hi! i just got an article posted on the frontpage of www.cauldronliving.com/ (thanks, sonya!) about fair trade chocolate. check it out if ya can.
;) leslie
Thursday, October 26, 2006
mmm...choclate-y justice goodness
hi! i just got an article posted on the frontpage of www.cauldronliving.com/ (thanks, sonya!) about fair trade chocolate. check it out if ya can.
;) leslie
Monday, October 23, 2006
Awarnesess month fun and frolic
Awareness month. What can I say? Banners, brochures, emotional exhaustion....
The funnest thing we have done this year is the "Pumpkin Patch Pet Show and Children's Day," which went on this past Saturday at the elementary school. It was fabulous! We had people from the local animal shelters put up their own booths, and help judge the pet show. We had games and toys and a bouncy house. It was cool. A ton of pics follow. Enjoy the ride! And please don't feed the advocates. Feeding the goat is fine.
star volunteer
Mommy! Worked her ass off all day just because I needed help, which is not unusual (um...her working or me needing, that is).
If I had a hammer....
A coworker of mine takes matters in hand....
This is what awareness month is all about -- psychotically-overstimulated victim's advocates. Yay!
animal welfare
we had a pet show and family fun-day type of thing this weekend. it was cool. despite working nearly all day saturday, it was neat to see all the kids and their pets come in. we did it to highlight recent domestic violence/animal cruelty legislation which passed in our state. check out this link to see the info on the bill and the efforts of my pal and our board member, Sue Walsh. She's the one sitting...uh...at the animal welfare table. :)
http://www.all-creatures.org/adow/art-20060411.html
ps: here is sue at our pet show! :)
Thursday, October 19, 2006
dribbling babble
Hi. I’m at the church. I just went to the store and scored some coffee plus a cinnamon roll. I have a quandary. I want the computer on my lap but I want the cinnamon roll in my face. Hang on….
There. Now I have about half a cinnamon roll in my gut and big flakes of hard icing all over the floor. Now the church may get rats and I may get ex-whatever-icated. It was worth it. Hang on….
There. I just crawled around on the tile under my desk and picked up most of the icing flakes. Did you ever see the “X-Files” where the vampire was compulsively picking up sunflower seeds? That’s me with the flakes. The rats will be very disappointed.
I have a local paper here. It comes out on Thursdays. I love/hate to go through the court reports and see how many defendants I know – plus how pathetic their fines or sentences are. Hunting and fishing violations get like three and four times the fines or sentences of any kind of domestic violence. Virtually all the domestic assaults that lead to arrest bail for under $100 (and usually under $50).
Blah. Getting mad, now. Must deflect. The sanctuary has the greatest centerpiece on the piano. It has sunflowers and other flowers – mostly yellow, orange, or red. Then there is a fabulous cabbage-thing down to the lower left. Very cool. I am about to blog something that no one heretofore knew. Brace yourself.
When I am here I always sneak into the sanctuary and pray for a minute. I feel like a fugitive and I have actually hidden against the wall when on the verge of being caught. I don’t know why. I guess I just like it to be private. Even when you don’t live with your father anymore, I guess you can’t stop being a minister’s kid. I love a good sanctuary – but only when they are empty.
There. Flowers, good. Court reports, bad. I knew that. I will move on.
I find myself wondering more and more often about how damaged my soul has become by swimming in this sea of abuse, day in and day out. I have been working at the agency for five years, as of last month. I usually assume that it has been the internal strife and instability that has caused me more stress than the client work. Sometimes I wonder, though. Just in the past ten days I have had:
A two year old with cuts and bruises on his head from being boxed around – hugging and clinging and doing anything for a bit of safe affection.
A seven year old telling me how “I didn’t like what Daddy did to Mommy. He banged her head against the wall. He said he would tear Mommy’s head off.” – and telling me this about five times in eighty minutes.
A woman who had her head bashed against a wall until she shit herself – then was beaten because she shit herself. PS: the assault was retribution for filing a restraining order, which we helped her with.
A man who shot himself in the head in front of his family – and lived and still has custodial rights. PS: has a god-complex because he lived.
A woman who was beaten and choked, then her assailant called the police on her because she bit him during the choking. They have since both filed restraining orders against each other, which will be put to a hearing together.
