h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey Martin, I'm back in town, and if you're still willing to take my case, I would be much obliged. What do you need from me to do a reading on my small person?

Welcome back sweetheart, lovely to talk to you again.

Do you have a specific question, or just a general reading in mind?

With the tarot I don't need any information from you, if you would like an astrological chart preparing, then date of birth, place of birth, and time of birth (if known, or approximately)are required.

speak to you soon.

For me, a general reading would be lovely. I would actually really like a chart reading on my daughter. So her info is:

4/5/1996

Flagstaff, Arizona

7:53 a.m.

You are a wonderful human being, did you know that?

That's a very nice thing to say!

Just to avoid confusion, is you daughter's birthday 4th of May or 5th of April? In Britain we go day/month/year, but I think in America you go month/day/year.

Oops, I should have remembered that! It's April 5th. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

For some reason, I wasn't tired last night until 5 in the morning, and at 10 this morning, my eyes popped wide open. Thus, I am a little spacy.

I'm sure you look very attractive with your eyes popped wide open!

How was your holiday? Did you catch up with your old mates?

The last time I spoke to you, I think you were a little down; has the break back home done you good?

Oh, yes. I saw friends, mentors, and my father (always a little awkward, but getting better -- I am not fond of his wife). I drank a little too much a couple of times, ate too much the entire time, and throughly enjoyed the break from my life here. No kid, no responsibilities, nada. It was wonderful. In fact, an old friend is coming down in January with her kids to go to Disneyland.

All in all, it was great. On the drive home, I witnessed a terrible accident, and stopped to help. I think that without the refresher I had in Montana, I would have been a lot more freaked out by it. It reminded me what's important in life isn't what the lifestyle here in California seems to dictate. Friends, family, the desire to help others, and reconnecting to one's self...not money, cars, and a beach house.

Ah, well. I wax philosophical.

I understand exactly what you mean. We pass our days often blinded by the routine of our lives, and the important parts of life somehow get overlooked, or missed amid the rush. It's not until something unusual or dramatic occurs that we are forced to stop and think about the important things. On my own page there is a journal entry called 'How the years pass', that I think you could identify with.

I promise I will put together a reading for you, and an astrological chart for you daughter when I get back from my own holiday in Dorset. I am taking the kids for a paddle in the sea next week.

Montana, thanks for the welcome over at Lil's. I'll reply here, as much has been posted there since your posting that my reply wouldn't follow the thread. (Does that last sentance make any sense?)

I don't know the article to which you are referring, but I always thought the US had a sensible approach to mothers and children issues; or am I mistaken? When I read your posting I could feel the heat from here!

As I said I couldn't read the offending article, but the ...'women belong in the kitchen, mothers should be at home' mentality sounds so dated now, that I don't think too many people give it serious credibility. So put your feet up and have some lovely and with me, and we can discuss better things.

Yes, I was a little miffed, wasn't I? I find it incredible in this day and age that someone is still trying to put the mental ills of the world on mother's shoulders. There are fathers in there somewhere, and it's sort of silly that anyone should feel guilty about fulfilling who they are. Some women make great stay-at-home moms. Others, like myself, don't. Like everything else in life, it's a personal choice.

Good idea for a vacation. Swimming in Dorset has to beat the sweltering heat over there. It's hot here, and supposed to get hotter, but the ocean is only 3 miles away, and there are plenty of air-conditioned buildings around If it gets too bad, I go window shopping at the ritzy mall near here, trying to figure out what the difference is between a coat and a designer coat. So far, not much except the price tag!

In England, do parents overbook their children with activities like soccer, piano, ballet, etc? It's rather a pandemic where I live, and it makes me crazy when I hear parents tell their children not to get dirty. Isn't part of childhood being dirty? I cannot remember a better time than climbing trees and digging holes.

'Climbing trees and digging holes.....' ah, drifts back on a breeze of misty-eyed nostalgia. When I was small I had 'play clothes' which I had to put on if I was going out to play with my mates, as they were sure to get filthy and torn. I only ever joined one organisation, the boy scouts, and had a few great years with them, but apart from that, we made up our own entertainment. My parents didn't care too much what that was as long as it wasn't illegal or dangerous.

I think this idea of organising children's leisure time for them is somehow income related, you know. I don't know if there is a similar structure where you are, but here, in the poorer areas of Coventry the kids are left pretty much to their own devices. In the wealthier areas the kids are organised. They go to Martial Arts, Music Lessons, join Sports Clubs and so on. Of course it's always dangerous to generalise like this as there will always be exceptions, but on the whole that seems to be the case.

I work in an area of Coventry that has the highest crime rate in the country, outside London, the highest teenage crime and drug-related rate in the country, the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the whole of Europe, and the highest adult illiteracy rate in the Midlands. Kids, (as streetwise as you can imagine), some as young as five or six, roam the streets in gangs, they are all filthy, and look like Fagin's brood from 'Oliver Twist'. Many of the parents are in prison already, or are on the way there, or are drug and alcohol abusers. When I look at some of these kids, I can just see their future prison uniforms being made for them....we even have a club for kids that have been expelled from school! They have to have been kicked out of school permanently in order to qualify to join it! The club (Y.I.P.) Youth Inclusion Project, has become a social status to be envied amongst the kids. "I want to be a YIP kid when I grow up!" answered one five year old the other day.

I can tell from your writings and postings that you are a great Mom! You should be very proud of yourself, so just keep your daughter close, and don't worry about the others!

Sorry, don't I go on, once I get the old soap-box out!

Yes, you'r right about the income/organization relation. I live in Irvine, CA, which is ritzy, rich, and downright snobby. The kids here spend more time in organized activities than with friends.

North of us by a few miles miles is Santa Ana, which is a large Latino community. There are far few organized groups, and more social organizations geared at keeping kids in school, etc. Not as bad as Coventry (after all this is Orange County, where even poor people are better off than most third world countries). A gal I know tried to volunteer with an after-school program there, but was told she was too white to relate, and told not to return.

That's something interesting. I live in a very ethnically diverse place, yet my daughter had more friends of the cultural rainbow in Montana (99.5% white) than here. Perhaps that's because the ethnic groups in Montana weren't really groups, and man is a social animal. Here, however, there are large enough populations that one doesn't have to go outside their own group to make those social connections. Which in some ways is really too bad.

Hi Montana, Mystic Martin has a tech problem, so he's changed into me for the forseeable future. Hope you like the new page...chat soon