Angry Mobs v. Governor Walker in Wisconsin (or how to run away from a fair fight)

Those that know me really well know I generally don't climb mountains but I would climb a mountain if it meant I could avoid a political debate.  I would circumvent the globe if it meant I wouldn't have to stand toe to toe with an over zealous protester who believes in their cause just enough to bring harm to others or worse yet, an ex-husband who morphed from an agnostic to a right winged conservative political pundit/candidate right before my eyes.  The very same conservative Republican candidate then committed a federal fraud landing him in jail for a term of 30 months. I fucking hate politics, the game, the facade, the labels placed upon us all.

I grew up in Oklahoma and as such, I was given the legacy bestowed upon me by me "Democrat" father.  I place the word Democrat in parenthesis as his version of Democrat does not jive with the culture of today.  I clearly recall my father being a hard working American man who would drive me through the northeast sections of Oklahoma City, pointing out the people who chose to sit on their porches instead of working.  He called them many names. He routinely used the "N" word and referred to them as porch monkeys. 

He told me his tax dollars were allowing them to live on their porches. I didn't understand his words at the time but I could taste his hate.  I rebelled against it, arguing with him in my uneducated 11 year old brain.  I insisted he could not understand their plight for he had not walked in their shoes.  He told me they didn't need shoes on the front porch. (Insert internal soul-killing death scream here.)

Living in Wisconsin for the past ten years, working in a politically conservative environment, I have hidden my Democratic roots.  I have been told many times, my actual philosophies align more with the Republicans and I know that is true when it comes to taxes, for God's sake, that was a real eye-opener moving up here.  But, I have held onto my beliefs because I cannot stand the soap box diatribes from those that would like to condemn homosexuals, women who have had abortions and people who need a helping hand from time to time.  I do not like to judge.  I do not care for people who judge and I believe in extending an open arm to those who find themselves in need of a little help from their friends.

But today, I am ashamed to call myself a Democrat.  I work hard for my money.  My company has been forced to cut raises, bonuses, incentives, holiday parties, monthly luncheons, technology upgrades and staff.  I have watched my co-workers walk to their cars with boxes in hand.  I have endured annual increases on health insurance, with this year being the worst - nearly 40%.  I am on my own, raising my children with no help, no support and my salary has regressed as raises diminish and health insurance costs rise. 

Today I witnessed no less than 15 schools in the state of Wisconsin shut down because the teachers took a day off to protest at the state Capitol in Madison.  Today I saw thousands of people demanding, expecting; nay,  feeling entitled to a set of rights I have never been given, never offered, never even considered as a possibility.  Today I am proud of our newly elected Governor because I believe sometimes you have to break necks to cash checks. 

I am not ready to call myself a R....R...Re....Rep...Republican. I don't like labels.  Never have, never will.  But I want to say to that group of cowardly politicians that fled the state to avoid the new sheriff in town, you have shown your true colors and they are yellow.  You were elected to stand up for us, not to run.  I'm not sure if I've made this absolutely clear but I hate politics and hate is the strongest word in my arsenal.  Imagine myself and my fellow senior managers catching wind of an uprising among the workers in our company.  Let's say the accountants are feeling under appreciated during their busiest time of the year and they are screaming at us for the high cost of health insurance.  They took pay cuts for two years straight and yet, they work harder than ever. But that is not going to happen because you know what?  They have a job.  They are employed and in this economy, they have accepted the sacrifices because the alternative is much worse.

Why then?  Why do all these people march on the capitol of my state and insist they should be treated better than I, better than my co-workers, better than most of the hard working American citizens, including my late, misguided, uninformed father?  Why?

I am at a crucible. My brain is telling me to write something my heart does not want to believe. Was my father right?  Was my registered Democrat, Reagan hating father spot on in one respect? Should people be entitled to that which another is not?  His characterizations were based on racist principles; those that my heart shall never embrace.

