almost over

ok,so.....my eku class is drawing to a close....this week pregnancy and childbirth...next week aging/dying......and then the final which is not comprehensive.......i have personally learned a lot over the months of studying the textbook....probably things that i should have already known.....next semester it will all come easier off my tongue...the plethora of health information available....but i need not thinkof that until january.....i am due for a bit of a break myself......

ok, so this from the nytimes....Last week, a couple were threatened with fines of $25 a day by their homeowners? association unless they removed a four-foot wreath shaped like a peace symbol from the front of their house.

The fines have been dropped, and the three-member board of the association has resigned, according to an e-mail message sent to residents on Monday.

Two board members have disconnected their telephones, apparently to escape the waves of callers asking what the board could have been thinking, residents said. The third board member, with a working phone, did not return a call for comment.

In its original letter to the couple, Lisa Jensen and Bill Trimarco, the association said some neighbors had found the peace symbol politically ?divisive.?

A board member later told a newspaper that he thought the familiar circle with angled lines was also, perhaps, a sign of the devil.

The peace symbol came to prominence in the late 1950s as the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a British antiwar group, according to the group?s Web site. It incorporates the semaphore flag images for the letters in the group?s name, a ?D? atop an ?N.?

Other people have said the upright line with arms angled down, commonplace in the United States in the Vietnam War, especially, has roots in the early Christian era, representing a twisted or broken cross.

Mr. Trimarco said he put up the wreath as a general symbol of peace on earth, not as a commentary on the Iraq war or another political statement.

In any case, there are now more peace symbols in Pagosa Springs, a town of 1,700 people 200 miles southwest of Denver, than probably ever in its history.

On Tuesday morning, 20 people marched through the center carrying peace signs and then stomped a giant peace sign in the snow perhaps 300 feet across on a soccer field, where it could be easily seen.

?There?s quite a few now in our subdivision in a show of support,? Mr. Trimarco said.

A former president of the Loma Linda community, where Mr. Trimarco lives, said Tuesday that he had stepped in to help form an interim homeowners? association.

The former president, Farrell C. Trask, described himself in a telephone interview as a military veteran who would fight for anyone?s right to free speech, peace symbols included.

Town Manager Mark Garcia said Pagosa Springs was building its own peace wreath, too. Mr. Garcia said it would be finished by late Tuesday and installed on a bell tower in the center of town. 

mean.....

ok, so while i was walking (out the road and back on a break)with my coworker lana this morning she called me mean.......and immediately commented that she needed some of that meanness.....we were talking about how we (the married/collective we) decided that our youngest should earn the cash to buy an ipod herself.....rather than receive it for xmas.....for assorted reasons.....like the fact that her xmas wish list included not one shred of music....and she has never requested a download of any song...and her zippered case of cd's is not full...and the notion of spending $150 to store the bond theme songs, the soundtrack to anastasia, and an old shania twain cd on a 500 song electronic device seemed foolish for a child who has lost more amethyst jewelry (our shared birthstone) than i have ever owned......and when lana called me mean....she was feeling mighty guilty for buying her ungrateful grandsons pricey electronics for xmas....on her salary.....and i pondered her comments as i walked the halls with my pda playing my current downloads over the lunch hour(nelly furtado, defiance,ohio, damien jurado, the weepies, the strokes, mavis staples, artic monkeys, tom waits, pink nasty, ben gibbard, justin rutledge, the lemonheads, wilco, belle/sebastian, the chapin sisters, tori amos, andrew bird, spoon, imogen heap, the mountain goats, and sufjan singing come thou fount of many blessings....)....of course, i have to walk a long way to hear those songs out of my 96 song collection, which also boasts many by yoyo ma.....which aren't good walking songs....and billy collins poems....... ..but again i digress from meanness.....over dinner i read a passage from a memoir i ordered on-line..to the horror of my eldest...after the friday reading in lexington...this author was dismissed as precious...and to that i must object..the memoir about her growing up in woodford county is more than precious....and the piece i read about her aunt tott and the pink pantie girdle is hysterically funny.......she is a blogger in the best sense of the word.....a woman who jotted down the essense of her experience before thinking twice about how others would react, or who would be offended, or how posterity would treat the story.....and when i spouse and my youngest guffawed at the humor relayed in the piece.....it occured to me that if i wasn't so concerned with all of the above issues...there are quite a few older blogs that could be expanded upon...and knitted together into a literary work of some kind....could i just find a uniting theme.........if meanness were a theme i would be in business......

feeling sorry for the christian coilition.....

ok, so this from the washington post.....For the second time in little more than a year, the Christian Coalition of America has named a new leader and then removed him before he ever fully took the reins of the conservative political advocacy group.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, pastor of a non-denominational megachurch in Longwood, Fla., said he resigned as the coalition's incoming president because its board of directors disagreed with his plan to broaden the organization's agenda. In addition to opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, Hunter, 58, wanted to take on such issues as poverty, global warming and HIV/AIDS.

"My position is, unless we are caring as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb, we're not carrying out the full message of Jesus," he said in a telephone interview today. "They began to think this might threaten their base, or evaporate some of their support, and they said they just couldn't go there."

mm notes......much as i disagree with his stance on my womb.....i applaud this man for trying to take on the bigger picture of wwjd.....and the notion that this group prefers to stick to these dual issues rather than embrace the whole of the bibical message is troubling in its hypocracy........the pharasees of our own time......

richmond.....

ok, so i drove to richmond this afternoon to a 'staff' meeting for instructors of the health class i teach at danville eku......a politically correct thing to do....as i got a chance to meet the department chair who hired me sight unseen by virtue of a personal rec of his department 2nd-in-command...a dietitian i have known for over 20 years...who i also got a chance to see and catch up with......granted i haven't seen her recently, as i had to back up the conversation a bit when i mentioned the age of our third child......but i digress.....i have been asked about fall 2007....which assures at least 1 more trip to somewhere funded by my extra-curricular work......life is good......except for the driving to richmond part...i have only been there a handful of times...and had only mapquest-like directions that did me little good given that the directions were in my backpack and not where i could see them...i must have been stuck behind every tractor/graveltruck/slowpoke between here and.....richmond......and it really started to get old.....for someone who yearns to be on time...and i had to park in a sticker-lot....and hope that i wouldn;t get towed that late int he day........i was exactly 8 minutes late to this meeting...and i was horrified to be late.....not knowing anyone except for karen....and her not looking like herself given that she is recovering from thyroid cancer.....omg......thankfully, i did know the way home...and drove a completely unimpeded route back back to danville.....

white blouses not my own.....

ok, so in my dreams last night i was wearing a series of white blouses that i am certain are not mine, and aren't even things i would wear.....kind of like a model wears things and then gives them back rather than keeps them.....and the backdrop for this scenario was our house...only a mirror image with the stairs going the opposite way....with painting tarps everywhere......and throw pillows....thrown about.....huh!......and i was trying to hand out cookies i have made-only they were in bags rather than the boxes that i had carefully packed......no idea what all of this means.....i really could use a good white blouse, but none that i modeled last night is quite my style.....

from salon.com

ok, so this is everywhere on-line..."When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible"

Like father, like daughters: The Bush twins are having such a good time partying in Buenos Aires that they're rejecting requests from U.S. Embassy officials to cut their trip short, ABC News reports. Embassy officials believe that publicity surrounding the twins' visit has created a security risk, and they may also be peeved that all the attention paid to the twins -- they celebrated their 25th birthdays over the weekend -- may be upstaging "publicity plans" by the new U.S. ambassador to Argentina.

