Fairness

Have you ever walked into a store, picked up the items you wanted and walked past the register without paying for them? I did once, with a pack of gum when I was about three. My mom drove me back and made me apologize for stealing.

But, what if I really needed something, and I didn't have the money. But I really really needed it. Does that justify stealing? How about this, say you are on food stamps, and you know you won't have to pay out of your pocket for the food you're buying. Do you just walk out without giving the cashier the food stamp card? That's still called stealing, because the store will not get paid back for the items.

How about this one. You walk into the Phunny Pharm where I am behind the counter. You drop off a prescription and tell me “I have medicaid,” and then leave without giving me the billing information. When you come back and I tell you that it costs three hundred dollars and you repeat “I have medicaid,” and then grab the prescription and leave, you are still stealing that prescription because the Phunny Pharm will not be paid back for it.

But the Phunny Pharm is part of a big evil corporation right? They can stand to loose three hundred dollars right? The thing is, the Phunny Pharm and all the Phunny Pharms across the country loose money every day because of thieves and insurance companies who take money back for every prescription they can get away with. The Phunny Pharm isn't just one evil head of the corporation lounging on a throne made of money, it's some guy who I think my dad actually knew growing up, who is a person just like the rest of us except that he risked everything and started a company. The Phunny Pharm is also lots of little techs like me, who, when they look at their pay check find that they have money taken from them to pay for medicaid. The people on medicaid seem to think that everything is paid for by magical government money, and in a way it is, except that magical government money is taxes. Taxes that come from people who work so that the government can fling it at people who don't.

I know this isn't news to most of you, in fact I really hope it isn't news to anyone at all, but the whole thing is weighing on me because of it's blatant stupidity. Yet, as stupid as it is, it seems like no one ever tries to fix it! I've seen people who will leave their child's medicine that they made us fill right now because it cost less than three dollars. One woman had spent the entire time we were filling a prescription for her child's inhaler telling us how the child was wheezing badly and desperately needed the inhaler, only to tell us it could wait five hours until the insurance company came back online.

She did say that she didn't have any money, and as much as I try to understand that I really can't. I can understand not having money in my wallet, but not having so little money that I couldn't go and find some. I understand that there are poor people, but I do not understand the “poor” people in our culture today. The people who are on medicaid and food stamps come into the Phunny Pharm and buy cigarettes before they think about their prescriptions, they'll buy booze like there's no tomorrow, they come through the drive thru with a hamburger shoved halfway through their face using their newly manicured plastic fingernails to shove it there, and then say that they don't have money. They have money. Medicaid doesn't pay for all the television channels they watch. Food stamps won't buy your beer. It's the priorities I see in these people that sickens me.

The movie Hunger Games just came out. I read the book series not long ago and loved it. In the world of the books there is a city called the Capitol and twelve districts surrounding it. The people of the Capitol live a life of excess. They want for nothing because the districts provide them with everything. The big highlight of their lives is watching the Hunger Games, where each of the districts is forced to give them two tributes who all have to fight to the death. The survivor is named victor and gets to live in luxury the rest of their life. To the people of the districts it is a terrible display of the Capitol's power and very possibly a death sentence, but to the majority of people in the Capitol it's just a really fun television show. And that's all they care about.

It doesn't matter who they hurt when they urge children to murder their peers, it doesn't matter to them that the people in the districts starve to death while they work to provide for the demanding Capitol. As long as they have food overflowing their tables and really great television they're completely happy to have the world fall to pieces around them. And their world does fall to pieces. In the third book the Capitol is taken over by rebels, basically led by a communist society. The people from the Capitol have no clue how to live in a world where food is scarce, where it doesn't matter how they make themselves look, and where their lives are in danger instead of the tributes from the districts.

When I finished reading Hunger Games I was sickened by television. Someone in the house had a reality show on, one where you can vote for your favorite singer or whatever. The announcer said “Your vote can keep your favorite contestant alive in the competition.” And all I could think of was Rue in the books with thousands of people watching, and only a handful actually mourning her death. Maybe it's a bad analogy, no one actually dies on tv. But there are so many shows out now, and audiences are getting bored. All it took to bring the world of the Hunger Games to it was a civil war against the Capitol where the Capitol won and had to exercise it's power.

But back to the point. I was talking about stealing in the very beginning. No, I was talking about selfishness this whole time. Customers who come in to the Phunny Pharm and demand that we cater to their every whim, like calling their insurance companies left, right, and center, demanding that they never have copayments, walking off with their prescription and messing up our computer records because they don't want to wait to be rung up and “it's free anyway.” One of my future sisters-in-law works at a grocery store where she actually had to deal with a woman who ran out of the store with her groceries when her foodstamp card wouldn't work, because they were free anyway. These people don't seem to see that someone has to pay for it, that it comes out of my pay checks, out of your pay checks, out of our taxes. The people in the Capitol didn't see that the people in the districts were paying for it, with their own blood and the lives of their children.