But today, it was not about race.  It was not about poverty or privilege.  It was about a man whom I formerly placed in the category of a cad.  Not my father, but the former Milwaukee County Executive, now Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.  I categorized him based upon my ex-husband's affiliation with him.  "He is one of them". Just another politician, well spoken, family man - probably stealing money on the side or sleeping with staffers.  I have met him, sat across a luncheon table with him, liked him and appreciated what he was doing for Milwaukee County but jaded I was.  Jaded, for sure.

Jaded no more.  For you, Mr. Governor sir, I respect.  And God only knows how utterly difficult that is for me to admit.

How to Save a Life - Part One

Many have speculated.  There has been much conjecture among the ranks. What happened to The Commando? Why did he miss school for a full week? Only a handful of people know the truth. I have sought to protect him; yet I realize what happened to him was a normal reaction to the circumstances of his life.

He was targeted, even as a toddler by his dad who was intensely jealous and insecure about the allegiance his son might possibly form with me. God forbid, a child should bond with his mother. It drove him insane when the wee child was sick and called for his mommy.  I remember him pulling my precious baby off my chest in an effort to dissuade him from needing me.  It went back to his own perverse childhood where he and his siblings were placed in the care of an unstable grandmother while his mom pursued her life goals. His older half-sister was selected by the drunken grandmother and repeatedly told her mother didn't love her.  Later, he and his sister were forced to choose sides in a bitter custody battle between his dad and mom. No coincidence, his older half-sister ended up in prison as well.

I knew what was behind his sickness, but he didn't.  When our son was a baby, Dad was busy cavorting about, having multiple affairs, impregnating an underage drug addict and running our business into the ground.  There came a point when I  discovered these affairs, I cut him lose, changed the locks, set his things in the front yard and told him to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

The separation seemed to force him to one of those crucibles in life. He wanted us, he wanted our family, he wanted to come back and make things right. The crack whore had an abortion and the yellow pages sales woman with the enormous fake breasts was summarily dismissed and he turned his life over to God.  But, we needed a change.  Let's break all these ties and move to Wisconsin.

Once we settled in, we became active in a local church, he enrolled in college full time (in spite of the fact I had just given birth to our twins and was trying to hold down my full time job) and he began to work his way into the ultra conservative, in your face, anti-everything-I-stood-for-political arena.  At the age of three, he had our son wearing Bush tee shirts and telling all of his preschool friends how his dad was going to go out into the world to defeat all those bad people who wanted to hurt daddy, i.e., the Democrats.

He surreptitiously spun tales of these criminals who wanted to take daddy's money away.  He twice ran for office, sending our son off to school on election days to tell everyone how his daddy was going to win; 100% certain his dad would win against those vile, monstrous Democrats. Can you imagine what his teachers must have been thinking? Then the little guy would come home to find out the world was not going to be saved because daddy lost. Does this mean the bad guys are going to take our money, daddy? Seriously, who does this to a child?

I didn't truly understand the depths with which he would go until I found out he convinced our son to switch his loyalties from the Packers to the Vikings soon after Brett Favre began wearing a purple jersey.  How can you be a life long Packer fan, then switch over to the sworn enemy then have the moral ineptitude to express that to your son as if it were the law?  Everything with Troy (Mr. Sunshine) was the law, in the eyes of his impressionable son.  The son he fought so hard to win over, he was even willing to tell him horrible tales of how his mom left him/them, didn't love him and how daddy would be the only person he could ever count upon subsequent to our split.

The manipulation had no end and the devastation on this impressionable, trusting young man had no end when the hero he knew as his father was convicted of felony fraud and sent to prison for two and a half years. Who are the bad guys again, daddy?

The little guy's counselor and I knew he was repressing his feelings, staying tough, being a strong guy, acting as if this had no real effect on him.  Yet on the Tuesday night before the Thanksgiving holiday, after a counseling session where he was asked to focus on his feelings and deal with his grief, he exploded.  I had made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner with garlic bread and broccoli.  All things he loved.  He walked into the kitchen and told me if I didn't make something else for him, something more along the lines of REAL food, something he could actually eat, he would tear our house apart and hurt both me and his sisters.

