The heart has its reasons

heartsansraison @ 2009-04-16T17:59:00

2009-04-16T22:59:51Z

It's funny, the things that finally break you. After the last hideous year, I thought it would be losing Sophie.

But no. It's having my granddaughter pour my shampoo out on the floor of the shower stall, having a bill collector call on a bill I simply cannot pay at this time, and being apprised of the fact that my boy and DIL are leaving early tomorrow morning and returning on Monday evening, so that I will be in charge of the kids until then.

That means taking to school, soccer, etc..

I think the shampoo was what really did it.

I have no savings, no money--at least not once I pay my health insurance--no job, no job prospects, and not even life insurance. I'd die, but there's no profit in it.

La la la la life goes on.

heartsansraison @ 2009-04-08T17:55:00

2009-04-08T22:55:29Z

Nikki and I buried Sophie this afternoon and planted a Double Delight tea rose on the grave. It was possibly the most painful thing I've had to do in my life, and I'm including the damn divorce.

She has a 100% Egyptian cotton, jaquard weave shroud and a kiss, and we plan on cherishing the rose so that the flowers are her memorial.

heartsansraison @ 2009-04-08T01:00:00

2009-04-08T06:00:37Z

Sophie was a foundling, apparently part of a litter that some bitch or bastard dumped by the roadside. My boy found her on his way home from driver's ed. I stopped and got weaning formula on my way home, but she wouldn't take it and I was terrified she was going to die on us; she could not have been more than three or four weeks old because her eyes were that deep blue. She was in starvation mode and her eyes were too big for her little head. We ended up pouring the formula over kibble until it turned into kind of a slurry. That she ate, and even though we tried to find a good home other than ours, she came back to us.

I believe she thought I was her mother, poor lamb. She could be annoyingly timid, but we knew it was a holdover from her infancy and the abandonment. She was also incredibly squeaky and demanding. Her first names that weren't names were Squidge, Squeaker, and Wormface (because she would get on top of my TV and hang paws and tail over the front, annoying me greatly when I had the flu and was on a bad move binge.

She got bolder over the years and we were so proud. When Mouse moved up, she laid claim to Mouse, even though technically Mouse was Lily's person. Mouse was likewise smitten. My DIL is going to break the news to her because if I have to I will be gibbering.

She seemed to get sick very quickly, but I think I missed the signs. I bitterly wish I had caught them. I bitterly wish I had asked Dr Jones to put the feeding tube in last Friday.

She seemed to be doing better, at least in terms of keeping down the slurry I was feeding into the feeding tube. I was very worried about her lethargy, but when I talked to Dr Jones around fourish, I felt heartened that this lethargy was not unusual, given where she was.

At six, I gave her another feeding. She didn't keep that down, and her breathing seemed...well, odd. I let her rest, and tried again at eight, with a smaller amount. That seemed to go down without trouble, and I let her rest again until something like nine, maybe a bit later. I was very carefully to inject it very very slowly into the feeding tube, but despite this, about thirty minutes later, she vomited again. I picked her up to make sure her head was well above her stomach and the vomiting seemed to stop, but her breathing was, again, very odd.

My DIL came in around this time and Sophie raised her eyes and looked at her, so she was still tracking. More vomiting followed. Things went to hell then. Her breathing reminded me of what In read about the Cheynes-Stokes respiration and that was when I entered a state of panicked denial. (I have since gone back to read information on Cheynes-Stokes, and it appears my memory was faulty, what I hearing was probably the start of a death rattle.) I picked her up and held her, but her eyes seemed fixed. I stroked the top of her head and demanded that she hold on, "don't you dare let go!" and gathered her up and started up the stairs. I was already weeping, and my DIL heard me and sounded alarm when she called my name. I said something about thinking she was dying, and before I was all the way upstairs,n my6 boy had looked up the location of the emergency vet service. My DIL said, "Mom, let me take her, you need your shoes," and I handed Sophie to her just as Sophie's bladder let go. Since she was wrapped in towels, I had only to get some clean ones, but I couldn't tell if she was breathing. She gave one last exhalation while I was trying to feel her heart beat. Before we reached the corner of the subdivision, i think I knew she was gone, but couldn't face it yet.

