Gearing up

Today is Thanksgiving. I took a bit of inspiration from one or two of my Girl Scout friends, and I make a week long schedule for having my husband's family over. It worked out really well, broke down all my chores into smaller pieces for me and I got it all done. The only trouble was the arguement my husband and I had over how to make the stuffing. We ended up compromising and the stuffing turned out the best I have ever had to be honest.

Anyway, I had a great day and I am very thankful today. My husband is the greatest guy, and I am madly in love with him, and my kids are growing and learning and are good people, my inlaws are amazing and my family, messed up as it can be at times, is moving in the right direction.

I am also thankful for my friends. Katie, who had a baby girl a few months ago and still manages to call me before I call her, and Lisa the Brit, who taught me that mini mince pies are much better than a huge one, Chris, who cares so much AND taught me the incredible life of KISS,(keep it simple stupid), and Amy, who always seems to have one more piece of herself to give, and Kelly, who is like an egg, she shows you the hard shell but she's a big softie inside, and Beth, who makes me laugh my ass off and is very honest and such a decent person, Debbie, who has a heart of gold and lets me drag her through the mud everywhere, Lynn, who is totally nuts but would do anything for a friend, Marty, who is truly wacky but is content to be that way, and Baltimore Sue, who never lived in Baltimore but that's what my husband calls her. Sue and I have had many years as friends, and usually we were on the same side of things, but recently we weren't. I seem to have lost my taste for her sense of humor, I find it harsh nowadays, either due to my age or my environment, but she and I can overlook that aspect of life and still care about each other's happiness. My friend Denise, who I rarely hear from but who is like a sister to me when I do get to see her. Brenda, who is unspeakably interesting and fun, and Anthony, who understands the best parts of life. Brenda and Anthony unwittingly gave me hope and direction in life when I was at the bottom of an emotional pit, and they brought me back with a confidence and strength that I never could have achieved on my own. I am so thankful for them.

I am thankful for so many more, but I have run out of time. Happy Happy, hope your turkey gravy was as good as mine!!

time

ok, it is time I decide to write again. I know there are a few of you who will be happy to think that the McCain emails will stop, but they probably will never stop completely. I am thinking my Sarah Palin entries have just begun.

See, the thing is, I appreciate people who are very different from me. I like everyone from strippers to priests. Most crap simply does not bother me. I used to wonder why other people were so unable to genuinely get along with all the people I condsider my friends, and to be perfectly honest, after 43 years, I still don't get it.

I like Sarah Palin because she's a hard ass mom who took over her party and her state. I like the fact that she is much prettier and more fun than most female (ok, ALL female) politicians. I like the fact that she shoots a gun, though I never have. I think she is slightly insane for firing a personal chef and cooking for her family, but hey, what else is there to do in winter in Alaska. I may not agree with all of her views, but this country is based on balance. No extreme right or left politician is going to last for long. Did anyone notice Bill Clinton was practically a socialist until the country put down their congressional-voting foot? So, no, I am not afraid of Palin, I celebrate her, as a woman, and as a tough assed chick who can probably kick a lot of butt.

I have tired of people being so afraid of politicians who are not like them. I am tired of people being greedy and expecting the government to drag them through life. I worked my ass off, and now I volunteer my ass off, and people still never think they get enough. I give up. It's sad, but I really don't care to submerge myself in that environment anymore. I am going to take my money and my time and donate it to myself and my husband and my kids. I am going to work my ass into shape and give my husband something to drool after. I will make my kids laugh and have fun and stop pushing them to the side sometimes to help the rest of the world.

The only people I will still help are the special needs kids and families. A good friend recently said she was voting for Obama simply because of pro choice values. She felt that Sarah Palin was wrong to bring a Downs Syndrome child into the world. This is a woman who works with special needs teenagers. She feels most of them would be happier if they never lived. I disagree. My cousin is Downs, an old High School friend has a Downs son. You know what? They are happy, because the parents who are raising them are not ignoring them or trying to hide their disability. Why kill the child when the parents are the ones to blame? Suck it up people and start realizing that everyone can be happy, and everyone can be sad. It's not your choice to make for others. I love Sarah Palin for having Trig, I love his name even if it does send math-fear convulsions into my brain. I admire a woman who essentially gives the finger to the rest of this judgemental world. She has my vote, and my donation, if she ever runs again. No matter how scared of her you are. You all need to get spine. And an appreciation of the extremes of humanity.

Hope or No Hope for Mom

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years back. It was a pretty stunning moment to hear that, I would never have guessed my Mom would ever be diagnosed with any disease. What was more amazing is that my mom had no hope. Hope was something for a lost cause, and my Mom pretty much told the doctor, "okay, what do we have to do to beat this?".



And beat it she did. Not with tears and why me? and hope for a miracle. Mom made her own path, she decided she was going to beat this and nothing was going to stop her. And nothing did, not the biopsy, the surgery, the chemo and the radiation. She calmly and purposefully took every step forward and beat cancer with a big stick. It's called determination, and hope has no place when you decide there will only be one outcome to a situation.



We had hope for my father in law when he had open heart surgery last March. We had hope that he would wake up and be taken off all those machines and be okay. Then we started to hope he'd be somewhat okay, and need dialysis 3 times a week. And then hope was gone, and so was Dad. They told Dad that he did not have long to live a good 30 years ago, and he laughed at them. He didn't hope for the best, he plowed through life after they took his leg, after they told him he had a kidney problem, after the many diagnosis that he was not long for this world. As long as Dad had determination, he was going to be fine. And being on machines during surgery took away Dad's ability to determine his own outcome, he didn't give up, he fought through his unconsciousness until the machines drained him of life. Hope didn't work for us.