I immediately phoned the counselor to see what they had talked about that day.  As I was speaking to her, he was running through the house, demanding I go get him some food, knocking everything over he could find, breaking doors, pounding fists into the wall.  He wouldn't let me hold him, he wouldn't let me reach him.  I knew what was happening, the lid had finally blown off the pressure cooker and the anger had surfaced.  The counselor told me to take him to a behavioral unit for the treatment of children but I refused. 

We continued through Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with virtually the same behavior the entire time.  Even inviting his best friend's family over to celebrate Thanksgiving with us resulted in a refusal to wait for the prayer, a demand for rolls before anyone had been served and later, a fight with his buddy that ended with a precious painting by my dead brother being destroyed as he unleashed his anger on his best friend. By Sunday night, I had had enough.  I told him he needed help beyond what I could give him, he needed a higher level of care.  He responded with the same abject tone and vicious stare he had used on me for days....."you don't have the guts to take me there. I'll put my shoes on right now, let's go, let's see if you will really do it because I don't think you will.  I don't think you have it in you to do that.  C'mon, I dare you. I'm ready to go.  I will go anywhere to get away from you."

Summoning all my strength, I made up my mind.  If I call him on this.  If we get in that car, there is no turning back.  He is hurting and he won't let me help him; in fact, he is blaming his hurt on me.  I found that fortitude that comes from being a mom, the one where you are willing to put them through something painful to bring them back to you.  Just like the hernia operation when he was a baby, or fighting against their dad to have the girls get tubes in their ears to stop chronic infections.  A mother knows when it is time to take evasive measures. A mother knows when it is time to call in the Calvary and save their child.

But a mother could have never imagined the depths of pain she would experience in watching three men: An orderly, a nurse and a security guard, carry her baby boy away while hearing him wail for her to stop them and just take him home.  "I will be good now I promise, I will be okay, I didn't mean all those things I said, just take me home mommy, please don't leave me here."

Another nurse pulled me aside and watched as I fell to my knees, begging her to let me take him home.  She reminded me of the anger he had built inside of him as she grabbed my face, pulled it up, wiped my eyes and said, "you're doing the right thing.  If you don't intervene now, you will never be able to reach him when puberty hits.  This IS THE TIME to save him and you are strong enough to do it."

This was the same nurse who had interviewed us previously, a woman who had shocked me with her ability to write, as she didn't have any hands.  It was those very gentle, yet highly effective hand-less stubs,  placed upon my cheeks that allowed me to stand back up and face my own reality. I don't think I would have listened to any other person at that moment.  Only someone I knew had faced and overcome great challenges of her own had the power to lift me up.

But the next day, I stormed in there will my full will and might and demanded my son be released, after I discovered what they had done to him.

(To be continued)

And Justice Was Served

We arrived in court Monday morning, expecting it to be a short hearing in front of the judge to report on the status of our mediation. It was scheduled just prior to lunch; thus, my attorney shot down my expectation of a ruling. She said we should expect around 15 minutes.

For over an hour, the Honorable Judge Linda Van de Water sat and listened while simultaneously pouring over the fifty plus pages of copiously detailed documentation. She questioned Mr. Sunshine as to each specific area of expense and why he thought he didn't need to pay for it.  She listened to his excuses, his outright lies and his impenetrable fortress known as Troyland, the world in which he lives.

This particular judge has recently transferred to family court after a career spent in the criminal court system. She has a very low tolerance for people who do not accept responsibilities for their actions, people who refuse to see how their decisions affect others and people who are, well let's just say it like it is, criminals.

She finally broke when she noticed on his notes, he had written that he refused to pay for our son's broken retainer because it was not specifically broken at his home, but rather at school.  She interrupted his per se arguments to let him know exactly what she thought of  him. She told him she had heard enough of his excuses as it was abundantly clear he had an excuse for everything. The only excuse she bought was that he is a sorry excuse for a man who had "obviously caused nothing but heartache for me and for his children over the past five years" and she ruled in a way that said to the world, "your actions, your choices, do not diminish the responsibilities you have for your children".  Here sir, may I present to you your ass, on a silver platter.