A woman who came to this state with her fiancé and is isolated on a bridge-connected island (remote but not impossible to get to). She has been assaulted “seven times” – including most recently when she was choked and kicked in the head. The assailant then called the police to “throw her out of his place.” They did not arrest her, but they did not arrest him, either. Then she was stranded on an island with no transportation and still with her assailant.
Kids who were knocked unconscious and then taped to a chair by their father – who had them for court-approved visitation despite the frantic efforts of the mother. As anyone who has ever thoroughly read a pertinent divorce judgment can tell you, “domestic violence prosecutions do not imply an inability to co-parent.”
A man who was beaten with a lead pipe in a busy parking lot by an unknown male whom he believes was sent by his ex (who is apparently in a mental hospital).
And, yes, SO MUCH MORE!!! Rural Maine – “the way life should be.”
There. No more icing flakes on the floor. No more rats. No more ex-whatever-ication.
Gotta go. PEACE! ;) ljl
There. Now I have about half a cinnamon roll in my gut and big flakes of hard icing all over the floor. Now the church may get rats and I may get ex-whatever-icated. It was worth it. Hang on….
There. I just crawled around on the tile under my desk and picked up most of the icing flakes. Did you ever see the “X-Files” where the vampire was compulsively picking up sunflower seeds? That’s me with the flakes. The rats will be very disappointed.
I have a local paper here. It comes out on Thursdays. I love/hate to go through the court reports and see how many defendants I know – plus how pathetic their fines or sentences are. Hunting and fishing violations get like three and four times the fines or sentences of any kind of domestic violence. Virtually all the domestic assaults that lead to arrest bail for under $100 (and usually under $50).
Blah. Getting mad, now. Must deflect. The sanctuary has the greatest centerpiece on the piano. It has sunflowers and other flowers – mostly yellow, orange, or red. Then there is a fabulous cabbage-thing down to the lower left. Very cool. I am about to blog something that no one heretofore knew. Brace yourself.
When I am here I always sneak into the sanctuary and pray for a minute. I feel like a fugitive and I have actually hidden against the wall when on the verge of being caught. I don’t know why. I guess I just like it to be private. Even when you don’t live with your father anymore, I guess you can’t stop being a minister’s kid. I love a good sanctuary – but only when they are empty.
There. Flowers, good. Court reports, bad. I knew that. I will move on.
I find myself wondering more and more often about how damaged my soul has become by swimming in this sea of abuse, day in and day out. I have been working at the agency for five years, as of last month. I usually assume that it has been the internal strife and instability that has caused me more stress than the client work. Sometimes I wonder, though. Just in the past ten days I have had:
A two year old with cuts and bruises on his head from being boxed around – hugging and clinging and doing anything for a bit of safe affection.
A seven year old telling me how “I didn’t like what Daddy did to Mommy. He banged her head against the wall. He said he would tear Mommy’s head off.” – and telling me this about five times in eighty minutes.
A woman who had her head bashed against a wall until she shit herself – then was beaten because she shit herself. PS: the assault was retribution for filing a restraining order, which we helped her with.
A man who shot himself in the head in front of his family – and lived and still has custodial rights. PS: has a god-complex because he lived.
A woman who was beaten and choked, then her assailant called the police on her because she bit him during the choking. They have since both filed restraining orders against each other, which will be put to a hearing together.
A woman who came to this state with her fiancé and is isolated on a bridge-connected island (remote but not impossible to get to). She has been assaulted “seven times” – including most recently when she was choked and kicked in the head. The assailant then called the police to “throw her out of his place.” They did not arrest her, but they did not arrest him, either. Then she was stranded on an island with no transportation and still with her assailant.
Kids who were knocked unconscious and then taped to a chair by their father – who had them for court-approved visitation despite the frantic efforts of the mother. As anyone who has ever thoroughly read a pertinent divorce judgment can tell you, “domestic violence prosecutions do not imply an inability to co-parent.”
A man who was beaten with a lead pipe in a busy parking lot by an unknown male whom he believes was sent by his ex (who is apparently in a mental hospital).
And, yes, SO MUCH MORE!!! Rural Maine – “the way life should be.”
There. No more icing flakes on the floor. No more rats. No more ex-whatever-ication.
Gotta go. PEACE! ;) ljl
Friday, October 13, 2006
my day job
Yay, October! Pumpkins, cool weather, costumes, and (of course) national domestic violence awareness and prevention month (you knew that, right?) Oooh. And candy.
