Mastering technology

I'm actually doing pretty good with my new cell phone. I've learned how to do several things on it, including sending pictures, checking facebook, and instant messaging back and forth. I got brave enough to look at some of the so-called "apps" on it, and maybe one day I'll actually figure out how to do a new ring tone.

The osprey family has not yet increased. I find myself filled with tension because one year (according to the site), one egg never hatched, and only two were laid to start with. Mama Osprey is on the nest at present, and I don't know if it's the heat, or if she's stressed or calling out to Papa, but her beak stays open and I can see a pink sliver of a tongue. I guess maybe I didn't know birds had tongues, but that's what it looks like. Anyway, a second egg should have hatched yesterday but apparently did not. A nest of eggs for one season is apparently called a "clutch," and the experts from the site say that the first-laid egg is usually the largest and most viable, with successive eggs being smaller and less likely to make it.

I finally got those packages mailed (well, esteemed spouse did the run to the post office). It makes me feel good to send little gifts to people, especially when the gifts aren't for any particular reason, "just because."

I told my husband yesterday that being with him has made me a better person because I always wanted to be someone worthy of his love, admiration, and respect. He got teary-eyed. But it's true. That's probably one of the greatest gifts of marriage or any long-term committed relationship. You can improve each other just by being a good person. Of course, the opposite can be true.

My sister Sheila called Saturday evening. She told me that her ex-husband, Jim the Child Molester, was out of prison. He served less than half his sentence, as best I can tell. He has returned to the town where she lives and is living with his mother, but she hasn't seen him yet. (She hopes not to see him, of course.) As a convicted sex offender, he has to be on a registry list, and he has to abide by a number of restrictions, but knowing him, he'll find a way around those rules. One of his daughters is making it easy for him. He molested her when she was a child, yet she is allowing him access to her own children now that he's out of prison. How long will it be before she regrets that decision?

Another bit of news that Sheila passed on is that Carla, the woman driving the car when Amanda was killed (as was Carla's daughter), is now in prison for having stolen from an elderly man she was supposedly helping to care for. She was sentenced to 30 years, but she likely won't serve all of it. As far as I'm concerned, she killed two 11-year-old girls in 1993 and never paid the price, so maybe they'll actually find a way to keep her in prison long enough that I can feel she is also being punished for Amanda's death. To those who would argue that her own daughter's death was punishment enough, I would argue back that she did not truly love her daughter. From everything I've learned, her daughter's step-father did not want her in their lives, and they treated her badly to begin with. Where Jessica is buried, they've never even put a tombstone. The only one who cares for Jessica's grave is my sister Sally, since where Jessica is buried is a few yards away from where Amanda is buried.

Times appear to be especially difficult down in LaSalle Parish at present. They cut the nursing staff at the prison where Sheila and Sally's husband Arthur worked, and now Arthur is driving to Winnfield to work. Sheila is not nursing but is working at the prison in some room where she watches monitors to make sure prisoners are not misbehaving. Sheila also says she thinks she may have had another little stroke not long ago, and she admitted she's still smoking cigarettes, "but I've cut way back," she says. Yeah, right. Let me congratulate you, sister, for prolonging your upcoming death.

In the good news, and yes, there does appear to be a little, Sheila is enjoying married life to her third husband. Maybe three will be the charm for her. I hope so. She could use a little happiness and stability. Now if only the economy would pick up. Her husband works the opposite shift at the prison, so at least they are both employed.

I told her that we would probably be visiting Louisiana later this summer, but I didn't tell her that I do not want to see her daughter Melissa. That girl has burned every bridge with me. And I don't want to see my brother's wife. I've never cared for her, and as time has gone on, I've grown less and less fond of her, to the point where just being in the same room with her sets my teeth to grinding. I wrote earlier of helping make each other better people. Debbie has made my brother into someone I'm not proud of. He doesn't engage in the behaviors that I find so offensive in her, but he isn't the man he could have been.

I continue to feel deep concern for my friend Ellie and her dilemma. If I were in her shoes, I don't know what I'd do or how I'd feel. One thing I'd likely do, though, is that if I did return to the classroom for another year at that school, I'd say "To hell with the rules, I'm just going to teach to suit myself!"