Today I got a call from a woman and I nearly started crying for her after she hung up. Her husband died very recently and she lost their health insurance coverage because she couldn't pay the $900 premiums for her and her children. She applied for medicaid/family health plus but was told that the social security check she gets from his death is too much to qualify. So she smokes three packs a day because she is so depressed but can't really afford it and she is all her kids have so she wants to quit.

I hope that she can.

Good Luck (e:jim). Let me know if you need any help.

Why yes, it is. I spent forever looking for a boot that I thought would last a good 10 years. Shouldn't boots last more than a year? Sorel made a really awesome boot that I found online but they were not making it anymore and I couldn't find it in my size. So I had to find a new boot and then I found this one on cabellas.com







My mom ordered the boot for me for a early Xmas gift and I wore them for two weeks and the heal is nearly half gone. Not only that but they seriously have left my left calf all chafed. When I called Cabellas the woman was like "Oh, do you walk really hard on your heal?" So I say "No, I am pretty sure that I walk normally." Then she says "Well, I didn't know that I was walking so hard on my heal until other people pointed out." At this point I am seriously biting my lip as to not tell her off for suggesting that I am walking in such a way as to wear don't a rubber heal in two weeks. Anyways she did end up saying that it wasn't normal and said that I can return them but can only get store credit. Before I decided to raise hell for not giving me the money back I decided to look to see if I can't find anything else they sell and I found these.







I think that I am going to order them tomorrow but they say they are for below 40 degrees Celsius and I don't know if I need something quite so extreme. I don't want my feet to be too warm because I am usually walking pretty quickly when I have them on.

The last boots I had lasted me over ten years but I finally threw them out when I was moving so that it would force me to get new ones. Just about everything I want to buy turns into this big ordeal.

Merry Xmas y'all! Sorry, sometimes I like to pretend I am Paula Dean. Anyways I just wanted to say that now that Xmas is upon us, I am much less of a grinch now. See my last post for details. . I do still think that everything I said previously about xmas is true. Today is still a very sad day for many.

Last night I watched Jim Carey play the Grinch and I really did enjoy it when I intended on hating it. My little cousin Gary was over and he said that he is scary. I really love when movies or books are made that further develop the characters.

My Mom got me my sister and brother a row of three stuffed chipmunks that dance and sing Up On the House Top by the original Chipmunks. I love it and wish that I could take it home but it is staying here in Florida since it is for all three of us.

On Friday morning Mike and I were coming out of my house and these two young men came up to us and were like "are you driving?" I hesitated a bit and said we were. He was like we will give you $40 to get to Kenmore. Then I said we are not going that way and here comes the really scary part about it, he said "which way are you going?" and I said the opposite direction which wasn't true because Mike was on his way to Kenmore after he dropped me off at work. He says to us, "that is fine, we can go that way. Why the hell would he want to go the opposite direction with us? Then I just flatly said "NO". Then they continue on in the direction of the West side not North which is their intended direction. The whole time they are mumbling stuff about getting to a hospital and their computer getting wet from all the snow.

So I tell my roommate what had happened and he said that he was down in the basement when we left doing laundry and he saw them in the alley way from the windows and he was immediately concerned that they were going to bother us but then thought oh no that is crazy. They looked well dress and respectable too but there was this feeling that something wasn't right. I immediately place suspicion on any stranger that is approaching me. When he said "OH that is OK, we will go that way with you." I knew that something really bad would have happened if we had said Yeah get in. Most scary thing is that Mike probably would have let them in the car if I were not there.

You can take a bus for $1.50 to get to Kenmore or a cab for maybe $20 so why wouldn't they just do that? Why did they walk West when they should have gone north? We so were going to be robbed/car jacked/ snatched away and killed or all of the above.

These news stories are alarming. See (e:paul)'s journal for background. People in the burbs can take these stories however they want and I don't concern myself with whether they want to come to the city or not based on their perceptions of them. The Buffalo News reports the facts and we will all interpret them differently based on our own experiences and how our views have been shaped by them. I think that most often I feel safe but it really depends on where I am. Out of the three instances of attacks (2 from (e:paul)'s journal and 1 from (e:gardenmama)'s) I have found myself in those same locations at similar times on foot. Sometimes I have large amounts of cash like $200 and people of lower income levels typically do more with cash than plastic for many different reasons. Many people even pay their rent with cash they turn into money orders.

(e:janelle), I get your concern, and I would assume your statistics correct, but to just assume that these attacks are somehow based on a criminal background of the victim and that you should just assume that bad things only happen to bad people based on statistics is sort of dangerous. I have seen numerous cases of gangs of threatening youth who have little respect for themselves or others do quite horrible things to innocent victims. These crimes can happen anywhere. You are also probably aware that most of these crimes are not reported for a huge number of reasons but mainly out of fear, both fear of reprisal and fear of a failed judicious system. If you know the judicial system is unable to protect you and that by going to the police you can be identified and later can be found it is an extremely hard thing to do. The violence we read about in the police blotter is only a fraction of what is really occurring out there on the streets.

There should be some amount of fear in us that we could one day be victimized for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I do not think it should consume us but it is reasonable to take some precautions. For me, the most appropriate precaution I take is to trust my instincts as they are most often correct.

One other thing is that Buffalo, in my opinion, does have racial tensions. They are a source of violence within themselves. Race riots occurred here not so long ago. There is anger and distrust still and it takes a very long time for it to heal. Because Buffalo is so divided still racially, you can draw attention to yourself by your race alone and become a target because of it. I suppose that can be true anywhere but again because Buffalo is very segregated, I think it makes it even more likely for this type of violence to occur here. People do not know where to place their anger and anger is often responded to in violence. This type of anger results in hate crimes including crimes against a person's sexuality.