October 28, 2004
Sox Win! Now Focus on Tuesday
Okay, here's the picture: the Boston Red Sox have not won the world series in what, 86 years, right? And they were supposedly cursed, right? But they just won -- and they didn't win in a squeaker, they won after game four, the "curse" game.
So what I have to tell you is this -- we believed the Sox could win, now shift the power of your focus to John Kerry. Center all your belief on the fact that he is going to win. Don't just hope for it. Don't just dream about it. Don't just think about it wistfully while you're doing the dishes.
- Know in your bones, as you go about the next six days, that we are going to win this election and take back our country.
- Know in your heart that pure and simple mean-spiritedness is not going to triumph over caring about other people and making sure everyone -- and I mean everyone -- has equal rights and a truly fair chance at a good life.
- Know in your brain that the American people are not as dumb as they think we are -- and to that end we are going to hold this adminstration accountable for what they have done and the lies they have told -- including, and perhaps especially, for the lie that their "values" are Christian or moral or even shared by the nation as a whole.
- And know in your tired body, that the work we do over the next six days will make the difference.
Make this your mantra: John Kerry will win. John Kerry will win. John Kerry will win. And he's going to win because we're gonna do everything we can to help him! So if you're headed to Ohio this weekend, bring your walking shoes. We canvass on Saturday morning, come rain or shine!
October 22, 2004
Friends Don't Let Friends
[I wish I had written this. I didn't, it was forwarded to me in an email, but I don't know who the original author is. Whoever you are, thanks!]
THINGS YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE TO BE A REPUBLICAN TODAY
and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
Feel free to pass this on. If you don't send it to at least 10 other people, we're likely to be stuck with Bush for 4 more years.
Friends don't let friends vote Republican.
October 21, 2004
It's about compassion, moron!
A couple of days ago I got yet more hate mail from my hatemailers (who continue to inform me how reasonable they are and how I am the one with the big reality problem since the CDC indicates that children in poverty tend to be overweight -- now from my perspective, if the CDC is noticing that there ARE children in poverty, it just kinda proves my point, but what-the-hell-ever).
I will not be posting the latest drivel for two reasons. First, I don't think they deserve an audience. If you wanted to hear that kind of crap, you'd be watching Fox News instead of reading my blog, right? And second, I deleted them about halfway through reading. I was sitting here at the computer, shaking, just absolutely shaking with rage and I just couldn't take anymore. So I'm not. I just deleted two emails tonight without even bothering to open them. And I'll tell you, it felt pretty good!
Because what it comes down to, essentially, is this: it doesn't really matter how you view the economic structure of our nation, and it doesn't really matter whether you think the rights guarranteed by the Constitution are ordained by God (yes, one of the morons actually attempted to explain to me why it isn't really Americans who afford other Americans with rights, because our rights come from God so no American can take away those rights. And yet he simultaneously maintains that the Patriot Act is a groovy thing and we liberals are the facists for trying to dial it back. All this after informing me that he is not a Republican, he's "far more conservative" -- How much further conservative can you actually GET than this administration and still claim to have any interest in human rights at all??? What a space case!) Anyway, as I was ranting before, what it comes down to is really this: compassion.
We care about the environment for maybe selfish reasons -- we want clean air and clean water and a liveable planet for ourselves and our kids. We want to continue to see beautiful vistas of undisturbed landscape -- without oil derricks and pipelines spread out across them. But we also have compassion for the wildlife trying to exist side by side with our domination of the planet. And that compassion is what will save us from extinction.
We care about the economy for maybe selfish reasons because if things are better for poor people, they will logically also get better for middle of the road people and the trodden upon will not finally decide they are sick of this crap and rise up and kill us all in our beds -- but also we care about the economy and poverty because it's the compassionate thing to do. It's compassionate to focus less on CDC statistics and more on the actual kids behind the numbers and all the things they have to do without, including time to see their parents who are working their asses off and never have time to play. In addition to some fun stuff, ALL kids just deserve freedom from worry and cockroaches and asthma and schools that are falling down around their heads and the dangerous walk home to an empty house.
