Palin, World, War & Kissing Girls

At the risk of pissing some of you off, I have to say I think Palin's extremely awesome. I liked her before she was veep nom from watching her on CSPAN. As a Republican with serious Libertarian leanings, she fits the bill in all but two ways: choice and marriage. I'll die in a ditch over gun rights and national security before those two any day. (Choice and marriage are rightly state issues anyway. No one's amending the Constitution any time soon over a state's rights issue. It's a red herring, albeit a noisy one.)

My friends. My liberal friends. We love each other, I know. And at the same time you know I will not speak kindly of anyone engaging in Socialist rhetoric. Never, never, never. Marxist, Socialist rhetoric, totally lacking in balls-on-the-line specifics. Espousing casting in our lot with other governments, redistributing our wealth, and socializing medicine. That's the Dems number one. Such a master of smoke and mirrors, no one notices the Marxism. No one stops to think what it will mean for him or her personally. He's so good on stage, it might as well be a Vegas revival.

Versus the Reps number two, who has such integrity she exercised her right to choose by having her baby. Not it, "the baby", as some have called him, but their child, who is healthy and whole with potential all his own.

I know personally of a case where the amnio came back with problems (AFP, then sono, then amnio, of course), and the woman was advised to abort given the risk of DS. The baby was not only born without DS, but grew into a lovely young lady. If she'd been born with DS, I believe the Sears' analogy fits best. The family would have found out mid-flight they were going to Holland instead of Italy. Not the same, but no less wonderful.

That's where she found herself. No one can say what she should or should not have done without being in her shoes. Get the fuck off, especially if you're a guy trying to win points with liberal women. If you're a guy in the position of supporting progeny who have difficulty, I'll listen, but I've yet to hear any men speak ill of the experience, though my exposure is somewhat limited. Given that limited exposure, I think it wise to defer to those actually in the position of raising such a child, rather than sound like an ignorant monster.

(Do you know when those tests happen? The AFP happens around the time when you can hear the baby's heartbeat. In the sonogram, it looks like a baby. And you're well into it before you can have an amnio, which could cause miscarriage. You can't be on the fence and pregnant at the same time, because the clock's a-ticking every minute, with that march toward some arbitrary line that defines personhood moving closer every second, if you don't think conception is the magic moment. What about autism, schizophrenia or epilipsy, which aren't diagnosed until well after birth? Tests in that case are never a death sentence, at least not in our country.)

Where are the feminists when choice is actually that, not a euphemism for abortion? And where are the liberal feminists when the woman on the ticket is a Republican? Get on the bus.

Someone I know of actually said he "heard on t.v. she was a woman only in body". Wow. There are so many layers of idiocy there, I find myself unable to respond politely on the thread. Maybe that's what I'll say.

"I'm sorry, I'm unable to respond politely at this time."

(Ad hominem, "t.v." as a source, the sheer and brazen sexism--all oddly followed in his comment by some sensitive claim about what women want regarding choice, because he knows best).

Perhaps we'll stay true to our history, and a Black man will achieve the presidency before a women of any color does. I grew up as a racial minority in NYC public schools. I don't care about the stupid race card. In fact I think Obama is an extremely compelling speaker, a dynamic personality. He's passionate, and able to lead. Clearly. I find myself repeatedly sucked in by his winning smile. His family is charming. I can see him stepping down from Air Force One. I can't wait to see the family pet in the Times, and find out about his jogs, her favorite causes.

And then he talks about being a citizen of the world. Oh, help me.

I have no interest whatsoever in being a citizen of the world. The world actually sucks. In the world, having indoor plumbing and electricity are signs of disproportionate wealth. Never mind personally owned vehicular travel that is not mammal powered.

It drives me crazy when the "for the people, but not of the people" folks get their Atkins full bellies out of their Eames chairs, put down their iPhones, and take a stand from within the palatial air conditioned splendor of their fucking vacation homes.

Wealth in this country is general. The lowest common denominator has a plasma t.v. and a vehicle. Or at least knows someone closely who has one or both. Electricity is taken for granted, and it is considered suffering if one has it turned off temporarily. If the indoor plumbing is faulty, lawsuits follow. If you go anywhere else in the world, that's not the case. Unless you hit an upside down imperialism, guilt-ridden, welfare (dhimmi tax) paradise like the U.K..

In most places in the world, there's a trench in which everyone goes, or perhaps, more creatively, a platform off of which one can perform. Even in Europe you're as likely to find a hole in the ground as a throne. It was about 50/50 last time I was in France. Yes, even in quite a bit of Paris.

