Holidays

Christmas and Ma's birthday went well, although I think the latter aged me prematurely.

In the interim the house caught a mouse, or worse several mice. Now I have on hand three dogs and a cat.
The cat can be excused as she's very aged and  blind. Nanoq the great dane has breeding to excuse him, no one ever claimed these huge dogs had any hunting instinct. Come to think of it the only instincts I have seen him display concern food and the softest place on the couch.

The other two damndogs are SUPPOSED to be a form of terrier. Mickey has a nervous temperament, diabetes and limited understanding.

WINNIE has none of those problems to excuse her bland dismissal of the mouse. I've explained to her that the mouse is an intruder, I've taken her to the mouse sighting area. I've been found at the back door exhorting her to catch a mouse for mommy. After I thought about that little scene, I decided to get mouse traps.

I'm leaving for the mouse eradication store shortly.

Another Christmas

I captured the wild Christmas tree early this year by the simple expedient of buying in at Kroger's. Wonderful one stop shopping. The poor tree has reposed on the brick patio until tonight when the four of us have sworn to put it up and decorate it with 30 year old child art and various other decorations.

This year it's shopping that's got me excited...in a bad way. As I fear crowds, loathe trying to locate items in a barn like building and hate driving among my fellow crazed citizens, I took to buying on line immediately after I learned how to open the computer. (My daughter still marvels).

I don't have to see on line sellers. I've pretty much eliminated the more egregious thieves (oddly, they're all owned by insurance companies) and life went along quite well until I found the "reviews" section.

Now all is lost.

First I discounted any poorly spelled review-general principles you know. Then I started to read the 750 reviews left (Clearly our education system has exceeded my expectations)

Review 1

I wouldn't give this to my worst enemy. I returned it immediately. The design was pathetic, the materiels used cheap and the damn thing was NOT a Cresta par Festa of the Burgundonian Line but a tacky copy.

Review 2

Wonderful gidget. Can't imagine a better device. Every one will love it!

Review 3

I thought it looked good until I tried to use it and the handle fell off. I'd avoid the machine.

Review 4.

Great little thing. After the handle fell off I just got out my oxy aceletene torch and put it right back on.
It's worked like a dream ever since. Granted the join rusted a bit but the kids like lightly brown spaghetti and rust never hurt a thing.

Review 5

I waited for years for a Cresta par Festa of the Burgundonion Line and finally found it. I must say the machine lives up to it's lofty reputation.Using it I've fed widows and orphans all over the world...it never runs out of pasta.This little gadget has been working for four months, 24 hours a day and it looks like it just came out of the box.

Review 6

Just don't wash it. Really. Really never wash it. Get a boar bristle brush and when it's dry for a day of two, gently brush it out. Remember. Don't wash it.

How am I supposed to make an informed decision? I've gone back to the tried and true. If it's not plastic and no one mentions toxins and it's fairly cheap, I buy it.

My Sacrifice

After little thought and a lot of consideration for my own good, I've decided to offer myself to the world of business.
I will accept the job as CEO of any company of note. (ie. big bucks)

I am uniquely qualified. I know the drill and I can't add.
First of course I'll have my picture, suitably photo shopped, in the financial papers and blogs. Then I'll fire the obligatory 1,500 workers. I'll sell my stock the next day to catch the profit that will roll off the stockmarket.
I'll give a few interviews where in I'll praise the spirit of the American worker, and lament voluably about the uncertainty of the economic climate (We just don't know whats going to happen).
I'll go on vacation.
Then I'll have my people start a 'good natured' twitter campaign about where our national headquarters should be located.Two 18 year olds should manage to generate enough air blither to attract the reporter types.
I'll sit back and see which city offers me the most money and tax exemptions to house the company. This part is fun and I will no doubt manage to get one city to offer all the above and throw in a world class facility from which we can work.
I'll choose the architect and builders- based on the time proven method of who pays me the most.
Then I'll dine out and be cultured. I'll use the butter lavishly, praising all I see and meet.
At the turn of the year I'll resign to spend more time with my family.
Naturally, leaving while I'm at the top of the game will benefit me greatly as the directors will buy out my contract and give me health care, country club membership and residential help forever.

When the 22 maintenance workers move into the headquarters a few years down the road (I will have had to promise the feds some low and middle income jobs) I plan to be in Switzerland. I love Lake Geneva.

St. Dymphna

It is a truth universally to be acknowleged that all elderly women of this area are dedicated to sending money to any and all Catholic charities. Said donations are always responded to by sending the donor a holy card.
(For the uninitiated, a holy card is rather like a baseball card. On the front is a picture of the chosen player or saint, on the back are listed the statistics.Ladies are always happy to have the holy card as it signals they have not just sent money to the Haddessah or the Holy Rollers .) Some time ago a "friend" danced into the kitchen holding a card aloft. "I've found her," she announced. "I've found your patron saint in my mother's mail."
"My patron saint is Anne," I pointed out. It had been a hard day with the dogs and the relatives.
"No." She was in fine fettle. "Your patron is Saint Dymphna."
"I don't want her, she's one of those made up in a very old book of saints saints. At least Anne may have existed and I can spell her name."
Undeterred she put the card and attendant medal on the fridge.
Later I looked at it. The picture was the very pattern of the female saints. She is whey faced, crowned and simpering. The back informed me that she is the patron saint of "those afflicted with mental, emotional, and nervous disorders." In plainer terms, she is the saint for loonies.
I will get revenge for this-as soon as I can find my old missal. I have plenty of odd holy cards stashed and I plan to make their oddities very prominent in her life.I am trying to remember the lady who guarded her chastity to the death,(generally they had their heads lopped off. Some of the severed heads talked and some didn't)  there are so many of them... but one inspired a society for the chaste. I vividly remember signing up several young lads at university for the societies newsletter.
The gentlemen were not amused.
(But I was)

Family party

The younger woman will look at me with eyes that see all my lumpen proletarianism. Unimportant, unrich, unbeautiful. She will suffer the people with weary disdain hiding the desperation to be somewhere else. Perhaps she will see my beautiful children: she will find them wanting and bless the day my "brother" told her he didn't want children. She did of course, but that was then, not now. She's very important now. She lives in a world of challenges which she bests effortlessly. She's a positive person, an example to her exclusive community.

