an abused woman  when their children are abused? The only thing I can think of is that nature so inherent in the bird family, in most of nature, where you see a mother who will FIGHT to the death just to protect her young can be lost in a woman who is with an abuser. Some can be SO lost in their  own  struggle to survive that they lose that inherent, VITAL will to protect their children because they are so focused on keeping themselves alive when they feel  they have nowhere to go.

 I applaud women who do leave. They teach their children a valuable lesson. That NO ONE has the right to beat another human being. She has more respect for herself, and her children than the man who is insisting that, because he is stronger he can use it to beat “OBEY”! into their heads.

I would respect my mother that much more if she had the strength and decency to put her children above a man who was literally tearing her children apart. Instead, she joined in. Thank God I had places I could escape to.

The Brock's had a great chestnut tree I sat under. I hid from the world under its cover. I could crack the nuts open with a nutcracker I got from my parent's kitchen. If I didn’t bloody my knuckles  too much with the needles on the things I would eat it. I would sit under that tree for hours and daydream. I would disappear for hours. I would not answer to the calls of my parents , my sisters, or anybody. I lived in my world under that tree, and the sky was green, ok, at least the leaves were.

Late at night under the chestnut tree, the lightning bugs came out, and I could catch them between two Dixie cups, or if I was REALLY lucky, I could get plastic cups that were see through, and then when I caught one I could use it as a lantern-almost, if I had enough tape to keep the cups together. If I didn’t have any tape, I would desperately try to keep the cups together so they wouldn't escape and leave me in the dark. That would land me with an angry lightning bug trying to get out and sooner or later they would fly off, like a tiny little Christmas light rising up to the sky.  But for just a second, EVERYTHING was illuminated. 

Life is kinda like that. Everything is clearer when you can see, and you’re not in the dark anymore.

 Lightning bugs are so cool. Growing up with them I just assumed they would always be there. (One thing  of interest I found out from a friend... back east fireflies light up the sky. Where I live in the Pacific Northwest now, I thought they didn't have fireflies. They do. They just don't light up. What makes a firefly light up?  Well you could say its what they're made of. As with everything else in life. Its all in what were made of. I had to be made of some pretty tough stuff growing up. I'd like to think I am a firefly, all lit up. (Depends on the day, haha) 

Needless to say, I LOVED the Brocks. But maybe their land even more:P.

So, when my parents had me stay at the Brock's house while they were away, I was pretty happy about it.

Mrs. Brock was pretty crabby. I surmise it was because of the precocious little girl that I could be. I never could sit still for long.

Her crabbiness even transferred to the dinner table.

She wouldn't even let me have honey from their honey jar until I ate all the carrots on my plate. I pouted for a long time until Mr Brock persuaded me to eat them drizzling honey on the carrots. 

 While I was with them, she took me to Erie Zoo. What a treat! My parents didn't bring me there many times during my childhood. 

There some random newspaper man saw this little wild thing (me) climbing around on the zoos version of what I thought was a water fountain, a cement full color baby elephant with water coming out of the trunk.

 This newspaper man asked me to climb up the elephant the rest of the way and get a drink from its trunk so he could take a picture.

"Hallelujah! I GET TO CLIMB BACK UP!!" I thought, deliriously dizzy with happiness.

Mrs. Brock was mortified…she had just been trying to get the wild child (Me)  to “ GET DOWN FROM THAT THING!!”  

But Mr newspaper man told me to climb up it, I got my picture taken, and later on I even got my picture in the newspaper with the inscription "Heidi whets her whistle" 

I was delighted.  My mom cut it out and gave it to me.  One kindness anyway.

I still have that picture to this day.

Later that day Mrs. Brock took me to Erie "Lake".

I hadn’t really learned how to swim yet, though my first experience with water terrified me.

 My first swimming lesson was with a lot of other children there for lessons.

The instructor at the pool decided to teach me a quick lesson.  I didn’t float at first, so he decided to try to teach me to not be scared by holding me under the water. I was even more terrified... I screamed underwater! My lungs were on fire and it felt like forever till he  pulled me back up out of the water. 

Presque Isle State Park: (what we called Erie “Lake” (Peninsula)  was beautiful. I loved sticking my nose out the window smelling the fresh air, looking at the sand and how it shimmered in the sun.

I adored going there. Years later, I have memories of throwing seaweed at my sisters there.

It was a cheap way of going swimming, but it was a dangerous place. There were currents that could pull you out too far before you knew it. They would have current warnings that you could dial in to the radio to find out about.

