underestimation

ok, so....my spouse has just returned from the centre expo....and curiously....several friends of our eldest child pretended he wasn;t there....think males with last names like eastern block countries.....and brother/sister acts........he was somewhat surprised.....as he was surprised when a girl in our middle child's class chatted with him like a long lost friend....think......angels we have heard on high........neither of us could recall ever really talking to her...but she spoke of stephan like he was an inspiration .....and i felt somewhat guilty for doing things for those who could have cared less.....and nothing for someone who seemed appreciative.....yeah...that is not why we are called to do good things.....but it helps...........and so it goes in our family of three......going o.k........it seems.....things to say.......no major lapses in conversation...no awkward moments...it will be o.k.......without a family of three expo............

american red cross......

ok, so my middle child received a phone call today ....from the red cross.....asking him to donate blood.......the red cross appears to be the only non-governmental agency capable of handling catastrophe......the only check we have written in these last chaotic days has been to the red cross........fema should take a lesson from the legacy of clara barton......i once visited her washington area home.......still boasting cubbyholes for emergency provisions........my friend clara leonard-bowen celebrates her birthday today.....how fitting..................

comments.....

ok, so i deleted a comment that was profanely bizarre....as to ideology...and more....i concluded that it was some sort of canned response.......no lucid person could have said such things.......at least to the meanmamma........

make levees not war.......

ok, so this is what i love about america...the industriousness of her people.....already on line one can buy t-shirts that say......bush doesn't care about black people.........and make levees not war...........and thought i know little about kanye west......his take on the administration is so telling.......even the president's own meanmamma put her foot in it when she gave her updated version of the marie antoinette letthemeatcake speech............there are already oldline white massatypes declaring that n-owleans would be better off without the poor........how crass......how did these folks end up in n-owleans in the first place.......certainly from first class tickets from western africa...they came the oldfashioned way......on slave ships......and their lot has not improved since....i am reminded of neil young's damning diatribe southern man.....i admit to being an unabashed neilyoungfan........being from canada he was able to be perfectly honest about the plight of the southern black...and white man........some things will not change unless there is an upheaval......might was well be now...........

dick does disaster......

ok, so this was just too funny.....from jossip.com........It was so nice of VP Dick Cheney to come back from his fly fishing holiday in Wyoming to do a presser in Mississippi. But the locals, uh, weren't so happy to see him.

This just went down during a live interview.

Dick Cheney live interview

Random Guy: Go fuck yourself Mr. Cheney. Go fuck yourself.

Reporter: Are you getting a lot of that, Mr. Vice President?

Cheney: It's the first time I've heard it. 

certainly not the last time..........

quid pro quo

ok, so...in any worplace there is an unwritten rule of tit-for-tat......you take the time to listen to my stories, and I will return the favor when you have stories that need to be told....and so it was today.....that everybody but me had a story to tell.....there was the clerk whose younger son announced that he is getting a divorce after a long but childless marriage ....and the nurse whose mother had a massive heart attack within hours of leaving her cardiologist's office........the mother died two days later....I missed all of that while I was away.....and then there is the clerk whose 11-yearold daughter called last thursday.....only to have somebody hang up on her after saying that the clinic was much too busy for such calls.....nobody has fessed up to it.......and there is an underlying air of tension/everybody wants to talk about the fact that nobody has confessed......and then there is the nurse whose daughter is rooming at a ky college with a clotheshorse...and the clothing is taking up more than the roommates half of the room.......so many stories....ironically my family imagines that I spend my days telling nothing but stories about each of them.......but my stories pale in comparison to those of my coworkers.....but should i need to divest myself of any personal budren, there ar now numerous folks who owe a few moments of their time...

the (liberal) media......

