Don't you just love the attitude some people have? They are angered by others' happiness and try to ruin it simply because they can. How great. I hate it when people are two-faced. There are people in my life who should have the guts to tell me what they think of me to my face instead of being nice and waiting until I am gone to say mean things about me.
As much as I try to be nice to people, you would think they could at least return the favour. But, of course, they can't. I hate it when they are so controlling. That is something that really makes me mad. Everyone has a life. Their very own life. It is theirs, not to be subject to harsh dogma from merely another person. Of course, the government is a controlling factor that is reasonable. They don't control every aspect of your life, though, at least, not in America.
Whenever a person, like your mom, spouse, friends, or siblings, etc. tries to dictate in a Hitler-like fashion every detail of your life, that gets to be a bit much. So, if you would like to have your children, spouse, family, friends and everyone else in your life hate you with a passion, then try to control them completely. It's the soap-bar reaction. The tighter the grip you have, the more it slips away, whereas, if you just gently hold it, it will stay right nice, there in the palm of your hand.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Field of Daisies
(A Short Story)
NOTE: This is not the exact same as the way I originally wrote it, because I do not have the original copy with me. I am just going to paraphrase it, and stick to the original plot, but it may differ some from the original version, just for anyone who has read it and who reads this newer version. I hope you like it.
She was the sweetest girl in the world, Daisy, I mean. She could make you smile just with a "hello." I was lucky, quite blessed, to have her in my life, even for eleven short years. She stayed joyful, and strong, right up to the end, making even her much older brother (me) look like a baby. And here is the story I wish to tell as a tribute to her, and as a recollection of something that, in my opinion, was a miracle.
When she was diagnosed with leukemia, it was just three months before her eleventh birthday. She cried that day, after it was explained to her what "leukemia" meant. That was one of two times she cried during this struggle. Mom and I cried more. Mom said that maybe the reason she didn't get so upset was because she didn't understand, but I think it was just the opposite. Daisy knew that she could die. She accepted it and understood it fully. She was just braver than most. She knew that everyone had to die someday, and knew that if her time was nigh, then it was just the way that things were to play out. She knew God had a reason for it and she trusted in Him.
Whenever she cried the second time, it was in the hospital. The first chemotherapy treatment she had. She vomited and she was just really sick. She cried because she felt so bad.
When she lost her hair, I waited for a day when she was well enough to get out of the hospital for a while and I took her shopping. I know, a brother taking his little sister shopping. Spare me.
Anyway, she bought wigs. I spent nearly all of that week's pay check on wigs, but I didn't mind. She bought blue ones, green ones, blonde, brunette, red, pink, purple and even a multi-coloured one. And she actually wore them at the hospital. She entertained the nurses and her doctors during her entire stay.
On Halloween of that year, Daisy was extremely ill. She wanted to go trick-or-treating, though, so she dressed up as a scarecrow, saying "It's perfect, look how skinny I am now!" This statement amused her, but I hid my sadness. I pushed her around to all the nurses' stations and they gave her candy, which was often cough drops and such, considering it was a hospital. She had a lot of fun, though, and shared her treats with Mom and me.
On her birthday, we had a party and a few aunts, uncles, and cousins even showed up to celebrate with us. She had a cake and everything.
The day after her birthday, we got very grim news. She didn't seem to be getting any better. Her white count hadn't improved and the doctors estimated that she had six months to live. They said they would keep her in the hospital, to keep trying, unless we had any objections. We decided to keep trying.
One day, a few months after her birthday, I was at work, in the mechanic shop my cousin owned. The phone rang and somehow I knew it would be for me. I always expected this call while I was at work.
"David! It's for you!" Vinny, the cashier, yelled. I got out from under the car and slumped off into his "department." I picked up the phone.
"Hello? This is David."
A nurse was on the other end. "Umm....you need to come to the hospital. It's not good. Just hurry."
And I did hurry. I was just a few minutes too late, however. Mom was in hysterics, so the nurses sedated her. Daisy was still in the room. I bent and kissed her forehead. They came to take her out.
The next days were a blur. I had to make arrangements for the memorial service and the cremation. She wanted her ashes spread in the field behind the house.
At the memorial service, my aunt Linda read a poem she had written:
"Now that I am gone
From this world alone
Do not weep for me
For someday you shall see
Me again in a field of daisies."
Five years later.....
She hugs my leg as I brush my teeth. Then she yanks my shirt.
"Daddy, when are we going to go seen Granny?"
"In a few minutes, Gracelyn Daisy, just calm down," I laugh and swoop her up into my arms. "Off we go!" Leah, my wife, follows us to the car.
When we get to Mom's house, she pushes us away from the door, and toward the back of the house.
"You have to see it! You must see it!" Mom is ecstatic about something not yet apparent to me, Gracelyn, or Leah. When we get to the side of the house, Mom pushes us even faster toward the field, and she breaks into a run.