While it's apparently true that Barbara Bush's purse and cellphone were stolen out from under the watchful eyes of her Secret Service detail last week, hotel employees tell ABC that the twins were not seen -- as one Argentine tabloid reported -- running naked through the hallways of their hotel.

how was your day, honey?....

ok, so we agreed all around that a 7.5 hour day after 4 days off was un-reasonable....a half-day to readjust to reality would have been just the thing.....because the folks who straggle in after a 4-day closure are not going to be easy cases......i started out with a mamma who is convinced that her infant needs a special formula-one that the state folks will not approve because it is merely a namebrand difference rather than an appreciable difference in...formula.....and the next client is a mamma to a preemie who desparately wants to nurse her infant, but this baby is so small she cannot latch on well....so the mamma is pumping into a bottle after each attempt to nurse directly....and when i approved the doctor's request for supplemental formula she told me of her intent to feed this child nothing but breast milk by the time she gets to 10 pounds.....ya gotta love mammas like this one......and then there was the call from the w-mart person from ark. who lost the application i sent out....and could i send another......and then there was the mamma with the 3 screaming children pregnant with the 4th who let these children roll around on my floor...the 3 year old weighed nearly 60 pounds and had a hard time getting back up off of the floor...and when i mentioned to the mamma that smoking in the house and car can cause ear and lung problems she coughed...then laughed.......so glad i am home...omg...so glad i am home......

cybermonday

ok, so i did buy a few things online for the one child who has made actual christmas requests.....she will probably not like them, but that goes with the age, i suppose......those who fail to make requests will have to take their chances on the 25th.......and/or the 11th for that matter......

oy.......

ok, so after 4 days off i must drag my sorry self back to work......and start to look forward to having 10 days off at christmas.....which is coming up far too soon to suit my lack of general preparations.....

more billy collins.....

ok, so i like this peom..

Consolation

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon's
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.

How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?
Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyes camera
eager to eat the world one monument at a time?

Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,
I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress
known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.

And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car

as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off
down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna.

drama......

ok, so it appears that our youngest had quite an altercation in the front door of the bike shop with the high school boy she swears she didn't meet on purpose at the library this morning........and the fact that she did all of her saturday chores yesterday so that she would have the morning free to have time to herself at the library looks mighty suspicious right about now......my eldest has played this to the hilt......with comments like.....'mom, you really don't think this was a planned meeting do you?...how could she possibly have known that this boy would be at the library on a saturday morning?'.....gentle readers, if i am not grey by the age of 55 then there really is a god......

dreams......

ok, so.....in my dreams last night we were traveling threw a series of muddy fields and connected barns...in some sort of refuge mode.....and i had a laptop in its case on my shoulder....and was carrying my vera bradley purse (black with chickens/a goodwill find!)....and at some point i didn't have the purse.....and i spent the remainder of the dream searching for it.....we had part of a garage as shelter...in back of a hotel with blue-painted ironwork trim with stone seahorses in the courtyard......and i kept going through the this bakery-type van searching for the purse.......i stayed in bed til 8:00, late for me, which i can only attribute to quest.......as dreams go i appreciated the details.....the mud was thick and interspersed with stoney outcrops where one could make a cleaner passage if one took the time....and making our way through the barns, i child laying beside a bed caught my leg, and i had to shake her off to continue on with my party.....the identity of my group was quite vague.....i really only recognized folks from my church who had set up a campfire by a tent...but by the time i saw them i was much too busy backtracking in search of my purse......thanjfully, the aforementioned purse was right where i left it when i got up this morning.....is the dream an omen?.....will i lose this purse soon?....must i be vigilant so as not to lose it?......

basking in the goodwill glow.....

ok, so when one does the usual round of goodwills....the haul can range from empty-handed to memorable.....and this evening, as we drove up to the poetry reading at black swan books on maxwell.....i had a notion that i would find the black wooly blazer that i already own in brown.....in my size.....and gosh darn if it wasn;t waiting for me on clay's mill road.....omg.....i just love this blazer.....with khakis, with jeans...for days when it is too warm for a traditional coat, and too cold for....well, you get the picture..the beaumont plaza goodwill was a bust...one can sense this sometimes when walking in the door.....and this evening the feeling of doom was palpable...as the staff had rearranged the sections and the clientele was in collective shock..... i did spend money on 2 pairs of fantasy pants.....a raw ombre pair of silk party pants and a pink silk check pair of summer pedal pushers...both with tags....an omen that i should have heeded...the original buyer(s) never found the right occassion(s)...and while these pants may languish in my closet for a few seasons, i will invest the tacit hopefullness in the purchase that came with the tags.....but i digress from the black wooly blazer...i had to stop the clerk from shoving it into the plastic bag.....and i immediately stowed my grey fleece vest in the trunk and transformed myself from casual matron into serious poetry-reading maven in an instant....the reading was serviceable.....hard to beat billy collins as a showman,and this reading was so informal that the poet (aka-my eldest child's independent study advisor) introduced herself.....her work has merit, and i will enjoy rereading the selections she read..one poem entitled my two daughters walking in a paris park...or somesuch.....i immediately read as my two sons walking in a paris park.....and my mind strayed to a summer's day in the bois, or the luxembourg, or monceau ( a park i may still visit...) not me in the park, but mes fils..chatting conspiratorily without a care in the world.......the second author, a story-teller, did not bring books to sell....which forced me to search on-line for copies of her woodford county memoir...as both poet and storyteller were from woodford county, the audience appeared to be from the versailles area.....the well-dressed lady to our right was either ben chandler's mother or aunt from the conversation she was having with...the lawyer from versailles.....but i digress again from the storyteller..who related a tale an unusually hot summer day when her aunt and her housekeeper were at odds about the aunt going to a bridge party in a dress too snug for such an afternoon, and about how the aunt tried to remedy the situation by putting on her pink panty girdle ...and the story was interwoven with commentary on women who really only dress up for their friends because their spouses couldn't care less about baby blue linen sheathes....the story was....precious...the concept of precious literature has already been dissected enough in this space earlier in the fall......curiously her work reminded me of a blog taken to the next level.......a level that i may have to reach one day when i take the time to develop my thoughts before i spray them into cyberspace......though i have no need to be precious...ascerbic, yes...precious never........

paint and poetry.....

ok, so i am heading off to lexington with andrew to hear one of his professors read from her new book of poems....now that i have successfully painted the back deck, and both sets of steps......life is good.....

ok, so this is a shot of the turkey going into the fryer......actually turkey done this way is quite tasty........ 

remembering single moms in iraq on thanksgiving....

ok, so few things make me cry, but a piece in the washington post with these words was just enough.....When war started in Iraq, a generation of U.S. women became involved as never before. More than 155,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan -- in a wider-than-ever array of jobs, for long deployments, in a conflict with daily bloodshed.

Among their ranks are more than 16,000 single mothers, according to the Pentagon, a number that military experts say is unprecedented.

How these women have coped and how their children are managing have gone little-noticed as the war stretches across a fourth year.

The notion that our economy and cultural setup is such that single mothers have no choice but to go to war to support their families is beyond words.....only tears can do justice to such a reality......when the army pays more than minimum wage, few reasonable people with mouths to feed will turn down the cash.....and at such a cost.......

all accounted for.....

ok, so now that the middle child has called, i can sleep deeply.......the phone calls of assurance are those that only parents can understand.....no matter if a child is away for weekend, the semester, the unforeseen future......the phone call that assures that everything is o.k. is a priceless gift.......

overdone.....

ok, so......i counted 9 television sets in my in-law's home.....nine......how does one respond to this fact?......other than to remind oneself just why we only own the one set......and have no cable hook-up......when one has less piped in entertainment, one finds better things to do with one's time......

alice's restaurant

ok, so last night onour drive south we listened to the full version of arlo guthrie's classic song.....and i had forgotten the part about how arlo escaped the draft because of the thanksgiving day massacre...if you have never heard this song...it is well worth your time,if for no better reason than to say that you have heard it........i also like the part about the twenty seven 8 x 10 color glossies of the 'crime' scene that the judge didn't see because he was blind.....

happy thanksgiving

ok, so........thanksgiving greetings from tennessee......for a three family thanksgiving get-together/25th anniversary party.....my sister-in-law seems to have enjoyed the memory book i made with photos from the past 25 years.....the book was passed around through both young and old hands last evening, each wanting to see if there were pictures of them included.....we were also treated to pictures of brother jame's 21 day western trip......and now we are starting in on food preparation.....and eagerly awaiting brother jame's deep-fried turkey.......life is good.......

