Trudging On
I’m really not so good at the waiting game. When there is a crisis I want to know what to do RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW. So sitting on my hands and waiting for the immigration attorney to formulate the game plan is kind of killing me. My Canadian is in a similar funk. But where mine is more anxiety and restlessness, his tends more to the depressive sort that involves a lot of self-pity and wallowing and “I’m gonna go eat worms” hysterics. As you can imagine, listening to it does little else but increase my anxiety and restlessness. This is a bad combination.
I totally know what PhD Smiley would say right now: what about trying some deep breathing?
How about trying to remove my molars with a potato peeler? That seems like it would do about as much good! I feel like an ass for thinking that, but that’s how it is right now.
What about you? What do you do in a crisis? Are you calm and measured, or psychologically catastrophic?
Watching: Lost - Season 5
Reading: “City of Glass” by Cassandra Clare
Playing: Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (SO beautiful….)
Your “shake ya’ ass” link of the day.
Here’s a video of Ozomatli’s latest. I don’t love the video, but the song is extremely danceable.
C’mon. Dance in your chair. You know you want to.
~Ellie
Filed under Headphones, Run for the Border | Comment (0)Hurricane Dean, Elvira Arellano, Peru and other ramblings.
Hurricane Dean is set to hit Mexico hard. I can’t help but feel guilty about this, that while I’m glad it’s not coming for Houston, I can’t help but worry about my people in Mexico. Their disaster infrastructure is better than say, Peru’s (more on that below), but not as good as the U.S.’s. We can just hope it’ll weaken a bit before it hits.
(Warning: The content below is MY opinion, not Morgan’s. Please direct hate mail - even though I much prefer love notes - to Ellie. Thank you.)
As for Elvira Arellano…if you don’t already know who she is, she’s an illegal immigrant who has a son that was born in the US. When her deportation order came in, she took refuge in a Chicago church for a year and she ended up being an activist for illegal rights for parents of citizens.
This from the link: “Elvira Arellano was arrested before 3 p.m. outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church on L.A.’s historic Olvera Street where she had been speaking to reporters [emphasis mine], said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago where she sought sanctuary.”
My thoughts?
You. Dumb. Ass. One, the INS/ICE/Homeland Security/Whatever was pretty much leaving you alone. You were pissing them off, to be sure, but you were still in the same country as your kid. Two, it takes a special kind of hubris to go to LA and shoot your mouth off for reporters. That’s just screaming “Deport Me!” Three, props for at least transferring legal guardianship of your child to a resident so that he can stay in the US, but so glad your cause is more important than your kid. Because even though you are bringing a voice to illegal parents of citizens, you will ultimately end up in Mexico, and your kid will be in the US and he’ll probably miss you.
And if you think that once you’re out of the US that it’ll be easy to get back after you spent a year thumbing your nose at the government, I have this bridge I’d love to sell you. People in Mexico and Central America who haven’t spent time telling the US to kiss their ass would love to tell you all about how easy it is to get in. Hell, let’s ask my Mother In Law. Even getting a visitor’s visa is a bitch.
(A little more detail about her arrest can be found here, but links to Spanish-only website.)
You know, I’m all for causes. I really am. I have several of my own. But my causes don’t trump my children. Ever. You want to deport my husband back to El Salvador (even though he’s legal until 2011, and will be naturalized before then, thankyouverymuch.) okay, fine. We’ll all go with him. It’s not as nice as living in the US, and we’d miss our internet connection and cable and AIR CONDITIONING, but hey, at least we’d all be together.
Having a martyr for a mother isn’t the same as having your actual mother around, methinks.
I get what she did, I really do, I just wouldn’t do the same. Sure, I like to complain about my children and the fact that they seem to find joy in driving me insane, but ultimately, I’d be crushed if I were separated from them for too long. Especially if it were for something of my own doing.
*shrug* But that’s just me. Milage may vary.
As for Peru…things are baaaaaaaaad there. If you can afford to give a little to the Red Cross for disaster relief there, please do. The Preuvian government is having a hard time coping with the earthquake. There are a lot of people there that haven’t eaten since the earthquake, and children and the elderly have been particularly devastated.
And now we will return you to your regularly scheduled snarking after that huge blob of screediness.
~Ellie
Filed under Run for the Border | Comments (3)Don’t be surprised when strawberries are $9.00 a pint.
This just in from the government. They’re stepping up immigration policies by levying heavy fines on employers who hire illegals, even if the employers didn’t know that the SSNs they were given were bad. Nice.
This has the potential for destroying farms that hire seasonal migrant workers.
You know, I understand that we need to keep terrorists out, but if everybody in the government could just get their head out of their asses for a second and come up with a workable immigration policy, we wouldn’t see farmers freaking the fuck out because their entire workforce can’t work. I’m sure people will start to push for immigration reform once produce prices skyrocket. Gah.
Filed under Run for the Border | Comments (14)