Invisible Ties

Last week as I glanced at the Kansas City Star, I was met with the headlines:

Missouri Makes top 10 of most miserable states. 

 I was immediately inundated with questions popping into my head.I mean...really..It's a banner headline in a Missouri newspaper and they are touting it as a "top ten" achievement.  Are they under the impression that this is a GOOD thing?


 Anyway, as I was saying...I have questions.

1.  Was there a contest to enter so the states might  win the"Most Miserable" title and is there a prize?


2.  What qualifies a state to be deemed miserable? 

3. While it's true I live in Kansas, I am just 5 minutes away from the Missouri side of town...does this impact me in some way? Could the Missouri misery spill over to Kansas?

4.  Where did Kansas rate and did it lose points for sharing a town with Missouri?

Most of my regular readers know that I have moved multiple times in my life.  I think I am currently at 39 moves, give or take, .... but 21 moves for sure since my marriage 42 years ago.  So as you might conclude, I have lived in numerous states and have conflicting loyalties.  I have lived in several cities within Missouri and for the life of me,  I never remember feeling miserable.  OK..maybe a tad miserable with morning sickness when Kiddo #2 was born while living in Independence,  Missouri but I can hardly blame the state for that.  I would go so far as to say I have had very pleasant experiences in the state so...really?...how miserable can it be?

Upon further research I find that this" less than flattering" title is a result of a poll done by the Gallup Healthways organization called State of American Well Being. The word MISERABLE isn't exactly what the pollsters had in mind, when creating their study, I would guess.  However, every article I have read related to this poll does refer to M word.  If you would like to see the report in it's entirety you can click here.  There is a link on their website so you can download the full report...but here is the result of the study.

Some climbing and some sliding in a year's time.

After 178,072 people were surveyed  from every state in the Union..these are the winners and/or losers.
As it turned out Kansas came in 20th from the top for well-being....OR if you are a "half glass empty" sort of person we are 30th up from being the most miserable state of the Union.  West Virginia was the winner of that title.

Thought Number One:  Isn't Misery in the Eye of the Beholder?

I looked over the lists and see many of the states I have resided in such as Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois and not one of them has ever taken the top prize for being the least miserable place to live.   In fact, four of them are ranked next to each other.  HMMM...maybe I am so used


Doesn't "MOST" mean they won the
greatest number of points in some catagories?

to being moderately miserable that I have become numb to it....but then when I lived in Iowa and Nebraska wouldn't I have felt the surge of being "less miserable"?  If, so it went unnoticed. 

It could be said if you factor things like longevity, health, workplace safety, job availability, economic climate, and such that "on paper" one state might appear better than the next but is that what a person would need to have a sense of  them well-being?  If we are talking about how stable and secure, or how happy and content a person feels about the place they live in...do any of the hard statistical facts really matter?

How can a study prove statistically why  people (like my husband and I) would leave Texas where it is warm and sunny to live in Kansas*...where it looks like this today...



*Note:  It has already been established at this point that I am not good at picking the "winner" states.

At this point ....you doubt my sanity don't you?

BECAUSE...part of what makes us feel a sense of well being is being near our daughter, son-in-law and grandsons. 

Thought Number Two:  The Ties that Bind

I am on most days very happy in Kansas but this isn't the place that all my ancestors before me made their mark.  I am a relative newcomer to this state so while I am content to live here, I also don't have a firm ties that would keep me from ever moving if my children or grandchildren moved out of the area. Conversely, I wouldn't badmouth the state as it provides me with a safe, decent place to live where I don't worry for my safety. It rankles me a bit when people make negative, stereotypical, comments about the Midwest.

As with most things there are both the good and the bad to every state, province or country a person would choose. 

BUT... back to my point that some people's love of "their" homeland isn't hinging on statistics of how many hospitals or parks are in a certain geographical area... some of the people I have met have such a deep unshakable bond to this state because this is where their family history lies. It is hard to quantify why people are attached to an area. 