countdown to thanksgiving......

ok, so last night i had this wild idea to make my sister-in-law lisa a little memory book in honor of her 25th wedding anniversary...which just happens to be this weekend......and so i started in on the photo albums...only to discover that the first photos i have of her and her spouse are of their eldest child.....and so i called my 'outlaw' fred in upstate new york, and he emailed photos of their wedding....and at this point i have quite an accumulation of group shots with all of the weber siblings, all of the weber clan, all of the steinker/c-dub cousins.....these are the best lineups.....4 little boys all in a row in random states of mischief.....just precious, especially the lineup at the funeral home when auntie sylvia died.....they are likely aged 10-14...and are drinking coffee out of syrofoam cups because nobody told them not to.......priceless.......and then there are the photos with our daughter and their youngest mitch, who came along about the same time give or take......yeah, well...it looks homemade, but then things that come from the heart tend to be rough around the edges.......but the photos are great....i made copies at the kroger store at one of those fancy-smancy photo kiosks....wow...worth every dime.......and now i can place these relics back in the albums from whence they came........and then....i made my spinach artichoke casserole....and pickled red cabbage.....and now...i must pack because we leave as soon as i get home from work tomorrow......it will be a motley crew of in-laws and outlaws......including my mother who had to be convinced that she could neither take her dog, nor leave her dog in her house while we are gone....wtf?.......if she cannot get the dog into the kennel we will leave her in our fenced-in-yard with food and water......and will not involve the next door neighbor who has become snippy to my spouse of late......gentle readers.....anybody who could possibly become snippy to my sainted spouse is suspect at the very least........we have no idea as to the gravity of our crime against the circle...but it must be quite heinous to merit the reception my spouse received yesterday......ah well......must move on.....to packing for the short trip to tennesee.....24 hours or so.......for those who are away from home know that you are in our prayers, and that we are thankful that you are safe and sound wherever you may be spending this holiday........

hack honeymoon...

ok, so i was sucked into the cruise/holmes nuptuals up until the part where the best man/best friend to the groom boarded the plane to go on the honeymoon.....sounds way too fishy to me.............if tommyboy is gay, let him just say so rather than to put on such an elaborate and increasingly bizarre charade......

OSU addendum...

ok, so this interesting post-game trivia.....COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio State's magical 42-39 victory over Michigan also turned out to be lucky for players of the Ohio Lottery.

The numbers 4-2-3-9 were drawn in Saturday night's Pick 4 game with the lottery paying winnings of $2.19 million on wagers of $347,867.50.

"You know it happens," lottery spokeswoman Marie Kilbane said Sunday.

Bettors can play the game in a variety of ways. Someone who played $1 and picked that combination in order won $5,000. The odds of the numbers turning up in that combination were 10,000 to 1.

a higher bough?

ok, so i know you are busier than last year, but your yearly yuletide tributes have become....you know.....yearly........

bush hires anti-contraception dr. to manage contraception services in america

ok, so this from npr.org...... President Bush appointed Dr. Eric Keroack as deputy assistant secretary for family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Keroack is a Massachusetts gynecologist who works at a Christian pregnancy counseling organization. Critics say the doctor's views against contraception run counter to the mission of the agency he is supposed to head......there is a story one can listen to that i willlink if i can get back to it......i am in awe that after such election results dubya would go ahead with an issue so devisive as this.....to appease an incredibly small portion of his dwindling constituency....those that oppose contraception of any kind....even with married couples......i am familiar with these folks...my own cousin told me at my dad's funeral that even at her age (my age +2) she would welcome as many children as god gave her......and the implication was that she was doing nothing to stop this gift.....despite major risk to herself and the potential young one with regards to down syndrome and other problems.....fine, if that is what you want for yourself.....but to impose this on others is beyond understanding......and for dubya to place a guy who opposes all birth control i charge of the agency that manages birth control is just plain wrong....he will not be looking out for thr welfare of america's women in terms to their personal needs...he will be looking out for his own needs and beliefs......those folks give christians a bad name.........

#1 Ohio State Buckeyes.....

ok, so.....OSU beat U of M 42-39 in one of the tightest games I have ever watched......omg....the score volleyed back and forth until the last minutes...just too close for comfort......

home improvement update.....

ok, so.....i went through 2.5 gallons of grey stain this afternoon....i had been directed to stain the deck, but when i saw that the sides of the house that protect the deck were looking a tad shabby, i started there and worked down.....or almost there....i don't do heights....so i stained as far up as i could comfortable go with the small ladder.....all but the top 3 rows of siding.....and by the time i did all of the railings, the seats, and the edges of the flooring, there was barely enough stain left for the actual decking boards.....ah well.....for another day....and now i am cleaned up, clad in scarlet and ....well.....black.....and wearing my beat michigan pin...i never did buy one of the cruder buttons......and i seem to recall from year to year where this relic from my youth is stowed......go bucks!

staining the deck.....

ok, so.....the osu/michigan matchup is not scheduled til 3:30 this afternoon...which means that i could have time to stain the deck if the temperature warms up and it doesn't look like rain.....such a gesture would make my spouse very happy, as restaining the house has become a quest for him of late...we shall see.......

shaken not stirred....

ok, so my spouse and i picked up our youngest after school and went to the 3:55 showing of casino royale......wow.....golly-gee-wow......i was expecting cookie-cutter bond, and what i saw was formula taken to an extraorindary level......in fact, characters that figured in midling-era bond films were 'introduced'.....giving the distinct intention of starting a daniel craig dynasty.......and while i fully recognize that sean connery is the penultimate bond, daniel craig surely gives the revitalized franchise a thoroughly updated take on everything double-oh-seven.........this from salon.com...In Martin Campbell's blissfully entertaining "Casino Royale," the 21st picture in the 007 franchise, Craig is Bond reinvented and reborn, a creature so unexpectedly distinctive that even though we all think we know what we want in a Bond, we could never have dreamed this one up. He's not what we think of as the classic Bond type: His body isn't a tuxedo-ready balanced equation but a wedge of muscle that demands clever tailoring. His profile, with its coulda been a contender nose, is so strong and beautiful it wouldn't be out of place on a Greek amphora -- yet his ears, jutting out with boyish awkwardness, look more like the handles. But his charisma both overrides and enhances any physical attributes. Emerging from the sea after a swim with his lady love, he's a scrappy blond god in tiny blue swim shorts; the moment is a clear visual nod to Ursula Andress in "Dr. No," but also an unwitting reference to Venus on the half shell. This is Bond as we've never seen him, more naked, alive and mysterious than ever. Anyone who has followed the James Bond series even casually over the years knows that there have been serviceable Bonds (Roger Moore), blasé Bonds (George Lazenby) and vaguely unobjectionable Bonds (Pierce Brosnan). But if the greatest Bond is still Sean Connery -- his chipped-ice elegance so clearly defined the franchise that there's no replacing him -- then Daniel Craig is the first Botticelli Bond.

and as i already mentioned.....wow.....

play station 3

ok, so one of my least likely to showup students asked me last evening if i minded terribly if he skipped class......he had a friend standing in his place in line at the walmart......yes...he wants the play station 3 so he can resell it on ebay and repay this semester's tuition.....omg......seems he has friends in several lines around the region, hoping to clean up....oh to be young and idealistic.......

al franken on stephen colbert.....

ok, so crooks and liars has a clip of al franken on stephen colbert last night....doing a victory dance....and giving quite an amusing take on rush limbaugh's assertion that he really didn't mean all those things he said when he carried water for the repuublicans...... colbert asked franken if he owed limbaugh an apology for hor writing his book rush limbaugh is a big fat idiot...to which franken replied that he will apologize to limbaugh when limbaugh thanks him for saving his life.....limbaugh lost weight after the book came out..... prompted by by called fat rather than an idiot one would suppose.......

the irony is not wasted......