The failure of folks to see the violence inherent in the system just boggles my mind these days. And, to continue stealing from Monty Python, I just want to remind everybody that "supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony" [involving Florida] and this year we need to make sure the mandate is clear.
So I'm making phone calls this weekend and taking more food to the ACT volunteers in Columbus and walking around with the kids to distribute "Vote Yes for Libraries" flyers and I'm already signed up to poll-check and make phone calls on election day. How 'bout you? Just find something and start doing it, because in 2 weeks, there won't be time for any more excuses.
If you're not doing it for me, do it for the kids! We can really win this, we just have to keep working hard and holding our heads up high. Visualize it!! Make it happen!
{Posting without editing, sorry for any garbled text}
October 14, 2004
Oooooooh, a LESbian
I just want to point out, in haste because we are headed to the fair to meet up with our fanatical mama friends and walk around with our MOB buttons on, that to stand up in a debate and say, of an out lesbian that "if you asked [her] she would say that she is being who she [is], who she was born as" is actually pretty damned impressive.
If I were Mary Cheney, I think I'd much rather somebody stand up and say "Yep, she's being who she is" with no judgement call one way or the other, than have my dad's partner on the ticket give a big lecture on how people like me should be "tolerated" but kept squarely away from anything as "sacred" and "sanctified" as marriage.
For Pete's sake, talk about the issues already. Or, if we're gonna talk about irrelevancies, why aren't we discussing the fact that Bush was literally foaming at the mouth near the beginning of the debate, that he has no idea what the issues are, that he lies and practices rampant cronie-ism.
Nope, it's all about whether we should actually notice that Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter. Lynne Cheney is clearly so proud of her girl there -- so proud she wants to shove her right back in the closet and lock up tight.
But let's all be "tolerant," okay?
Go volunteer already!!! (Yes Daddy, that last was directed at you. Directly.)
Hate Mail Redux
If you want to know what my hate-mailers are up to, by all means, read the entry below. Otherwise just skip down to the next entry and read my rant in reply to the suggestion that we all need to "Read Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged."
Or go volunteer for the Democratic party someplace.
JR (moron #1) wrote:
Hey thought you'd like to see that the Communists are on the move with.
Move on .org
They are making their push! What is particularly interesting is how the
democrat and "CCCP" Platform is Sooooooo
similar!!!!!!! But, I digress. It worked so good in Russia! Why not
Here?
http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/589/1/27/
Check it out !
Stalin In 2004!
We like Stalin yes we do.
We like Stalin HOW BOUT YOU.
Sing along you know the words,
We like Stalin yes we .....
;-)
J
Moron #2 replies (and forwards to me):
Yes brother, [Ed. note: they are actually brothers]
Don't forget, even the (Give Peace a Chance!) Beatles were capitalists! Keep taxing the rich more and more, and they will move away! That is why Ringo, John, and Paul all became American citizens. The tax rate in Great Britain (socialist, dare I say, pseudo-communist, state) is so high that they left!
It's kind of like the story about the grasshopper and the ant. The ant worked hard all summer building a house, gathering food, all in preparation of the long winter months ahead. The grasshopper sang, danced, and played all summer long, without a care in the world. January came, and along with it a huge blizzard. The ant was warm and comfy in his little house with plenty of food due to his labor in the summer months. The grasshopper was starving and freezing to death. Along comes CBS news, CNN, the BBC, and NPR who all do stories on the unfairness of the situation of the poor grasshopper. They expose the evil, rich ant, who has so much. The "less fortunate" grasshopper clearly is a victim of the ant and society because he does not have the same comforts. The story is picked up by the local politician, John Scary, who decides that something must be done. He then taxes the "rich" ant, takes his food and his house, and gives it to the grasshopper. (After all, the ant collected more than 200,000 peanuts that year!!!) The grasshopper lives high on the hog for awhile, while the ant shuffles off to a new territory where he can keep what he's worked for. The grasshopper still has not learned any lessons out of this, other than "the government will help him out," and by the time of the next blizzard, he is starving because he again didn't save any food the prior summer. Additionally, the house which previously belonged to the ant is falling apart, because the grasshopper never learned or took the time to take care of it, so he's freezing to death as well. However, this time there is no other rich ants to take from, as they have all moved to areas with less tax burden. So much for the communist approach! Unfortunately, hard work doesn't make good stories. Only the suffering of the unfortunate does.