I liked the ending of the Hunger Games books because the people of the Capitol ended up having to learn that if they didn't work they wouldn't eat. The lesson the main character, Katniss, had learned well before the start of the first book. It's a lesson my mom taught me through the example of my Great Grandfather's life, and I cannot understand the world we've made where we reward those who do not work and punish those who do. All we're doing is feeding selfish human desires, creating a generation of people who don't know how to take care of themselves, and watching people depend more and more on the government that, in the end, doesn't actually care about them. Someday they or their children will figure out that the system is broken, but then what will they be able to do about it? And why would we give up our selfishness now to make the lives of future generations better?

Mouse

I'm a Mermaid and the Captain is a Fox. The Captain has a younger sister who is a Mouse.

When the Mouse was thirteen she was in a play of Alice and Wonderland where she played the Dormouse. There was a young man a few years older than her playing the Mad Hatter. The Captain and the Mouse's mother (The Cow since we're going with the critter theme.) likes to tell the story that she saw the Mad Hatter and thought it would be lovely if he would take a liking to the Mouse.

At the end of the last night of the play, when all the actors were standing and shaking hands with the audience, the Hatter approached the Mouse with a big bouquet of flowers.

It basically went like this:

Hatter: Here! Have flowers because they're pretty, like you.

Mouse: Me? =O.O=

Hatter: Yeah! I like you!

Mouse: *Shoves Hatter away* =O.O=

Hatter: O.O

Mouse: Okay =^.^=

And they've been courting ever since. Ok, so it didn't go quite like that, but I'm sure it kind of did.

Meanwhile I was still following the Captain around. I had expected that I would finish High School, go to college, finish college, start a job, and then start a relationship. Then I saw the Mouse walking away with the Hatter following her like she was made of some rare, precious mineral, and a whole herd of girls chasing after the Hatter and I thought “Why can't I have that too?”

Fast forward to today. The Mouse and the Hatter have been courting for around four years and the Captain and I for a little over two. Both couples are planning to get married in either spring or summer of 2013. The Mouse's big plans were to turn eighteen, graduate high school, graduate with a two year degree at college, and get married, all within a couple months of each other.

Married at eighteen! The shock! The Horror! The- ok calm down. First, pause and congratulate her on graduating High School and College at the same time. If you thought anything like shock or horror, or even just a little weirded out, you're probably just a little jealous, like me.

I wish I could have been seriously planning my wedding when I was seventeen. Courting is hard work, especially for the Hatter and me because we found such wonderful people to be utterly devoted to.

When I first started telling people about courting they immediately assumed that we were courting only because we were either not interested in sex, or afraid of it. Then later, when I started having to explain that we do know where babies come from, and know what? We want to get married young because we don't want to wait very long to be together the response was “Well then go do it!”

Is it so wrong to want to get married before having marital relations? There's a very good reason the word Marital is included. You can't “just have sex” you and your “partner” become one flesh (Genesis 2:24.) To be completely honest, I don't believe that a wedding ceremony is what makes you married, I believe sex makes you married, and sex is good only if the two involved have made the commitment to stay together till death do they part.

Not too long ago the Mouse would probably have killed me for talking about her and sex in the same blog entry. (She lubs me though.) Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk about.

Probably the best way to make a marriage “work” that I've seen, is for the two involved to be very mature. They have to wake up every day and decide to love their spouse no matter what happens in that day. If, after the Captain and I get married, I found that the Captain poured hot sauce in all the food, stood oars up in all the corners for decoration, told me my writing was terrible, left all his dirty socks all over the house and told me the correct way to wash the dishes, I'd still love him, because I've decided to. (Notice that I didn't mention abuse or adultery.) If he kept it up I'd start to think he didn't love me, but once we make our wedding vows we are bound to each other. There might not be consequences on earth for divorce but I am sure everyone will be held accountable when they meet God face to face. (Just for the record I do believe that there are certain situations where divorce can be acceptable, such as abuse or adultery. Those are very specific situations though.)

To continue to love your spouse you have to give up your selfishness, which is what I mean by maturity. An eighteen year old can be far more mature than a thirty year old if the younger has determined that they are married to be there for their spouse and not for themselves. A thirty year old who has been living on their own for a decade, has a high paying career, and is only interested in marriage so they don't end up completely alone forever, is doomed. The moment it becomes difficult to love their spouse they will leave because the relationship no longer serves them.

This is where the Mouse really comes up. When she and the Hatter started courting she was very young and still very much struggling with her selfish nature. In the time since then I've been completely astounded by how much she has grown up. There was a real turning point where she was asked flatly if she would love the Hatter, and she decided to. This is far more than just having a romantic feeling, she decided to give her heart to him and completely trust him with it. Once she decided that they started working toward getting married, and for them it was the obvious next step. They knew that they had made a commitment to each other and they had already stuck together through plenty of hard times, and the goal was to get married eventually so why not aim to get married as soon as possible?

I'll stop so I don't keep rambling. Suffice it to say that the Mouse and the Hatter might be young, but I think that God has blessed them immensely, and grown them both immensely. It will probably never be smooth sailing, but when the Mouse decides something she makes sure it happens. I'm certain that since they have God's help they'll have a long and happy marriage. Wishing you the best, Mouse.

Foxes and Mermaids

I've collected a few Fox and Mermaid things over the last few years

There's always a Fox for every mermaid

Even this one ^_^

Wedding Stuff!!!