Here's my deal-blahdy-blah-thing in the newspaper. Read it while the link lasts!
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4400&Itemid=46
or
http://bangordailynews.com/news/?a=141287&z=35
Peace, Leslie ;)
Friday, September 29, 2006
we are the future
The school year has started and I had my first gig for a high school earlier this month. I was just going over my agency required "outcome measures" (feedback forms) and I wanted to share.
This was a ninth grade so most of the students were fourteen. We did five gigs that day - only about a half-hour each with groups of twenty to thirty. If you have ever done youth ed., you know you can't expect to accomplish too damn much in that amount of time, in that amount of chaos, with that large a group of students (who are in their orientation and don't even know or trust each other/their teachers yet - let alone you).
So, here is my standard gig:
blah, blah - me (i.e. intro)
list "healthy/unhealthy" relationship stuff on flipchart (they tell me)
go over teen power and control wheel (if I feel like it)
wrap a kid in tape.
Okay. Now you have a question. What this means is that I wrap at kid in masking tape while the others give examples of unhealthy/power and control tactics. Kid processes how it feels to be restricted in said manner. More blah, blah. Then I unwrap tape while others give examples of "how to help" a friend in an unhealthy relationship.
give candy-type bribe
issue feedback forms.
So here are some of my fave "outcome measure":
1) Mis-spells name of his school and says to "things to look for in a good, healthy relationship": "hotgirl." For "any suggestions for improving future healthy relationship presentations": "look for a hottopgirl."
hmmm. Is this in reference to breasts or asphalt?
2) One has good content, I think. He says healthy is "being able to talt to you partner about probems."
3) "Talk into partner" (astral projection?)
4) "not bosyness"
5) "Yes, don't abbuse stuff."
And my favorite is a typed letter that the guidance director clearly copied and then sent (to me and similar ones to other presenters) saying:
Dear ms. Linder;
I am a freshman at (school name). Thank you for participating in our Freshman Awareness program last week.
It gave me a nice relief of not having to be in classes all day, and I got to watch you wrap some students in tape. I liked that your class wasn't so serious and that we could have some fun. I rated your presentation the highest rate.
Thank you again for taking the time to tell us about your organaization.
(name)
Yay, me! Saving the world, one little shit at a time. ;)
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Mabon
Happy Mabon (Autumn Equinox)! Hope you eat a big loaf of bread.
Life is progressing. I have coffee that a lovely co-worker just brought me. I dropped some processed cheese on my keyboard. No damage and actually quite amusing.
Nettipotts got spayed yesterday. She is still weak from the anesthesia so that part was scary, but she seems to be steadily improving. We have a tentative home for her in a week or so. If not, she is fine where she is.
By the way, when I say "we" I mean my mom. I know, I know. How can I be a healthy, stable adult when the gods of television and movies say that living with one's parents is bad? Well, I look at it this way -- if two adult, single women can get along and trust each other and join forces to afford the mortgage on a house and land - unable to do so otherwise - why not? So we get to live free of landlords and have wiccan rituals in our yard, fill the place with cats, and blah blah - whatever. Plus we can cover the floor with ridiculous amounts of pillows so that a sick cat can feel free to topple over - like we did for Nettipots when she came back from the vet.
So, there. Power to the people.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Fall!
Yay, Fall in Maine! It is my fave season - even if it has to be followed by winter.
Did the Komen Fund Breast Cancer 5K this weekend. It was good. There were over three thousand people there. There was also one little, white male fundy standing in the middle of the park holding a cardboard sign about "abortion causing breast cancer." That was one brave little fundy. Perhaps he was looking to martyr himself -- be eaten by the feminists and earn a seat at the right hand of god. But I think he lived. I certainly didn't eat him.
My text about the bog is below all the pics. I outsmarted myself by saving the text as a draft before I posted the photos. Oh, well. So let me restate that all the pics below this post are from my mom's birthday walk at the Bangor Bog. We had fun. Then we went to see "Hollywoodland," which was good -- though ageism-inspired suicide may not be the optimal topic for celebrating one's sixty-fourth. She didn't seem to see that angle and enjoyed it, at any rate. Now she wants to see "The Illusionist" again. That was very good.
So...on to the bog. Enjoy the pics and don't get your feet wet. :)
pitcher plant
this little puppy holds bog water like a "pitcher" and uses it to kill and eat bugs, apparently. COOL!
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