ok, so i have been mesmerized by the clips on-line of the news media interviewing politicians and govt suit-types who are supposed to be in charge....and yet seem to be completely out of touch.......i especially enjoyed ted keppel asking that brown guy from fema why he was just that day finding about something......ted asked....'don't you guys watch the news?'...........the red cross was set and ready to roll long before the fema folks would allow any body to unload anything governmental......clearly...the fema people need to be co-opted into the red cross team......rather than the other way around.........in our staff meeting today......the 'disaster plan' was discussed.....we had a post 9-11 guy on staff for 2 years working on an emergency-preparedness plan for the county....and at the time he left....there was, and is no plan.......so what did he do with 2 years of salary?......go to trainings...maybe the same ones led by this brown (horse-show) guy........and while one can call the media out of control.......anderson cooper was within his rights as an american for lambasting mary landreui as she congratulated her political colleagues for a job well done.......'what about the bodies floating in your streets....the dead woman being eaten by rats that nobody has bothered to pick up and move....how can you stand there and pat each other on the back?'...............i thought she was going to cry for a moment..........and well, she should.....considering how much pork goes yearly to silly things like alaska bridges to nowhere while cities like new orleans have ancient levies that can and will breach.........such a travesty.....and i suspect that politician wannabees will distance themselves from this administration faster than you can say lysol.......and tyhis business of bill o-reilly claiming that nobody has the right to count on their government in a disaster......what planet is he from.......that is why we pay taxes.....it is a covenant.........and not one thought up by the (liberal) media.........

pork.....

ok, so i called my eldest child yesterday, and invited him and his girlfriend dwon, at their convenience, for a dinner of roast pork and mashed potatoes...their favorite meal...or so they say..........a meal that we have not had since the middle child decided that he no longer ate pork......for whatever reason....at this point i cannot quite recall why....but now that we can eat whatever i want to cook.....i am in the mood for pork......maybe some country ribs (the ean kind not the spare-rib sort).....or some barbeque...or grilled pork chops over the weekend......ummmmm.....with a side of grilled vegetables....sounds wonderful......last night at supper the cat jumped up in the chair of the absent child.....and just sat there as if to say....'he is gone so i get his portion'......but he was eventually flicked away......we try not to be catatthetable folks.......the cat sees things differently......and last night we also settled into our new arrangements......alternating the setting/clearing and dish/kitchencleanup with the youngest.......who contends that she is already the slave girl.....hardly so.....but 12yearoldsgoingon22yearolds rarely see the world through the lens of truth.....we also began the post-evacuation cleanup......the final loading of the car left a stream of rejected items in its wake......some we will be sending shortly...like the computer surge protector.....and others we have replaced lovingly in the shrine that is his room.....the room that his sister believes should now be her room.....mind, gentle readers, that this room is 2 flors below our room, and has an outside door....not the bedroom location of choice for an adolescent with impulse control issues.......and so the room will stay as it is for the foreseeable future....aside from picking up the flotsom and jetsom......but back to the pork.......i must really discern whether my edlest really likes pork roast, or if he is just being polite.....my nother made me ham loaf as a coming home dinner entree, under the mistaken impression that i liked it.....omg......i don't want to follow that path of misguided understanding of likes/dislikes........

a walk in the woods

ok, so i have followed my morning routine.....as, well, routine this morning........make coffee....take the dog out while i get the newspaper from the box at the road, feed the cat/dog, glance at the paper over coffee, leave the paper at the top of the stairs for stephan......oops.......i left the paper but there is no stephan to read it this day.....nope....he is in the catskills, with 9 other new freshmen.....getting to know each other whilst hiking/camping under the stars........hopefully there will be little or no rain......he should be back in his dorm by the weekend...just in time to meet the students who opted not to do something so apart from academia..............