The elder she will note any wrongness and store it for use against me. She'll save it for a temper, a fit of screaming vile things about me, hoping I will cry. I won't. The elder  will tell me she can't do without me. I wish she could have a dog to beat but it would be too cruel to the animal.

I will smile and I will pay. I am the chosen child. The one beaten, killed and given to the old god.

Phoneys

I hate the pitch. "Nancy, this is Colleen. How are you today. I do hope that you're doing well." And then a carefully orchestrated set of comments and questions, the "check" with the supervisor and kiss goodbye to $20 dollars. They hope.

They only get so far if the day has been fraught, the dogs are swarming me looking for food and a friend's at the door.

Next time I'll say faintingly, "Well, I'm doing better you know but the medicine costs so much that I've had to give up eating more than once a day and what with the rise in rent and the doctor's bills....It's so nice of you to ask. Can you help me with a small donation?"

I do give to charity but I know damn well these guys are not on our researched list.

OK OK

The few people who read this blog are telling me to give my e mail address so people don't need to join "Blog:" I fear that I have been remiss in not reading the tons of explication relating to this blog and facebook.
I'm sorry. John signed and set of the blog. Sue put me on facebook. I really haven't a clue about all the rules.
at any rate, one can catch me at nblignaut@zoomtown.com..  That is if I read my e mail and I've taken to doing so.
Electronically I am an idiot. I will learn. Sue will teach me.

Language

I don't mind language, actually I'm rather fond of it. So fond of it that I taught English for 35 years-not including art, french, history, study skills, and religion.

I FAILED. It's so nice to be part of the current generation which is counseled by Time Magazine to accept failure as an aid to creativity and to go out and make a job. I gather there are no companies wanting workers who live locally (ie. in the United States), so the young ones must get newspaper routes.

Back to language. I endorse plain language. I'm very tired of hearing commentators say, "Of course you can have regulation, but a smart person can always find a way around the rules." I heard this again about a chap from the Swiss Bank (UAB) who misplaced 2 billion dollars. He's in London and has hired a top notch lawperson to defend him in court. (Personally I'd chose a Swiss jail rather than a British one. The Swiss are more likely to keep their jails clean even if their morals are suspect.)

I dispute the word "smart."  "Smart" is a very positive word and is inadequate to describe the actual event.
The proper word is "thief,"  "alleged thief" if you will. People's intelligence has nothing to do with such actions. Bernie Madoff is a thief. He stole peoples money. Enron's players were thieves and liars. Wall Street is littered with thieves and liars.

It's so simple.

Help!

John Bahener, the head of the congress or something just explained his economic policy vis a vis government  spending and I don't get it.

He wants more tax cuts. Haven't we had more tax cuts? He wants to keep tax cuts for the very rich, allow tax loopholes for oil and gas and any other group that owns a lobby.
Hasn't that been the theme of "economic thought" since Reagan? Have you notices an improvement in the economy? I know it's good in Asia, but I thought supply side economics were supposed to help the US.

He doesn't want regulation. BAD REGULATION. We haven't had much regulation for a pot of years. Anyone notice a problem with banks?

Thanks to these conservatives the following is true. Our hard worn money invested in US Treasuries may well give us back less than we put in. We won't just lose interest, we'll lose our money. The stock market goes on in another reality, the small investor will lose money. Social Security will be banished by the Republicans along with Medicaid and Medicare. We can't afford them.

Worst of all, we put our children to die in an unnecessary war and the Conservatives won't pay for their care either, not in the end, not when they see what a closed head injury really means.

Explain this for me. I really don't understand.

The wonders of science!

I love science. Science has brought us so many surprises in the last decade. Here are my favorite scientific flashes.

Babies' brains grow after they're born. (I wonder what they thought that soft spot was all about)

Students who do homework do better in school.

Really, really high heels lead to foot problems down the road.

Golly!

The big surprise in my life has been that women wear these heels without stockings. I wish I knew how they manage. Stuffing feet into stiletto heels without stocking  and wearing them all day looks ultra painful. Maybe women's feet no longer sweat. The woman of today find that even plastic shoes remain cool and comfortable. Leather shoes are a given but how do women put up with "strappy" shoes? My fashionista friend informs me that these are most desirable of shoes because they're sexy. What I see is shoes held onto the feet with one or two very thin strips of leather (the other straps are for decoration only) which offer damned little support for feet suspended six inches off the ground.

I am in awe of today's women...and the insightful scientists!!!! It's all too much for me.

Hmmmm.

Why can't dogs talk? I know they can vocalise. When I leave the house the unholy trio howl in wonderful tune.

I understand Nook. God bless him, he was born with diminished brain power. His thoughts run to Huh?...Huh... No do that!...Huh...Huh? Food!...Nook strongly reminds me of some students I have taught.They mean well, are very big but unlike him, they chase balls.

My poor Mick is a classic neurotic. He worries all the time. He thinks "Pet me, please pet me, pet me some more...Ohh! strange noise, hid in dog house, awful, awful, awful, pet me, please pet me, treat?"