Take for example my friend Christi. I have talked about her before to those of you that have been reading my blog for awhile.  She is the friend that died last September while waiting for an organ donor to give her some new lungs.  Christi loved Kansas like no other person I have met.  She loved this state with every ounce of her being. She grew up near the Flint Hills and found a beauty there that most people just can't see in the flat plains of the Midwest.

There is a certain beauty if one goes looking for it but it's easily overlooked in the plainness of the prairie. 

Flint Hills Photography :: James Nedresky photographer --link to website

Christi spent a lot of time in the Flint Hills.  Once she and her husband went hiking in the hills until after dark. They laid down in the tall grass and looked  up at the stars.  She referred to that night as "her starry, starry night"  It was there that  her ashes were scattered.

Christi would have been offended at being ranked 20th...although she might of laughed at the 43rd ranking of Missouri.

The Truth Comes Out

Thought Number One:  The Ties to the Tin Man

For my regular readers, you are aware that I am currently living in Kansas.  It isn't as bad as many of you might imagine.  OR...depending on the quality of your imagination, maybe it is. Either way, after 21 moves, this is where I landed (for now) and I rather like it here.

Is this how people  think Kansas looks?

A picture of Kansas without a tornado in the sky.

I think a certain movie and it's implications on how people view Kansas is interesting (bizarre).  The Chamber of Commerce reports that the NUMBER ONE question they are asked by people not familiar with Kansas is "Is it anything like the Wizard of Oz?"  I find this incredulous that people are that...I am struggling for a word...but stupid comes to mind.

The  original book written by L. Frank Baum, came off the presses on May 17th, 1900.  Over the years it was mostly equated as a children's book but  there have been numerous theories that take alternate views.
One of the more prevalent theories being that the book was a satirical writing taking aim at the politics of the time. L. Frank Baum's mother-in-law, a suffragette of the era, Matilda Joslyn Gage, encouraged him to write his stories down.  In every one of Baum's stories the protagonist was female. There are a number of veiled references in the books to the author's views on feminism.


As for me, I think it is a cute story. Upon a recent visit to the OZ Museum,...yes, there is one and ...yes I went there,....I am sure there were under lying messages within the books but for me...they are just fun stories.

Which...or should I say "witch" brings me to the point of my post today....having some fun with the "Wizard of Oz:.  Frankly, it's my duty, as a Kansan, to work the Oz theme into my blog on a regular basis. So far I have done a pretty good job of it.


My latest "pull out an Oz theme"....came as a result of me following a blog challenge.  Nickey and Mike over at the blog We Work For Cheese, started a 30 Day Photography Challenge.  I don't tend to join in photography challenges as I prefer to use clip art and drawings to illustrate most of my posts.  I do, however, post various graphics in their comment section from time to time,  to tie into "whatever they are photographing that day".

A few days ago, the theme was "Steel".  After giving it some thought...very little actually, I came up with the idea of this:


Thought Number Two: My version of "When Dorothy Met the Tin Man".

As Dorothy approached the forest clearing,
The faintest squeaking, she kept hearing.
Following the barely whispered "squeeaakk", 
She left her path to take a peek.

At the base of a ponderous tree,
a rusting man she came to see, 
I kid you not!..I do not lie*
a rusting metal-man, she spied.

*OK, just to be clear..I do lie.  I lie like a rug but in this case...I am, totally, telling the truth.

Dorothy, being extremely bright,
quickly sized up the Tin Man's plight.
Within her purse, she had oils and potions.
Kansas girls carry tons of lotions.*

*Sorry, again, I have to clarify.  We carry a crap load of skin cream as Kansas girls hands are like sandpaper.  

Within moments of Dorothy's care,
 the Tin Man's words spewed into the air.
"What the HELL?" The metal man cried.
"What kind of idiot altered my hide???"

A much better choice over  tin would be brass!
The tinsmith obviously had his head up his ass.
Even monkeys get brass for their balls, so I'm told.*
Getting less than monkey balls seems rather cold.

