The pressure to perform, to be perfect, to do it all, is getting to women, and they are responding.

More of them are responding by getting drunk or high, or both, and getting behind the wheel of a vehicle under the influence.

I understand the pressure. When the campaign begins to have a 36 hour day, which still would probably not be enough to get everything done, I will be one of it's devout supporters.

There is always so much to do. Exercise. Eat right. Feed the family, and teach the homeschool lessons. Get the older ones to school. Part time job. Prepare Sunday school lessons. Laundry, bills, lawn care, auto maintenance, house cleaning, get the garbage and recycling out on the right day, shopping, running errands, none of it ever finished.

Plus you are supposed to spend time meditating, slowing down, praying, Bible study, all put on a to do list that grows ever longer as the days seem ever shorter.

Some women doing much of this stuff alone, even if married.

No wonder some cave to the pressure and just do something, anything, to try to relieve some of the strain, the worry, the sheer exhaustion.

I don't pretend to know the answers, but I do know that numbing it out with drugs or alcohol, and then getting in the car with the kids, is not one of them.

The only one I've found is to think of it all as job security. That way I laugh so I don't cry.

Then there is the bit of wisdom my mother gave me. It is a badly photocopied picture of Calvin, pirated from "Calvin and Hobbes", frowning in anger. Next to him it says, "God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I am so far behind, I will never die!"

Job security. Laugh, or the next sound you hear may be one you don't want to hear.


Today is:

Blame Somebody Else Day (I wouldn't suggest it, it will only start a fight you are too tired to finish.)

Congo National Festival begins

Daughter's Day

Festival of Huitzilopochtis, Aztec Calendar

Festival of the Volcano, Antigua and Guatemala

Hecate, Goddess of the Crossroads, Ancient Rome

Independence Day, Central African Republic

International Left-Hander's Day

National Filet Mignon Day

Occupation Day

Rathkamp Matchbook Society Convention

Skinny Dipping Day (I no longer skinny dip. I chunky dunk!)

St. Cassian's Day (Patron Saint of teachers -- yes, they are back in school already, heaven help them.)

St. Concordia's day (Patron Saint of nannies.)

St. Hippolytus' Day (Patron Saint of horses.)

St. Pontian's Day

Women's Day, Tunisia


Birthdays Today:

Dan Fogelberg, 1951
Don Ho, 1930
Pat Harrington, Jr., 1929
Fidel Castro, 1926
George Shearing, 1919
Alfred Hitchcock, 1899
Bert Lahr, 1895
Annie Oakley, 1860


Today in History:

The English army under King Henry V lands at the mouth of the Seine River, 1415
Tenochtitlan of the Aztecs conquered by the Spanish, 1521
Tenbun Hokke Disturbance, in which Buddhist monks from Kyoto's Enryaku Temple set fire to 21 Nichiren temples throughout Kyoto, 1536
John Smith submits the story of Jamestown's first days for publication, 1608
Christiaan Huygens discovers the Martian south polar cap, 1642
Founding of Litchfield, CT, 1651
Marie Antoinette and other French royals imprisoned by Revolutionaries, 1792
Earthquake in Peru and Ecuador kills 25,000, 1868