And when the sun goes down the light is gone. Dinner is likely gruel cooked over dung. And may have included insects, on purpose. Women are stuck at home when they bleed, are quite probably beaten, even just a little as needed, and babies come too often and die almost as much. Charms are medicine, hope is a luxury, and exploitation is a step above the starvation alternative. Disease is rife, 40 is old, political unrest is daily a clear and present danger, and the idea that we put our plastic organic yogurt containers in the dishwasher before we send them to be recycled is so inconceivably wasteful of resources it cannot even be explained.

Feminism on the left doesn't even bother to veil its Marxist ideals. Feminism on the left is perhaps the biggest hurdle women have to overcome now. Marx may have lent us the language to discuss oppression in a meaninful way, and the rigor with which one can analyse any situation in those terms has had value. Then there came a time when we stopped diagnosing and started acting. Much was achieved. But it was not without cost. Many young feminists are seeing the flaws in the pattern. (Quick! Who's Mom is still married to Dad/first husband? Who has a career but not kids? Who is still expected to take care of the aging parents while husbands and male siblings continue to earn income and advance their careers?)

Marxist countries are not fun. You don't really need to be told this. Nor is living in a Socialist country, where the sucking sound of the government taking 40% of one's income in tax is almost audible. That's not really something for which I can see the American people jumping with glee. The founding fathers thought anything over 10% was exploitative. What do you pay?

Socialist countries make you wait bleeding in the hall of the hospital while they change shifts and discuss how many people are before you in the queue. People die waiting. And their taxes paid for the honor. Their taxes push 40%, their wealth is reclaimed by the government when they die, and the rich pay extra to get proper health care anyway. But if someone breaks into their house, and they defend themselves, they land in jail. Seriously.

What the world has to offer, you don't want. It is downhill from here. If you're talking citizen of the big, industrialized city with university, relative freedom and uncensored internet, then great. I'm quite happy to be a citizen of that world. But that world is tiny, even if we throw in Ulanbataar for good measure. The rest of it pretty much sucks, no matter how dreamy the romanticising "noble savage" lefty doc makers try to make it seem.

An aside. Notice they're generally big guys, these doc makers. Off-the-trail world travel for the diminutive female of childbearing years is not so enticing. No one's going to be greeting me with respect and offering me sliced goat balls. They're more likely to look at each other with that "what luck!?!" expression and stick a bag over my head. Yahoo. Where do I sign up for that one?

Do you really think someone who is squishy on the 2nd A and wants to cut down on defense spending is a rational choice our president at this time? As I recall, having abortions and being gay aren't really popular in the countries where our enemies are hiding. Yes, enemies. The people shooting at our sons and daughters. The people plotting for our pain, anxiety and downfall. The people receiving (however indirectly) the wealth of our nation because we don't want to sully our own soil with taking care of business by drilling and going nuclear locally.

We'll worry about caribou while they suck us dry. We'll concern ourselves with whether I could be stoned for kissing girls in a meaningful way, while they raise an army of discontented and unmarriageable young men with philosophical differences, to say the least. We'll have dove-flying demonstrations where we cry about CO2 with our bare armpits flailing next to men who have somehow lost themselves in their joy over the freedom the pill affords them, while those opposed have babies, and have babies, and have babies. They don't just want to step in our new snowfall, they want to make us bleed and scream for having new fallen snow at all. And they're not afraid to use their children to do it, praying all the while.

By the way, we are at war. Remember? That whole nasty business, over there somewhere, where our soldiers are keeping bombs from going off here while being accused of occupation? You know, beheadings on youtube, burkas, opium markets, oil wells in disputed territories, tribal mentality, hostile neighbors, Israel set up alternately as the stooge or the noble exception? Our soldiers fighting for freedom the locals can't even imagine? That war.

In my mind, McCain is a genius for pulling in Palin. The Conservatives and Libertarians are over the moon, the hottie playing field is levelled, and McCain looks progressive. Even if you won't concede those points, at the very least his choice and his timing show strategic brilliance. What do you think wins wars?

A Fit of Efficiency

If you buy 12 or more, the price goes down. Cheaper by the dozen, if you will. So I did.

It's Let's Eat. And I have determined that every time I enter the kitchen or clean the house, my hourly rate plummets. Not that I won't cook, I can hardly help myself. But if more of my time can be liberated by having a nutritious meal ready to go, then I can use what little non-homeschool time I have to make more money! Ha!

It's nutty to freeze that much in hurricane season, but we have a generator, and the season itself is a little nutty, so the concept is very appealing. Time crunch takes on whole new meaning.

I sent T the meal plan confirmation. His response was so darling. It left me speechless. I'm thinking he likes the look of the menu.

Suburban bliss.

I'm really looking forward to getting in there with K and cracking the system. If it goes well, we'll do it again and again, but we may also do a version of same for our home cooking. I know there are for-the-monthbcookbooks out there, but I don't have much confidence in their ability to impress me. I don't need someone to tell me how to multiply pasta sauce recipes, or meatloaf, or nasty fried or casseroley things. Puh-lease.