*Cold as in the old adage, Freezing the balls off a brass monkey.


He could of used steel, if he he had half a brain.
The galvanized type would have withstood the rain.
The stainless type would have remained ever shiny.
The joker that did this, had his head up his hiney!

I know you are doubting this version, I'm telling.
But it's the truth...the Tin Man was yelling.
Yelling obscenities and words that were BAD.
Years standing rusted had left him quite mad.

The movie cleaned it up nicely, to make it PG.
It's all about ratings, I am sure you can see.
The smithy got sued for his poor choice of tin.
The Gold Man is now sporting the results of his win.*


*The current skin he is in....is 24 carat...Tin/Gold Man's Personal Injury lawyer did a great job.


If you don't believe my version of this be sure to contact the Gold Man.

I would tell you to have the witch verify it but alas, she can't take your calls.

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There is NO NEWS in Kansas

 Yesterday, I was listening to the 5:00 local news as I usually do. It started in the normal manner. First a few headlines about traffic, then a little about weather, then things got weird.  The next FOUR news stories were all out of Florida.  This wouldn't be odd if I lived in Florida, I suppose.  The fact that I live in Kansas made it feel a little surreal. 

Did I accidentally step  into some space and time warp kind of thing and I am now in Florida?

Did Kansas run completely out of news of any kind and had to borrow?

Are Kansas and Florida playing tag and Kansas just yelled, YOUR IT?

I am not sure why we are running just Florida news but here are some news stories if you aren't lucky enough to have your state borrowing from FL. too.  (Sorry, to my Florida readers, as this probably isn't news to you. The next time Kansas acts up and has something to talk about you can borrow from us.  You shouldn't have to wait long.  We have people acting badly here pretty regularly)

The First Story-----Aide Locks Reporter in Closet During Fundraiser

  An aid to Joe Biden locked a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel into a closet  for hours during a fundraiser to keep him from interacting with the guests.  The fund raiser was a $500 a-head  dinner to raise money for the 2012 elections.

Spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said the decision to hold the local reporter, Scott Powers, was a mistake.

As the unaware  invitees dined on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and Gorgonzola cheese, grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps, last week, the veteran reporter was locked away. They let him out to listen to Vice President Biden  and Sen. Bill Nelson speak and escorted him back into the closet for the duration of the event.

The event was held at the Winter Park, FL home of Alan Ginsburg, who was shocked when he found out of the reporter's situation. 

Note:  One of the interesting things about this is, while Scott was in the closet he emailed his office with
"It sounds like a nice party out there".  REALLY, how calm is this guy?  Most people would have been losing their minds. 


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370371/Vice-President-Joe-Bidens-staff-lock-journalist-closet-stop-talking-guests.html#ixzz1I6yUYnco


The Second Story---- Teen Pistol Whips Mother to Get New Car

A teenaged girl, Rachel Anne Hachero, threatened to kill her mother after she refused to buy her a car.
Rachel had her eye on a 2004 Nissan 350Z that her mother wasn't willing to purchase, so the girl took a stronger tact.  She confronted her mother with a 9mm gun, pistol whipped her head, and then pointed the gun at her threatening to shoot if she didn't cooperate.   The daughter forced her mother to the Fort Myers, FL Nissan dealership to sign for the car.

The mother has been quoted as not wanting to press charges as her daughter is an Ivy League college, hopeful and this might hurt her future. (my guess is, oh yeah, it will be a deterrent for sure)

Police say that the mother had found the gun, drugs, and drug paraphernalia in her daughter's purse.  (Hey, mom, how many clues do you need to figure out you have a problem child on your hands?)


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371061/Rachel-Anne-Hachero-arrested-pistol-whipping-mother-forcing-buy-car-gunpoint.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Third Story--- Bikini Brawl

A bikini clad spring breaker that had placed an order at the Panama City Burger King started a riot when she jumped onto the counter and started swinging at the food prep employees while yelling that her order was taking too long.