Back to your link, Jonathan. Let's see, the logic here. We're concerned about jobs going overseas, so to fix the problem we're going to increase the tax rate on corporations to the levels they were in the 1970's. Isn't that when Jimmy Carter was president? The economy sure was good then!! Excuse me, but it seems that if you increase the corporate tax, they will have less money for jobs, salaries, equipment, research and development. This in turn will drive more businesses overseas, and they will take their jobs with them!!
Read Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Incidentally, Afghanistan held their first free election yesterday since the 1960's. They have NEVER before held an election to choose a head of state. Ironically, there is not much news regarding this historical event in the mainstream press today, despite the SURPRISING lack of violence during the elections. You bet your HINEY that if someone had dropped a grenade at a polling place, the press would be all over it like duck on june bug, and there would be all sorts of comments about "failed Bush policy." However, because the elections were PEACEFUL, you don't hear a word about it, even on so-called "neutral" NPR. I wonder if anything about this will be mentioned during the debate...
DLR
Atlas Shrugged My AAAS...
Here's my reply to the "read Atlas Shrugged" suggestion, which I will probably not send, even though I'm really tempted, because I don't think they deserve (or will even understand) my carefully reasoned arguments, but I thought you might enjoy it anyway:
We all go through a phase when Atlas Shrugged looks like a clever manifesto for the fabulous people (and who reads that massive piece of entriguing tripe without believing "I'm just like John Galt and Dagny Taggart and Frisco! I'm fabulous too!!!"). Luckily, most folks grow out of it and realize that we are given different talents at different levels, and indeed or society needs different kinds of jobs done in order for us to function, so Ayn Rand's approach to society doesn't really work unless you are willing to pay $4K for a cheeseburger in the secret society behind the mountains.
(note please that I am writing this without consulting my dog-eared copy of the novel).
EVERYONE can't run a railroad or invent a new form of steel, and while I am not advocating for a society based on supporting slackers, I do think it's reasonable to expect a living wage for all the work we do -- even if it's mopping floors or flipping and distributing burgers (both of which I have done for a living and both of which are far more taxing on a purely physical level than sitting at a desk exercising your fabulous brain). After all, SOMEBODY has to mop the floors and presumably, if we are gonna eat them, somebody has to make the burgers... which is why Ayn Rand's world view just flat out doesn't WORK -- you can't just value the glamorous jobs without expecting some disgruntlement from the people who are doing the shitty stuff with no thanks and a ridiculously lopsided earning ratio.
So while Dagney Taggart may start out as John Galt's maid in the new society, the implication is that she will soon move on to another fabulous career amongst the chosen. Which has always led me to wonder (even in my star struck just discovering Ayn Rand first year of college days), who then is going to mop? Because even if you are the best damned mopper in the world, you're STILL not going to make as much as the steel magnate -- and is that really reasonable? I mean he was lucky enough to be good at steel, but as long as you're working as hard as you can to mop well and cheerfully, shouldn't that count for something?
So the novel finally misses its own point, which is that Dagny started out in the railroad (and is the last fabulous person John Galt is able to recruit) mainly because she just loved doing her job well -- she gloried in her skill and her feelings of responsibility to her customers, in the importance of making sure there was transportation and motive power for the nation. And Hank Reardon is sucessful largely because he just loves his work -- he wants to be compensated appropriately, but he's not really out to get rich, though that's a nice bonus. He is working for the satisfaction of true and honest work done to the best of his ability. His job satisfaction is fueled not just by financial success, but by knowing that he has made serious advances in a career he loves. He knows that the work he is doing is important to science, to the nation, to making the jobs of other people easier in the long run. He is proud of Reardon metal not just because he made it, but because it will be so much safer and will make so many other products better and cheaper and more efficient. And I believe that even Ayn Rand herself loses sight of in the course of the novel.