In my last blog entry I mentioned that the Captain and I are engaged. Finally. ;)

He came over on Valentines Day and we were planning a romantic evening dancing and being watched closely by my brother. I like to paint and I had an idea for a painting inspired by the Captain's book, The Flying Fix-it and Odds and Ends Shop (Available in most book stores... soon?). I wanted to take pictures outside and then he insisted on going for a walk even though he was shivering. We went back to take one last picture and then he started digging in his jacket pocket. I was standing there with the camera taking pictures when he got down on one knee and opened up a little box. I still didn't quite understand what was going on while he said “Will you marry me?” so we have a couple good pictures of him on one knee out in the snow. I was aware enough that I said yes and then he gave me the most beautiful ring in the entire world.

He's such a wonderful Fiancé.

So now we've got a very clear direction for the next year and a half of our lives. Get to the wedding. I grudgingly agreed to his August 2013 date, and then started dragging him to bridal shows. Then I dragged his mom, two of his sisters, another friend, and my mom to two bridal stores in one day. Because that's how I plan things. Even though there's over five hundred days until the wedding I feel the need to have it all ready now. They say cake keeps for a year, right?

So after I found the dress and went and started telling people about it they bring up that whole time thing. It might be a bad idea to buy the dress right now because I've rapidly been losing weight the past two years and that could either continue for another year and a half, or stop and I could start gaining weight again. That would cause all kinds of other problems though, I'd have to get the ring resized because my finger used to be a size nine and rapidly dropped to a six and a half this winter. (Which is lucky for me since the ring the Captain had had for over a year was a six and a half. He was planning ahead, he just didn't know it.)

So then on Sunday we sat down to all have a wedding planning meeting. Instead of just being a wedding planning meeting attached to a simple meal my family turned it into... I don't even know. Dad cleaned the house two weeks in advance, mom got up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to start cooking the food, and everybody ended up generally panicked. I was panicked about waiting a whole week to have the meeting, mom was panicked that the food wouldn't be good enough and people wouldn't eat it, and dad I think is always somewhat panicked that the house isn't always spotless. (My brother was completely unfazed, I should add.)

So Sunday after Church we hurried home and cooked furiously! There were potatoes to peel and things from the store that we didn't have! Then the Captain and his family came over and the guys went and played ping pong on dad's new table, and mom and I finished cooking. We laid everything out on a pristine table with knives, forks, and even spoons and napkins. It was a super fancy lunch as far as my family was concerned. (Don't tell the Captain that we barely ever use napkins.)

Then the wedding planning! We talked about stuff for awhile. We decided that we don't know what the budget will be quite yet. Then we decided that we don't know where the reception will be. Then we discussed guests and decided that we had too many on the list. Then we thought of more people who really ought to be invited and added them to the list. Then we took a few people who we don't really know that well after all off of the list. Then we looked at the list and decided we'd cut it down to size later. Then I bugged the Captain about starting a registry because one of my aunt's had mentioned giving us presents. Then we debated about giving online registries our contact information. Then we caved in and gave it to them. Once we set up the registry we spent an hour looking for a comforter we both liked. Then we thought we really should call it quits since our dad's had wandered off to play ping pong hours ago. The general consensus was that the wedding needs to be planned. But we'll get to that later.

Today I dragged the Captain's mom and two sisters to a possible reception site. Everybody else was there to make sure that I didn't just stand around going “Wow! This place is pretty!” and instead point out things like “Did you notice that there's only one bathroom?” or “Will all the guests even fit in here?”

There was a nice tour guide taking us around, making small talk, and giving us general wedding info about the site. We asked him how much it was to rent the space and he gave us a figure. Now, I'm bad with numbers. It's a miracle that I made it all through four years of high school math. When someone says the number twenty two hundred, my brain goes 22,000. So when I thought he said 22,000 I was ready to run away screaming. Then we got in the car after our tour and everyone was discussing the pros and cons of bathrooms and parking and gardens and dance floors, and I was thinking “Nope, dad will shoot me if the reception costs that much.” Until someone said “And I thought the price was really reasonable!” What?!

They had to explain twenty two hundred to me. So now I can see the difference, there's 22,000 and then there's 2,200 to rent the space. Yet still, at the back of my mind I can't quite shake the feeling of “WHAT?!” that I experienced in the room.

When the Captain and I started courting two years ago I started looking for wedding dresses and generally planning the wedding. Now that we're actually engaged I pulled out my notes. They include a full page of all the stuff I need to wear or have done to myself, a full page of what the bridesmaids need to do, wear, and have done to themselves, a half a page on flower girls, a list of random things I didn't want to forget, and not much else that looks helpful at all. I know now where my priorities are.

It turns out that I don't actually want what we commonly think of as a wedding. I mostly want a fancy dress, a terribly traditional ceremony, and someone to kinda throw us a party before we run away into wedded bliss. The one thing keeping me from deciding to have the reception in the church basement is this nagging thought of “But I wanna look grown up and fancy!” which probably proves just how grown up I really am. >.>

Oh well, I'll still end up with the Captain somehow ;)