It wasn't until I could feel she was growing cool on the way to the emergency vet service that I finally let myself know.

They were very kind there, closed her poor little eyes, and wrapped her up nicely with her little head and face showing so I could kiss the top of her head.

My boy and his wife - with the emphasis on his wife, since my boy is the softhearted curmudgeon - were very kind and very sweet.

Sophie is wrapped snugly and is 'sleeping' in her pet carrier until tomorrow, when we will bury her in the yard. I'n going to -plant a rose over her.

Needless to say, I am bleeding internally in ways I have only begun to discover.

I wish I'd caught it sooner. I wish we'd done the feeding tube earlier.

I saved Lily. I failed Sophie.

Resr in peace, my dear little girl.

To all who have been kind enough to leave condolences, thank you, quite honestly. My eyes feeling boiled and it's going to take a lot of booze for me to get to sleep.

I am about done with life, let me tell you. I love my kids and grandkids, but seriously, too many body blows this year.

This is me giving the finger to the universe.

heartsansraison @ 2009-04-07T23:55:00

2009-04-08T04:55:58Z

Sophie died in my arms at 10:12 pm CDT.

heartsansraison @ 2009-04-02T23:04:00

2009-04-03T04:05:00Z

Sophie is still in the hospital. That's about three days more than they initially quoted me for what the cost will be. I was just barely, by the skin of my teeth, going to be able to give them half of the amount due when I picked her up, and the remainder next week. Now? It seems very likely that the bill, if she is allowed to come home tomorrow, will be closer to six hundred dollars. Plus, she'll need a weekly checkup.

At present, she is better, but still not well. Her hip bones and shoulder blades, or shoulder joints, I suppose, are literally palpable; her beautiful tortoise shell fur is loose on her bones. She's still more jaundiced than I had hoped, They are force feeding her, more or less, but according to the vet, whatever Sophie's misgivings, she bears with them and doesn't fight it.

If I can't successfully get her fed using a syringe, she will have to have a feeding tube.

So, so, so, I am so relieved that she's improving I can't say, but at the same time, the back of my head has a cash register in it going ka-ching every time another new thing comes up. I hope they keep working with me, because seriously, not letting her go.

The grandzootlet is a rough and tumble tomboy in a lot of ways. She, according to her father, beats her big brother up in a showdown. Other times, she's very sweet to him. Brother tends to be a bit on the whiny side when she's bugging him, but I can't blame him. Except when he gets her stirred up and then complains.

And I'm researching sixteenth and seventeenth century Heaths and Chapmans from Hertford, Herts or, because they were surprisinly mobile. There was an article in the NEHGS Register re: Heaths, but I beliieve the author has conflated some of the emigrant Heaths with my Heaths. Simon Chapman and Mary Heath married in Digswell, Herts, and their three children were baptised there.

My apologies for not responding to individual comments; I do read them, but this week has been sort of black hole of memory and energy. I thank you nevertheless, and I am reading them and appreciate them. Thanks.

Ain't we got fun.....

2009-03-31T04:39:57Z

So. Lily has glaucoma, as I've mentioned, and since I did not have the wherewithal to do so, I had not been able to take her in, only keep dosing her eye. Pressure has risen and she is now blind in that eye.

On the upside, she's not in pain.

Seven years ago this month, Lily nearly died from something that cats can get, especially if they were plumptious, i.e, fatty liver disease. That she did not is a testament to Lily's toughness and my insanely stubborn refusal to let her go that easily, as in feeding crushed ice (or attempting to do same) to her using the teensy weensy baby spoons left from when my children were les enfants.

So, as if every other shit storm the last few years hasn't been quite enough, Sophie has developed it. In her case, it may have been stress that triggered it. So yesterday when I saw she was jaundiced and noted that in just three days, I could feel her shoulder blades (not to mention the inner eyelid thing), I freaked the fuck out and spent twelve hours coaxing her to drink about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of water. No food passed her lips, however.

This morning, the first vet took one look at her and said, she's critically ill, take her to the cat hospital, let me call them for you.

So we did. We being my DIL (who may, at times, behave in a fucked up manner, but who seems to be relaxing into the knowledge that whether or not I think behaviors are fucked up, I don't judge her or dislilke her) and me and the grandzootlet who was most perturned to see Nana crying, as one does.