It is permanent wanderlust and culinary discontent that drive me, in part at least.

Meanwhile, there is the matter of dinner tonight. I went to the store before the beach, and having purchased milk for my friend, I spaced on it when I went back in after the beach for lunch things, so not only don't have a plan for tonight, but also don't have milk for the morning. Or for pudding, K points out. Sad, but true. We'll just have to content ourselves with dinner hodgepodge and chocolate ice cream. Maybe T can get milk on the way home.

K says we already ate the chocolate ice cream. I won't be awake anyway. I'm allergic to something that's blooming right now and took a Claritin. If I add a glass of wine I will have x-es for eyes.

It's a plan.

Oh, Back, At Last

Oh, never, never, never assume you can do something later. Because sometimes you can't.

I've been with or without electricity, and with or without internet since Tropical Storm Fay hit. We thought we were out of the woods, and then lost internet. And let me tell you, people, without internet our house is not a pretty site. Oh, maybe cleaner, sure, maybe books are read aloud, vegetables cooked before they become science projects, fine, but there is a feeling of Jonesing. It's palpable.

Can I tell you I'm finding people again? I mean seriously re-connecting with vast numbers of people from my past, and it is so very good! What I can't figure out is why I felt like I had to be brave to get that ball rolling. Why? Actual friends are just that, friends... I think I went through a strange transformation when I started having kids. I lost confidence. In some ways I lost my identity. I didn't have a support system for growing into being myself, but as a parent. Maybe that's not unusual. I'll say it wasn't easy. And I'm so glad to have left the veritable Jr. High stage of parental identity school. I may still be only a freshman, but I'm getting there. I'm taking my mother's advice, when in doubt be more of yourself, not less.

The yard guys are here. I have to go out and grab the orchids I moved before they get weed-whacked.

Intense Focus, Spread Thinly

I have just revamped the whole school year, mostly. It had to be done. K was threatening to be very bored, and I listened. I listened and made a new plan. I think she will be happy.

But for my utterly sleep deprived family I blame the Olympics. We will never make it 17 days. Not that we won't try. But it isn't pretty, people. There are tears. And just when I think, "that's it, not tonight, tonight we sleep," I hear them with friends in the other room counting something, and then whisper shouting, "and it's a new world record!" What can I do?

If Facebook was addictive, I must tell you the new listserve I joined has wreaked havoc on what little semblance of routine and cleanliness we pretended to have left. The living room is still in chaos from moving bedrooms around and tiling the whole back of the house. I have to get on with things. But the list is helping. I am feeling validated. And that is good.

And I'm starting an online business. In all my spare time. Luckily with a partner, so we can mesh strengths. But it's going to be a little time-tight for a few months. I'll tell you more as it moves along. And I still have a bunch of vintage clothes to post on eBay or Etsy. But how can I take photos with all the madness of the house?

And how can I possibly, in a million years, do my cooking show idea if my videographer is a little snappy for need of sleep, my toddler is a scream-fest, and I've started transposing letters and having long pauses in my conversations where my brain really just stops and goes to its happy place, and even if all of that wasn't the case, oh, my God, the kitchen. The kitchen cannot possibly be filmed in its current state.

What if the number of hours in the day are really not enough for everything? What if housework and cooking take 3 to 5 hours a day (for a really clean, organized house and decent meals), homeschooling the same (especially with a toddler), extra curricular things are 2 to 4 hours most days, business and home economy take 2 to 5 hours (planning, bills, email, business development), and then there's blogging, eating, sleeping, the beach or park, errands, drive time, a social life, fooling around online, and running around outside gardening with dog and kids. What gives?

It's not real. It's not possible. That means the house has gone wild, the kids have become academically feral over the summer, and I can only fit in a work out while simultaneously brushing teeth, folding laundry, answering questions and peeing. Quite possibly while asleep.

I'm going to have to cycle things for awhile. I think if I spend more intense and focused time (she boldly says, even though toddlers think that's funny) it will be more effective than multitasking. So if I do bare maintenance on everything else, but put in the most time on one project a week, or even a few days at a time, it could work. Flylady style, but for my life, not just the house.

Now I get to agonize about which project is first. Can you hear each one clamoring for position?

Bits & Pieces

The Olympics opening ceremony always makes me cry. Even when it's corny. But this one was pretty impressive. Did anyone else marvel at their ready supply of young men already highly trained and adept in Tai Chi, one of the conveniently more beautiful, but decidedly martial, martial arts? It seemed to me an impressive and not-so-subtle military display.

Oh, heavens.

If I'm all that antsy, I should just make sure I can check some things off my list. My list is one of those where all the fast stuff is done...

You may have noticed comments and recent posts have disappeared in the sidebar. I have to recode the widget. It's only going to take a few minutes, but everything only takes a few minutes.