But how do you love your work, when we draw a big red (economic) line between "valuable work" and "crappy jobs"? On some level, a really pleasant and efficient person at the fast food restaurant is maybe more important to my day than someone whose work is remunerated much more highly -- but when you can't earn enough to feed your family, and the fast food job is the third one you've worked that day, "mere" job satisfaction is something most people can't really afford.
And if folks are going to cop a big 'tude about what a moron you are for working fast food, or how you ought to be inspired to move on to something better, (both attitudes that I experienced from behind the counter working to pay my rent)how do you find honor or self-respect in that job -- especially when our economy is structured so that you can't actually earn enough to support your family, regardless of how well you do the job?
Working in a job you love, being paid a living wage (or better) to do what you enjoy, or what you're really really good at doing is a luxury these days, and it makes me angry when hard work doesn't even make a difference anymore. Because really, Tom Hanks is probably a very nice person, and I think he works very hard at what he does, but I'm also sure no one person needs $65 million dollars (or more) for working for the 9 or 10 months it takes to shoot a movie. Forget the money, he's just lucky (and he's said so on many occasions) to be working in a field he loves -- but that only works if the thing you are good at, or the thing you love has a high extrinsic value in our society, and most jobs just don't work that way. And please don't even get me started on the Paris Hiltons of the world! This is a woman (among many) whose handbags cost as much as a roof for my house, and I'm supposed to be concerned that moveon.org is supposedly leaning communist? Give me a break!
Which leads to my next point of outrage, which is that the prevailing work ethic of our nation is not to value your contribution because it makes someone else's day better, or improves efficiency or safety or any of those things, it's all about making more and more and more money for yourself and your buddies. Very few people have a sense of responsibility for doing a job well just because it's the right thing to do. There's just not a wide-spread sense of being obliged to help hard-working people who are less talented than we are -- because our society doesn't see talent as a responsibility (which I believe it is). Instead it's all about how much more profit can be squeezed or grabbed, instead of looking at what we can give back in gratitude for what they have been given by the universe or our parents or our teachers -- including brains, beauty, an ear for music, a terrific throwing arm, a great sense of finance, a talent for healing or whatever.
And that's vital to a realisitic understanding of Atlas. If you miss that point, you've missed the catalyst that causes John Galt to go underground in the first place. What causes John Galt to rebel is not his frustration with regular little people who struggle and end up desperate and on welfare or sleeping in the street. It's big "important" people like Jim Taggart, who inheirits the railroad from his father and then procedes to run it into the ground because he has no talent and won't listen to the advice of those who do. Instead of moving to a job he can handle and suceed in with pride, Jim way overcompensates for laziness and idiocy with an awe-inspiring sense of entitlement. Jim and his buddies in congress (I am not making this up, it's in the book) are so focused on entitlement instead of working the hardest they can work, that they spend all their time legislating good deals for each other and making up cool fair-sounding names for the laws. Because it's not fair that Hank Reardon is smarter and has more integrity, they deserve to keep all the good stuff they got from their daddies but never earned. And as we know, "that's hard work!" (Is any of this sounding eeriely familiar to you yet?)
This brings us to the central problem with the "look at Atlas Shrugged" argument, which is that the politicians who write the "Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog" legislation in the book look a whole lot more like today's republican party than they do anybody else... I mean when I look at the two candidates for president, I get a pretty clear image of which one is the whining, responsibility-dodging, "they made me do it," "you just have to trust me," "somebody get me out of this mess" Jim Taggart. I'm confident you don't need me to draw a picture of which candidate is Hank Reardon-esque and which one is emphatically not.
So it's clear to me that anyone who would draw the connection between today's situation and Atlas Shrugged is doing one of three things: either 1) he hasn't read the book in a VERY long time, or 2) he missed the point on the first and possibly subsequent readings, or 3) he just has his head up his ass. Hmm, I think I made a mistake. Clearly 4) all of the above, is also an option.