I had to leave both girls (kitty girls, I hasten to add), but they were marvelous and called me back well before I expected to hear, as in we'd just gotten back home. Lily will need to have the eyedrops three times a day for the rest of her life (thankfully only in one eye). Sophie may have something worse, blood tests will show for sure, but at the moment, it does appear to be the fatty liver disease thing. The vet warned me that it might take force feeding to keep her from dying, and I said, hey, I can live with that. Not comfortably or easily, but the alternative? Not even to be allowed shape in my thoughts.

I am applying for Soc Sec disability benefits, for at least some period of time. There's a part of me that really doesn't want to do that, a large part of me (right around my middle), but the progressive disc degeneration, the FMS and the CFS, well, I have an attorney looking at it. Taxes get done week after next like the rest of the country.

In brighter news, the 'sequel' or rather next in the Cyteen series has been released, and again, Cherryh does not let me down. Matters on Cyteen always made me seriously thinky, all about what Cherryh describes as the intersection of genesets and psychsets, the 'cloned' lab born called azi, and why they are far more rational than born men.

Truthfully, you need to have read in the Union-Alliance universe to understand any of it, and you have to have read Cyteen to understand the politics of it, some of which can, despite our lack of lab born azi, applied to the here and now Terran world.

And, of course, what all of it really boils down to isn't the players in the politics or the drama, but the question of what it means, really means, to be hiuman.

I have always wanted to BE CJ Cherryh when I grow up. Since that seems less and likely by year--either or both--I must simply suck it up like a Hoover. The book is not flawless, but neither was Cyteen.

Some of her books are, must needs, very interior world, showing how the characters think. I find them no less compelling for it despite the fact that I think you can write into your own belly button so ffar that you can fall in and drown in ink, but. But.

But she doesn't spoon feed you either, she makes you keep up with them, and as in the real world, sometimes the characters are elliptical enough that the reader stumbles for a while until all the bits connect into one whole.

Forty Thousand in Gehenna does the same in a very different way, and in ReGenesis, we understand why that difference exists.

Still remarkable in my book. Lots of folks love her Morgaine series, and sure, I enjoyed them.

Forthy Thousand in Gehenna is not the last with this theme, with the variances in other shifting to ask ourselves what it means to be alien. either for our own strange selves or the people with whom we ome into contact.

So, not for the first time I say again, "CJ Cherry I heart you".

She's my girl crush, but even though she's attractive, I must say, my heart just wants her brain.

As always, in cases like this, your mileage may vary.

In the last four days we've had a) an ice storm, b) a blizzard and c) a spring thunderstorm.

That's K-k-k-k-ansas, folks, and no Myra, you may not come to Kansas to stalk me. So there.

And now, I must away to bed.

Race wars and subtle, unconscious and/or institutionalized racism....

2009-03-05T20:14:10Z

I haven't been reading this/these threads, though I have seen comments here and there about, ranging from thoughtful and intelligent to looney tunes, so I may be completely wrong about what is being argued.

Nevertheless, as a middle-aged white woman, everytime I see these discussions, I am reminded of a couple of things my friend Ardelia once discussed.

1. White women really cannot claim sisterhood with anyone Asian or anyone not Caucasian on the basis of sexism because, hello, we may experience undeniable and destructive sexism, but when it comes to race, we wear the face of privilege. Ardelia claims that when I told her that, she made me an honorary African American because in her entire life, she'd never known a white woman who got that. I told her that was because she spent her early life surrounded by Mormons, and since we had been friends for a while, could she tell me why the hell her mother had converted to LDS given, hello, institutionalized racism that insisted only white men like the Romneys could be priests?

2. Until those of us who do wear the face of privilege invest ourselves emotionally, financially and morally to fight racism, especially within ourselves, it's always going to be a harder battle than it needs to be.

3. Since I do wear the face of privilege, I often am appalled more than she is when she tells me some story about things that were said to her or around her. I am then more appalled when she indicates that passed right over her head since it wasn't egregiously obvious because nothing could be more indicative of how it is to not wear the face of privilege.