Winnie is another kettle of fish. She has an obvious sense of humour and she directs the other dogs in her endless campaign to train me according to her version of proper. To that end she's observant and disciplined.
She controls the in-out movement of the dogs, manages the eating times and the disposal of space on the couches and chairs. (Each dog fancies his own furniture. Naturally their tastes overlap. Winnie doles out space according to her own whim.) Winnie always follows Nook into the kitchen. She's long ago noted that he can knock food to the floor all unwitting-exp. with his tail. She scoops it up.

She's a mutt and thus no one has bred certain strategies out of her tool kit. So why can't she speak?

She was raised in a language rich environment, exposed to books,  reading , music and intelligent conversation.  She listens well. She rarely wanders off in the middle of my disquisitions on life. I swear she understands a great deal of what I say.

The damndog even understands gestures, not that she obeys them,  unless I come after her with newspaper, knife or stick. Then she runs.

There's much we can learn from a dog. I think Winnie figures life is complicated enough without talking about it.

Grey day, finally

And to think that I used to mock the English and South Africans obsession with weather! In my latter years I find there may have been a reason for their concern other than the total safety of the topic.

(Well, it used to be safe, now everyone argues about global warming.)

Weather is actually very important. I've noted that tornados, hurricanes, and drought are important to individual survival.

I find endless days of sun drenched in the awful humidity of this area make me cross. Grey days, rain and sooner dark console me. It must be biological somehow. The world migrates to the southwest or to southern California. Still, I can't really fancy living in a desert. Nor can I see living in a canyon. My sister in law in Los Cruces swears by the mountains that surround her. The sun always shines. My brother in Phoenix is happy with sun year round and swears the excessive heat only lasts for three months of so.

I want to move north. My idea of heaven is the shore of Lake Superior bathed in clear sun, warm enough but always breezes scented by the pines I like Lake Superior too when it's cold, when the rain comes, when the great storms rage. Lake Superior eats ships. In a rage it pulls down the great and big ocean going ships.

It's usually fairly placid and very cold. I see it as a barricade against the vast warm wet air that smothers human action and that has likely led to the confusion of warmer climates' human minds.

Speaking of warmer climates, what's with Rick Perry
I can't help it. I wonder if the fires around Austin are God's way of telling him to avoid the presidency.
He's a fundamentalist and thus pays attention to such signs, esp. when they happen to other people.

I think I'm on a list under the heading-Sucker.

Friendly people keep calling me. The address me by my first name and explain that what the have to sell is important. It's not.
I hang up often and generally after a bit they all go away. One is most persistent.
Michael called me and explained I had won a prize. What an idiot, I have never won a prize. I was about to be gifted with a security system...for free.
I told him to go away and never call again.
Today Steve called me and wanted to discuss my security system. I told him I have an Uzi and several of the newer arms all about the house, loaded and waiting for the arrival of an intruder. I'd plenty of target practice and figured I could kill without making too much of a mess.
Clearly he'd done some basic research on Kentucky, he probably even knew about the lady up the hill who killed a naked man when he broke into her kitchen.
I do hope I'm rid of these salesmen even though I'm probably the only unarmed person on the street.

I do have a security system. The damndogs could bamboozle most people. Nook gets overexcited and races around the house barking and missing a stranger by inches. Winnie can bark loudly too and she's a dab hand at imitating a pit bull when she's alarmed. All of witch just might distract a person until Mickey the stealth dog went in for the kill. He's the only one I suspect might bite.

Then there's me. If I hear an intruder I have recourse. I can call the police. John, a fervent believer in women's rights will generally sleep through any ruckus, but if it gets bad enough I can escape down the hidden staircase or open the window on the side of the house and scream, all sorts of non violent action.
And in the absolutely worst case I can pinch John until he has to get up and let me guide him to the safe route outside.

news

Young woman, high voice, undertone of whine.

"So why is the market higher today? Do you think this is a long term trend?  Is it the fall of Tripoli? What's going to happen there? Do you think that the price of gas in going to fall? How far? When will it fall? Which people will take control of the government there? " And on, and on and on...

Businessmen, financial types, authoritative voices with affected accents of unsure.

"We can't do anything because we don't know what's going to happen. I mean we just don't know. How can we lend in this environment? How can we invest? We just don't know what's going to happen from day to day. Why the stock market keeps going up and down. Times are just too unstable. We can't be expected to do anything. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow." What they do know is that the taxpayers will bail them out and they they will get millions in bonuses, but they're keeping that secret..

Clearly these people are robots. They expect absolute direction. Hasn't anyone told them that NO ONE KNOWS WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TOMORROW. The market always goes up and down.

Except of course the guys who control the market. They know because they make it happen. They are, however, not available for interview.

Jackasses all.

Finally.

In the past few days I have caught two statements from the "experts."

Financial expert: "Actually, if you think about it, the stock market has been divorced from economic reality for some time now."

Political expert "Sarah Palin seems much more interested in reality shows than a political career."

Me-the fig newton of the intellectual community- "Duh."

Why it takes so long

You may know that I have a theory that gravity is time, and all this without Einstien. I can tell because in time all of me has fallen, even parts I didn't know could fall.

Machines are made of parts and these parts fail with depressing regularity. I know that the failure is planned by the makers to insure economic activity (planned obselesence). Still, I think of it as a hostile act on the part of the machine. No doubt this is because my father wrestled all machinery into submission with a few cheap parts, an engineering degree and a determination not to be bested by a errant wire, bolt or anything else that dared give up the ghost. He once dissassembled an entire car engine and put the pieces carefully on a tarp outside in his irritation at a straying something that made the engine disfunctional. This put a bit of a crimp on my dating life, such as it was, because all the guys took one look at the array in the yard and my dad's face and decided to date the daughter of a real estate agent.

Daddy has gone to the great rest which I hope is full of things that work-though I wouldn't be on it- so now we must handle mechanical failure on our own. 