And they ask me (one really did, when I said please stop sending me this stuff because I am not interested, he actually said ) "where has your sense of humor gone?" Folks, I grew up and I just don't find this stuff funny anymore. Do you? Get out there, we've got work to do!
P.S. -- after the election is over, my copy of Atlas is available for anyone who wants to waste a couple of days. It's a good story and a thrilling read, but I'm not sure the philosophical perspective stands the scrutiny of a post - first - year - of - college - I - am - bored -beyond - belief - and - don't - want - to - go - to - any - of - my - 8 a.m. - religious - studies - classes reading. But nobody can read it until the election is over. Until then you should be volunteering at every possible moment!
P.P.S. - Hey Deb, remember first year, when all I did was sleep and read Ayn Rand? I was so caught up in the fabulousness (because I was breezing through everything that semester) that I read straight through the Ayn Rand canon and even wanted to do my junior IS on Atlas. Thank god for Dick Figge -- one more way he helped me start recognizing reality!
October 13, 2004
Talking Points
Please go here to read some relevant talking points in regard to the coming election.
Sorry, too tired for originality tonight, but WOW, did my kids do great at swimming this evening! Now I must sign up for lessons for me!
October 10, 2004
What I've been doing...
instead of blogging lately may be of interest to my regular readers.
Sorry for the extended absence, but I've been doing stuff.
I'm sorely tempted to just leave it at that and see how many groaning comments I can log, but this is a golden stolen blogging moment and I'd better make use of it while I can. They seem to come infrequently these days!
What a week!!!
TUESDAY
... the Grahams came for breakfast and play and lunch. We had a fun time and I had planned to leave when Katherine took Emma to school so I could go to Target to get film developed, but I ended up not being able to find the rolls of film (they have since turned up), so we just stayed home and took a nap in preparation for swimming. (After reading a chapter of our first Judy Moody book)
Tim had his first ITK match (that's "In the Know" for those of you who aren't -- get it?!??) at OSU in Columbus, so he came home from school, changed shirts, cursed the transportation department, and went immediately back to school to pick up the van and the students. Poppo planned to join him in Columbus to watch the match.
So, Grammy came for dinner and to be our observation/helping with Matthew after swimming person. We had pork-chops and rice and peas (wow, there's a meal Diana would hate!) and got ready and off to swimming where Mara and Matthew were both incredibly brave and had a fantastic time in the pool. Then we dried off, dressed and went to Dairy Queen for our "reward".
Then to bed -- where Matthew wrestled for 2 hours instead of sleeping and Mara dropped off like a rock. No time for blogging, since I was exhausted.
Tim came home (who knows when, that was too long ago to remember) and the team had won 505 to 185. Watch it on channel 11 here next Sunday morning at 11 to see which exciting questions the other team managed to answer.
WEDNESDAY
The water was being shut off for maintenance in our neighborhood from 8-3:30, so I got up extra early (again) and showered. Then we got the oil changed, went to the bank and the post office, and met Di and Mel for a trip to Easton. The kids were all great!
Tim had choir from 7-8:30, so the kids and I just stayed up in Easton and brought home Thai Chicken Pizza from CPK for "a surprise for Daddy!" (which was Mara's idea).
Another night of wrestling Matthew to bed. I can't remember who took that one on...
THURSDAY
Al Franken!!!! That's a whole separate blog entry, which will follow, but wow, I got to see (and shake hands with, lingeringly) Al Franken, live and in person! The radio show was great too!
Then Tim had ITK practice, which was supposed to be over at 8 but ran really long for some mysterious reason that I haven't figured out yet. The kids and I went to Target (but guess what I forgot to take with me... yes, it was the film) where I returned some stuff and bought some other stuff. We were at Target for a really long time, so the kids were cranky and then I had to... guess...
yes, I had to wrestle Matthew to bed. Sigh.
FRIDAY
Kid-care swap with Kym, and we started out with donuts! Yay, we love donuts! It was an incredibly uneventful kidcare day, and they entertained each other well enough that I was able to wash a kitchenful of dishes with only minor diversions for "more juicy juice pleeeeeeeeeese" and "can I dress up with no clothes on?" "ooooooooh, me too!!!"