4. When I nearly had a meltdown and stroke over my SIL's stepfather's ignorance and racist bullshit, she repeated that I was an honorary black woman. I declined that because when I looked at my daughter's Bambi in the headlights eyes at the dinner table that night, I managed not to say anything that would have otherwise come out of my mouth. Now, bear in mind that in cases of ignorance of that level, I do that lady-like "I really am not comfortable hearing epithets of that nature" because to say anything else, like "STFU, asshole" opens a door that seldom is constructive. Most, but not all, assholes of that stripe are sufficiently sexist that doing the lady-like thing at least shames them into not spitting tobacco on the floor. :rolls eyes:

Over the years, I've become more sensitive to the fact that, oh, hey, magazines and movies and advertisements (in all media) and television shows (did all X Files fans fail to notice just how lily white that show was? Ditto Millenium?) are a wasteland of white faces with the rare Asian or black or Native American or Hispanic face, except as the rare background face. And interestingly, the studly bald white guy AD was a good guy, but the black guy AD was an evol part of the conspiracy. The fact that most of us don't notice this should be illuminating, but seldom is. Sure, racism is not exclusive to those who *do* wear the face of privilege; nevertheless, that privilege itself is key. I can't imagine what it is to overlook less overt disrespectful behavior because it just isn't that obvious. Ardelia is frequently surprised when she tells me about behavior that she has taken as aimed at her personally rather than racist when it seems so blatant to me, and the day in and day out experiences that form her view boggle my mind.

So what it comes down to is this:

We are all subject to unconscious, internalized racist twitches and myopia. Most of us don't want to face that. Fewer of us don't give a shit. But in my view and experience, the defensiveness exhibited by most people who claim they aren't acting on that unconscious and internalized racism means that at some level, they realize that the accusation has some merit and they tie themselves into knots attempting to insist that it's not true.

Get the fuck over it. We're all human and flawed, and denying that and denying that we are capable of bad behavior is idiotic. When we insist that everyone else is wrong--well, my mom's standard and annoying phrase was always 'Is everyone out of step but you?"

And seriously, how often does this discussion have to take place before people actually understand any of the above? Yes, I missed most of the socialization that led to a lot of the unconscious badness; nevertheless, going to public school, reading newspapers, watching TV, etc, meant that I only escaped the worst of it. Even as an honorary sister, I still have to confront it in myself every damn day of the week.

Although I admit, I am so worn out by angry, middle aged white men (Repuglicans or not) that I actually err in the opposite direction some days.

As a completely amusing and unrelated aside, btw, Ardelia apparently attended the same school at the same time as Michelle Obama. Oooooh, sez I, I get to do that six degrees, only its only two!\

In other news, I am rapidly realizing that even though I do watch profanity around the grandzootlet, I also need to watch out for impatience. Little one, while waiting for her movie to start says, "Oh, tum on!" Today, I prevented her from escaping from Mama, and she said, "Oh, gweat!" in tones of serious resignation. And despite watching the profanity, I apparently said 'Dammit' the other day, because when she dropped her cookie this morning, she said clearly, "Dammit!"

Bad Nana, no biscuit.

April is apparently not the cruelest month

2009-02-25T07:12:04Z

But February certainly is.

So, my father has had a recurrence of his cancer even though it has been more than five years cancer free. He is going to Loma Linda hospital and undergo proton radiation therapy, about which I have mixed feelings. Nevertheless, he's taking action, so I'm not going to have a complete meltdown. Yet.

The spooky part is that it was four years ago this month, I believe, that my mother Doris died.

Anyone wanting to call me self-centered for being upset can kiss my lily white ass. I'm just saying. My hurt feelings and sadness from four years ago will not do a repeat; bitch slapping in the verbal sense and naming names will.

Another job interview on Tuesday. I'm not holding my breath, not with this economy, but hey, it cheers me a bit anyway. I'm still considering working on the master's and may end up doing so. Time will tell. I splurged on a hair cut so I look less like a sheepdog around the eyes.

I was deathly ill a few weeks ago and ended up with bronchitis in less than forty eight hours. I was some bemused because I haven't had bronchitis since I left Kansas and now I'm back. Still, the prednisone (is that the spelling?) and the antibiotic did the trick.