(I guess when you want fast food, you want the food FAST)

The restaurant quickly turned into a massive food fight with other spring breakers throwing objects all over the restaurant. 

The events were caught on someone's cell phone.  (cell phone cams are not  the best but you will get the gist of it)

Kemesia Smith, the impatient riot starter, was arrested and charged with battery.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42278079/ns/us_news-weird_news/


The Forth Story... Woman Falls Into Sink Hole

A Plant City woman,  47-year-old Carla Chapman,  was walking in her backyard Monday when she fell after the ground caved in underneath her feet. The hole was about 24 inches wide.

Champman, luckily was carrying her cell phone and was able to call for help. In the on-camera news report, it was stated that she had some trouble getting a cellular signal which added to the time that  it took to free her.

Responding officers were able to pull her out of the hole and she was transported to an area hospital. She is listed in stable condition.

NOTE:  This is where that commercial "Can you hear me now?" takes on a whole new meaning.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/28/2138964/tampa-area-woman-falls-into-sink.html#ixzz1I79ZRvgI

There you have it.  The Kansas City, Kansas news. 

Florida, we owe you some news when you are having a slow news day. 

Thanks for sharing. 

PS   We love your winter weather.  Feel free to share that with us, also.


The Good for the Day....  the reporter accepted everyone's apology.  Doesn't this man sound really nice.

The Bad for the Day....Two very bad girls misbehaving.


The Weird for the day.... woman gets caught under a 300 pound Eagle Ray

Just to keep the Florida theme going here.

Miami (CNN) -- A Florida woman said she went into "survival mode" when a huge eagle ray weighing as much as 300 pounds landed on top of her on a boat in the Florida Keys, throwing her to the deck and pinning her underneath it. With the help of her husband and sons, she was able to slide out from under the massive creature that was about 8 feet across with a 10 foot tail.

The License Plate Game

A couple of days ago a friend of mine was complaining about the fact, she and her husband got pulled over in Texas for not having a front license plate on their car.  Seems there is a lot of confusion in Texas about front plates.  Last year a bill was introduced to remove the requirement of the plate but it failed in the legislature. The big problem though, is a lot of media reported it as having passed.  The drivers of sport cars such as Porche, Corvette, and Viper were pretty much doing the happy dance.   Actually a lot of those people had never put front plates on anyway.   They had been just taking a chance on not getting caught or were willing to pay the fine so they didn't have to put a plate bracket on their car.

My friend didn't take the stop well.  She like others feel like it hurts the aesthetics of the car.  (they drive a Dodge Viper).  I am not entirely sure that the cop didn't just want a close up view of a newer Viper convertible and my friends weren't complying by speeding.  You just have to know that he was following them saying "you WILL do something wrong eventually".   When they didn't cooperate by breaking some law, he had to get creative.

  Ultimately, it is really hard for me to relate.

A. I drive a cheap "nothing special" car and I wouldn't be concerned that a front plate would diminish its appearance or worth.

B.  I live in Kansas.  They don't care if I don't have a front plate. I don't think they hardly care if I have a back plate.

While it had her all riled up, it turns out the consequence is a $12.00 fine and you have to bring your car in to some inspection station and show you have mounted a front plate. (which leads one to wonder, why it wasn't tagged for the offense during the yearly state inspection.  In TX every year you have to bring your cars in to an inspection station to pass all the mandated criteria such as working lights, horn, proper emissions etc.)

Anyway, now they have this horrible (according to her) plate on the front of their car and she is not happy.  To compound the problem she parks next to a fellow worker that has a Porche with no front plate.  Damn life is brutal for the performance car folks out there.

If she wanted to have some fun though why doesn't she join the hoards of creative people out there that think of clever things to put on their plates. 

