From my other journal, dated September 4, 2002

I think Miss Zoe and I are finally mostly over this rotten cold and sinus infection. We both slept through the night and I woke up feeling much better this morning. She seems to be much better too and isn't as grouchy as she has been. In fact, she isn't crabby at all. That's how I can tell my babies are really feeling terrible; the grouchiness. Usually they're both very sweet-natured and cheerful little people.
My mom's gifts will be there by tomorrow, which is a big relief. I love Amazon. They're always so reliable.
I lost a day somewhere and I think it's because of the holiday weekend. That, or the fact that my sleep has been so restricted over the last week. I woke up this morning thinking that Zoe's one year check-up was today. After Larry left I fell back to sleep and didn't wake up again until 9:43, a rare occurrence indeed. Her appointment is at ten o'clock, so I jumped out of bed and called the doctor's office. I was going to do that anyway because she's not over her cold yet and doctors don't like to immunize babies with colds, flu or viral infections because the vaccines themselves sometimes cause a slight fever. It's dangerous. So I had already intended to reschedule but my fuzzy mind was getting upset thinking that I was calling to do this only a few minutes before her appointment - how rude!!
I was quite relieved when the receptionist told me her appointment was actually for tomorrow.
Jeez...
Big dork moment.
Anyway, she's all set to go on September 24 if nothing weird happens.
I think I'll get the laundry done and do some vacuuming but otherwise hang out and just relax today. It's been a rough week.
I have to save myself for shopping this weekend and her second birthday celebration this Sunday. Goodies for my baby girl - YAY!!

~~~~

Later on:

I never was one of those people who needs to go looking for trouble. It seems to have no difficulty in finding me.
This time trouble stalked me for a few days while I went about the business of dealing with this damnable sinus infection.
On Friday I noticed while checking out the cartoon dolls webring that one of the site titles didn't look at all doll-related. It turned out to be a christian info site.
I should say recruitment site.
It was loaded with all of the standard fear-inducing nuggets about accepting christianity as your path or going to hell. I wasn't especially bothered by it, I mean, it's nothing I haven't seen or heard about a kazillion times already. It did cause me to wonder why the site had been posted with the cartoon dolls webring, though, so I contacted the guy who created the site to ask why he had chosen that particular ring. He emailed me back to say that any place is a good one for drawing people to christ. I could have let it go at that, but nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
I had to dig.
I asked him if it didn't seem a bit...deceitful to draw people in that way, a little dishonest maybe, to make people think he had a site with one type of content but it turns out to be something else? He said no, people need to be brought to christ by any means necessary. He then sent me three more emails in about an hour, telling me no one had a problem with it but me. He quoted long passages of scripture and told me directly (yes, you guessed it), that I'm going to hell.
I responded by explaining that I have no problem with christians, I used to be one myself and no longer hold them any ill will, I was just asking a simple question and as far as I was concerned he had answered it, therefore the issue was dropped. He emailed me back once more to try and convert me. I politely declined and that (I thought), was it.
This afternoon I got an ugly, accusatory, rambling message in my mailbox from the same guy. He was mightily pissed off because the girl who runs the doll webring had dropped his site. He was absolutely sure I had made a complaint to her and caused her to do that. He said that the reason she gave him for dropping his site was a direct lie and that I was going to burn in hell for taking people away from christ. He was convinced that if not for his removal from the webring, more souls would be converted.
Only the Gistapo had a more rigorous recruitment program than christianity. That said, this guy is the christian Hitler.
I wrote him back. I shouldn't have but I did, explaining that I didn't make a complaint. I've been sick with a sinus infection for several days and haven't even been near the dolls site. I just get online for a few minutes, update my journals, check my email, and go to bed. That's it. I had no personal problem with him, his god, or his website.
The webmistress told him his site had been dropped from the ring because he hadn't posted the navigation bar. I remembered thinking that it was odd he'd join the ring but not have the code posted during my first visit to his site. He was sure the girl was lying about her reasons for removing him but as it turns out, she was right. He only thought he had it posted.
Once I pointed this out to him he realized he had erred and did apologize, but still...
It's a little rabid of him to assume that simply because I asked him about it four days ago that I had somehow conspired with the ringmistress to make sure his recruitment site failed. Frankly, it has no organization, the spelling is extremely poor and the link to the guy's profile page brought me to a page so loaded with errors I couldn't click off. The windows kept popping up and I couldn't close the page before another one popped up. I had to log my PC off and start over to get rid of the error windows. I explained that to him last Friday and suggested he might fix that.
Then today he thinks I'm involved in a conspiracy to get him kicked off of the internet.
Damn.
Not only was I not guilty of such a complicated plot, to quote Richard Jeni, "I'm not even sure I'm mentally capable of thinking it up."
Besides, what do I have to gain?
I made some major progress recently in regards to my feelings about christians. It's quite literally a live and let live kind of thing with me now. Let him believe what he wants. I'll do the same and it's all groovy.
Well, I thought it was groovy. Apparently like beauty, groovy-ness is in the eye of the beholder.
Anyway, hopefully now he'll go away.
I wasn't looking for trouble.
I just asked a question:
Why submit a site to a webring that doesn't reflect it's content?
Who knew it would turn into such a shitstorm?

Some people...

****

Kelly Clarkson won American Idol!! I was hoping she would because she had such a fantastic voice. There were lots of other talented people on the show too but Kelly is definitely the real deal. I liked Ryan Starr a lot too and I was really disappointed when she was voted off. Nikki McKibbin I do not miss however. Something about her gets on my nerves.
I didn't see all of the shows. At first I wasn't interested because it seemed as if they were looking for the next Britney and we all know how I feel about that. My viewing choice was given up one night when Zoe fell asleep on my shoulder and I watched American Idol rather than wake her up. Sometimes she's a difficult girly to put to bed. Admittedly, I liked most of what I saw but Simon was just so damned mean to people that whether or not I watched depended upon whether or not I felt as if I could watch him belittle people all night. There was one time in particular I cringed inwardly and it makes me want to wince just thinking about it now, because of the look on the boy's face. Simon told him that he wasn't good enough, that if by some miracle he did win the competetion he would still fail. I felt so embarrassed and hurt for that boy. He has a beautiful voice and was very cute, he was a bit shy but he definitely had talent.
Simon's just mean. I think he got off on verbally abusing people.
I hope he comes back in his next life as a roll of toilet paper. Then maybe he'll see what it's like to have someone wipe their ass with him the way he did the people on American Idol.
AAAhhh!! My karma - maybe I shouldn't say that!!
On the other hand, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul were very nice and knew how to say the same things as Simon without ripping someone's guts out.

Enough about that. Gotta get my baby out to school in the morning and do something constructive around here. Since I've been sick the things I usually take care of have gone undone and the house is a wreck. It needs dusting, vacuuming and a clean aquarium, though not necessarily in that order. I don't want Larry doing those things because he works. He is so great about pitching in to help with the babies and I really don't want him to be overworked. The house is mine to care for.

So I guess tomorrow I'm back to it. Or later on today. Whichever.