Last week, the DIL was sick, so Nana did the honors; little zootlet got even more attached to Nana, I think. It is funny how even at night if she won't go to sleep and does all the toddler button pushing to drive her parents crazy, I can come upstairs, pick her up, turn her light back off and close the door, sit on her bed and rock her a bit while singing, even through the dismayed howling. For some reason, it does the trick, who knows why. It's not that she's not feisty with me, believe me, and sometimes she needs her diaper swatted before she takes seriously whatever it is that Nana says. She still has that soft palate thing going on as toddlers do, but I can undertand most of her sentences.

So, mz_bstone tagged me with five things:

Crochet

It's true that in times of stress (or while quitting smoking), I do crochet like a a crochet machine. There is no one in my family now who does not have a crocheted throw/afghan. I also, less frequently, knit. Knitting takes much more paying attention and dropping a stitch is far worse in knitting. I suppose that it serves to both calm me down and make me feel as if I'm accomplishing something.

Lily

Lily does get more press online than Sophie does, and lately, poor Lily's glaucoma has led to more mention of her, but Lily--well, Lily's original name was Lilith, primary because she came into our house, a seven week old the color of charcoal, and immediately buffaloed the two males within 24 hours. She then, later, became the Little Bitty Rat, which ended up truncated to Bitty. People who knew us back then still call her Bitty, which is funny, because she apparently approves of Lily and answers to it, more or less. Or at least as much as any cat does. Most of the time she just turns her head.

At any rate, Lily was, in essence, the Queen of the House, at least until my Boy found Sophie (dumped at about three weeks of age or so, because her eyes were still blue), and boy was she ticked off about having another female in the house. It took nearly six years before she condescended to sleep on my bed.

Grandbabies

You know you're a grandparent when you have to bite your tongue about your kids' parenting style. That's a bit unfair, but since zootlet is somewhat high maintenance (not to mention insatiably curious and fearless and incredibly stubborn), her parents have, quite rightly, learned to ignore the fits (such as when she doesn't want to go to bed). The only thing I see as wrong with this that is this: some kids really will just let go, forget their grievance, stop howling and go to sleep; some kids, after winding themselves up into tantrum and hysterics, need something to allow them to back that temper or hysteria right down. Generally, some kind of touch and reasonably calm talk will help them do it. My Boy rarely needed it; Mouse, on the other hand, needed it far more often. I joke that Zootlet is Leo rising, whereas Mouse is Leo Sun and Moon. At any rate, I do remember how it felt dealing with that kind of strong will, so I will generally come upstairs and put her back to bed (see above).

I'd have to say that all but one family member (including my parents, all but one sib, both my kids, both their spouses, and the grandbabies really do come in even; it's just that little squeaky wheels get the grease, aka closer attention.

Writing

Not so much these days, unless you count nonfiction sketching out one of the history related books on my agenda. (See below) I know that I probably will write again, and enjoy it, but we're on semi-perm hiatus these days.

Genealogy

Ah, my all purpose historical, genealogical research (aka, my version of escapism), it does live in my brain. I suppose it started out as a way to put together our three fractured generations, to find our roots, ethnic or national, and continues now as fascination with those people and their lives, which we call history, and massive irritation with lousy researchers.

That's about it. One supposes that if others wish me to play the game for them, they feel free to leave a comment. Or not.

heartsansraison @ 2009-01-18T01:03:00

2009-01-18T07:03:36Z

Drive by posting, since I've had a very relaxing day and two glasses of wine. Items that cause amusement or joy:

Discussion with my son who said that Israel is bombing the shit out of Gaza right now because sure as spit, once Bush et al are gone, they're not going to get presidential defense from this side of the pond
Amusing addendum: Israel announces unilateral cease fire two days before Obama takes office.

Discussion with my son over future plans: I ask his advice and he's more than okay with me going back to school and living with them, especially if he gets his full time Guard position requiring TDY time.

Discussion with my son and DIL after the zootlet threw up on me unexpectedly and I startled her and got her out of my lap quickly while snatching after dirty towels from the laundry to catch the spew: I felt terrible because she sort of whimpered sort of half-sobbed, and they were all, oh, she's fine, the whole hurling thing was an unpleasant surprise for her.