So  the dryer stopped tumbling. John left instructions for me to get it fixed and I need to explain the process to somebody because he won't really care. First I must call repair places. Some don't exist anymore no matter what their ad says. Others no longer repair, but they WILL sell. Those in Cincinnati always seem to charge for the time it takes the repairman to turn the key of his truck till his last breath which I desperately hope will be after the repair. Then should the dryer need to be deep sixed they charge for delivery of the new and removal of the dead dryer. They charge to hook it up to the gas line. They charge for the kit they leave for us to hook it up to the gas line. (I really don't understand that)

When I finally figure out the location of a repair person, I have to call around. If the service is in Kenton Co.
I have to find a reference from that county. If the service is in Campbell Co. I have to find someone there.
After all this, I have to call off eveyone who I've scheduled who isn't the Chosen One.

I actually don't know who reads this. Please read!

I write a blog because everyone tells me I'll never make a stand up comic. Its always been my not so secret wish. I'd love to make people laugh.

My students always told me to stick to my day job. The other day I TRIED to be funny and John didn't get it.

When I write, unless you can imagine me being serious, I'm being silly. The world and politics and people are so dire that I can only laugh. If I took all the current nonsense seriously I'd be in one of those special jackets, the kind where the arms are wrapped around the body.

The world has always been absurd to one degree or another-  Alas, nowadays we all see the absurdity the minute it happens.

The Arab Spring goes awry in England

When people we don't like face popular revolt it's called an Arab Spring.

When the Brits do it, it's called lawlessness. They may have the right of it. What I love is the common comment of the proles on the rioters. "Where are their parents?" they ask.

It's so refreshing to hear people who think that parents are somehow involved with their children. In the States children are independent agents at age four or thereabout. After our kids are out of daycare the world is responsible for all juvenile behavior. When did anyone last hear a parent called responsible?

No news!

I don't believe I turned on the news. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I already knew that in a fit of prolonged pettishness the SP down graded the nation's debt. They've been a tad bit irate since it was revealed that they are paid for their ratings and thus didn't notice the bombs of
bogus stock in the banks. They were paid not to notice, but it looked bad there for a bit and the public was cross. Now of course the public has forgotten that the ratings are for sale and the down grade has affected the stock market. I want to know WHO paid S and P. We never had this problem when Bush was president and he kept entire wars off the books.

There are a surfeit of idiots with "financial" somewhere in their title. They persist in "explaining" the stock market. Sincere folk with a strange vocabulary worship at the feet of Mammon without realizing that the golden calf is never going anywhere. There IS no relationship between the stock market and reality. Not for years. If the "financial analysts" are so good at creative story telling they should retire and write books. Less tedium all around. The journalists who interview them should take up gardening. The weather is more important than anyone seems to realize.

Why did God make me? 1st question, Baltimore Religious text for childrem

So.    After a day of frenzied hysteria, induced by my mother over the question of Johnmybrother's pants which went walkabout at the nursing home, I decided to relax. As a drag on society and an inessential part of the race I figured a little relaxation would be nice.

"God made me to know Him and love Him in this world and the next." Answer to the title question.

But did he make me to fight with temperamental toilets? As per routine the innards of the downstairs toilet gave up the ghost. It does this frequently but this time I couldn't fix it. The interior workings seem to have rotted all at the same time.
In an effort to spare John the repair (Consists of muttering, trips to store and aggravation) I called a plumber.
Plumber came saw and fixed- he said.
That very night, secure in the operation of all the facilities, I went to sleep. Sounds wakened me. Raced into bathroom and was hit with a large spray of water. Not only was I wet all over, but I was treading in an inch or two of water spreading into the hall.
Shocked into wakefulness, I located and turned off the valve. This drenched my hair. I may have yelped a bit. I gathered  towels and whatever else and tried to dry the floor. The dogs were delighted by my dancing about and the cheerfully ran around, knocked over the gate on the stairs and visited John and the cat. I made them return downstairs. My efforts had the effect of drying out the nightgown and finally I fell asleep on the couch.
The next morning John came downstairs tripping the light fantastic. "You made a noise last night." he said making his way to the kitchen over the drenched towels on the floor. "And the dogs visited me." He opened the fridge and took out the milk. "Was anything going on?"

Someday I may speak to him again.

Today

The descent into a bannana republic is interesting.

Our Supreme Court-an activist crew if ever there was one-declared that corporations were people and had free speech rights. Translated this meant that corporations could buy congresspersons with huge donations to elections.
I thought that a person could only donate a paltry two thousand dollars per candidate. Apparently corporations are a special set of people. They can spend millions.
Alas, yet another way to denude the population of jobs. The Koch brothers and other nuts used to have to hire folk to run "social movements." Now they can shop direct on the congressperson market.

Now, how can a corporation be a person? This person hood used to be a polite legal fiction used to describe a company. Clearly the supreme court has decided otherwise. I can almost see it. People eat, corporations use raw materials. But wait, there are corporations that have no "real" presence in the world at all. Patent sharks buy patents and then blackmail the entire electronics industry. No self respecting head of a bank or member of the stock market has been in contingent reality for years.

Seems odd. The other thing I've noticed is that people have a lamentable tendency to die. Corporations are immortal, at least in theory. Certainly they outlive all people.

The whole thing is too bewildering. I'm going back to count the angels on the head of a pin.

Six weeks

Today is July the 4th and it's traditional weather. The humidity is at 99 percent, it has rained and the sky remains grey and dull.
Last night the fireworks were constant.  Last year our vet gave us valium for Mickey. The label reads "For firework phobia." Mickey suffers from several phobias and  what with his diabetes and all they make him urinate copiously.Once I thought there was a leak in the roof only to find a huge puddle on the second floor dropping into the front hall.
Naturally we couldn't find the pills. John and I rifled through the drawers, checked the cupboards and pawed the medicine place. Finally John turned to me and said, "Dear God now I know I'm an American. Who else would tear up the kitchen looking for doggie valium?."