15 hour drive home.........

ok, so these are the highlights....in no particular order.........the service area on the new york thruway at which every person pumping gas except my spouse was bald...what are the odds of that?........the bumper sticker that read..dissent is always patriotic.....the hawk that soared downward toward the grass in the median and grabbed a mouse in it's claws and rose back up again.............the amishman mowing his hayfield on a horse-drawn apparatus....oblivious to $3.59/gallon gasoline.......getting up at 6:00 am to find my brother-in-law's sister just in from new zealand.....already up and making coffee because she is jet lagged and at home it is time to go to bed rather than time to get up.......the mist rising off of the reservoir near troy, new york.........the absolute lack of traffic for the first 3 hours of driving.....the new hampshire bumper sticker that read.......we started out with nothing, and we have almost all of it left......the wild turkeys grazing at the side of the new york thruway near the Cooperstown exit.......gasoline for the low price of $3.09 at my hometown exit off I-71 near Mt. Gilead, Ohio.......seeing all of the OSU decals/bumperstickers/specialplates/flags on vehicles starting near Erie,Pa an lasting just south of Columbus.......tearing up at the NPR piece about a family that came back to their jefferson parish home to survey the damage and discovered that the cat was alive and well............gasping aloud that dubya has switched his nomination of roberts to be chief justice rather than an associate justice.......15 hours goes by slowly, even with a book on cd......and music mixes......and cool drinks.....and light traffic..it is the unanticipated delights from the journey that make it all interesting.........

heading home.....

ok, so we head home early in the morning........we estimate about 15 hours of driving......oy.......hope to get home tomorrow rather than tuesday........my brother-in-law's sister is arriving any minute from new zealand.......i have never met her, despite my long tenure as part of this clan....but as i have never made it to new zealand......i spent and idyllic afternoon doing the crossword puzzle on the deck that overlooks the massive waterfeature....a series of 4 pools that flow from the waterfall into a large pond...complete with koi and a channel catfish.......such a soothing sound.....falling water.......not one thought about anything but my lovely decaf coffee....and the nice breeze.....ha!...if you believe that...i have swamp land to sell..............

chief justice passes.......

ok, so i was knocked over by the news of the passing of the chief justice......it was one thing to know it would happen, and it is quite another for it to happen so soon.......i am quite sure that dubya jumped for joy over the news....another pick...more than daddy....right?.......and sadly, the feeding frenzy over the second nomination will take some of the focus off the disastrous federal/state response(lack of response) in louisiana.....my only hope is that these new justices behave like the ones they replace.......conservative folks who ended up voting differently than the presidents who nominated them expected........

only the one?

ok, so we checked our boy into college this morning.....it was a singular experience.....the line filed past the hockey rink.....a nice touch, i thought, with the chill from the ice ...and with all of the ivy and east coast team banners hanging down.....the lady who reviewed stephan's meal contract and explained his room key versus the i.d./meal pass also issed us a parking pass, good for 2 hours......only the one (vehicle)...? she inquired...one?...oh yes, she hastened to reply...we have had as many as three vehicles to check in a single student.......omg.......as it was, there was scant space in the forbes room for the little that we brought....certainly no space for a futon, or even a refrigerator, though i understand the roommate we didn't get to meet was bringing one.......and after an awkward farewell.....we drove on to new york state......where we found all of the traffic that was missing through northern ky, all of west va....pennsylvania....and into new jersey....the nythrway was s.r.o........who knew....that everybody and his unlce would be traveling north on saturday about 12:30 pm.......a miserable journey of start and stop......at one point my phone rang.....and though the caller i.d. said 'stephan'....nobody was there.......i think his phone.....likely in his pocket.......was calling his parents just this one last time.......maybe not....he will be just fine......and we shall cope with one less child at home...but first......a nice weekend with our kinfolk in the north country......

staging area.....

ok, so our living room resembles the normandy invasion...or at least a smaller version.......everything ready to fit into the van, along with the bike.....oy.......luckily, those of us going on to northern new york need little in terms of stuff.......we should all fit....i stopped at the library to get a few books on cd......short ones....easier to deal with on a long haul....and i am going to assemble a small stack of musical selections after i make a few sandwiches for the road.....we hope to make it to west virginia this evening.....and arrive in princeton in time for a nice supper together....maybe the indian or the thai place.......gentle readers....keep us in your prayers.....and include reasonable gas prices in the same breath.........back on monday night............and pray for my mom, who will be here with the lastnestling until we return.......

biblical.....

