A Confusing Comment From Everyone's Friend, Anonymous

Been away for a while, and came in to find a comment from Anonymous on my last post about the frightening immaturity of those who would destroy society unless they could control it. The comment is interesting in that I really don't understand what Anonymous is trying to get across. So, here's my response:

Thanks for your comment, Anonymous.

Anonymous: You are so very lost in the false left right paradigm that unfortunately you will never be free from it.

Maleficent: What exactly is this false left-right paradigm in which I am so very lost?

Anonymous: People like you are so very pathetic and sad, I didnt even know what "teabagging" was until it was mentioned on CNN by an anchor as a joke about protesters, pornographic jokes like that just prove that the progressive left really is what those right wingers say they are
You are a sick, disgusting, failure as a woman and my generation of women who will be mothers and wives will be better off if you learn to have some self respect and class.

Maleficent: What is your point? I'm not quite understanding your point about my being pathetic, sad, sick, disgusting, and a failure of a woman, lacking self-respect and class, for writing a post about the very real lunatic fringe of immature and irresponsible individuals who would prefer to kill us and destroy our playground if they can't tell us how and what to play on it. That's a threat to all of us!

I also imagine that many didn’t know the sexual connotation of “teabagging” until it was pointed out on several news shows after being picked up from the internet. You may not be aware that Tea Party attendees embraced the nick-name of "tea-baggers" when the movement first began to organize local protests against President Obama's so-far non-existent tax increases on the middle class. A friend of mine, who still attends local Tea Parties, also still embraces the nick-name (though I consider myself a fiscal conservative, my friend and I agree to disagree in regard to this particular aspect of fiscal politics and I obviously do not support the Tea Party movement). If you are offended by its now-known sexual connotation, please feel free to refrain from using it. I am not the boss of you, nor am I talking about you in this post. Unless you would prefer to see me dead if I don't bow to your (or anyone else's) personal and extra-legal ideas about how society should be run. If that's the case, then I AM talking about you. After all, that anti-American threat is what the actual post, not the one you’ve made up in your head, is all about. Somehow I don't think that's the case, though the name-calling and assumptions about me seem somewhat immature, and I could be wrong.

Anonymous: While you scramble to put me in a category check off the minority, under thirty, urban, college educated, non-religious boxes.

Maleficent: You could be a kindly grandma from Tigard, Oregon, for all I know or care. The only thing I'm scrambling to do is figure out your point.

Anonymous: What kind of parent and wife are you that you would blog this way knowing that if the cyberbullying act gets signed, rick perry can sign an affidavit and have you arrested on federal charges to serve not more than 2 years in a federal lockup

Text of the bill
‘(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
HR 1966

Maleficent: I deny your accusation of cyberbullying. I have not “coerced, intimidated, harassed, or caused substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior”. Perhaps you are trying to instigate such behavior with your accusations and your unsupported description of me?

My blog consists of legitimate critiques of various issues that are important to me and to my family, so I am being the best possible wife and parent by highlighting these issues in order to improve life for myself, my husband and my children! In this particular case, my post highlights the immaturity and danger of those who would destroy what they cannot control. I love being an American, and I love living in the USA, and I resent those who would destroy it! I am acting in my family's best interests by pointing out these threats to our great country!

Recent case in point #1 - Scott Roeder
Recent case in point #2 - James von Brunn

If you can clarify your accusations and statements about my personal characteristics with specific examples, I will be delighted to address them.

Anonymous: So go ahead, say something bad about me, say something you feel will cause me emotional distress. Already by your blog post persons who you call "tea-baggers" could have you visiting a cell.

Maleficent: One more time: I do not know you. I don’t know anything about you except what you’ve written above. I certainly don’t know enough about you to insult you, nor do I wish to cause you emotional distress. Are you a fan of Rick Perry? Have you have attended a Tea Party or two? Did you read my post’s title, see the word “tea-bagger" or the name Rick Perry in there, then get all upset and posted without thinking or reading further? After all, had you actually read the post, you would have known that I was quoting another blogger’s post, excellent and with which I strongly agree, mentioning Rick Perry as the first to call for armed rebellion against the USA (Case in point #3 – what kind of person calls for armed rebellion simply because not everyone agrees with him or her? This is a threat to my country and to my family! And yours!) But, regardless of the mention of Rick Perry in the quoted section, MY post was more from the Orson Scott Card side (Case in point #4, another individual who would KILL because some people don't agree with his bigotry, a giant threat to America and therefore, to me and my family! And yours!) What is it? Are you a huge Orson Scott Card fan and responded offensively to my post on his behalf? Maybe you just don’t like the word “tea-bagger”? What? What? I truly don’t get your point! Help me out! First, though, I humbly suggest that you actually read posts prior to responding so that you can address concerns about the actual post and not the one you made up in your head that got you all angry.

Looking forward to hearing from you with some actual discussion points or at least a specific description or what it is about my post that put the bee in your bonnet!

Update: almost two months later - What, nothing? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Happy Independence Day - Party Rant

Long Time No Post!

Nigel and the kids and I returned from our trip to southern Germany a week prior to Independence Day and had to immediately start preparation for our U.S. Independence Day/Death of Jesse Helms fiesta here in Israel. We were having a party for several families from Nigel's place of employment and several families from the kids' school.