She not only awarded me every cent of his share of past medical bills, counseling bills, hospital bills, orthodontic treatment and school fees but she went on to require him to pay 100% of the legal fees I had to incur in pursuing him. As if that wasn't enough, she asked my attorney how much she would be billing me for her services that very morning so she could add that in. She noted that he had never paid me the $5,000 he owed me from the sale of our home. I'm certain she took into account the fact that he had stolen $1.3 million dollars and still didn't pay me when he was out buying Cadillacs and taking three week cruises with his fiance around the Mediterranean.

Yes, Judge Van de Water did not like Mr. Sunshine. He now owes me approximately $16,000, which must be paid in thirty days or he goes to jail.  But wait, he will already be in jail.  Hmmmm.  How does THAT work? If he doesn't pay it by the time he gets out of jail, he goes right back in, except this time it won't be a federal prison "camp". It will be Waukesha County jail.  I hope he hones his prison skills before he faces county lock-up.

He further embarrassed himself in court by mentioning the handwritten counter-suit he had filed that very morning, asking me to appear in court to have our arrangement amended for me to be responsible for 100% of the kids expenses while he is up the river for the next 30 months. The judge would not hear his argument as this filing was not before her court; however, I'm certain she used that as one more weapon in her arsenal when she rendered her judgment.

I have a friend who graduated from MIT with a masters in mathematics. He is a veritable math savant, making him a high income earner. Yet, when he went through a divorce here in the state of Wisconsin, he had temporarily lost his job (through no fault of his own). He proposed to the court his intent on becoming a high school math teacher. He had always dreamed of using his talents to teach others. He spent hours volunteering at his son's school to facilitate this passion. He envisioned a life where he could teach during the school year and spend all summer with his two boys, being with them full time during their days with him. Noble right?

The court ruled that he was not allowed to pursue this most benevolent of ventures because he had proven his earning potential in the corporate world and his ex wife was accustomed to that level of living.  Therefore, he would be required to jump back on the corporate treadmill, denying countless high school children his gift, denying his children the precious time he could have given them, and denying himself of the dream he had carried throughout his lifetime. He ended up being a guest on the Dr. Phil show in an episode about men losing their rights in a divorce.

Contrast that to a man who lost his job during our divorce but chose not to look for another job, starting what was the second or third of many failed business ventures. He needed to do that in order to allow him the freedom to run for the state Assembly position he was pursuing. He lost that race of course, and stayed true to his pattern of ending up broke and without resources yet again.  That's when he went to work for the employer he would eventually steal from and well, the rest of the story you know.

The court system denied a man wanting to downgrade his earning potential for the benefit of thousands. What do you think they (the former criminal court judge) thought of Mr. Sunshine and his excuse that he would no longer be able to earn at the rate commensurate with his history due to the fact that he chose to commit a felony crime? She ruled that he would be responsible to pay child support to me based on his full earning potential for each and every month he is away, I am to receive $1,500.

What? You mean I won't have to deny the kids their orthodontic treatment or rip them out of their schools because I can't afford to hire someone to pick them up everyday?  You mean I will be able to pay for full time child care during the summers and perhaps even take them on a family vacation? You mean I won't have to explain away Christmas presents and birthday parties and dinners out and new video games because I won't be struggling to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads for the next two and a half years?

What a relief that is. What a blessing that is. Yes, it appears justice was served.

Those of you who have read the annuls of Mr. Sunshine know he will find a way to avoid paying me this money.  He acknowledges most of what he owes, yet he came to mediation with a settlement offer of $300 for half of our son's orthodontic down payment and another $300 to pay for his school lunches for the remainder of the year. It was a gesture of yes, I know I didn't pay you for half of our daughter's hospital bills but oh well, guess I just don't have the money, sorry. It's $600, take it or leave it.

Bite me.  Try $16,000 on for size.