A reaction to our book

I answered the phone two nights ago and heard a familiar voice in full tirade. "I read your book and I said to Bruce that this was mighty fine exercise in FICTION!!!"
"Hi Myles," I was delighted. Myles is the only person in the books whose name we did not change.
"Sweet convent girl, my ass! You had men circling the block looking for you, circling the BLOCK!"
"Only one guy," I started, by My cut me off.
"And John. He was interested in your INTELLECT!!!! That's not what I saw."
He carried on. This was the most wonderful carrying on I've heard in ages. I just let him go.
He began to finish with "...and what are you going to say when the other's find out about this fiction ?"
"There are no others," I told him. "They've all gone to distant places. Besides, I changed my name."
We yelled a bit more and I laughed until I went weak.
I have no fear of Myles. He's the greatest of story tellers.
Besides. I know his stories very, very well. They put my pallid adventures into fine print. It's wonderful to have a old friend.

Oh Well...

I've given up on politics, the coming of the Lord (sometime in May) and our nation's bankruptcy. I am more concerned about my spelling and the fact that my dogs have figured out new methods of bullying me.
I get up every morning and read, think and pray. Don't tell anyone.
Everything is calm until I hear the thump of a large body hitting the floor upstairs Winnie is awake and moving. She trots downstairs, checks over the other dogs and tells them to get moving. Then it's outside, bray at all that moves until I let them back in.
Mickey prances around until I get out the insulin and needle and most importantly the treat. I shoot him up, give him the fake bacon and start to clean up. Winnie and Nook creep in and start lurking. Nook is lousy at lurking, especially since he sticks his head into the pan on the stove at every turn. I dump the expensive healthy nuggets in their bowls and prepare to get dressed. Then it starts. The dogs cast disgusted eyes over me and retreat. Their food remains untouched.
I wait it out. These damndogs are too spoiled for words,  let them starve.
Winnie waits patiently, keeping Mickey close by. Damndog, she's worked something out. The very second Mickey's insulin reacts with no food she herds him to me.
OH Shit! I say, Mickey's have a something attack and Marguerite the nurse said I should give him sugar! Then I run around an look for syrup, honey, anything. Encouraged, Mickey shakes harder, his eyes implore me. He loves sweets. So I try to reach the sugar.
In the end, alls well, but I am informed that he must EAT in the morning.

Winnie assures me that finely grated fresh Parmesan mixed in the kibble is acceptable.

(Oh. I just found the spell check on this thing. Great.)

Oh Dear.

My spelling is terrible. I need to figure out how to fix the errors.
I'm listening to the radio and an English lady is talking about "our" generation-flower children, hippies and other such. She asks how we got here. Why did our generation change so much?
I lived through all this, but I could never identify with my peers. I was always watching.
Getting old is a pleasent surprise.

John says that as one ages, one becomes distilled. People become more who they are. It's interesting.

Arizona

My baby brother lives in Arizona. I'm worried. Arizona is a pea tarty state. It will soon be mandatory to carry the state approved weapon: a Colt 45. I hear that car liscense plates now tout the virtues of the pea tarty. Pea Tartiers are very, very strange.

I too have read Ayn Rand so I am qualified to suggest a modest propsal.

Congressman Ryan (another escaped Irishman) has proposed a budget that enchants the politicos. After reading about said budget, pro and con, I am unsurprised to note he requires his staff to read Ayn Rand.
Ms. Rand was a fibber, a shameless self promotor and a rabid Social Darwinist. Her vision of paradise is a valley overlooked by a huge gold dollar sign. (She wanted to return to the gold standard). In this capitalist haven the elite were building railroads,making proper restaurants and creating a society filled with winners.
I always wondered who in this sparse society was going to use all the goodies created. The heros were none of them breeders.

With the immodesty so amply modeled by Ryan, Swift and Rand, I propose a clear budget for the new United States.

1.Cut all taxes for the rich. Rich people are those who make a quarter million dollars a year.

2.Get rid of medicare, medicad and other entitlements except one.

3.The one entitlement the nation's taxpayers should pay for is the mandatory euthenasia of all poor citizens over 65. This is to include their cremation expenses. (For the purposes clarification "poor" means any person not earning a quarter of a million dollars a year at 65. Should a person cease to earn or possess said income after 65, this person will become poor and report for euthansia.) "Living [ is] a thing which money can buy."

4.Curtail the population.No abortion need be used, only mandatory sterilization for "low IQ" women.

5.Disallow all Unions. The loss of miners and others engaged in dangerous work is unimportant. There are more where they came from and besides, they're used to it.

6. Get rid of the EPA, the department of Education and the department of Housing, Health and Welfare.

7.Rebrand Congress. Think "House of Lords" and "House of Business Counts." Reinstate hereditary titles.

8. Heed the tea party and put engravings of the ten commandments, suitably reinterpretted in the matter of "honoring parents." in every public place.

9. Remove all bars to monopoly. The current laws are a joke anyway.

10.Let business control all media.

This is an adult look at the problem of national debt. It rests on the confluence of social Darwinism, evangelical conflation with being "saved" and earning lots of money and the natural desire to be important.
Speaking of which, I hope that my thought and care result in press attention and lots of praise for taking the real adult look at our society and its debt.

PS. I am also and escaped Irish person. I also have no formal training in economics but can recognize "voodoo" economics when I see it. I also exercise every morning and have put my students through tough reading assignments.
I'm not as cute as Mr.(or should I say "Count") Ryan, but I can part my hair on the other side and garner comment from the serious press as did Count Ryan.

Who are these people? Where did they come from?