Then Kym and kids took off, Matthew went down for a nap with incredible ease and I washed the deck while Mara drew pictures.
Tim came home, we looked at each other and realized we were exhausted and we bailed (which I still feel bad about) on grilling out with pals. Too much involved in trying to load up kids, disembark kids, eat together, re-embark and re-dis-embark and then bedtime, so we fed them grilled cheese (the kids, not the pals) and Tim and I called in a Lone Star order, which we didn't get to eat until about 10:30 because Tim was...
Yes, you guessed it, wrestling Matthew to bed.
Then we watched 'Allo, 'Allo instead of the debate, because Tim indicated that the debate was making him lose his appetite and I decided I might as well just watch the re-screen on CSPAN later. Which I did.
Then I frantically logged in my votes on internet polls, read Kym's blog, realized I was waaaaay too tired (and inarticulate) to blog myself, and finally rolled up to bed at close to 3 a.m. when I had to... are you really ready for this one?
yes, I had to re-wrestle Matthew to bed. But actually I just moved Mara to our bed and slept lightly in their bed while he played all around the room (you have to sleep lightly because he will decide, at highly unpredictable intervals, to pounce on you, which can be dangerous and painful if you are sleeping on your back or on your stomach -- mostly I sleep on my side, badly, with my back to the wall for a false sense of security).
About 5:30 a.m. he finally wound down and went back to sleep.
SATURDAY
Got up at 8:30, showered and went to the America Coming Together office in northern Columbus to volunteer. I was really tired, but afraid that if I didn't go when I said I would go, I might not go at all. More on that later.
Got lost afterwards trying to find the knitting store. Found it finally. Did not make a good impression with the proprietor in re: my MOB button, but she was at least fairly nice about disagreeing with me. Bought something I shouldn't have, but I really really wanted it. And don't ask what it is, because I am not telling until I have actually knitted it.
Went to 1/2 Price Books, found a Thirkell: Cheerfulness Breaks In (Meg, please cross this one off the master list) and a Black Adder video for Tim, also some books for Mara, which I will probably save for her birthday, including a Judy Moody book we didn't know about yet.
Went to Larsons, where I found nothing much really for Mara's birthday. I am frustrated about this birthday, since she really needs nothing but it would be fun to get her something terrific...
Got lunch at Wild Oats (at 4:30) and read my new book. Ate too much and felt vaguely ill all the way home. I think my stomach has shrunk.
Finally got home at around 6:30, sent Tim to play with Gene at 7 or so, put the kids in the bath, made/received some phone calls, and spent the rest of my night trying to get Matthew to go to bed. Ended up moving Mara to our room and sleeping in their room again, which I am pretty tired of doing by now! Didn't have a clue when Tim got home but woke up in their bed at 5:30 a.m. and decided it would be too much trouble to move Mara out of my place so I could sleep there. Ugh.
SUNDAY
Again got up later than I meant to, ate biscuits Tim had made, went to the fair with Grammy and Poppo for free fair day, came back from the fair after 15 minutes actually THERE (we walked from our house and most of my time was spent getting there and getting home), changed clothes and went to Pickerington for more political activism... see next entry...
Tim got home from choir practice at 5, I cleaned up the study a little (you can see the floor, but it's still a disaster area) and we both decided it was a toss-up as to which of us was more likely to strangle the kids first if we both stayed here, so I sent him away for an hour and a half of alone time and fed the remaining 3 of us spaghetti-o's and cottage cheese. We also watched 2 episodes of Between the Lions and sang about vowels while we ate...
Called my mom, re-glued a chair rung that has been driving me nuts for weeks, ignored the dishes, Tim came home, I took the kids upstairs, we brushed teeth, read 2 chapters of Judy Moody Gets Famous (book #2 in the series)and I turned the show over to Tim, who has been up there ever since and who is probably more asleep than our son.
Whew! What did you do this week?