"Look David! Look Leah! Look Gracelyn! It's just like in Linda's poem!" I gasp. So do Leah and Gracelyn. There, in the field where Daisies ashes were spread, are the most beautiful, perfect daisies I had ever-and have yet-to see. A whole field of them.
AFTERNOTE: This is a work of fiction. The characters, plot, and even setting are not based upon anyone dead or living. This is an original work of fiction by the author, me, and if you copy it you will be in trouble with the law. So read and enjoy, but do not plagiarise or steal this story. Thank you.
NOTE: This is not the exact same as the way I originally wrote it, because I do not have the original copy with me. I am just going to paraphrase it, and stick to the original plot, but it may differ some from the original version, just for anyone who has read it and who reads this newer version. I hope you like it.
She was the sweetest girl in the world, Daisy, I mean. She could make you smile just with a "hello." I was lucky, quite blessed, to have her in my life, even for eleven short years. She stayed joyful, and strong, right up to the end, making even her much older brother (me) look like a baby. And here is the story I wish to tell as a tribute to her, and as a recollection of something that, in my opinion, was a miracle.
When she was diagnosed with leukemia, it was just three months before her eleventh birthday. She cried that day, after it was explained to her what "leukemia" meant. That was one of two times she cried during this struggle. Mom and I cried more. Mom said that maybe the reason she didn't get so upset was because she didn't understand, but I think it was just the opposite. Daisy knew that she could die. She accepted it and understood it fully. She was just braver than most. She knew that everyone had to die someday, and knew that if her time was nigh, then it was just the way that things were to play out. She knew God had a reason for it and she trusted in Him.
Whenever she cried the second time, it was in the hospital. The first chemotherapy treatment she had. She vomited and she was just really sick. She cried because she felt so bad.
When she lost her hair, I waited for a day when she was well enough to get out of the hospital for a while and I took her shopping. I know, a brother taking his little sister shopping. Spare me.
Anyway, she bought wigs. I spent nearly all of that week's pay check on wigs, but I didn't mind. She bought blue ones, green ones, blonde, brunette, red, pink, purple and even a multi-coloured one. And she actually wore them at the hospital. She entertained the nurses and her doctors during her entire stay.
On Halloween of that year, Daisy was extremely ill. She wanted to go trick-or-treating, though, so she dressed up as a scarecrow, saying "It's perfect, look how skinny I am now!" This statement amused her, but I hid my sadness. I pushed her around to all the nurses' stations and they gave her candy, which was often cough drops and such, considering it was a hospital. She had a lot of fun, though, and shared her treats with Mom and me.
On her birthday, we had a party and a few aunts, uncles, and cousins even showed up to celebrate with us. She had a cake and everything.
The day after her birthday, we got very grim news. She didn't seem to be getting any better. Her white count hadn't improved and the doctors estimated that she had six months to live. They said they would keep her in the hospital, to keep trying, unless we had any objections. We decided to keep trying.
One day, a few months after her birthday, I was at work, in the mechanic shop my cousin owned. The phone rang and somehow I knew it would be for me. I always expected this call while I was at work.
"David! It's for you!" Vinny, the cashier, yelled. I got out from under the car and slumped off into his "department." I picked up the phone.
"Hello? This is David."
A nurse was on the other end. "Umm....you need to come to the hospital. It's not good. Just hurry."
And I did hurry. I was just a few minutes too late, however. Mom was in hysterics, so the nurses sedated her. Daisy was still in the room. I bent and kissed her forehead. They came to take her out.
The next days were a blur. I had to make arrangements for the memorial service and the cremation. She wanted her ashes spread in the field behind the house.
At the memorial service, my aunt Linda read a poem she had written:
"Now that I am gone
From this world alone
Do not weep for me
For someday you shall see
Me again in a field of daisies."
Five years later.....
She hugs my leg as I brush my teeth. Then she yanks my shirt.
"Daddy, when are we going to go seen Granny?"
"In a few minutes, Gracelyn Daisy, just calm down," I laugh and swoop her up into my arms. "Off we go!" Leah, my wife, follows us to the car.
When we get to Mom's house, she pushes us away from the door, and toward the back of the house.
"You have to see it! You must see it!" Mom is ecstatic about something not yet apparent to me, Gracelyn, or Leah. When we get to the side of the house, Mom pushes us even faster toward the field, and she breaks into a run.
"Look David! Look Leah! Look Gracelyn! It's just like in Linda's poem!" I gasp. So do Leah and Gracelyn. There, in the field where Daisies ashes were spread, are the most beautiful, perfect daisies I had ever-and have yet-to see. A whole field of them.