ok, so dubya spent years avoiding service in viet nam by joining the texas air national guard.......and this weekend he avoids being in washington by going to ....viet nam......ha!i wonder if he called his daddy to try to get himself out of washington any sooner?.......

sexuality, birth control, abortion

ok, so.....the mm successfully lectured on the above topics this evening......omg....i must have talked in hyperspace, as i finished much earlier than i had anticipated.....and still managed to bring up all of my stories/examples/illustrations/anecdotes.....having lived 50 years, one does tend to have a lot of stories to tell on the above topics....most aren't mine, but that makes the stories easier to tell, eh?.....i was able to discuss my own ectopic pregnancy without tears...that part is good, given that there are folks out there that consider any removal of a fertilized egg to be murder....and i take umbrage with that position.......ah well......the lectures are a piece of cake from here on out.....amen, amen, and amen

25th......

ok, so i have spent the last little bit searching through my older photo albums.....and i seem to have taken no photos of my spouse's little sister's wedding 25 years ago next week........i was a relatively new bride at the time....and these things would not have crossed my mind at 25.......which is why i am not surpised that my sister-in-law's 22 year old eldest didn't think to invite us, or anyone in the wedding party to the 25th surprise celebration held last weekend....we only found out that it had happened second hand......and so when i called my dear sister-in-law( i am serious here...i do really hold some folks dear to my heart)........i apologized...because i thought their anniversary was beyond next week......and it seems i was right...not til the 27th........of course i also thought her birthday was around thanksgiving...and it is actually november 2.....ouch!........i have had few chances to be first with anything in my spouses's family.....and this wedding was basically it for me...and i still cannot keep it straight.......a large, and extravagant flower arrangement is in order, eh?

man-wombs.....

ok,so last night stephen colbert's word dealt with expecting the most physcial of ways....now that researchers have figured out how to transplant wombs from women to men.....colbert figures that the pro-life and anti-stem-cell men defeated in the last election could avail themsleves...with their extra time at hand...to bringing these fertilized eggs to fruition...he figures it couldn't hurt more...than his kidney stone?.......and wouldn't this group want to put their exit strategy where their propaganda was?.........just too funny to see dubya airbrushed on a naked demi moore.......surely he is commited to seeing all those snowflake children being brought to term?..........

track 2

ok, so....with the mm downloading multiple songs off of numerous outlets...the time has come for clarification...just how is one supposed to remember the artist who is track 2 on one's pda.......yes, it has a nice beat, and i can walk to it.......but without artist or song name i am clueless......just this evening i listened to a pitchfork download...small sins...lovers who uncover.....and it turns up as track 2...but it is a different track 2 from the one i listened to at lunchtime while i walked my 30 minutes........frustrating......because i like both the old and the new track 2's....and i am afraid to transfer this track 2 to my pda for fear it will override track 2 number 1...got it?........my nephew big al was the guest bass player for a group that played the u of kentucky ballroom this evening......my sister-in-law lisa phones to make sure that if andrew was available he would attend.....and she mentioned that his group....landen falls was to play in downtown cincinnati tomorrow night....and when i asked the group's name...she said i would have never heard of it.....and i left it at that...because i care not to disclose to my general kinfolk that i have downloaded numerous warmup bands...and i would not be surprised if one of them wasn't track 2..........

good news for chocoholics....

ok, so this from reuter's...though i heard it this morning also on npr.....They were so addicted, they just could not give up their favorite daily snack -- not even in the interest of science.

But chocolate lovers who flunked out of a Johns Hopkins University study on aspirin and heart disease helped researchers stumble on an explanation of why a little chocolate a day can cut the risk of heart attack.

It turns out chocolate, like aspirin, affects the platelets that cause blood to clot, Diane Becker of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine and her colleagues discovered.

"What these chocolate offenders taught us is that the chemical in cocoa beans has a biochemical effect similar to aspirin in reducing platelet clumping, which can be fatal if a clot forms and blocks a blood vessel, causing a heart attack," Becker said in a telephone interview.

The 139 so-called chocolate offenders took part in a larger study of 1,200 people with a family history of heart disease. The study looked at the effects of aspirin on blood platelets.

Before they got the aspirin, the volunteers were asked to stay on a strict regimen of exercise, refrain from smoking and avoid caffeinated drinks, wine, grapefruit juice and chocolate.

Chocolate and the other foods are known to affect platelets.

"We knew they would offend," Becker said. "Some people said to us, 'I can do anything but I can't stay off my chocolate.'"

"If people said, 'I will try my very best,' we said, 'OK do your very best, but it is crucial that you don't eat chocolate for 24 to 48 hours before you come in for testing.'"

Yet some people failed even this test of self-control.
Going all the way

"Nobody ate like a chocolate chip. If they were going to eat it, they ate some chocolate," Becker said.

"It went all the way from from a chocolate chip cookie to someone who ate a gallon of chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks and two chocolate-chip cookies at one sitting."

Becker cut them out of the aspirin study, but looked at their blood anyway.

Researchers ran platelet samples from both groups through a mechanical blood vessel system designed to time how long it takes for the platelets to clump together in a hair-thin plastic tube.

The blood of the chocolate eaters was slower to clot than the blood of the volunteers who resisted chocolate, Becker told a meeting of heart experts in Chicago.

In a urine test, the chocolate lovers had lower levels of a platelet waste product called thromboxane.

"Does it help a little bit? Yes," Becker said. "But it does not have anywhere near the magnitude of the effects of a single baby aspirin a day."

Nonetheless, Becker's team wants to study the effects of eating chocolate on a "free-living" population of volunteers. They will measure how much chocolate people eat and then watch them for several years to see if chocolate-eaters have a different rate of heart attacks, stroke and heart operations.

Other studies have suggested that dark chocolate contains more of the beneficial compounds linked with heart health, and experts note that the high sugar and fat content of most chocolate candy might cancel out some of the benefits.

thanks for asking....

ok, so a couple of early nyquil nights and i do feel better......from extra sleep and from overthecounter drugs.....got too much to do to stay home......

that's the ticket....

ok, so this from cnn.com... With fans scrambling to obtain tickets to Saturday's Michigan-Ohio State football game, a couple is auctioning off their seats to raise money to adopt a boy from Guatemala.

Ken and Kristie Sigler have season tickets in the closed end of Ohio Stadium, about 10 rows from the field. They have put the two tickets up for sale on eBay, hoping the payout helps defray the $12,500 cost to begin processing their adoption paperwork.

They set the minimum bid at $1,000, with an option to purchase the tickets directly for $1,500. No bids had been made as of early Tuesday.

At first, the couple thought it would be difficult for them to sell the tickets, but with adoption fees mounting -- costs total about $30,000, including the paperwork fee -- the decision became easier.

The top-ranked Buckeyes and second-ranked Wolverines are both undefeated, and the winner advances to the national championship game.

"It's just one day, one game, compared to changing this little boy's life with us," Kristie Sigler said.

cold or sinus?

ok, so the mm hasn't been able to breathe freely for days......so much so that she went to bed at 8:30 last night with a shot of nyquil......not feeling much better today...but has no luxury pf a day at home......a diabetes support group is scheduled for lunchtime with no backup presenter.....and so she will drag her sorry body off to work feeling poorly......

there is beauty and knowledge in dried macaroni....

ok, so this from gawker.....and then the rant will commence.....