I think we've been infiltrated. Who are all these people...Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Rush, O'Rielly and some jackass with a chalk board. I can't even name them all.

Some are around my age. Where were they sitting in grade school? Do you think they attended? The ones with the Irish surnames I can almost envision. Mouthy, drunk, mean and highly verbal-I've met them. Joe McCarthy was a fine example of the genre. Why aren't they confined to bars as they should be? Who the hell let them out for strangers to find?

I know where some of the women were. Ann Coulter was the bitch in the back, on the window side because she was tall. She didn't talk to anyone in her class because the inferiority of the masses was obvious. She didn't attend her classwork much either... too busy imagining where she really belonged. Why is this woman getting noticed? Obviously her place is behind a cosmetic counter where she can sneer at the customers.Her nasty mouth and eternal disdain for all who are not her ensures her singularity. Who let her out? Who would spend time with her?

Sarah Palin is a cheerleader. Then she was a weather woman on TV. She attended 4 colleges and finally one of them gave her a degree in "communications" to get rid of her. Communications may be a more serious study today, but trust me, when she did it, it was the major for dummies. She's pretty and fertile. Sadly she's a lousy mother. You know the type. Interested in one thing only, herself.

Then there's the jackass with the chalk board. I know exactly where he was in grade school.  I'd have found him behind a wall bullying some smaller child, spitting on the girls going by, and telling the one he fancied she was ugly. Who in the hell let him out of school-where he could  gainfully be kept busy learning history. The man needs the old fashioned Jebbies. Badly. They might reinforce his bent towards fascism and his belief in male superiority, but at least he may learn some basic logic. He needs a clue: "Don't start with false premises."

New Memories keep time at bay.

When persons are young, time moves slowly. When people are old, times runs and runs and runs.
A man on the radio said the reason for this perception is that the world is new for the young. The old experience fewer new things.

Ha!
I can't begin to list the new things that happen to me every day. When I get up I face a veritable feast of new experiences. What part of me hurts today? It's such a revealation. I didn't even know I had these parts in the past.
Suddenly I have grown little brown "skin tags." I look for new ones. Then I look for my sewing sissors to snip them off. Much easier than having the doctor torment  me using lydocaine.
What face do I have today? I find my face familiar but smudged and a tad etched. All those magazines I've been getting make me keenly aware that I now have furrows...and I think crows feet, definitely a wattle is sneaking around my neck.
Those same magazines have sold me some epic moments. The time I put a paper face mask on, settled down with a book and waited, and waited and waited...John became hysterical. He asked me what I was doing. I explained that the mask was absorbing into my skin. I expected renewal.
When he got his breath back, he pointed on that after an hour the paper was all dry. He made me cross.
"The description said the mask would be absorbed, I'm waiting"
That started him off again.
"The paper isn't going into your skin,"
"It said it would."
"The stuff ON the paper went into your skin. Paper doesn't go anywhere."
I checked my face in the mirror. Not only was he right about the paper but my skin did not look renewed.
It looked embarassed.

Is this March?

Ma was worried about Johnmybrother's speech. Today I was able to reassure her. I brought the I Pad with the speech program, the newest book by his favorite author and pictures of Nanoq. I made a brief attempt to show it to him when he raised his fist and belowed, fairly clearly, "I HATE YOU!"
Joy.
Ma also lost her checkbook. She attempted to call Aldi's only to find she couldn't see the print. Rather than spend money calling the operator, she called me. I went through four current phone books. No Aldi's. No listing under groceries, food sellers, purveyers of fine food. Nothing. I called the operator and was connected to a lady in Chicago. She announced she wasn't the one to speak with and briskly passed me to an operator in Springfield (Indianna?). The woman there said she'd call the store in Erlanger, Kentucky-where my mother shops.
I insisted on getting their phone numbers. They were reluctant to disclose, but finally did. The company is, I was told, unlisted.
Aldi's called Ma shortly thereafter and said they had her checkbook. Ma called me.
Joy.

Spring

I can tell we're in springtime again. Nope. The weather is still cold and miserable. No buds are are beading the black branches. Even the early little flowers are not doing the peeping above the earth. I and all the rest of my compatriots know it's spring because gas prices are climbing up the green pole at the gas station.
Talking heads are explaining that a) troubles in Libya raise prices, b) an influx of worms invaded Mrs. Smith's gardern, c) cows are flatulent, d) a short rainfall in Outer Mongolia made roads slick last night.
If you guessed that none of the above is a reason, you're right.
What happened is the yearly discussion.

Some Senator mentioned that Oil Companies get huge tax breaks, make huge profits and pay a pittance in taxes. Americans like to drive on vacation. It's the annual opportunity for big speeches about a free market.
(By this is meant a market without restrictions of any sort. Let the market rule itself! Look at the banking system.)

Over

Balls done.(until May)
I think I begin to see a method to the madness that is the fundraising ball stuff..
People and companies pay for seats.
People are sequestered in a room with a silent auction.
People are herded into a dining room.
Noise of all sorts limits conversation to shouting. THIS is important because these affairs are an ocassion of sin for the married. One person will have bid on a useless item and paid too much. No spouse can be trusted to speak with absolute tact.
Candy, cakes and sweets are in another room. This room always has a loud band, a small dance floor and too few seats.
Serves to thin crowd out after the partaking of sweets.

Not Again.

I have to go to a ball again. This is not funny.