His is in the process of selling his cars and his furniture, he will receive a security deposit back on his rental, he will continue to have meetings to keep his business generating revenue, he will drain his mother for legal fees and cell phones and probably even channel money to his church but will he, they (he and his mother who travels the world on extravagant summer vacations) give one thought to providing for his children? Well, you be the judge.

I'm done Mr. Sunshine. Your new home away from home, Waukesha County jail, awaits.






(To see all posts related to Mr. Sunshine, click on the "Mr. Sunshine with a Chance of Pain", link below.)

Random Bouts of Lucidity

Mama said there'll be days like this.  There'll be days like this, my mama said.  But I'm certain she could never have imagined her baby girl would grow up and have a day where she, I, that would be me......

.....sat at my desk and sent an email to the entire company, affiliates and cousin companies and possibly even relatives of employees, calling the President of one of our companies a repugnant, repulsive ass who had ruined everyone's morning by spewing his vile negative energy out to those of us who try to do good in the world. Thank you very much.  Why do I always have to be so ostentatiously flowery, wordy and colorful? What am I, the fucking Reader's Digest Guide to more Picturesque Speech?

My assistant sat next to me, begging me not to send it.  Beseeching me to sit on it.  To give it some time to allow the festering puss that was causing me to feel such righteous piety to subside. But alas, I was talking on the phone with a colleague who gave me just enough encouragement for me to hit the send button.  Only I had intended to keep it private, telling this man what I thought of him mono e mono.  I guess it's true what they say.  I really shouldn't try to type emails while talking on the phone. Suffice it to say, today, my crazy flag went viral.

Suddenly I was lauded as a hero. My phone lit up like a DJ giving away tickets to a Poison concert in 1987. My  lady balls were described within the company grapevine as massive beyond reasonable proportion.  The receptionist called me to tell me she loved me and passed along that the Chairman of the Board had walked by her desk and acknowledged my email as "impressive".   On the other hand my boss, the President of my particular company, called from his vacation slumber to plead with me to please, for God's sake, not send anything else. He promised me he would do what he could to save my ass and confided in me he agreed with everything I had written.  But in his interminable south side Chicago style he closed with, "God Dammit, couldn't you have talked to me first. Jesus H. Christ."

As the day went on, I began to feel increasingly worse.  As is true to my nature, I have never been able to tell somebody off without eventually regretting it.  It's not an "oh shit, I'm gonna lose my job" regret. It's more like a "you stooped to his level and fought negative with negative" regret. Just because he's a prick doesn't mean you have to be a cu... a cun...a cusp.  Okay so maybe I can tell off a very important, egotistical, jerk but I still can't say the C word.  I guess that makes me a wimp with a big mouth.

I am quite certain word of this will leak out within my marketplace and all those adversaries who despise this man will think of me fondly. It's a competitive market we are in and he is successful. He has enemies for sure.  Just a few weeks ago, this man was featured on Jay Leno's headlines for a photo that described him as "Making a Mark on Milwaukee" while he sat in a squatting position in a vacant parking lot. I mean somebody took it upon themselves to send that photo to The Tonight Show. People don't like him but that's because he is good at what he does.  He is a rainmaker.  And ironically, I have always liked him.  I have listened to others complain about him for years, even saw someone lose their job after reporting him to HR for abuse, not sexual, but verbal abuse. But for me, there's never been any discord. He has always been amenable to me.

To compound the irony, I came to work today feeling entirely focused, full of positive energy, ready to close my week by working my ass off. I plugged myself into my I pod and proceeded to enjoy some soothing classical music as I blissfully pounded away at my computer. Then his, did I mention vile, email arrived and production in my company came to a screeching halt. I read it, took my ear buds out and sat in amazement as I listened to the reactions from everyone around me.