The NYT goes deep today and uncovers an insidious new trend: parents who moved to the suburbs for the schools, only to discover that suburban public schools kinda suck, too. At least, they're not up to the high standards of the ridic parents the Times managed to unearth, including one mother who was so horrified that her son was making dried macaroni art projects in first grade that she whisked him into a school "where teachers have encouraged [her son's] curiosity through projects like building an arch and studying rocks and bones found nearby." Ooh, studying rocks and bones! That's worth $25K a year, for sure.

dear mamma horrified,

there are many things that should horrify a mother about the state of schools today...but dried macaroni projects isn't one of them.......macaroni is organic..making it easy to glue on to....what-ever and where-ever......and this is a win-win result for the average 1st grader.....glueing something onto something else and having it stay......hard to to accomplish with rocks....and since self-expression is what you are looking for...there are so many sizes and shapes of pasta as to make each and every project unique.....pasta absorbs paint nicely.....allowing for even greater artistic impression with colorization...than say.......the same project with rocks.......as for me...i treasure a Christmas ornament encircled with farfalle made by my middle child, currently in his second year at an ivy league school.....note that the same ornament encircled with rocks would never stay on the tree branch....and let us not forget popsicle sticks......my eldest made the most precious star of david out of this versatile material.....and christmas would not be christmas without that cross on the top of our tree.......self-expression with rocks?....sounds good on paper, but in reality always go with the macaroni or the sticks.........these cozy projects always have a place on the refrigerator.....where simple magnets hold them up for public awe...the rock projects.....they tend to fall apart in the car....and rarely survive long enough for full kudos.........

MeanMamma (of successful dried macaroni/popsiclesticks scholars.......)

the cat.....

ok, so a one-handed update is due on the cat...philida,,,,,,,who has crawled up into my lap and into the crook of my left arm such that she is nestled under my neck......purring madly.......a precarious perch at best......but one that appears to make her quite happy in this moment..........

ok, so this from the nytimes.....yeah, well, there was more, but i caanot be bothered my non-keillor prose....

How to Write Your First Hollywood Comedy
By Garrison Keillor, star and screenwriter, “Prairie Home Companion”

1. Don’t start writing yet. (Very important.) Postpone writing. Too many writers make the mistake of plunging right in — Scene 1. Ext: the home of the zany holmberg clan. The camera pans slowly across toward the driveway, where the young couple are necking in the back seat of the white Buick, and we see the three figures approaching with the water hose don’t do this. Writing the screenplay will only tangle you up in a lot of minutiae and inevitably lead to discouragement. Get the money first, then write.

2. Find a director. A famous one who is older than you and who is famous for improvised dialogue. This takes so much pressure off the screenwriter. Let’s say you choose Robert Altman. Call up your friend who knows a guy who went to college with a guy who is now Robert Altman’s attorney and wangle a dinner date with Mr. Altman. A threecourse meal in a place with ficus plants and white tablecloths. Mr. Altman has just finished shooting a new picture and he is in a grand mood. He regales you with stories about his famous movies, and then, polite man that he is (he is from the Midwest), he asks if there was something you wished to talk about. “Yes, sir,” you say, “there is.”

3. Do not lead with your best idea. Your first idea is going to get shot down. Do not lead the ace. Lead the two of clubs.

You say: “Mr. Altman, I want to make a movie about a family named Boblett whose grandpa dies, and they have to bring his ashes to South Dakota and scatter them at Mount Rushmore — Gramps was a crusty old Republican and wanted his remains to be put up Jefferson’s left nostril. Anyway, it’s all about this family — one is into heavy metal and one is obsessive-compulsive about nasal cleanliness and one is a Wiccan covered with tattoos — and they have various misadventures and car breakdowns and then must try to climb up to the nostril. And there’s a lady park ranger named Chloe who accidentally takes a love potion.”

Mr. Altman looks off into the distance, pauses a decent interval and says: “It’s not for me. But keep in touch. Maybe we could come up with something else.”

4. Start writing Something Else. You set Mr. Altman up with the “Looking for Jefferson” idea, a weak one, and now he will read your new screenplay and say, “I can’t believe this came from the same bozo who tried to sell me the nostril picture.”

5. And here’s how you write the thing. You rewrite it, that’s how you write it. You rewrite the rewrite, then prune that and add other stuff. Your wife reads it and does not laugh at any of the hilarious parts, so you replace them with funny stuff. You turn the script over to Mr. Altman, and as he reads it, you reach over his shoulder and cross out lines.

Then Mr. Altman directs in his own inimitable style, encouraging improvisation, so in the end nobody quite understands it, and critics hail it as “one of his better pictures, if not among the very best,” which is not bad for you, and they offer you a nice deal to write your second picture. But that’s another problem. I can’t help you there.

david versus goliath......

ok, so at the supper table my spouse was excited about the 'this american life' piece he heard on npr as he was blowing leaves off my mother's yard.....from this life.org.......Variations on an old tale with very modern consequences. Cambodia is competing with other nations for the business of big clothing companies all over the world, buyers like the Gap, Nike, Adidas. But they've vowed to follow fair labor practices, which, while eliminating sweatshops for workers, also ensures their costs are higher. Other countries end up with the contracts – and the profits. So an official Cambodian committee sets out on a mission to convince the U.S. Congress to give them a special trade agreement. Also, a story as old as David and Goliath themselves: the tale of big sister vs. little sister....not yet available to listen as a podcast......but still a worthy cause.......i personally understand just how hard it is to make clothing...and would gladly support with my purchases businesses that pay a decent wage......if only i knew who they were.......not that the goodwills have a special section for such items...but should i buy new things i want to buy ethically......

nearly to tears......

ok, so i do not cry often......but at some point in my afternoon it was all i could do not to break down......i was helping my mother clean her house prior to a church ladies meeting on wednesday.....and my emotions vascilated between utter horror that she would invite anyone to her home given her current state of disarray/abject laziness......and the reality that she may be on the verge of senility/manic depression.....when i arrived she had ripped every book from the wall o'shelves in her bedroom..and while she had intended to sort through the piles....she moved onto some other worthy cause...like baby blankets for haiti.....and she forgot about the books....which had become yet another layer in time when i arrived on the scene.......i discovered them only after i started to pick up the dirty laundry......ouch!.......and my mother had the nerve to direct me to 'sort' through those books before putting them back up......the bottom line is that i spent 6 solid hours filling up trash bags with either recyclables or bonafide garbage....and i have pledged an additonal 6 hours tommorrow.....so that when her cleaning lady comes on monday they can make real progress (my mother's words.......)...i suppose the most tragic theme in this rant is that at 50 years of age my mother still retains the power to cut me to the quick........

bush tells reid another little lie.....

ok, so this from wonkette.....Even in the midst of a seemingly polite meeting with the new Senate leadership, Bush couldn’t help telling a pointless lie. Gesturing to Harry Reid, Bush says: “Heh, we’re both from out West. He’s from Nevada, I’m from West Texas.”

THIS IS A DIRTY LIE AND WE ARE TIRED OF HEARING IT.

George Walker Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut. And it wasn’t an accident. His parents lived there, due to his dad being a student at Yale. And it’s not real shock that George Herbert Walker Bush would attend Yale, since he’s a rich New England yankee who was born in Massachusetts.

For his formative first three years, Li’l Dubya lived in Connecticut. For another 10 years, he was schooled in New England (Andover, Yale, Harvard). Summers and holidays were all spent at Kennebunkport, Maine.

Not “from West Texas” in any way.

But thank you, Mr. President, for correctly pronouncing “Nevada,” finally. You yankees rarely get it right.

meanwhile, in ohio.....

ok, so this from the web.....“elections officials are delaying the count of more than 9,000 provisional ballots by one day so it doesn’t disrupt the much-vaulted Ohio State-Michigan football game on Nov. 18.”

veteran's day a bit early

ok, so i had the day off for veteran's day.....and so my mother and i made our annual tour of the area goodwills and discount stores.....ending up at red lobster...the only lexington restaurant (in my mother's opinion)......we went up past shakertown...which likely prompted my mother's curious line of comversation in jessamine county...by the newish golfcourse on the left....the one with the house topped with a widow's walk......and there is an unstored stone fence between the road and the greens...and my mother commented that the landowner at the time must have paid the shakers to build that fence......and when i asserted that they wouldn't have had to pay their own slaves to build fence, my mother countered with her view that only the shakers knew how to build dry stone fences.......which wasn't worth pursuing as such arguments rarely are....but it the episode did give me pause.....and of course the ride back, interrupted briefly by our visit to my dad's grave at the camp nelson national cemetary, was during npr news....and my mother made it clear that she hasn't trusted the democrats since they robbed social security during the 30's......which i will take the time to review....mostly because i thought that social security was created by the democrats in the 30's and there would be no reason to rob from it.......but i digress from the goodwills.....i found a lovely pair of ralph lauren wool/cashmere slacks in black......and another pair of lauren khaki's...and several nice scarves.......and another anita shreeve novel...someone who lives in the mcmansion ghetto across from beaumont plaza must like her, as there is usually a new installment whenever i stop by.......note to self- send my mom flowers on november 17th....now that i have seen his headstone it occured to me that the date of his death is approaching...hard to believe that time passes so quickly.......

g. keillor weighs in....

ok, so this from my favorite left-wing radio host/storyteller.....from salon.com.......