Papered to madness for Johnmybrother

Spent the morning filling in forms, calling people and trying to make out various gov't. papers. Clarity is not their forte.
In one of my work incarnations I was a secretery for Legal Aid. Naturally I worked in a mental hospital.
I was astounded and grateful to get the job. Cyndi was preggers and living with me. I'd quit my last job when the boss got his gun and went after the delivery guy. I just couldn't figure out why they hired me. I could only type 45 words a minute in a strong wind.
Come to find they wanted an English Major to keep the grammar clean, to research and to refill the binders when law changed and a new law needed to be inserted. More importantly they wanted a person to go over to the building where the mental hospital was housed  do the required interview with the patients.
Fine with me. I was right at home among the patients, most of whom were drugged way past all reason and good medical practice into a comotose state. Generally their only problem was drooling, poor bunnies. They did face a lifelong sentence in one of the big state hospitals, thus the presence of Legal Aid.
The point is, I was a lousy secretery. I had to bribe the people down the hall to do any quick fancy typing.
I hated keeping records. I could never remember what day it was and I had trouble telling time.
I still hate records. I hate stray papers with fill in the blanks. I hate remembering all the damn numbers-my social and John's, the state numbers, the feds. I hate official headings which tell me I'm dealing with the State Personal Prying , Waste Management and Really Advocation Committee. I REALLY, REALLY HATE PHONE TREES.
I think that the answer to our nations' problems is simple. Destroy all phone trees. Install some people. Pay very little if you must, but insist that these people be local-the US-and speak English or Spanish. People would rejoice. Business would get done. Happy hearts would swell with joy at a question answered.
BAN. "Hello, your phone call is important to us. We may monitor it for our purposes. If you want to buy and hinge, press one. If you want to see our vet, press two. If you want to hear our recorded message about your taxes, press three. If you want................................................and if you are hard of hearing press 128764509784720675409 and we'll amp up the sound of our elevator musik. Have a nice Day!"

perrfect

I've been so good. I almost feel virtuous.I sent the Christmas presents to SA, I paid a parking fine, I bought stuff thats important that I usually forget. I now own several glues and have used them. I bought some furnace filters and replaced the old one. Here I'd thoguht that furnaces were men's job. Dumb! As my friend said as she clutched her heavy coat around her shoulders (we we sitting in the kitchen), "Why should it be a man's job?" I managed to get the top off some wash soap John bought and to put my coat in the washer with soap! I bought new pee-pee pads for Mickey as he sometimes can't make it and... Sh-t! Winnie has her trained duo dogs lined up with her. They're all sitting and staring at me. Winnie's decided she's hungry at 3:30 in the afternoon.
I hate it when they do this.

Advice about training - Winnie

I had a fine education by a testy terrier I found in my new home. Naturally he had to prove dominance. I have a fine scar on my head that announces that I once accepted a superior. Louie the terrier taught me to sit guard on the back of the couch. It's the best way to see the whole street. He showed me how to get away with all sorts of things concerning food-and how not to get caught. He showed me the basics of control-to show joy when a human entered the house, to stare soulfully into human eyes and to preform a minimum of tricks to keep human delusions steady.
Then my humans brought me puppies.

Nancy: An Owner's Manual

She has the nerve to call us the "damndogs." I've heard her say it when she talks into square back boxes. More, she resents being interruped ...like we MEAN to get her away from black boxes for nothing. The dim female didn't even notice that our water bowl was empty. Sometimes I wish I'd just walked back into the truck instead of parading around looking for an owner. I should have developed an intelligence test for dog owners, but I didn't have time and look what I got.
Take last night. She went to sleep next to him. Instead of staying downstairs and tending us, she had the gall to leave us while we slept.
I had to go upstairs and pull on her to get her awake and moving. She was doing that cursing stuff under her hreath all the way to our room. (She calls it the living room). When I finally got her to turn on the light and LOOK at Mickey she was horrified. He'd caught a nail on his back leg in his collar. He was rolling aroung like a ball and he was ridiculous.She fixed him up and made us both go outside in the freezing cold for a "pi pi." She means to say mictuate but I don't think she can pronounce the word at 2:30 in the morning. Oh well. We pinned her to the little couch so she wouldn't wander and slept deeply.

Weather

This is especially to my South African friends and relatives. After complaining for years about the cold in SA, the lack of central heating, indeed of any heating...I beg forgiveness. Mea culpa, Mea culpa, Mea culpa.
(Roughly from church latin, "I'm an idiot, I'm and idiot, I'm an idiot.")
It has been so cold here that we wear outdoor clothes indoors. Well some of us do. John bundles in an undershirt, shirt, polar tec jacket, fleece lined jacket and he wears fingerless gloves. I, the most notorious of the cold tolerant wear an undershirt and a sweater. Worse, I wear shoes and socks.
The house is replete with windows and doors, all of which date from the later 1900's. The temperature is well below zero farinheit most nights. It has snowed rather a lot.
In conclusion I think we'd better replace the furnace and buy heavily lined curtains.

The News

I made a mistake. I turned on the news. Apparently it has just dawned on the press and on the gov't that all is not well in Egypt.
Why are we paying the people in gov't?
Nine years ago a young Egyptian girl came to school with Marguerite. Her mom is a doctor, her father is a banker. Both have advanced degrees from good universities. The family is Coptic Christian. Supsequent conversations revealed that the Copts were moving out because of persecution from the Muslim Brotherhood. The educated and rich were fleeing.
A small amount of research produced the stats about money distributation in Egypt. I noted the amazing use of cell phones even among the quite poor. This use was growing. I remembered that the Palestinians can't flee to Egypt. Egyptians don't want exta population. They really don't want politicized Palestrinians.
How hard is it to figure that what with a very young poplulation, the increasing awareness fueled by technology and with poverty that hard times were coming?

