I just found out about CTAP today.

The California Telephone Access Program (CTAP) distributes telecommunications equipment and services to individuals certified as having difficulty using the telephone. CTAP is a California State mandated program, under governance of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Equipment and some network services are available at no charge to eligible consumers.

Californians who are deaf, hard of hearing, speech-disabled, cognitively-disabled, blind, or who have low vision, or restricted mobility, are eligible to receive equipment with certification by a medical doctor, a licensed audiologist, a qualified state agency, or a hearing aid dispenser.

CTAP is funded by a small surcharge that appears on all telephone bills in California. The money collected from this surcharge pays for both the California Telephone Access Program (CTAP) and the California Relay Service (CRS). This surcharge appears on your phone bill as “CA Relay Service and Communications Devices Fund.”

No wonder California is broke as a joke. No denying that being blind, deaf, or having fingers too fat to dial on a regular keypad are all tragic conditions. But why do the rest of us have to buy you a phone?

It’s almost as ridiculous as forcing tax-payers to pay for other people’s TV converter boxes.

PS- This picture makes me giggle.

"Your call could not be completed as dialed. Your fingers are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now."

The following is a conversation with my husband Leif. We were driving home from somewhere, and the car is definitely the place where all important conversations take place and difficult decisions are made.

“Someone asked why I wasn’t planning to run for elected office in the near future. I told him that my husband didn’t want me to.”

“Yeah?” He asked with an eyebrow slightly raised. “What did he say?”

“Something along the lines of ‘was I going to let that stop me?’”

“And you said…” The eyebrow shifted up even higher.

“I said of course it would stop me. Just like if you wanted to make a major career change that disrupted our entire life together, not to mention the effect on our kids, I would never expect you to go ahead with it if I weren’t completely on board.”

“So you don’t think I should quit my job and go to seminary and become a pastor?”

“Um…no. I didn’t marry a pastor, I married a software engineer.”

“So what do you have against pastors?”

“Nothing. I just don’t want to be married to one.”

“Well I don’t want to go to seminary anyway.”

“I know! So it’s totally different, because I actually want to run for Senate.”

That’s when I got the my-wife-is-ridiculous-but-adorable-so-I-love-her-quirks look.

“What?” I asked incredulously. “I could totally run for Senate. If I had a supportive husband, that is.” I tried my best to glower. I don’t think it worked very well.

“Next time someone asks you why you let your husband boss you around, just tell them it’s because I beat you.”

“You only beat me because you’re crazy good at games and never let me win.”

“If you played more, you’d get better at them and then maybe you’d really win.”

“I would, but I hate to lose.”

“And you want to run for Senate?”

“Completely different. I wouldn’t LOSE that!”

A clucked tongue and “um-hmm.” was all I got in reply.

“Well I wouldn’t.”

“Jennifer, no one’s going to let you win a Senate race.”

“You’re just scared I’ll lose and be an impossible biotchay to live with.”

“Damn straight.”

“You may have a point.”

After a moment or two of pondering, I only had one more thought to add.

“Except I wouldn’t lose.”

And then my smartypants hubby did the only thing he could to get out of his wife pestering him. He said, “I have no doubt you wouldn’t lose. But we’d miss you too much if you were a Senator.”

It’s true, you know. If I were a Senator, Leif might actually have to learn to do laundry. The horror!

“Well I’m still not ruling it out.”

And that’s when we got home and saw the neighbors struggling to bring in a new crib. Apparently they’re expecting a little girl in August. And that’s when my uterus throbbed and I thought about having another baby in a couple of years instead of running for Senate.

Except maybe I think I’ll do both.

Guess who’s speaking at a tea party this April 15th?

If you’re in Orange County, come celebrate America with us, and get fired up to keep fighting against the transformation of the greatest country on the planet.

Afternoons are crazy in my house.  Just after 2, Thing 2 will wake up screaming from her nap, if she went to sleep at all.  If not, then I’ll usually rescue her from her evil crib at that time.  Then we fight over what she should have for a snack.  She always wants a cupcake.  And I always say, “No cupcake!”  At which point she collapses into a fit of sobs and tears.  Eventually she’ll decide that she really does want the cheese/fruit/triscuits/other tasty wholesome snack, pick it up off the floor where’s she’s thrown it and eat it.

After that debacle, it’s usually time to go pick up Thing 1 from school and run an errand or two.  Today we had to get some new tires for my truck.  We went to Costco because I had some giftcards, plus you can get ice cream while you wait.  Into the tire center.  I know I need two at least, but think, “Hmm, do I really want to be back here in 3-6 months to replace the other two?  Nope!”  So I order up four new tires.  The very polite service guy rattles of a price of eight hundred dollars and change.  I’m not sure exactly, he lost me at eight hundred.  Two new tires will be just fine thankyouverymuch.  I tried not faint or choke or vomit as I forked over enough money to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii.  Then I spent some time day dreaming about Hawaii.

Of course I was slammed back to reality when Thing 1 tipped over Thing 2′s stroller in the tire department at Costco.*

Thankfully there was no line, so it was only a 45 minute wait.  We got some ice cream to share and I got a diet coke.  I haven’t been buying it regularly any more, because I can’t find find a twelve pack for less than $5, and let’s face it: that’s extortion.  I blissfully sipped my chemically caffeinated goodness while Things 1 & 2 raced to see who could eat more ice cream faster.  Turns out Thing 1, although she paid for it dearly with a massive brain freeze that I refused to listen to her whine about.

New tires, sugared up children, and a broke Jenny headed home.  I opened up my laptop and tweetdeck, trying to ignore the cacophony of, “I don’t want to do my homework!!!” and “Cupcake!” surrounding me.  And I saw avatar pics of terminator sheep with glowing red eyes.  And lots of tweets with the hashtag #demonsheep.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

So I tweeted: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is with the #demonsheep??

And I was immediately rewarded with links.  I love Twitter.  It satisfies my impatient nature.

The evil terminator demon sheep appear in an ad for Carly Fiorina, a sometimes fiscally conservative running for the republican nod to run against Senator Please-Don’t-Call-Me-Ma’am-Boxer in California.  The ad slams an even more liberal republican than herself, Tom Campbell. And for some reason, it’s filled with demon sheep.

It made my whole day.

Demon Sheep

*No toddlers were harmed in the making of this post.  Unless you consider cupcake denial to be harmful.  In which case, it was torturous.

People are still protesting in Iran over the sham of an election. People like Neda are dying while protesting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of Musavi. But people should have the right to vote for their leader, and they should not be killed for protesting.

North Korea has nukes, and according to Japan, has plans to fire at Hawaii in early July. I don’t think that those are the kind of fireworks we want on Independence Day.

ABC will air an ObamaCare infomercial tomorrow night, and the Republicans or anyone with an opposing viewpoint is explicitly not invited. So much for unbiased media reporting. They aren’t even trying to hide it anymore.

California is bankrupt, and instead of cutting some massive pork projects, they’re cutting tax exemptions and closing state parks.

Several people were killed in a DC train crash.

And Perez Hilton got punched in the face.

At least one thing in the news this week made me smile!