Day Nine: Beach Babes and News

Blueberry waffles this morning... along with making a heep of chocolate chip pancakes for Jill and her friend Nicole. During breakfast, Jill decided to use my syrup dunking cup, and as I was filling it up again with hers, the bottom plate stuck to the jar and syrup spilt everywhere, right off the get go... so as the girls ran off exclaiming, "geez that's a lot of messy sticky syrup, ha ha ha", I was mopping and cleaning up the sticky mess. Sometimes children can really be the best :) Thank goodness they had Spanish camp today :) So dropped off the girls, then went on my run... it was beautiful again today, in the 80's, so I decided the beach would be a great trip for the girls and I. So after the run, I packed us a picnic, all the beach stuff and then showered, getting ready for the day. Then as I was finishing up getting the picnic ready, I decided I should call my Mom and say hi. She sounded good, but ended up telling me that a guy from work and his cousin were just arrested for raping a 14 year old, down in my hometown. This sincerely put a little bit of a damper on part of the day. This really upset me. So after I was done talking to my Mom, I went onto the Mail Tribune on-line to read the article, and the responses, that my Mom informed me I should read. After reading the article I realized how out of whack Medford is, even the officers sounded like dumbshits. Anyways I tried to really build up and analyze the situation away from all the fucking racist, sexist, classist, any-ists' remarks... sincerely there was a lot of talk about how this happened due to the fact that they were of a certain race, and "gangbangers"... and that the west side of Medford has gone to hell because of these so called "gangbangers"... and that this particular race (hispanic/mexican/latino) is prone to rape and assault, and that now Medford is overpopulated by these races, people are at risk. First off, RAPE HAPPENS TO ANYONE, BY ANYONE!!!! And that the problem here isn't within race, the problem is within the education that we are giving our little ones. If we teach women and men to respect one another, and to break down these "rape myths", ex. (if a girl wears something that promiscuous, then she must want it, or she wasn't a virgin before so...) all these and more, are FUCKING BULLSHIT. Alright, now that you can see me for my true colors, my true bias... I really want anyone who reads this to know that NO ONE, and I repeat, NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO FORCE OR PERMIT ANYONE TO HAVE RELATIONS WITH THEM, OR ANYTHING LIKE IT. The fact that this little girl was 14 years old and at a party, one in which her parents weren't aware of... is besides the Fucking Problem. But two men, who think that they can disrespect the rights of another human being, is. I will be doing lots more work on this, and have been talking to friends about writing into the newspaper... because to be perfectly honest the paper did a whole "this is a parental-watch problem" and advised parents within the valley to keep a closer watch on their kids, start spying on them through Myspace and Facebook and most importantly disregard any salient knowledge/relationship that they should be building with their children, like working on building a strong relationship based on truth/honesty and really leveling with them on the hard facts of life that... 1 out of 4 women will experience some sort of assault within their lives (sexual, rape, harassment etc..) 1 OUT OF 4. And this is of the young women that are actually brave enough/have enough support to come forward to say something. I really feel that this is super important and I will work until I die to see this whole system work better, and that number lower to ZERO.
Please check it out and respond: http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/NEWS/906230313

So after talking to my Mom, I picked up the girls from camp, then picked up Nicole's sister, Alison... and we drove off to the beach, conveniently on Sauvie Island, just about a 20 minute drive across the Island. When we got there, there we a good amount of people there enjoying the sun and water. After we applied lots of sunblock the girls and I jumped in... it was friggin' cold but refreshing none the less. As it looks like most Mothers do, another Mom who was close by, asked me if all three were mine. I always get this... even though I'm 22 and am farely young in the face... whenever I watch kids (babysitting/nannying/holding them... whatever) it doesn't matter if they look anywhere close to me or not... I am always mistaken for their Mother... I guess this means the shoe will someday fit with ease :) It's cool, one day it will be nice :) Anyways, I declined and exchanged a couple of words with the locals, then went onto play with the girls, read a little and enjoy the picnic. We were at the beach for around 3 hours, and at the end the girls were definitely getting tired and hungry again, so we returned, they showered (quite the process, after having tons of sand all over our bodies) then I made mango banana pineapple smoothie ( a recipe to which I have found a lot of content bellies):
Frozen Mango Chunks, Small single-sized Pineapple juice concentrate, one banana, ice , 4 drops of vanilla extract, a squirt of honey
Then blend until desired, and serve... wow, I am getting older... look out Grandma...ha!

Then the girls went on to play school, jump on the trampoline and at around 5pm, we had pizzas...
After Nicole and Alison left, Jill went on our usual bike ride to the dock, played a little Wii, and then her Mom and her watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, while I curled up in my bed and watched a very boring, very long, yet wonderfully directed Scorsese film, The Age of Innocence (1993), what a waste of time... onto Wednesday... here comes the sun.

For the Day: Beach, News, Mango smoothies, Mothering and Movies