When I was with Mrs. Brock there,  I played where she could see me, close to shore.  

At first.  

In my five- year- old mind, everything there was pretty. The sand was pretty, the beach was pretty, the water was pretty. 

But what I was unaware of is that I was being dragged out farther into the water. When I finally realized what was happening I tried to cry out, but when I did, my mouth filled with sand and dirty water that I kicked up from my struggle. I gagged on it as I tried desperately to pull myself closer to shore.  I remember the harder I tried, the more the current weighed down my arms and dragged me out. 

I was going under.

I flailed around, terrified, I realized I was drowning and felt helpless to do anything about it. I couldn't fight anymore. I let go, looked down, and thought how beautiful everything appeared and how sad I was to leave it. The rocks were grey and white and dappled, so many different colors, and there was an indescribable peace. A peace I have only felt twice in my life, (Those of you who have been reading  my blogs may know of my other near death experience) but for me now it comes from a place that is familiar to me.  A place I suspect at least once in my AFTER life  I will be surrounded by people I have loved before.

It's funny the things you remember as a child. A dog's wet nose,(I cuddled a LOT of dogs),  the sound of water, the color of rocks as you're drowning, and then your lungs burning as someone, mercifully, tearfully, is pulling you out of the water and you know you’re safe.

Some people who drive have the mentality of a limp noodle. Overcooked. And yet I am still ok.

I have moved. Finally. I am still in overwhelmed mode and am just finding my way around. My house is in disarray, my brain is overloaded and I am happily aware that many things around here are conveniently close. But finding specifics, well, it’s a miracle that I'm finding them at all, but thanks to my GPS on my phone, it’s not quite so bad.

The place I have moved to has been called by some of my friends "Ghetto Ville". It would kinda be considered "With the hicks in the sticks" if you know what I mean.

 On the road where I live it is not. I live in a gorgeous neighborhood in a beautiful house. I don't know what the rest of the place is like, I haven't been here long enough.

Just when I'm starting to feel a little bit at home, I go to find something at a store.

I'm on the freeway, and  am trying to move over. I put on my turn signal, and the guy in the other lane speeds up. So I move over. There was room after all... Well I get to my exit, he follows me on my right, speeds up and starts yelling at me from the passenger side..."You Fing bitch what the hell do  you think you’re doing"???

 I just waive at people like that and say "hi” like I don't hear a word they're saying. It actually makes me feel better that I'm not reacting negatively to such moronic behavior.

He got even more pissed off. Even though there wasn't any space, he moved over into my lane in front of me, so if I would have moved forward at all, I would crash into him. So, since there was no one in back of me, (Thank God) I backed up and motioned for him to get in front of me. Then he got this look on his face, actually mouthed that he was sorry, and I just motioned for him to get in front of me.

Oh CRAP...he was  going to the same place I was... I turned off and went somewhere else. I didn't want to have him maybe follow me in the parking lot to say sorry, or see him in one of the stores I was going to...I was just wanting to get away.

Later on, I'm on my way home, and am at a stop light. Apparently I wasn't going fast enough around the corner for some redneck. He and his girlfriend honked at me, called me a "Stupid bitch", sped around me, (She flipped me off as I waived hi...for the second time today...) went right in front of me without using a turn signal, getting into my lane and almost causing me to crash into them. What the???

Is the amount of sunlight lately been blinding people? Or maybe the fact that today its grey and the rain may be corroding some peoples brain tissue? AHHHH!

I walked into a Dutch bakery today downtown. All the ol regulars were there having lunch. The place I lived before I may have walked into a familiar place, may have even seen people I knew. Today was different. I was the outsider this time. I was the one feeling out of place. I didn't like that.

But as I got to my street and drove up the road to my home, MY actual home (We have never owned up until now) saw the familiar roses that I had put into pots(That have to be planted pretty soon...if they could talk they would be scolding me.) walked in the door and just dropped the groceries exhausted on the kitchen counter, I felt at home. As if on cue the doorbell rang not long ago and I saw more familiar faces. As if my roses weren't enough. Everything is falling into place. And the familiar phrase rings in my ear. Something I've told myself for years, when I was being beaten, when I was feeling alone, When life seemed unfair and that nothing was going to be right, something whispered in my ear. Everything is going to be ok.

And it is.

We are in the new house and unpacking...

But it takes forever. Just wanted you guys to know I haven't forgotten about you and are lookng forward to sitting down, gathering my thoughts (They are ALL over the place right now) and writing again. Thanks for your patience:)