Posted on 01/01/2012 8:10:22 AM PST by Gen.Blather
I met some illegal Mexicans last night at a party. Several years ago I stayed with a couple of wonderful Mexican families in the Baja below California. These were well-off people. The homes, on average were beautifully tiled and some of them had mahogany inlaid walls, bookshelves and cabinetry that would cost a hundred-thousand dollars here. So, I’m guessing if they aren’t rich they’re very comfortable. The elderly not as well-off grandfather, while living in Mexico was receiving Social Security from the United States and owned a rent-free apartment in California which he used as his address to receive several forms of assistance checks from Californian agencies. He visited the apartment once a week to re-arrange things and make it looked lived in. He had a car, a Toyota Corolla that looked quite nice and had working air-conditioning. I gathered it was supplied as some form of assistance and he generally left it in California at the apartment. The apartment was about 1100 square feet and very livable. The grandfather told me most of entire complex, easily a 1000 units, were like him, on Californian assistance, but actually living in Mexico.
At the party were a couple of teenage boys from this family. Very nice kids. I’d be proud to have them as my own; diligent, hard working, trouble-free and much more adult than you’d expect from that age. They told me that they’d decided to go to high school in California instead of Mexico. They said that the (California) government gave them an apartment and they travel back to Mexico on the weekends. (I don’t know if they’re staying alone or if a family member is staying with them, but if I had to guess, they came alone.)
When I posted information on this family last time, Freepers angrily asked why I hadn’t reported them. Firstly, I was a well-treated guest. Secondly, this must be obvious to the casual observer. Even if I knew who to report it to in California, which I don’t, it is obvious that this is how it’s done. These people are only taking advantage of “benefits” put there for them. Not to avail themselves of these benefits would be like deciding not to take candy freely offered to you.
LOL, in dog years, I'm Greece.
You’re absolutely correct.
I screw up song lyrics all the time. Never had a good radio or stereo system so I usually make up the words to songs I can’t understand. I used to carpool the cheerleaders around and I’s sing all the wrong words (e.g., “Psychobabble” by AP Project—”socko-bammo-whammo.”) The cheerleaders liked my lyrics better than the right ones.
I’m not good at fish. Much better w/dogs and cats. *sigh*
Why?
I don’t remember I’ll need to check.
Thursdays have no identity. There an almost most Friday. And just past Wednesday.
Donderdag is Dutch for Thursday see.
I was looking for something else when I found this.
Ok, Sie können neben mir stehen, solange Sie die Temperatur nicht erwähnen.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2841262/posts
Zot thread.
No politics, just sheer nuttery
I lost two cats in one year. We haven’t had a dog since our last one
had to be euthanized over five years ago. My dad, who is not a dog
person, took it hard. He was the one who would take her for her walks.
Some not-dog people become dog people, after they meet the right dog.
Thank you all for your kind characterization of my beloved late husband, Sionn. He always put a bright face on things even if inside he was torn apart. Sionn did not have an easy life. Some of you know whereof I write. Besides the suffering common to both of us, Sionn bore a personal, private burden few ever saw. I caught glimpses of it from time to time. Then there were the health issues (spastic diaphragm, irritable bowel sydrome, hypertension and high cholesterol woes, perennial stress mostly from the idiocies of our State Legislators and the killer travel regime.
Despite all that, my beloved soldiered on in many arenas, mostly as a peace maker, an architect of consensus (which is sometimes nigh to impossible in engineering standards circles across many cultural paradigms. Sionnsar was the quick witted, kind, generous and compassionate soul many looked to for advice, solace and understanding. The only person he shorted was himself. Nag and cajole as I did (too often it seems) he didn’t follow my suggestions.
Ultimately he fell under the load, like the sculpture in Rhodin’s garden titled “Fallen Caryatid.” He took a stunning photograph of it on his last trip through Paris in mid May. I wish I had been more in tune with his failing heart. Mine now fails from missing him.
UTers are my family now. Thank God for Free Republic.
Jubal Harshaw's favorite art piece, according to Robert Heinlein in "Stranger in a Strange Land".
If you haven't read that book, you should. It's interesting from a number of aspects, and filled with love and tenderness; an odd gift from a similarly suffering curmudgeon.
Didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Sionnsar, but wish I had.
Everyone spoke so highly of him....
Our beautiful pets leave indelible marks on our souls. It hurts to lose them, and it never gets easier. No matter what, though, I wouldn’t have traded the good times with them for anything in the world.
Goodnight and sweet dreams....
I wish! Kathleen is feeling chirpy and doesn’t seem to care that it’s my bedtime.
Was not trying to critique your grammar. I’m on a short list of people who are expressly forbidden from doing so anywhere on the Intarwebs.
Check Amazon.com. You should be able to pick up most of Tolkiens stuff second-hand for a good price.
I hope he is just trying out a new perspective on life...
We are currently without fish. We were down to one, but Rainbow has gone on to the great beyond just a day or two ago.
I have had a eight year old gold fish. I kept it in a kitchen waste basket on the back patio for a week when I bought my new house.
Heinlein’s discussion of art in SIASL is perhaps my favorite passage in that book.
Regards,
You may find topics and items of interest also in the treatments that Niven and Pournelle gave "Inferno" and its recent sequel.
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