I suck at updating on the weekends, don't I? It's probably going to stay that way, too, since the allusion that I actually have a life is the only thing that keeps me at the cool kids' table. Or something.

I have no idea what the hell I am talking about.

Anyway, last night was awesome. Vicky, May and I went to a silent auction/dessert orgy fundraiser for 4-H. May and I had donated some bracelets and necklaces we made to be auctioned off and every single one sold. From what I could tell by lurking around the tables, May raised at least 50 dollars with her stuff and some dude won something with a 300 dollar bid. This rocks. Hard. My mom will know the total amount of money raised on Monday when she goes into work. But that 350 dollars is enough to send two kids to summer camp.

Now, I've been refraining from coming on here to rant about something. Shocking, huh? I don't know too much and no one is answering any questions, but shit's going to get fucked, it seems.

OK, I'm just going to assume that no one reading this knows how 4-H works.

4-H is run out of the county Cooperative Extension, which is a, well, extension of the state university (hence the "cooperative" in the title...the state and county work together). The university and the CE are vital (read "without either, it's gone") to the program.

My county is having a small money problem, as I am sure your county and your cousin's county are, as well. The state has already taken funding from 4-H and two of the summer camps have been closed down. Now, there's this certain Big Shot County Person who thought, "Hey! Why not merge the departments with overlapping programs, cut 53 jobs and save some cash? Yeah! I should get a cookie for that!"

Big Shot County Person looked at the CE, saw that it had youth programs (4-H) and then saw that the Parks department also offered youth programs. Big Shot County Person then decided that it would be a grand idea to merge the two into a brand new Department of Leisure, which would completely eradicate the CE.

And 4-H.

Cuz, you see, without the CE, there is no university and with no university, there is no 4-H. And god forbid we have too many youth programs. Christ, could you imagine the anarchy? KIDS would actually be LEARNING.

If this were to happen, we would be the only county in the state of Florida to not have a 4-H program.

What sucks even more is Big Shot County Person does not need a formal commission vote to perform the merger. So we have to convince the commissioners to convince Big Shot County Person that smushing the CE with Parks is a fucked up idea. Here, that's like telling you brother to convince your mom that you need a BB gun.

I won't even mention the fact that people I care about could lose their jobs. People like my mom.

The only reason I am not, right now, staked out at Big Shot County Person's house with signs and petitions and dozens of little 4-H'ers with sad, puppy dog eyes is because no one is telling anybody anything. They announced it to the public earlier this week, but those who are affected know jack shit. No one will say if 4-H in this county will end with this merger, but (as I stated earlier) it's safe to assume it will.

This is messed up and I'm mad and blah blah blah.

I need to get to bed. I've got some more stupid shit to ramble about like pubic hair art and how damn sexy we all looked last night, but it doesn't seem appropriate to talk about that now. Plus, my head is spinning. Or room. Whatever. "Head" sounds cooler and more evil.

I'll do a Super Bonus Entry later. Promise.

One thing, though...if it weren't for 4-H, I wouldn't have Howie.

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