Sumi I read that the other day it's so ...beyond infuriating. It's....I wish the school officials who refused to give her protection when she went back to school could be brought on criminal charges.

This whole thing pisses me off and it's outrageous and I know they have to defend themselves against a lawsuit but they are claiming that this was a "result of the negligence, carelessness, or conduct of third parties over whom the District Defendants had neither control nor the right to control."

italics mine.

They had no control nor the right to control a student.

By the way this is the same school district that banned Slaughterhouse 5 and 2 other books based on the complaints of an adult with no children in the school system.

TOO QUIET!!

How are people?

My big project today stemmed from an email I got last night with the (client generated) subject line "PRIVELEDGED AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION". It was kind of a fun project, but looking at the email all day started to get irritating.

Breast Cancer Cookies.

Is it wrong that my first thought was that with a different frosting scheme, the cookies in the middle could be repurposed as Testicular Cancer Cookies?

How are people?

Big wad o' stress, despite recent vacation. Car trouble (nearly caught on fire) and two projects in jeopardy at work thanks to people who think deadlines don't apply to them.

Maybe shrift or tommy or Kathy or other Chicagoistas need a cuddly chihuahua? It is sort of like a hairless cat....

Well as I bitched in Write Way, my editor told me today that he considers the term "War budget" technically incorrect as a term for the U.S military budget. According to him the entire military budget before 911 was a "defense budget" and that baseline remains a "defense budget". Only spending above the pre-911 level can be described as a war budget.

Because the U.S. did not get involved in non-defensive wars or military actions before 911. And unused military capacity is by definition defensive since no one would ever built up military power and THEN use it aggressively.

Ugh Anne. I hope things get better soon.

How are people?

I are good!

I am home, yay! House looks pretty good! Startlingly, the across the street neighbor has built a garage/outbuilding on his neighboring lot. It blocks a minimal amount of my view but works out well overall for me because it also blocks the two streets away neighbor's view of my house from their deck. So I have more privacy! Which, you know, I needed since I live in the middle of the desert with only one neighbor.

I walked in the door and then spend the next hour and a half doing domestic abuse counseling, though, ugh. And over the hour and a half we only got as far as "I think we might need to take a break." "Get out the first time you get hit" seems to have not taken. But I'll take what I can get if it gets her out of there. Sheesh.

Anne, NO CATCHING FIRE. Argh.

Good job, brenda! That was hard to do, but very smart.

Yeeps Liese, that's quite a welcome home. Uh, welcome home!

I am sitting here quite sure there's something I'm not taking care of. I don't like that feeling.

I got raked over the coals by the project team for the project from hell. I feel sick as a dog and I hate the world, so it was really not a good time.

And I'm *out* of Ambien, so the lack of sleep is just going to get worse.

On the other hand, I got a good author for my next big bang, even though it's going to be a tricky story to illustrate.