So I wonder at the idea that my mother is leaning toward voting for Barack Obama. He has hope. McCain simply does the job, just like my mother does, just like my father in law did until the doctors took away his ability to fight. The media is taking away McCain's ability to fight, methodically ignoring any positive news on McCain and slanting every report against him, while blowing sunshine up Obama's ass and never asking him a real question that might cast a negative light upon his hope. Somehow, I know Dad is up there routing his butt off for John McCain.



Barack Obama's insistance that Hope and Change are our saviours is completely wrong. It's passive. John McCain, a man who has been physically battered and broken and still has his fighting spirit, his determination, doesn't have hope he can lift up America and the world. He knows he can, because he doesn't hope. For McCain, success is the only outcome. And if you'd just stop listening to the verbal blather and research both of their backgrounds, their challenges and successes, how one man relied upon others to carry him through while the other merely dragged himself to the top, you might decide that a tough old white man really would make a good president. Because he does not hope, he simply does the work. That makes all the difference.

Colin-oscopy

Colin Powell just endorsed Obama. I am so disappointed in him. He chose a man he barely knows over a man he respects and has worked with for ages, simply because of his race. Powell can claim that wasn't his main reason for the endorsement, but it is. He would never, ever endorse a Democrat before, and Obama has accomplished little in life beyond rounding up people who don't have a clue who or what they are voting for and registering them to vote. All because the black community demands that Powell choose between white and black. "He said as much when he commented that McCain is very capable of being president. I am very sad.

At the best, an Obama presidency will be like David Dinkins' reign in NYC. A complete zero. I know, I voted for him. What a mistake. And then we ended up with Nazi-like Rudi Guiliani for a mayor, who was mean and viscious and dangerous until September 11th when he suddenly became a Champion. Obama is so naive as to think other countries are simply going to listen to him and do what he thinks is best, and that's not the way the world works.

I am sad that our country is going to push away a great man, one who has always worked with the other side and who always stands up for what is right, simply because he is old and white. I guess the irony is that, for the first time in her adult life, Michelle Obama is proud of her country, and for the first time in my adult life, I will be ashamed of my country. John McCain deserves better respect from the fellow Americans for whom he has worked so hard.

Feng Shui

I have bad Fung Shway. That's how you pronounce Feng Shui. I learned about it a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, but I just decided that the Feng Shui book to unclutter your house was for me. So, reading it freaks me out as I think maybe my entire life sucks and I am simply not aware of it, but if I look hard at my clutter and dust, I will discover how miserable I unwittingly am.

Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of....I don't know, house gadget placement? Everything means something, where you place your bed, what direction, candles in the bathroom, having a chair back to the room. It's basically a guide to how to alienate and insult everyone who ever enters your house. I enjoy that thought. Because I do not believe my stacks of clutter and mountains of dog hair insult and alienate enough people. If I work harder, I can be left entirely alone for all of eternity.

Then what would I do?

Girl Scouts are Insane

We had our leader meeting the other night for our Girl Scout Service Unit. We discussed a very important day to Girl Scouts - Thinking Day. It's a day when we get together, all of our troops in Auburn, and celebrate other countries and learn about them. There is a theme every year. last year was WATER. So we each chose a country and prepared a display about how water is used, preserved, etc. in that country. Of course I grabbed Panama, there's more water in that canal than just about anywhere. It was cool, girls did Djibouti, Germany, Mexico. We learned how they conserve water, survive droughts, even use steam to make electricity (Iceland). It was awesome. We did all sorts of water experiments. What a great day.

So, what's the theme this year? “We can stop the spread of AIDS, malaria and other diseases.”
Of course, you can imagine my reaction, as well as the other leaders. We laughed. Good joke, and the council person said "No, that's really the theme". I, being the shy, quiet person who avoids the spotlight, jumped up and yelled, "I call The Congo, so we can teach the girls all about Ebola and if they see a person with blood spewing out of every orifice then DON'T GO NEAR THEM, RUN AWAY! That will stop the spread of Ebola."

My point, Gee, let's give every 6 and 7 year old Brownie a horror show of death and disease annihilating the planet just for fun. That'll get 'em thinking every night instead of those stupid sugarplums dancing around. HELLO! Girl Scouts of America, we do NOT want to scare the crap out of our kids or anyone else's kids! ARE YOU INSANE? First you want to change all of our Grace songs for camp from God to "Mother Earth", and now you want to teach the little cute girls all about AIDS and body fluid swapping? Are you TRYING to bankrupt yourselves?

Insane. I hope we do it. I will make a dummy with fake blood pumping out all over the place. It will be so cool. Too bad Thinking Day is in February, not October. It's a Halloween theme this year!!!

Frankly, I think our theme should be: Antidepressants: why your leaders are so calm and how to piss them off. It works for me!!!

houses

The Federal Reserve Chairman just had a televised announcement, and he said this entire financial crisis is due to the housing/mortgage problem.

And YES, I have been offered a much higher mortgage than I could afford and turned it down for a mortgage (and less opulent home) that I could afford.  So don't blame pushy mortage brokers.  People have to take some responsibility for their actions. 

We just bought a house in NY, and we didn't get a copy of the Home Inspection report.  We just heard from the Realtor that everything was fine.  Well, turns out it's not fine.  The electric in the house is aluminum and it all has to be replaced.  Who's fault is it? The Realtor? The Seller? The Home Inspection Guy?  John McCain?  NOPE!  It's our fault.  We were stupid, and we accept that.