Garrison Keillor is the creator and host of the nationally syndicated radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," broadcast on more than 500 public radio stations nationwide.

I've run into a lot of people over the past two years who said, "I just don't understand why people can't see through Bush," and they were right, they couldn't. They lived in Republican-free neighborhoods and read the New York Times and listened to NPR and so the political feelings of half the country were a mystery to them. To be successful in politics, you have to cross over the river and see where the other half lives. In the races that I know anything about -- in Minnesota -- Democrats managed to cross that line and talk to Republicans and came back winners. A hard-charging Army National Guard sergeant named Tim Walz stumped everywhere in the 1st District, where two years ago Democrats offered up a symbolic candidate, and beat a six-term Republican. The star of the evening was Amy Klobuchar, blowing a White House-picked Republican out of the water by 20-some points. She is 46, feisty, a county prosecutor, a tireless campaigner of the old school who showed up everywhere, didn't camp out in the latte precincts of the Twin Cities, fought on all fronts, and struck an aggressive tone with hints of populism that rang true this year. She told stories in her stump speech about how the rich and powerful game the system that swayed people more than statistics could. She got a little boost from the fact that her dad was a popular sportswriter and columnist -- who was the last Democrat to throw a fundraiser starring football players? -- but she did the heavy lifting herself, in her bright blue suit, her husband and child at her side.

Tim Walz is a beefy high school teacher and coach who doesn't quite fit the mold of the pale pursed-lipped Minnesota liberal. He gets hyper at rallies, jumps around, whoops, waves his arms, gives two-handed handshakes. You can argue that voters wanted change and were upset about Iraq -- that they saw through Bush -- but you still have to put candidates out there whom voters like. Howard Dean said, "It's an insult not to ask people for their votes." That's a big change for Democrats, something they learned from Bush.

The Current Occupant campaigned in Minnesota and though he did help to elect a lunatic in the Republican 6th District, he didn't make a big impression. He will be graceful and conciliatory in his press conference Wednesday, but he knows that he spent the last of his political capital this fall. I'd expect him to hunker down in the White House, wrap himself in the flag, stick with whom and what he knows, fight against same sex stem cells, and dare the Democrats to come after him. I doubt that he'll be jetting around the world in a quest for amity among nations. Which surely they will. The Bush administration is a rich tale of corruption and incompetence and the story begs to be told. And so the 2008 campaign begins.

in case you are keeping score

ok, so.....according to Wonkette......Every congressman interviewed by Stephen Colbert won reelection....how's that for political savvy?......

more about football.....

ok, so my heart goes out to joe paterno....owing to this tragic accident...Joe Paterno has missed only one game since becoming Penn State’s head football coach in 1966, but he could miss his second on Saturday when the Nittany Lions play host to Temple.

Joe Paterno sustained a fracture of his left leg at the top of his shin bone and torn ligaments in his knee when two players hit him last Saturday.

Paterno, 79, remained in a hospital within view of Beaver Stadium yesterday after having surgery Sunday to repair a fracture of his left leg at the top of his shin bone and torn ligaments in his knee. He was injured at Wisconsin last Saturday, when one player from each team crashed into him at the end of a play. Penn State lost, 13-3, dropping the Nittany Lions to 6-4.

dems to take senate after press conference tomorrow

ok, so this from the web.....WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Democratic takeover of the Senate is appearing likely after an ongoing canvass of votes in Virginia produced no significant changes in the outcome of the hard-fought race led by Democratic challenger Jim Webb, sources told CNN Wednesday.

Wednesday night, with Webb leading Republican Sen. George Allen by about 7,200 votes and the canvass about half complete, The Associated Press declared Webb the winner.

CNN does not declare a winner when race results are less than 1 percent and the potential loser may request a recount vote. (Full Senate news)

A source close to Allen also told CNN that the senator "has no intention of dragging this out."

Meanwhile, a Webb aide told CNN that he plans a formal news conference Thursday morning to declare victory.

A victory by Webb would put the new Senate lineup at 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and two independents -- Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut -- who have said they would caucus with the Democrats.

The Morning After

ok, so this is worth watching......

book club.....

ok, so bookclub was this evening.....an occassion that we almost forgot given all that is going on.......and we both went...given that my spouse read the book.......and i was so proud that my spouse made major contributions to the conversation on plot, style, and general prose involving clay's quilt........and at this point i must also credit our friend buck......who said right off that he felt the book poorly written......a nice segue to my story about andrew and the retired U.K. English professor who feels that Kentuckians treat their own literature as too precious for criticism.......but i digress......from the fact that i did not finish the book.....it came in the midst of my manic fling through both iris murdoch and lorrie moore......and though i did pick up plot points about the end.....i suppose i must go back and read the remainder just to say that i finished it.......not a particularly bold advertisement for this bit of precious literature.......'i felt i had to finish it'......is not a desirable bookjacket quotation.....i also had a chance to catch up with one of my few actual buckeye friends....and we admitted internal conflict about u of l's 3rd place status.......we want to feel happy for them...but as buckeye fans we cannot.........life is rough like this.......

not enough reasons to smile....

ok, so our annual election party with our friends and progressive neighbors was marred by jamey gay's mayoral loss......you would think that the democratic takeover of the house, and the failure of the south dakota abortion ban and the catch-up-with-potential in the senate would be plenty good enough...but we sat huddled listening to the returns read precinct by precinct over the radio....and other than the local coverage of ann northup's defeat in louisville, we mostly mourned for jamey......there is always next time, i suppose...but it is so sad that he will not be in local government for at least 2 years.......

the gay preacher's wife gets the blame?

ok, so this from salon.com....i copied it in so y'all wouldn't have to hunt for it.......The pastor's wife made him do it

Our friends at EvangelicalRight.com knew we'd be eager to hear about this response to Ted Haggard's scandal, from our old pal/nemesis Pastor Mark Driscoll. Driscoll leads Seattle's Mars Hill Church, and a good portion of the larger evangelical youth movement, teaching the doctrine of wifely submission to Christians nationwide. (To learn more about Driscoll, you can read Salon's excerpt from my book "Righteous: Dispatches From the Evangelical Youth Movement" here.)

Driscoll blames Haggard's affair with a male escort not on the former pastor's homosexuality -- which he abhors as much as that other spawn of Satan, feminism, -- but on his wife, Gayle Haggard. Why? 'Cause, he says, Gayle let herself go.

"At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this," he wrote on his blog. "It is not uncommon to meet pastors' wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband's sin, but she may not be helping him either."

As we all know, this argument is as illogical -- that a man would have sex with another man because he was turned off by his aging wife, and not because he's gay -- as it is demeaning. How she looks should have no bearing on this. But, I must rise to Mrs. Haggard's defense, if only to point out that Driscoll is obviously using her as an opportunity for frat-boy girl-bashing of the highest right, guys? high-five! order. Find a picture of Gayle Haggard. It's easy to do this week, with her husband's fall from grace splashed over the front pages. And look at her. Come on: She looks fabulous.

Her failing is not in too few hours on the treadmill, but in her beliefs. First, that she should submit to her husband, as she has preached to her women's ministry in Colorado Springs, and as she and Ted wrote in a book they published this year called "From This Day Forward: Making Your Vows Last a Lifetime." (It's still for sale today at the New Life Church bookstore, and available for your ironic viewing at Amazon.) And second, that he can be healed of his "sickness" -- that under the close watch of Focus on the Family's James Dobson, God can cast the gay out, and the girl-crazy boy she married will be hers once more.