On the prospect of formal dress charity balls Part two

Then there are the clothes. I find beige, navy,grey and white all with a wiff of pastels boring. Given my head, I go straight to the orange, yellow, violet, red part of the department store. If it glitters so much the better.
Inevitably I am shooed back to the matron area. It's been that way since I was twelve and develped boobs.
Contrary to all the publicity, boobs are NOT fashionable-never have been. NO designer designes for the top heavy. (except Bob Mackie, you don't want to know)
Now I'm just heavy and no one trusts me to pick out appropriate attire. Female friends are prone to locking me in the changing room, taking my clothes away and start flinging "appropriate" frocks at me.
I wear black and dark colors to all the balls. I actually try to match my dress with the wall color. I follow the dictum of Emily Post who said fat women should wear subdued tones and distract attention from themselve.
She really had something there.

On the prospect of formal dress charity balls

The door closes on scented air. Out on the patio no ceilings press down. From the streets below the smells of car exhaust, and various mechanical revolutions mix with wisps of the coal fired plants down river.I am free. Back by the wall three servers sit smoking. I join them.
"Why aren't you with the others?" asks the black lady.
"Too rich and I don't understand what they say."
We're all silent.
"Do you all get tips?" I ask.
"Honey, it's all by the hour."
"Well, it's work," I say.
"Yup. You can say that." She finishes her cigarette and tosses it into a waste can.

I'm taking the day off

MybrotherJohn is in the hospital.
We're paying, with his money, 221 dollars a day to "keep his bed."
Went out in big snowstorm to give them cash in hand as demanded.
Anton still home with the flu.
Mickey still has trouble and waters the puppy pads. He can't help it if no one's here to let him out immediately.
Winnie has a bump on her side.
John is looking grim about work.
I've been getting 20 to 25 calls a day.
We have six inches of snow on the ground, the temp is 5 celsious.
I'm taking the day off.

Mission Accomplished?

I found mybrotherJohn a nursing home. I saw him put there. It looks really, really good and he seems happy.
The rehab hospital ombudsman was still calling to tell me how my "clear and persistent input" has "helped us form a new policy." Translation, "your frequent calls and willingness to disturb my superiors has made me work out a new set of papers to paper over the incompetence, you bitch!"
I love life.
Now we must set about proving Johnmybrother is really a person and really indigent. We have been gathering evidence for some days. Copies of all his financial doings for six months, listing of his assets (none) and most importantly his social security number-THE CARD.
60 years ago John was given a small paper card-not even printed on stock paper and told to keep it so he could someday collect social security. The government has repeatedly announced that the number on the card IS NOT TO BE USED AS IDENTIFICATION.
Hogwash, hogwash, hogwash.
If I had thought of it sooner I would have had the number tatooed on my belly, not to mention tatooing the kids' numbers on their sweet baby bellies before the age on complaint. In this country you can do absolutely nothing without the number and authorities can demand the card itself.
My poor card wore out after sixty years and disappeared into little tiny shreds in the wash of daily life.
I would dearly love a little honesty. In South Africa you used to have the "book of life." In France you must have a "carte d'identite"(Can't spell or write in french unless I'm tipsy, had to sneak beer before all college exams). I'd love my fellow citizens to just admit the identity number and fix it somewhere permanently.
In this technically advanced society I envision a chip. Dogs are chipped all the time so that if they're lost a vet can read their number and return them to their owner.
I thought about sticking the chip in babies ears, but I realize someone can lose an ear and go merrily on his way.
So the only true solution is to insert an identity chip into the heart of every newborn as it's birthed within our borders. People seldom live without hearts.Well, except corporations, politicians and bankers and we can figure out something else out for them. I'm thinking lashes and lashes of money here, but maybe there are other recourses.

A Hearfelt AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG.

OK. Got all in one room, doctors, therapists, social worker, ombudsman, mother, other brother and me.
Got information.
THEN
MONEY.
Nursing home is the best I can get. Will take him. Cost, 140 dollars a day. Magically this will come from Medicade....but in the meantime....
Other brother not fazed. Me, kept face still. More meetings with nursing home social worker on Monday.
Ombudsman made a big deal about me being satisfied NOW.
I smiled.
I AM NOT SATISFIED. Some time out from this the hospital will be made aware of my lack of satisfication.
I fear I am a bit of a bitch/

Finally

I have found a placement for my brother-on my own of course. With any luck we'll have him fairly close.
The nursing home director has a report on his physical progress and tells me it is unlikely he'll be able to return to his apartment and live independently. Drake hospital has given me no such report, but I stirred enough to get a response and to prod them into a "family meeting" where we'll meet his doctor, therapist, social worker and ombudsman for the first time. Nice as they will discharge him on Tuesday.
I am told I will get a detailed letter from the CEO of Drake explaining all the reasons for their (non) care of  him.
It's all about money of course, I do understand this, but if I pay for services offered, I expect those services to exist.
It's odd, but I think John will rather like a nursing home. It may be a relief to him. He's personable and gets on well with people outside of his family. The man can be charming. He can bar any of us from visiting him and we'll respect his wishes. My nasty other brother will help with the papers .
I'm nervous of the meeting with the "care team" but for the first time I feel almost relaxed.

Beaten to a large red pulp!

Ma suffered bad humour tonight. She announced to a guest that I was hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. She said John was too...hopeless I mean.
It's sad for her. Losing vision and hearing is very isolating. It doesn't help her to berate the help. I'm sorry she's so angry and I'm angry she's taking it out on me. Truth to be told: it is the nature of our "relationship."
It's far too late to correct her and to demand civility.
She was just on the phone to tell me she'll pick up shoes for John and go with me to the hospital on Tuesday.
I hope to get an appointment with the social worker then, as everyone has been on holiday.
Truth to tell I indulge her in many ways... but there it is...she did pick me out at the baby parade.
Still it's a sad trial sometimes.

Reality

My beloved husband is the real force behind this blog. Still, it makes me happy to write about whatever comes to mind. He is clever and I appreciate that he put up the pictures and the cover of our book. It's actually a pretty good book, it's funny.