But in my defense.  I blame it on Quentin Tarantino.  I watched his movie, Inglourious Basterds last night. I think, perchance I came to work ready to subconsciously "scalp me some Nazis".  Please don't infer that I would ever infer or construe this man as a Nazi.  That's not what I'm inferring at all. I just liked the movie and was a tad bit charged up, that's all. Sometimes these days, in these days of hormones and menopause, I wonder if I'm really sane at all.  Am I living my life with sanity and random bouts of lucidity or are the Inglorious Bastards in charge at all times. Is a menopausal woman the same thing as an Inglorious Bastard, or would it be more apropos to call us Inglorious Bitches?  I'm not proud of the moniker either way.

And so, I shall sit with myself this weekend, figuratively cowering in the corner.  This could be it for Zen Mama's career. Then what happens to my kids.  Daddy's going to jail, mommy's unemployed.  Oh joy.

Maybe I'll just have to figure out a way to write for a living.

Who’s Yo Mama?

I don’t like getting chain emails and I would rather have my fingernails removed than  listen to political diatribes from ignorant, racist assholes. So you can imagine my delight when I received a chain email containing all the above; and from my brother no less. I have told him time and time again to stop sending these. He knows I’m especially sensitive to political rhetoric after being married to a lying, cheating, thief who morphed into an ultra-conservative political junkie then back into a thief while still wound tighter than a latent homosexual preacher’s wife.

My brother always liked to pick on me. He loved to sit back and watch me slowly come to a boil. I think he’s doing it again. He has the same ornery look on his face as he taps the send button, wishing beyond all that is holy to see my face when I open and read it.

This one was particularly vulgar. It contained a series of photos of what could only be described as vintage porn - a young woman, posing in various black and white photos with captions asking the reader to guess who this mystery woman might be.

Is she a stripper, a porn star, a centerfold in a men’s magazine or perhaps even a hooker?

Each question is followed by another photo showing her breasts or shapely butt while wearing nothing but a pair of killer heels. After we have exhausted our attempts to guess who it might be, we are finally told it is a woman by the name of Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, otherwise known as Barack Obama's mother.

Let me pause for a moment to feign shock while holding my hand to my mouth.

**gasp**

Barack Obama has a mama named Stanley?

The dumbass who crafted this piece of drivel then goes on to imagine “the widespread play these pictures would be getting by the mainstream media if this had been John McCain's mother, or Sarah Palin's mother? But you won't ever see these pictures anywhere in a regular media outlet.”

No, of course not silly, here’s John McCain’s mother.



I was hoping to find a photo of Sarah Palin’s mom but came up empty handed. How can that be? You can easily access photos of Sarah Palin’s mother-in-law and photos of Sarah Palin’s daughter’s baby daddy’s mama but nothing anywhere on the interweb containing an image of this woman’s mother. Which begs the question, did Sarah Palin spawn in a petri dish from specially prepared organic matter? Is that why she can raise all those babies, run for office, kill large animals and still manage to have tidy hair and up to the minute lipstick?

Somebody needs to get on this right away. I think it’s much more important for us to find the woman responsible for this.



Seriously, I don’t get why it matters what anybody’s mama is or was. I’d like to think my kids can grow up to be leaders of the free world in spite of the fact their daddy may be going to the slammer, or we can’t afford to pay for their college or because their mama has had her own colorful, somewhat unconventional life. Like Obama, you take what you get and you make what you want.

The final shocking revelation in this insidious chain mail included a photo of Obama sitting with his biracial parents and the quote, “Oh, and keep reminding yourself that Obama is the first BLACK President of the United States. Yeah, right.”

In his first press conference as President-Elect, Barack Obama famously referred to himself as a mutt comparing himself to dog of impure breed. Many people thought he was disrespecting his own mixed race heritage. There is such irony here. Biracial children were always lumped in or categorized as Black. They were called mutts, zebras or mulattos. Historically, they were given the same legal treatment as blacks, which means the struggle against slavery, the Civil Rights movement and the global fight for African rights is theirs too but the President is not allowed to refer to himself as the first Black president?

Perhaps I am the ignorant one dear brother, because I just don’t get it. Please don’t send anymore of these emails. I wish to remain blissfully uninformed.