AFTERNOTE: This is a work of fiction. The characters, plot, and even setting are not based upon anyone dead or living. This is an original work of fiction by the author, me, and if you copy it you will be in trouble with the law. So read and enjoy, but do not plagiarise or steal this story. Thank you.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The Black Dahlia, Elizabeth "Betty" Short
She was born on 29 July, 1924, to Cleo and Phoebe Short. They lived in Massachusetts, in the Boston area, until the stock market crash of 1929, which resulted in Cleo's disappearance. He had built miniature golf courses, but in 1929, lost his job. He abandoned his car on a bridge in 1930, and was believed to have committed suicide. Later, Betty would catch up with him.
In 1930, Betty's mother, Phoebe, relocated her five daughters to an apartment in Medford, Massachusetts, where Phoebe worked as a bookkeeper.
Due to Betty's asthma and a bout of bronchitis, she went to stay with relatives in Florida for the winter of 1940. She continued to spend the colder months there and the warmer ones at home in Medford for three years, until she was nineteen. Then, she moved to Vallejo, California to live with her dad, who was alive and well, working at the Mare Island Shipyard in the San Francisco Bay.
In later 1943, the two moved to Los Angeles, but fighting resulted in Betty's move to Camp Cooke (present-day Vandenberg Air Force Base), near Lompoc California, where she worked at the post exchange. She was arrested 23 September 1943 for underage drinking and the juvenile authorities sent her back to Medford, Massachusetts. She didn't stay in Medford, however, but went back to Florida and visited Medford occasionally.
In Florida, she met Major Matthew Michael Gordon, Jr., a decorated U.S. Army Air Corps officer who was assigned to 2nd Air Commando Group and was training for deployment to China Burma India Theatre of Operations. She told her friends that Gordon had proposed marriage via a letter while he was recovering from airplane crash injuries in India. She accepted his proposal, but unfortunately, he perished in an airplane crash on 10 August, 1943, before he could come home.
In July of 1946, Betty returned to Los Angeles to visit Army Air Corps Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickling, an old boyfriend she had met in Florida during the war. Fickling was stationed at NARB, Long Beach.
For six months prior to her death, Betty remained in southern California, mostly in the Los Angeles area. She lived in temporary homes, like hotels, apartments, and rooming houses, never staying more than two weeks.
Her body was found in the Leimant Park area of LA on 15 January, 1947, by local resident Betty Bersinger, who was taking her child for a walk. It was in a vacant lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue, between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street. Her body was severely mutilated, severed at the waist and drained of blood. Her face was slashed in a Glasgow grin, cut from the corners of her mouth toward her ears. Her body had been washed, cleaned, and "posed."
The autopsy stated that she was 5'5" tall and 115 pounds (In life she probably weighed more, the lower weight is likely due to her body being drained of blood.), had light blue eyes, brown hair, and badly decayed teeth. There were marks on her ankles and wrists from rope, suggesting that she was either tied up, spread-eagled or hung upside down. Evidence shows she could have been forced to eat feces.
Her skull had not been fractured, but there was bruising on the front and right side of her scalp with a small amount of bleeding, which points to blows to the head. She had a concussion.
The cause of death was blood loss from the lacerations on her face and from shock due to concussion of the brain.
On 23 January, 1947, the killer called the editor of the Los Angeles Examiner, worried that the newspaper coverage of the murder was tapering off. He offered to mail personal belongings of Betty's to the Examiner editor. The next day, a packet arrived at the newspaper office, containing Betty's birth certificate, business cards, photographs, names written on pieces of paper, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen on the cover. Hansen, who was the last person to see Betty alive on 9 January, became the prime suspect.
The killer wrote more letters to the Examiner, calling himself "The Black Dahlia Avenger."
On 25 January Betty's purse and one shoe were found in a trash bin near Norton Avenue.
More than 50 men and women have confessed to the murder. There were originally around 200 suspects, but it has been narrowed down. Every time an article, television program, movie, or book about Betty Short comes out, the LAPD gets more "tips" and confessions to the murder. None have showed promising.
Elizabeth Short was buried in Mountain View Cemetery, in Oakland, California. Her murder remains unsolved.
NOTE: This was written because I am very disturbed by Betty Short's story, and I thought that writing it out might help to get some of the horrible images this case conjures up out of my head. In consideration of the reader, I decided not to post any of the various gory pictures of her body on this blog. If you wish to see those, then just go to any search engine, type in her name, click "images" and they will likely be the first to appear. But, as a forewarning, once you see this images, they may not easily get out of your mind. They aren't very gentle to the eyes, or the spirit.
I am not trying to be mushy or anything, but this is just a crime that truly chills me. The thought of someone being tortured as this girl was is very upsetting. Haunting. To think that things like this happen every day, all over the world is just.... troubling, for lack of a better word. Deeply troubling.