Although I do have a hard spot in my heart for WalMart and other big-box stores in the U.S., I was sorely wishing that there was one, just one, maybe a Target, here. It is NOT fun driving all the fuck over Israel just to get all the things we needed for the party. One place has the non-kosher hamburger meat (meat with flavor). One place has hamburger buns. One place has hot dogs that the kids will actually eat. One place has imports such as pickle relish, italian dressing, etc. One place has balloons. One place has streamers. One place has sparklers for the kids. Etc., etc., etc.

At any rate, we sent out about 20 invitations by e-mail, cleaned the house top to bottom, made lists and more lists of things to do, and worked our way through all the pre-party requirements.

As invitation responses started coming in, we started getting a bit freaked out. Not a single invitation was accepted without this: "We would love to come to your party. Can we bring so-and-so and so-and-so and their 20 children and dogs?" We started to suspect that someone at Nigel's work had been leaking the party out to everyone at work and there was the impression going around that our private party was actually a work-sponsored event! Fear ensued! Our house is only so big and we have only so many chairs!

The most ridiculous and disconcerting was this tale: Our best friends over here, of course, were coming, and her parents are in town, so naturally they were also invited - they're fun and very nice. When they arrived, no parents. I asked why and he told me that his SUPERVISOR at work, who neither Nigel nor I know and who was certainly NOT invited and who technically should not even have known about the party, instructed him to bring two of his co-workers and their families to OUR party. Since they knew we were freaking out about all the extra people who were coming, they decided to ask her parents to stay home. I was pretty pissed.

1) Where does this supervisor get off telling a subordinate who he will or will not take to SOMEONE ELSE'S party?
2) Why did our friend not inform said supervisor that a) this is not my party and I am uncomfortable taking people the hosts do not know and whom they did not invite, and b) who the fuck do you think you are telling me who to take to a private party?

I spent a lot of time blocking off access to our back patio area for several reasons. Reason One - the former residents of the basement apartment have still not come to get some of their crap and it is piled up in a corner of the patio waiting for them. Reason Two - same former residents used the "water feature" in the center of the patio as a dirty diaper storage area/trash receptacle. When they moved out, they did drain the water from it, but did not clean it out, leaving a two inch crust of shit along with shit-encrusted toys and trash in it. I am not willing to touch any of this stuff and have complained to the property management company to send someone out to clean and disinfect this, but have seen no results. The stink from this is so embarrassing that I did not want people hanging out on the patio. Reason Three - same former residents used the area behind the patio wall as a garbage dump and it is full of trash and broken toys, which are scattered all over. I have asked the management company to send someone with a pickup truck to pick up all this debris, since I am unwilling to load it into my car, but, again, have seen no results.

So, while I was making sure all the food was out on tables and readily available and Nigel was cooking hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken on the grill on the balcony (which was sparkly and clean, but empty of party people for some unknown reason), several party attendees decided to take down all my ribbons blocking access (it couldn't have been easy) and start setting up chairs and stuff and sitting outside all around the shit-fountain. Lovely. At one point, someone asked what the smell was. Ha! So I got to explain about the former residents and that I had blocked access to the patio for a FUCKING REASON, PEOPLE!

In addition to that, the patio area is all tile and is very slick when wet. I had bought bubbles for all the kids and had planned to have them blow them outside on the balcony where the tiles are more textured and less slick so that nobody would fall and crack their heads open at the party and had planned no water activities. However, one of the childless party attendees brought a huge bag full of water guns and water balloons, unbeknownst to myself or to Nigel. I went out to the patio and found myself deluged by a dozen water pistols while I watched kids standing in line at our water spigot waiting to fill water balloons. This activity descended into madness as the balloons ran out and kids decided to use my mop bucket and the kids' beach buckets to just fill up and dump on each other and on several of the adults.

There were thankfully no fatalities and no bloodshed, but my mop bucket and two of the kids' beach buckets were destroyed and The Lottery Winner ended up with a medium sized goose egg on the back of his head from slipping. Someone asked my why I let the kids play with water when the patio was obviously not suited for water activities. I rolled my eyes and explained LOUDLY that I did not know WHO brought the water guns and balloons, that I had brought some bubbles for the kids to blow on the BALCONY where it was safer, and that I had blocked access to the patio BECAUSE IT SMELLED BAD AND WASN'T SAFE FOR THE KIDS. The woman who brought all the water stuff did have the good manners to look abashed.

The punch line of the party was that we had been planning this since mid-May. Nigel's tools at work had been moving slowly toward a particular event, but that event kept getting delayed and delayed. You can guess the rest. Said event started becoming imminent the day we returned from Germany. As the week drew to a close and the 4th loomed, the event was confirmed. It would be necessary for Nigel to be at work at 2pm on Friday the 4th and to stay until about 2am on Saturday the 5th. The party time? Yes, 2pm to 6pm. Fortunately, Nigel was able to convince one of his co-workers, who wanted to take Sunday off, to load Nigel's tool at 2pm and Nigel would come at 4pm to take over in exchange for said Sunday off for the co-worker.

Poor Nigel busted his ass cooking all the meat and shoving some food into his face before he had to leave (Nigel's boss and his family were at the party and stayed the entire time - irony?) at 4pm. Everyone was pretty much gone by 7pm, except for two guests who very, very kindly stayed to help me clean up. At 7:15, the phone rang and Nigel informed me that there was a contamination issue and that his process was to be stopped and that he would be on his way home in just a few minutes! So, he missed half of his own party for NO REASON AT ALL!

At any rate, we turned out having over 50 people in our house. The food was great - most guests brought something and each new something was more delicious than the last. I think everyone had a good time. I will not be doing anything like this again for a very long time.