Get together with my wonderful Zen Buddhist friend Pam. :does Snoopy dance: It was so lovely, like no time whatsoever had passed.

Get together with my other very old friend Sherry and her husband Rhyse: Above, and boy, that was a delight.

Telephone conversation with Ardelia that was deligh

Except for two glasses of wine, 'in the box' all week, go me. Strangely, while some clothing is still a warning of snugness, I think I may have actually been burning some weight chasing babies (it's the stairs) because one of my favorite sweaters suddenly appears to be longer in the arms than it ought. Maybe that's cautious hopefulness, not unlike my political state of mind.

Pelosi and Reid, no surprise, are showing their colors and it is my fervent hope that their ratings sink further into the toilet.

Hilarity ensued when Pam told me that a mutual friend, who apparently had become acquainted via the son of one of his friends with Pam's eldest stepson, has an apparent addiction to anime porn. You cannot imagine someone I would think least likely to do so. Needless to say, we are not bruiting it about here.

Pamela has a rescued dog who is about five who is a darling darling girl, and so sweet and easily made afraid, but she came and cuddled up to me after I crouched and held my hand out low and palm up. Her Cairn terrier pup, naturally, climbed completely in my lap. For someone who apparently has people problems, I must say, animals know a kindred, equal opportunity animal lover. Although my people problems tend to be either major misunderstandings or the result of betrayal or back stabbing. It's nice to be back here where I can remember untrue more often than true. :happy sigh:

Wichita is, of course, Wichita, home of David and Charles Koch who reportedly stole oil from the Osage tribe wells. (This interests me slightly because of a cold blooded murder plot against Native women who married white men, subsequently died under suspicious circumstances and left their oil rights to their husbands. If you have not read the British edition of 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy' and you are a Wichita native who actually swallows the image of the Koch brothers as beneficent lords of the manor, you must read at least parts of it.)

Nevertheless, despite this, I can think of nowhere I am more greatly needed than right here.

And I'm not talking about my son, my DIL, or the grandbabies, I'm talking about my vote, heh.

Arbor Mist may, in fact, be what I call a pop wine, but the blackberry merlot is mighty tasty.

The pin in my wrist has now begun to hurt like holy hell, I'm six tablets into my monthly Imitrex supply, my right wrist hurts like holy hell on the radius for no apparent reason, I'm seriously having bad neck problems, and frankly, I'm just thinking that with the dislocated worker program, I need to decide if I want to do the technical expansion courses and throw caution to the winds and do the history major. Not to mention Rhyse gave me the name and number of an attorneyn who handles disability issues with the SSA and usually on a contingency basis and within six months.

I'm thinking out of the box, heh.

And just to make it clear vis a vis the first item, as far as I am concerned, Israel has lost the moral high ground long since, but when the UN specifically gives the GPS coordinates of noncombatant and civilian areas to Israel and the sites are subsequently hit by Israeli white phosphorus rounds, I am aghast and astounded that the children of the those who came to Israel after the Holocaust have no awareness that they have crossed the line and become the same as the enemy.

This is coming from a woman who had sympathy for the Mossad squads who went after the murderers of the Israeli athletes.

But hey, unilateral cease fire.

I'm thinking Obama is crazy like a fox, but my son is in wait and see mode. I hope I'm right this time, heh.

And lastly, the thing that cracks me the hell up is all the people who are seriously warm for Joe Flanigan's form and all atwitter about any proposed repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell as one stop loss method. Have any of them paid attention to his pre-acting career when he worked as a front man for Bush Senior?

Heh.

As my son says, Senior may have been an evil spook, but he was a mostly competent evil spook.

And when I told Pam about the apocryphal tale that dear Barbara Bush was rumored to be Aleister Crowley's love child, her jaw dropped and she said, and I quote, "Oh, my god, she looks just like him."

Bwah.

The unbearable fun of.....

2009-01-10T05:34:52Z

Things are very very very very busy hereabouts, even if I'm not working. I'd forgotten just how exhausting two small rambunctious and inquisitive and intelligent children can be. I'm not complaining, really, it's far too much fun for complaints, even when I end up getting yelly from two sets of disobedience at the same time. (My ex's father died and it's Nana and the kiddies this weekend, so hey, pray for me or for them, heh.)

