Marilu -A Personal Essay

Memory 1
Marilu was our live-in nanny. She lived in the maid’s room downstairs for a while, until my sister was born, then she lived upstairs in the baby’s room. She was a frog of a woman. I’ve read that description many times, but it wasn’t until I remembered Marilu that I could put an image to the phrase. She wore tacky floral-print dresses that slid right over her head and clung lightly over her marshmellow-like body. Out of the short sleeves hung the fatty, flabby skin of her under arms, I made my personal silly putty on long car rides –she didn’t seem to mind. Her hair was cut short, masculine and black –she was by no means an attractive woman. She always favored my older brother and was later referred to as 'grandma' by my younger sister. We used to tease my sister and the nanny because somehow, my sister looked more like Marilu than she did us.
They all loved her; my brother because she played Super Nintendo with us (and always beat me); my sister who fell asleep each night and awoke every morning in her crib that would eventually become a full mattress matching her nanny’s; and my parents because now they could go out to dinner occasionally without a worry. But I never did like her. She used to chew on a single uncooked grain of rice, making the most disgusting smacking sound. Smack -as her tongue tried to force out the grain from between her teeth to suck on its disgusting shell again, and again –for hours.
She never took me seriously, constantly mocking my eight-year-old intelligence. Sometimes before she left to run errands I’d innocently ask her,
“Where are you going?”
And sure enough, every time she’d reply,
“I’m going to get old”.
Every time, no matter how many times I asked, no matter how frustrated I became –I might even have cried once.
One night I woke up to the sound of her screaming “Mickey! Mickey!” and thought that because her voice was naturally loud and obnoxious, she was just having a laugh with my brother Mike. She yelled my name twice and I too got up to see what was so funny. I find Marilu hysterical in the hall way and she orders Mike and I to get in her room immediately. Frantically she phones the police, then my parents. No sooner, the cops arrive, and my parents just behind them. A few weeks later, I was still hearing the story.
Apparently, Marilu was going downstairs with the baby for a warm bottle of milk, to find a man using the round end of a broom to try and unhook the keys from the wall, through the opened sliding glass window above the kitchen counter –to climb in would have made too much noise on account of all the appliances. He dropped the broom and raised his gun, demanding Marilu give him the keys. She begged him to let her put the baby in the other room first –because that's where the corresponding keys are anyway, she told him. Somehow she managed to sneak away with the keys on the wall in the kitchen and upstairs to call for help –they never caught the guy.
Marilu was our live-in for almost seven years. When we moved to the States she continued to share a room with my sister, and I shared the bathroom in their room with them –I didn’t like this. The older I got, the less I liked her, and the more I avoided her. One day while we were at school, she packed up all her tablecloth dresses, cheap toothpaste and worn out brush, and left. A few days later she returned to embrace my sister, begging my father for her job back. I did not care for her presence any longer, but they all loved her and she stayed, until the second time –that time, she never came back.

Current Events -Are beginning to bore me

A Highlight of CNN's Latest News Tuesday, July 7, 2009

• Jackson memorial draws crowds online
• Fans proved 'I'll be there' for memorial
• L.A. wants help paying for Jackson memorial
• Time: A strange, gaudy and moving farewell
• iReport.com: How are you honoring MJ today?
• AC360°: Jackson kids' lives get more complex
• CNNMoney: Recession fears slam stocks
• Police find more to link suspect to S.C. killings 15 min
• Spy chief's wife blows cover on Facebook
• Former comedian takes oath in U.S. Senate
• Ticker: 7 in 10 Republicans would vote for Palin
• Feehery: Time to move past Palin distraction
• Begala: Palin an impediment to rebuilding GOP
• Figure skating ex-champ charged in drug probe
• Deploying dad begs to see missing girl
• Senate tackles college football's BCS 12 min
• SI: American signs for superpower AC Milan
• Teddy bears conceal millions in heroin

Can Anything really be said here?

Current Events -What Really Matters

Breaking News -Important News?

CNN's top story today is "Jackson's will answers questions, raises more". Fox news wasn't far behind, with two articles on Afghan villages and the North Korean missiles, and third -"Jacko hid drugs, secret love". That's much more interesting and not nearly as hard to understand!
Yes, we all agree Michael Jackson was an untimely icon world wide. He was a musical pioneer, one of a kind, and kept audience interested well after Thriller with scandal after scandal -fading skin color, child molestation and the Neverland Ranch. Michael Jackson, you will certainly never be forgotten.
But in a time when the state of California alone is sinking faster than the rest of the country -a country that even President Obama himself will admit is "out of money". In a time when we are still at war, when thousands of people are being killed every day; when we have missiles being tested and fired, and nuclear weapons parked but ready. In a time when people should be reading and educating themselves on what is really going on with not just our economic failure, but the rest of the world, instead the media puts out complete coverage on the death of a celebrity.
There is an entire page with links to questions about his life, his death, his will, the legacy, and reaction of others on CNN's home page. Why isn't there a page with answers to REAL questions?
How can we fix our financial debt? What are we doing to end the war?
But then again, the media will probably do a "complete coverage" of Farrah Fawcett's death (that no one seems to care about because Michael Jackson's sudden death was far more exciting and scandalous than a Charlie's Angel slowly dying of cancer) before they bore readers with the important stuff.

The Current Events Thread (prototype)

I've never really written periodicals.
An attemp.

"Don't Ask and Don't Tell, Because Who Cares?"
If you're gay -just be gay.

When asked to fill standard application forms for a job, one fills out the prevalent information -name, DOB, gender, ethnicity, etc.
It is unusual to question sexual preference.
So why do gay rights activist insist on homosexuals be granted their right to be open about their sexuality?
Like any other company, the United States military is a job -a duty, where sexuality is not relevant to the soldier. Heterosexuals do not go around parading their sexual preference, why must the gay community be so persistent to be known as "different" in trying to not be different at all?
The article on the FOX news site regarding this "Don't ask, don't tell law" originally instated during the Clinton years (1993)states that the law "was intended as a compromise to get around a full ban on gay military service. Gay right leaders, however, have said it is an insult."
Is it? Or is it fair?
Homosexuals are not being discriminated against nor persecuted. They are just limited to the kind of information they can disclose.
Like an employee of Area 51 -they are not allowed to release any information about what goes on at work, homosexuals are not allowed to discuss what goes on out of work.
But more importantly, why is this one of CNN's top stories? Why are we dealing with "can homosexuals be open about their sexuality in the military" over "what the $^@% is going on with our military"?