Kansas has nearly started a war here with a recent change in the rules regarding personalizing plates.  Up until this year, every county kept track of the personalized plates within their own county.  So if your idea was unique to that county it was ok.  BUT NOW only one unique combo of letter and numbers (up to seven spaces) PER STATE.
Holy crap, NOW WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM!!!


In other words, our state has 105 counties which had 53 HUSKER plates, 43 JAYHAWK plates,38 GITRDUN, 37 CHIEFS, 36 2FAST4U, 35 SPOILED, 34 SOONER, 34 BLESSED, 33 MYTOY, and 32 REDNECK.


Already my questioning mind wants to know....

1. Why does Kansas have 53 HUSKER (Nebraska team!!!!) and only 43 JAYHAWK  (Kansas team !!!)
Kiddo #2 who is an alum of Univ. of Ne. will tell you because Nebraska  has a great fooball team, but he is willing to concede that Kansas has good basketball.
Simmer down, Kansans, he is looking at it from a Husker point of view.

2. Were there really 38 people in this state that wanted GITRDUN on their car.  It nearly makes me ashamed to live here.  And the 32 that wanted REDNECK are adding fuel to the flame. 

3.  What are the numbers for duplicates for K STATE and MIZZOU.  There would have to be a whole bunch of those too. Why were they not mentioned in the article.  Is the writer anti K-staters or anti-Tigers?

Now people are having to rethink all of those duplicates and try to come up with ONE "unique to the state" idea. 

Seemingly, I am having more fun with this than the person that had one of the Jayhawk plates in her family for 33 years.  The odds of her being the first  to request that plate is not likely.  She better get used to having
SCREWED on her plate.

Which lead to the whole issue of getting by the plate censor guys.  Yesterday, hubby happened to notice something he was reading about a guy with the last name  Annis.  Hubby was thinking that was an unfortunate last name but what is more important is there is NO way that guy can put that on a vanity plate.  Although you can never say never. I have seen a plate that said AZZ BOY.  Tell me how did that get by a censor?  Also, WTF is on a plate.  Do the plate police not text????

Kiddo #2 was telling me (back when he was in college) about some of the requests his moronic yet creative classmates tried to get past the plate censors.  FUQUE for example or the next logical derivative FUQUEU

As far as putting last names on plates, I hardily discourage that.  My one venture into the world of personalized plates was when in a moment of insanity. (I get those moments pretty regularly) I decided to put my last name on a Missouri plate.  We lived in St. Louis and hubby was in a job that put his name out there where most people knew it anyway.  We were already in  "you can run but you can't hide" mode  People knew the car with or without the plate on it.  Then we moved to Grand Island, NE. with our car with a unique Missouri plate that boldly advertised our last name. To totally appreciate that you have to know our last name is extremely rare.  There are only a few and those few are in central Illinois, not in NE.

   To get us firmly entrenched in the town's rumor mill, I proceeded to lose control of said car going over an overpass on an "icy snow packed road" kind of day. Spinning numerous times around and around then into a ditch right down from the entrance of hubby's place of employment.  Everyone coming in to work that morning had something to talk to hubby about.  GREAT conversation starter.

A couple of last comments for those that insist on being creative with posting some hidden message or slogan on the back end of their vehicle is that some of you might not sound as clever as you think you are.  Some guy has a web site with all the plates he has had.  He claims that nobody can readily figure it out which leads to a lot of people following him to his next stop to inquire.  I find this somewhat hard to believe unless he is only stopped by really stupid people or he has exaggerated the facts to make is story more interesting.

His plate is AMIYY4U.  As it would turn out he is NOT too wise for me.  I would not be following him anywhere.

BUT every once in a while there is a plate in front of me that I just can't figure it out. It is like an itch that can't be scratched. What does it mean??? I have never resorted to following the car and its owner somewhere to ask though. Even my inquisitive mind has limits to "need to know".

The Good for the day....anything can be fun if you have a sick twisted mind

The Bad for the Day...That people are having all these huge stressful issues with the overly important license plate.

The Weird for the day.... Sometimes the license plate police have dirty minds