With Jesus' help, her faith asserts, Haggard can be just as straight as the aggressively heterosexual pastor Mark Driscoll, who, on his blog, is quick to explain that his fidelity to his wife -- and, thus, the Lord -- has everything to do with his blonde bride's hotness, lest we think he would have married a woman who wouldn't keep herself up to his specifications. Otherwise how could he have resisted the women who ache to provide him with earthly pleasures?

He writes, "I started the church ten years ago when I was twenty-five years of age. Thankfully, I was married to a beautiful woman. I met my lovely wife Grace when we were seventeen, married her at twenty-one, and by God's grace have been faithful to her in every way since the day we met. I have, however, seen some very overt opportunities for sin. On one occasion I actually had a young woman put a note into my shirt pocket while I was serving communion with my wife, asking me to have dinner, a massage, and sex with her. On another occasion a young woman emailed me a photo of herself topless and wanted to know if I liked her body."

ok, so.......preachers go gay when their wives gain weight?......if that were the case then most preachers in the u.s.of a. would be gay........this guy might as well fess up that his wife has been since day one a means to an end.....not someone to blame when he got caught.......shameful example of a christian......

it had to happen in the bluegrass state.....

ok, so this from the web.....The best “vote suppression” story of the day comes from Louisville, Kentucky.

Details are few, but we do know that a poll worker has been charged with strangling a voter and then throwing said voter out the door.

“That about tops off the day,” county spokeswoman Paula McCraney said. God, we hope not!

Ky. Poll Worker Charged With Assault [Associated Press]

Ironies......

ok, so....the collective we ambled on in to the post office this morning, expecting a long line and lots of to-do over a passport application......and to our surprise....there was no line whatsoever....and the entire process took less than 15 minutes.......go figure......and so i took our daughter to cross country practice....and went on out to the convention center to vote......and the chaos was exactly as predicted......swarms of people trying to get either in or out of the parking lot, swarms trying to get in or out of the building itself, past the people from food lion and rumi passing out valuable offers......and into the center itself, partitioned so as for the swarms to think they were the only swarms on the premises.......it was enough to make me want to move to lancaster rd....which had no line at all to speak of..i earlier enjoyed this piece at slate .com about hosting neighborhhod voters in your own home as a poling option....and the topic on the lips of the gentleman ahead of me was the same as on the couple's behind me....just how do you spell that write-in woman's name?....and as i was waiting in line i was approached by the woman who bought the house on gwinn island road next tot he horse farm who is rumored to be thinking about cutting down the cedar trees in her yard......turns out i know her from when the local alumnae were involved with the belated chi omega chapter at centre......and turns out she is only thinking of taking out the cedars in the back yard...not the ones in front she called 'lovely'...and she wants to have a potluck to get to know all of us old-timers in the environs.......which brings me to my last irony.....the lines were long because one couldn't pull the straight ticket lever if one wanted to do the write-in....one had to go through every individual race to get to the critical clerk write-in slot......i was courageously using the 'new' machine, which required dialing in the name letter by letter......oy!....i spent an hour from beginning to end......which brings me to the second topic on my voting neighbor's minds.....what if this had been a presidential election......would we have been here all day?...should we have brought portable stools?......provisions?.......i didn't speak to a single person who supported this mass voting precinct.....and hopefully the lone republican i voted for in this midterm election can bring the old precincts back.......sometimes change isn't making things new....it is throwing the racals out so you can have things the way they were.......

Faith Hill Poor Loser at CMA (close - up)

ok, so faith hill thought she was going to win.......watch this 15 second piece...it is too funny.....

flat earth brand.....

ok, so sometimes the onion is just too funny......especially with this piece on overthetop healthy snackfoods......

proof.....

ok, so.....i received an email confirmation of my paris hotel reservation this morning.......along with a confirmation number......in case my name at the desk isn't proof enough of my reservation secured with a credit card in my name.......the hotel eugenie is on rue st andres des arts.....just around the corner from place st michel.....quite close to notre dame, st chappelle, the louvre, and musee d'orsay.......and now the economy must do a bit better to make the dollar to the euro more to my personal advantage......today we three will swing by the post office with our completed passport application for our daughter.......along with her proof of citizenship, our proof of parenthood, and our proof of identity....and a credit card to pay for the photos which they are prepared to take, and for the passport itself....good for only 5 years at her age......both parents must be present for children under the age of 16, or a notarized form explaining the absense of a parent must be provided......lots of proofs......and then i will move on across town to vote...bringing with me my proof that i am who i say i am.....with the change in venue there is less likelihood that the usual ladies at the voting booth will know me....ah well.....

gender as personal choice......

ok, so this article popped on the nytimes this evening....and i found it heartwarming......the notion that gender should be a legally binding personal choice..........this is an issue that has been on my mind ever since my mother admitted to me that friends of theirs (i must include my dad in theirs)......had a baby who had both sets of genitals....and they had to decide which to keep and which to discard.....and this knowledge...long before i quite understood about gender confusion.......troubled me......how could they decide when the baby was.....a baby?........why could not this wait until the baby had some sense of boy or girl.......gosh darn it would be a bitch to find out that you were born with both sets, and your mom and pop wanted a girl so they had the boy parts removed....only for you to want them back so very badly 5 or 10 or 15 years later......but new york is taking all this and more into consideration with this proposed legislation......doesn't affect me in the least...but it might just mean everything to people i love, or have yet to meet.........

the first monday before the first tuesday.....

ok, so today is my day to moderate the diabetes support group in lawrenceburg.....which essentially means i won't be back home until 9:00 tonight......and that is ok because i am 'taking back my time' tomorrow.......my plan is to vote at 6:00 am when the polls open and to have the remains of the day to do whatever...i have hopes to volunteer but so far my offers have gone unacknowledged...go figure......the good news is that i will get back here too late to watch television...and will see no more political ads this cycle.....fine by me...the ones i saw were meaner than usual, but not nearly so mean as in some of the closer races.....sadly.....my neck of the woods is contesting only local positions like clerk and mayor and the like.....no balance of power rests on our balance...yet and still i challenge all to vote tomorrow.......

african violets......

ok, so with all of the mundane details about my existence i have somehow neglected to mention that my african violets are blooming.....at last the 2 pots that get regular sunlight.....and these blooms are special because they are proof that 1) i can keep a plant alive for months and even years 2) that i have thoughtfully chosen the appropriate window space for these plants.....3) they remind me so of my grandmother broughton's african violets that she kept in the special window shelves behind the white sheer curtains......north facing window.......my violets appear to do well with eastern exposure......go figure.......who knew that african violets bloom about the time pomegranites show up in the grocery store.....i mailed off a few to my middle child, along with poetry and protein bars and phish...must keep to the precision of the 'p' theme......

a bit of humorous news from india...

ok, so this from the web....
3-month old baby charged with robbery

November 4, 2006

PATNA, India --Police charged a suspect after a bus driver was robbed of his fares, then realized the suspect was a 3-month old baby.

The boy, Parveen Kumar, had been listed along with his father on an initial charge sheet after the bus driver was robbed, police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar said Friday.

The baby had been charged with robbery, extortion and banditry, said local superintendent of police Rattan Sajai.

Though the robbery in the remote village of Muzzafarpur occurred Sept. 19, the fact that a prime suspect was an infant only came to light recently when police launched their investigation, Sanjai said.

Police blamed the bus driver, saying he reported the baby as a conspirator because of a personal grudge he had with the father.