References: Wikipedia, E! channel 20 Most Horrifying Celebrity Murders
In 1930, Betty's mother, Phoebe, relocated her five daughters to an apartment in Medford, Massachusetts, where Phoebe worked as a bookkeeper.
Due to Betty's asthma and a bout of bronchitis, she went to stay with relatives in Florida for the winter of 1940. She continued to spend the colder months there and the warmer ones at home in Medford for three years, until she was nineteen. Then, she moved to Vallejo, California to live with her dad, who was alive and well, working at the Mare Island Shipyard in the San Francisco Bay.
In later 1943, the two moved to Los Angeles, but fighting resulted in Betty's move to Camp Cooke (present-day Vandenberg Air Force Base), near Lompoc California, where she worked at the post exchange. She was arrested 23 September 1943 for underage drinking and the juvenile authorities sent her back to Medford, Massachusetts. She didn't stay in Medford, however, but went back to Florida and visited Medford occasionally.
In Florida, she met Major Matthew Michael Gordon, Jr., a decorated U.S. Army Air Corps officer who was assigned to 2nd Air Commando Group and was training for deployment to China Burma India Theatre of Operations. She told her friends that Gordon had proposed marriage via a letter while he was recovering from airplane crash injuries in India. She accepted his proposal, but unfortunately, he perished in an airplane crash on 10 August, 1943, before he could come home.
In July of 1946, Betty returned to Los Angeles to visit Army Air Corps Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickling, an old boyfriend she had met in Florida during the war. Fickling was stationed at NARB, Long Beach.
For six months prior to her death, Betty remained in southern California, mostly in the Los Angeles area. She lived in temporary homes, like hotels, apartments, and rooming houses, never staying more than two weeks.
Her body was found in the Leimant Park area of LA on 15 January, 1947, by local resident Betty Bersinger, who was taking her child for a walk. It was in a vacant lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue, between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street. Her body was severely mutilated, severed at the waist and drained of blood. Her face was slashed in a Glasgow grin, cut from the corners of her mouth toward her ears. Her body had been washed, cleaned, and "posed."
The autopsy stated that she was 5'5" tall and 115 pounds (In life she probably weighed more, the lower weight is likely due to her body being drained of blood.), had light blue eyes, brown hair, and badly decayed teeth. There were marks on her ankles and wrists from rope, suggesting that she was either tied up, spread-eagled or hung upside down. Evidence shows she could have been forced to eat feces.
Her skull had not been fractured, but there was bruising on the front and right side of her scalp with a small amount of bleeding, which points to blows to the head. She had a concussion.
The cause of death was blood loss from the lacerations on her face and from shock due to concussion of the brain.
On 23 January, 1947, the killer called the editor of the Los Angeles Examiner, worried that the newspaper coverage of the murder was tapering off. He offered to mail personal belongings of Betty's to the Examiner editor. The next day, a packet arrived at the newspaper office, containing Betty's birth certificate, business cards, photographs, names written on pieces of paper, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen on the cover. Hansen, who was the last person to see Betty alive on 9 January, became the prime suspect.
The killer wrote more letters to the Examiner, calling himself "The Black Dahlia Avenger."
On 25 January Betty's purse and one shoe were found in a trash bin near Norton Avenue.
More than 50 men and women have confessed to the murder. There were originally around 200 suspects, but it has been narrowed down. Every time an article, television program, movie, or book about Betty Short comes out, the LAPD gets more "tips" and confessions to the murder. None have showed promising.
Elizabeth Short was buried in Mountain View Cemetery, in Oakland, California. Her murder remains unsolved.
NOTE: This was written because I am very disturbed by Betty Short's story, and I thought that writing it out might help to get some of the horrible images this case conjures up out of my head. In consideration of the reader, I decided not to post any of the various gory pictures of her body on this blog. If you wish to see those, then just go to any search engine, type in her name, click "images" and they will likely be the first to appear. But, as a forewarning, once you see this images, they may not easily get out of your mind. They aren't very gentle to the eyes, or the spirit.
I am not trying to be mushy or anything, but this is just a crime that truly chills me. The thought of someone being tortured as this girl was is very upsetting. Haunting. To think that things like this happen every day, all over the world is just.... troubling, for lack of a better word. Deeply troubling.
References: Wikipedia, E! channel 20 Most Horrifying Celebrity Murders
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Acai Berry Scam
Has anyone seen the ads that say "1 Trick Of A Tiny Belly weird old tip" or the like? Well, they are a scam. I just found out from www.searchfactions.com that if you click on the ad, then read it, click try it out and do all that, then they will completely gyp you. They will send you the useless acai juice FOREVER and charge you EIGHTY DOLLARS A MONTH! They make it really hard to unsubscribe, too. So, don't click on those things! Save yourself the trouble. Just do this if you want to lose weight- eat less, exercise more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)