ok, so it is thursday, and i am in lincoln county...God's country and several steps removed from where i spend the rest of my week....npr was featruing folks who cnanot find their loved ones.....i was in tears before i ever reached work.......the talk in the office this morning has been the hurricane.....and the biblical proportions of the tragedy....and what it means....and the expected signs have been brought up....the shape of the eye of the storm...and the clinics in louisiana.....oy......and the destruction of evil, the wrath...you get the picture.......i did bring up global warming....and how this could be our fault for being poor stewards......but the conversation prefered by these coworkers was one that could have been a country church sermon.....it will be a long day.......

war protests of yore....

ok, so.....this is yet more from the book i borrowed from the lbirary by anne lamott.....plan b.....i will buy this book when i am assured that having 2 childrne in college at the same time is not something to fret about......but i digress......anne lamott remembers in one of her pieces a man who stood, night after night, outside the whitehouse...with a candle....all alone.....and a reporter asked him...what he thought he could change by standing thusly night after night....the guy's name was/is a.j. muste......and a.j. replied.....'oh, i don't do it to change the country, i do it so the country doesn't change me.'

gosh......that was not what i would have expected....but the sentiment is so vital to the way i feel these days........dubya cannot and will not change how i feel about the way things should be......

procrastination

ok, so i could be packing a small bag to take along when we drive our middle child up east to college.....but no......i prefer the mindlessness that is browsing....and so here are the highlights of the new yorker cartoons that i will not see if the issue arrives after tomorrow afternoon.....a shameful reality...in that the magazine is published not 4 miles away....and has only to cross town to my mailbox.......

ky politics....

ok, so e.f is no doubt delighted about the hurricane....as it takes the focus off of him and his indicted-now-pardoned cronies.......who include a locally known boss hogg wannabe......gov fletcher did not go so far as to pardon himself......he merely pled the 5th at the investigation hearing into whether he and/or any one in his adminstration hired on the basis of political affiliation.......this was the guy who was gonna go to frankfort and clean things up after years of democratic hog swill....yeah, right.......the elephantine-types did the very same thing.....and seem surprised that anybody noticed the elephant in the corner...so to speak........

the utne reader......

ok, so this week, desparately seeking mental stimulation.....i read the online version of the utne reader.....a tried and true liberal voice.......and came across this blurb from sweden....

At One Swedish Library, You Can Borrow Books -- and a Lesbian
By The Associated Press via The Advocate
For a recent city festival in Malmo, Sweden, the public library was set to add
extra features to the shelves. Patrons were to be able to check out stereotyped
and often misunderstood people including a lesbian, a Dane, a Romany, a Muslim,
and a journalist. The library's hope was that giving local residents access to
people with whom they may not come into contact would help fight common
prejudices. Libraries in Denmark, Hungry, and Portugal also have featured the
Living Library project. -- Rose Miller
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid19850.asp


ok.......so i have no need to check out far-right conservatives.........there are too many around to count....and i understand them all too well......

katrina......

ok, so the rain has finally let up......or at least it has in central ky.....and we are hoping that we have seen the last of katrina.....strange to say this name, even in print, as associated with death and destruction.......it is a pet name in my family.......and recently in my office......where there are 4 kathy's(cathy's) employed.......just yesterday, the head clerk called back on the intercom for me, using what i will now think of as the storm name and after she said it, she gasped, and said...'i guess i shouldn't call you that anymore....'.......i am not the first in my family to be associated with a storm.....there has already been andrew, way back in the 90's......i doubt that they will ever get around to hurricane ernst.......and even if they did, it would come out as ern-nest.......but back to the horrible storm....this morning there was a montage of interviews with survivors, and a man from new orleans who had driven to jackson , mississippi to escape the potential destruction, only to have the hurricane's winds blow over a tree that crashed into his sister's house, and land just 4 feet from his head while he slept.....and so he and his wife are now in tennessee....worrying about the cats they left behind in new orleans.....the guy was in tears over his cats.......and i couldn't understand how he could have left them behind......especially since he had driven his own car.....not like he took the bus......so sad....and so long before thet area of the country gets back to normal......