The charges against the boy have since been dropped, Sanjai said.

emptying nest.....

ok, so our daughter left early in the day for a church overnight camping trip......the house was only empty for a short time......as andrew and his girlfriend came down for the day.....to rdie bikes and to have supper.......but after they headed back to lex. it was only us....and so we watched capote, which has nothing to do with being alone together.......but my spouse has just finished the book in cold blood and that was the film he most wanted to see.......while i was out running errands i borrowed 2 films from the library......shopgirl and in her shoes and rented capote and stage beauty....i watched stage beauty while i walked on the treadmill....and later watched shopgirl with andrew's girlfriend while andrew was out helping his dad......i liked shopgirl more than i thought i would....steve martin sure knows how to show emotional unavailability......a bittersweet movie......and then there was capote.......a tremendously engaging film considering the subject matter.....i was especially intrigued by the harper lee connection.....but i digress from phillip seymour hoffman....who certainly deserved the oscar he won for this role.......ah well.....still one more film to watch today before i take them all back.......

my lone political endorsement....

ok, so.......i plan to vote for cindi davidson for county clerk as a write-in candidate....and i hope that she manages to defeat denise curtsinger......she who so foolishly melded most of the county's voting districts into one at the convention center....to save money......which disinfranchises those who used to be able to walk to the polls......so remember that name cindi with an 'i'....and davidson like the college.......

script ohio.....

ok, so the daily show's foray into the buckeye state has made me nostalgic, especially with the osu marching band spelling out the daily show a few nights ago.....here is the band performing script ohio.....

ok, so this ex-evangelical preacher would rather admit to buying meth from a gay masseuse than to having gay sex.......with the gay masseuse.......i can only imagine what dubya is washing his hands...again and again and again.....right about now....... 

more billy.......

ok, so billy collins read this piece last night.....

Litany
by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine . . .
Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

Billy Collins, “Litany” from Nine Horses.

lovely, just lovely

the lemonheads.....

ok, so on my way home from the poetry reading...i caught a bit of evan dando being interviewed about the new lemonheads cd......and i was instantly amused because...i already have the mp3 of no backbone on my pda...and because the interviewer...not david dye....kept talking about how this was a comeback for the group....and i had never heard of them before...go figure......

addendum....

ok, so.....having had a glass of wine and a nice hot bath...i need to revisit my evening of cultural delights......for starts.....i got to sit next to the l.o.......who i admire for so many reasons......i was exceedingly amused when collins took a few questions from the crowd, and a student asked for advice he might give to an english major aspiring to a creative writing career....and mr. collins replied that jealosy was the key...that jealosy of better writers drives the boat of your own creativity.......and i was suddenly reminded of our tour of the gaudi-designed mansion in barcelona where whispers of the jealosies intrigued us so........all these details are still clear to me because i took notes.....being the only c-dub on hand i felt that i ought to take notes......mr collins started off with a riff on yeats...who once said that a poet never speaks as to one at the breakfast table......or thereabouts....and his poem in answer to that sentiment was so very clever as to be brilliant.....i have no idea if the books i bought contain this piece.....i neglected to buy the newest volume because it was in hardback.....my bad....and this was the bulk of his recitation.......and since i had no book signed...i suppose i could make it my quest to wait him out......and buy 3 paperbacks next year for the price of 2 hardbacks today......or i could simply drive by the centre bookstore tomorrow and buy the conundrum hardbacks at full-price and mail them off to my deserving literary offspring.......hard to tell what the mm will do with the extra cash she earns explaining critical health issues (refer to sex before poetry......) to the unsuspecting masses...........

sex before poetry......

ok, so.....i survived my maiden venture into health education beyond the confines of nutrition, exercise, and disease prevention......and at some point during the lecture marveled at how easily the words urethra and labia and the like rolled off my lips......and while i did describe several of the graphic photographs of oozing and infected genitals with the overly maternal....you don't want to catch this....remember to use that condom...... i really think that i was able to do a professional and creditable lecture on a totally non-experiential topic....i knock on wood as i write these words, btw.......i must add that i must have exuded the maternal aura before and after classtime.....the 20ish girl who comes directly from her o'charley's job...always in black..... was in tears because her boyfriend of three years who dumped her after last weeks class has not yet returned......and this poor child sobbed and carried on and laid out the timetable of their relationship and the breakup......and she needed nothing more from me than to listen to her story...and hand her a tissue from my purse......and to nod understandingly......there was no need to tell her that she will likely be better off......because no man dumps a girlfriend unless he has already found her replacement.....nope....she didn't need the reality lesson.......and no sooner was the lecture over, when another woman of unidentifiable age...could be 20's...could be 30's.....even early 40's....came up to apologize that she missed last week.....and then went on to explain that it was because she had to admit her partner to a psych unit because she was depressed to the point of suicide......and all she needed from me was to listen to her story, and nod understandingly.......there was no need to tell her that she will likely try again until she succeeds.....nope, she didn't need the reality lesson.......and this is the point i want to make....that sometimes i surprise even myself on being able to do and say the right things from time to time...whether it is on advice given or with-held......or crucial protection/survival information presented...go figure.........and that brings us to the poetry part........i made it a point to finish early enough so that i could drive cross town to hear billy collins read his poetry at centre college.......as i flashed photos of yellowish goo dripping from the end of.....well- you get the picture....i was really thinking about how i would be happiest sitting down front rather than in the balcony......close enough to see his expressions well, and far enough away in case he is of the spitting ilk......and this fellow did not disappoint.....such wit, such a way of words.......a marvelous variety of short form, haiku and seriously long reflections....i did take the time prior to buy a few volumes to give as gifts, but abandoned the notion of getting them signed when the line became instantly impossible......and i will resist the temptation to scribble a pretend billy collins on the flyleaf with my right hand and a bold flourish, though he seems the sort that might find amusement in that deception.......

salt-sensitive

ok, so i have read a few of the billy collin's poems online...there are few because on his own webpage he charges for single downloads.....as well he should as a poet....but this one was at a poetry site....and i post it because i found the connection to my salt-craving tendencies so essential....

Design
by Billy Collins

I pour a coating of salt on the table
and make a circle in it with my finger.
This is the cycle of life
I say to no one.
This is the wheel of fortune,
the Arctic Circle.
This is the ring of Kerry
and the white rose of Tralee
I say to the ghosts of my family,
the dead fathers,
the aunt who drowned,
my unborn brothers and sisters,
my unborn children.
This is the sun with its glittering spokes
and the bitter moon.
This is the absolute circle of geometry
I say to the crack in the wall,
to the birds who cross the window.
This is the wheel I just invented
to roll through the rest of my life
I say
touching my finger to my tongue.

Billy Collins, “Design” from The Art of Drowning. Copyright © 1995 by Billy Collins. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Reprinted with the permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press, www.pitt.edu/~press/.

Source: The Art of Drowning (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995).

centre college- newlin hall 8:00 pm november 2, 2006.....if i lecture on std's quickly i can make this special recitation........

discomfort zone.....

ok, so tomorrow night i venture into the unknown.....with my eku health class.....i will actually lecture...and show graphic photos....... of sexually transmitted diseases......and try not to sound like a whining mom.......gosh darn...i have learned more than i never thought i needed to know about STDs....which ones cause a dead-fish odor...which compromise fertility....which are treatable and which are not....basically females bear the brunt of these infections....and that is before we get to AIDS....whereupon I will disclose publically why I do not take part in my own church's christmas box for africa campaign...because these folks also take govt dollars to spread the abc program of STD control....and they get through the Abstinence part, and the Be faithful part....but they leave off the Condom part because it prevents birth of little potentially christian babies.........and the part of the powerpoint presentation where i am supposed to role play bits of dialogue that will lead a student to convince a partner to wear a condom.......all i can say is.....pray for me........

THE Ohio State University

ok, so.....i finally figured out that i can watch comedy central videos if i use ms explorer rather than firefox........who knew?......and so i have been catching up on the daily show, currently broadcasting from the campus of THE Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio....my alma mater....and i enjoyed every moment...especially the political science prof who wrote a book on the overblown politcal exploitation of the terror threat.......realistically, one has as good a chance of being killed by an asteroid as by a terrorist.......of course, all of this buckeye banter makes me miss OH-10........particularly at football time........