I did get the homeschool schedule into some reasonable shape. And have found some better support online. We're trying to find the best way to get K what she needs. It's always tricky making sure all the bases are covered but the schedule is realistic, and the fun is in there.

Can I just say men's 100 m swimming relay? Properly channeled testosterone is a beautiful thing. And a good battle cry doesn't hurt. Lovely.

Does anyone else go to the Spanish station for broader coverage afterward? Does anyone else just go nutty for the Spaniards when they're interviewed? I'm not usually one of those who fawns over a cute accent. Maybe I'm spoiled because T has a cute English one, even adding arcane linguistic turns like saying torch instead of flashlight (I always imagine angry villagers). But the Spaniards get me with those lisped "c" and "z" words. Mmm.

Okay, I'm done.

Bitter & Seeeeething

Do you know the story of Bank of America? It's actually a really cool story. Here's my understanding. An Italian immigrant saw the good ol' boy banks wouldn't lend Italians any money, so he worked really hard and made it without them, and started his own damn bank. Out of patriotism for his new country, where even a first generation immigrant coming from nothing could make it, he called it Bank of America. That just warms the cockles of my capitalist heart.

Of course it's tremendously naive to believe that story has anything to do with actual banking nowadays. There is a structural legacy, but nothing more. Banks are banks.

The mortgage crisis hits, an economic "downturn" requires the tax payer to bail out the banks. And the banks tighten their belts. And mine. I just got a letter saying my rate was skyrocketing. Not for being late, ever. Not for being even sketchy, ever. Nope. They "value" me as a customer.

I'm not feeling very valued. I'm feeling pretty shafted.

They readily admit my credit score is quite healthy. I pay, every month, more than the minimum. I have no adverse remarks on my report. None. Every record is of a good borrower/lender relationship. And this is the thanks I get.

My Italian friend might be rolling in his grave. His bank has become the thing he deemed a do-over. A large corporation eating the regular, hard working folk. In fact penalizing those who can pay because others they lent to can't. Penalizing the producers is such a mistake, in business and in government.

Well, bon appetit, and adieu. I will be transferring my balance and voicing my opinion the only ways I know of. Blogging about it, and keeping the account annoyingly open forever, charging a pack of candy each year and paying it off online. It will cost them more in paperwork and bureaucracy to remember me than they made off my stupid APR. I will also be looking into other ways to be legally irritating and share them with you. It's bad enough my taxes will bail out bad bank decisions, I refuse to have my interest rate do the same.

I'll also become a lender at Prosper. Just to keep that tiny bit of business away from the big guys. Join me?

Degenerate Regenerate

Sometimes I just want to leave. Right now I want to leave this place. (I can hear a chorus of trolls saying, "good riddance". That fact alone is reason enough.)

I want to grow food and actually see some of it hit the table instead of simply sustaining the hordes of Jurassic insects that devour everything. Everything. Or the heat gets it. Or the wet gets it. Or the dry.

Did you know there's no nutrition in the soil south of the Caloosahatchee River? If you graze horses without any supplementation, they will die, even though it looks like nice yummy grass. In fact, the Caloosa fished, and there's apparently strong evidence they were also cannibals. This I believe. Because damned if I can get anything to grow. And the stuff that does grow is cool, but generally also pretty cheap to buy.

Up north, I planted seeds. They grew into plants. They bore fruit or veg. We ate it and it was delicious. Here I feed horrible grubby things from a nightmare. In my ripe new yam is a gross grub that will become a beetle that will, no doubt, eat more of my plants before begetting yet more grubs. My corn had five kernels and died. My okra ripens one pod at a time. Up north I grew tomatoes that didn't split or go grainy. I had strawberries. Chard. Kale. Chinese garlic chives. Lillies of the Valley. Raspberries. Tulips. Lilacs. Bergamot. Pumpkins. And real Christmas trees.

There is no plantain here. Purslane, but no plantain. What are you supposed to do with bites and burns without plantain? Isn't the Greek myth that a woman looked everywhere for her love, and wherever she looked, plantain would grow? Well, she never made it to southwest Florida. There is none. There's just something not quite right about that.

I want to go someplace that has younger people and a creative groove. With architectural interest, history, arts, universities and parks. I vote Louiville, KY. I have never been there. I don't care. Though it is awfully far from the ocean. And there are tornadoes. But it's a day's drive from 60% of the cities in the U.S., so they say.

It is beautiful here, but sometimes it's just not enough. Maybe it's just hurricane anxiety.

The pond is full of frog's eggs. So many. They develop so quickly, you can actually see them grow from hour to hour. This morning they were dots, now they have tails that wiggle. The frogs are happy. The bugs are happy. And I am happy, just wanting some change.

We're not moving. We're not starting over somewhere else. But we may need to start new things here. I just don't know what. But there must be something. There has to be more.