October 02, 2004
Would you agree?
Does this sound like me? I don't really think so, but would appreciate comments...
You're the color blue. You have the three c's in
life--you're cool, caring and confident.
Trustworthy and honest, people are naturally
attracted to you. You're unusually optimistic,
but that makes life all the better. You're an
imaginative person who loves sleeping and
dreaming. Hard-working and determined, you
excell in school. You're everybody's favorite,
and this is because you have this undefined
richness in your personality and attitude.
Mild-tempered and stable. Not to mention very
intelligent. Along with the fact that you're
conservative, you're worried about the
environment. So basically, you're a generous,
dependable and devoted--just the kind of person
everybody needs. Wouldn't it be great if
everybody in the world were like you?
What color are you? (Amazingly detailed & accurate--with pics!)
brought to you by Quizilla
What a day!
Went to see Patti LuPone tonight at the Palace, and wow!
First of all, I got to wear (finally) my chinese red blouse, with my black mini-skirt (which was not in fact lost or at Meg's house, but has been hanging on Tim's side of the closet in with his pants since Christmas, just waiting for me to look there. Maybe if I occasionally ironed something, I might have found it sooner...) and black tights and big clunky black shoes. I suspect that big clunky black shoes are "out" by now, but I really don't care. I got on the big clunky shoe train late and I'm not getting off now, just cause stilletto heels are trendy again. How silly! Also, wearing red enabled me to put on my garnet bracelet that I've only gotten to wear once since Christmas (it wasn't lost, I just rarely dress up enough to wear it...)
Secondly, my date was a very handsome guy, wearing a beautiful blue shirt I'd actually ironed for him (note: I had actually found the miniskirt before tonight... lest you think this is the first time I've ironed since Christmas...)
Thirdly, our tickets were free, and the ticket givers also volunteered to babysit, so aside from some concern about how messy my house was (they wanted to come here so they could put the kids to bed), that was groovy too!
Fourthly, the concert was fabulous. I adore Patti LuPone!
Fifthly, we met some Kerry-Edwards supporters in the row in front of us and agreed that if we don't all vote the right way this year, there probably won't BE voting anymore afterwards, and it's just always nice to meet compatriots in our swingy little state these days.
Sixthly, we bought the concert CD, which I think will be good (bonus of having free tickets is not feeling guilty about buying the CD in the lobby afterwards)
Seventhly, when I got home, my kids were actually in bed, asleep! And the babysitters were delighted to chat a bit instead of being in that "well dammit you are finally home, where the hell have you been?" mood that babysitters sometimes have after wrestling my son to sleep...
Eighthly, when I logged on to my library account just now, the 30 or so books that I had due today and hadn't renewed yet actually renewed when I tried to renew them, instead of racking up another $3K in library fines.
Ninethly, when I checked our blogs, Kym and I were both free of new spam comments, so I could actually blog instead of just deleting garbage for an hour.
And
Tenthly, I have a fabulous new sock pattern from Jodi that doesn't have the ugly ridge across the side of the instep, so I don't have to give up sock knitting!
To all of these I say, YIPPPPEEEE!
October 01, 2004
I am a proud freaky liberal
That's what my new T-shirts are gonna say:
PROUD
FREAKY
LIBERAL
Let me know if you want one...
Today has been a great day -- mostly because I discovered that we are now getting Air America, Progressive Radio, on AM 1230 out of Columbus and maybe some of the good feeling comes from watching Kerry do so well in the debates, but I think I also really needed to hear Al Franken and Katherine Lampher and the rest of the Air America group agreeing with me on national radio.
AND, Al Franken's show is going to be live from Columbus next week, and you all know how I feel about Al (though Tim says he would prefer that I not accept / offer any amorous advances... which is a bummer), and Kym is going to keep the kids so I can go!
I'm gonna see Al Franken, people!!!
And we're gonna elect John Kerry in November!
I just volunteered to be a phone banker/door to door canvasser, and my dad sent $100 to the DNC last night when I sent him an email about it! YAY DAD!!!
I am just delighted with everything right now!