To top things off in the amusing and slightly insane category, their youngest cat, who has never ever gotten outside, thank God, has also never been spayed and is in heat. There's surely a reason beyond linguistics that it's called caterwauling. Please, someone give me statistics on how spaying is better for a cat's health if you aren't going to breed them.

I'm not holding my breath, but I was submitted to the position where exists a plethora of former co-workers. I guess we'll see how it goes. Hysterically, I am apparently the ONLY person in this area with an active resume in this field; I had three recruiters for the same company call me in the last few days.

My daughter-in-law's doctor told her I was obviously very good for her. I'm a little unnerved by the fact that both her doctor and my ex's current wife have said the same thing, but I guess I should just beam stupidly and not be unnerved.

At any rate, since things are going to be busy, I'm probably not going to be around much in this arena (or any other fandom related arena) because when I do get onlline lately, I'm doing historical and genealogical primary source research. Oh, I'll likely drop by to check out fic periodically, but that's probably it, at least for the time being.

Thus, heads up comment and a couple of requests:

twistedchick: as the unpacking continues, I have found the package with the yarn. Please email me the snail mail and I will send it when I get some money next week.

annajaneclare: I do have something finished, as mentioned elsewhere; if you would like it, please let me know and ditto on the snail mail, and I will ship it.

ms_bstone: Ditto on the sending next week.

I also have something to send to my beloved Rodent, so that will be a sort of cascade of shipping.

Anyway, hasta la vista, Happy New Year. Frankly, short of terminal illness hitting one of mine, I don't think it can get much worse. Of course, I may be short on imagination.

heartsansraison @ 2009-01-06T21:31:00

2009-01-07T03:31:05Z

I did my little life time retrospective with at least the tip of my tongue touching my cheek, albeit honestly. For one of them, good lord, I was almost able to say, yay, a year and the stalking had toned down to little more than inbox notifications of my posts, and since I do cut tag a lot, that meant it was merely the reading of said inbox notification. Bizarrely, since then, I've had at least fifteen back posts perused, some more than once. Now, I could suppose that since my posts are public, nearly anyone could have read and reported, probably someone with an bit more intelligence about using anonymizers or some other tool, but that seems to be an excessively baroque ethis meann. It's probably more likely that a year's abstinence was simply too much for the poor soul.

Whatever, but sheesh.

So, Anais sent Mouse the above titled book, which I don't think Mouse ever cracked open. Since she hadn't, I kited it in my boxes of books and brought it in the other night for my son to read, and man, just reading the first few chapters made me realize just how far left, if those terms are even relevant these days, I've been pushed since the election of November 2000. To my added amusement, the two brothers who built the Fourth Reich in Kansas, who fatally pollute areas in both Louisiana and the Houston area, and who buy who and what they need to get their 'fair share' are mentioned as probably a hefty part of the reason we got stuck with the nation's worst president, even counting Herbert Hoover (or for that matter, Ulysses Grant, who stole the election as niftily as the Bush/Cheney crew. Color me unsurprised. Also? Katherine Harris looks even more frightful in eight year old photos.

How telling is it that one of the nicknames used by Bush for his Vice President is Darth Vader?

My son pointed out something blackly amusing regarding an allegedly terrorist funded charity operating in the US: Said charity has filed a lawsuit against the US government. The legal staff for the government refused to release a 'classified' memo regarding a discussion about wire-tapping said charity's telephones. The judge for said court action allowed the memo to be suppressed for the basis of instituting the lawsuit, but ordered that rules of discovery apply to said memo for the charity's legal team. (Remember, this is third hand, so bear with me if this isn't quite correct in terms of legal issues.) "It pisses me off," he sez, "Is that this organization does apparently accept funding from terrorist organizations Because we already had a existing law to apply to that kind of wiretapping, and those assholes were so busy ramrodding through constitutional violations to prove they had the right or maybe just because they would, they've actually killed any successful prosecution. By which, I do suppose
the 'fruit of the poisoned tree' is on his mind.

Does this mean that these clowns currently on the way out the door can actually be prosecuted for a roundabout kind of obstruction of justice?

So, I've tried to catch Fringe, no easy task in Minnesota when I spent three or four weeks packing and forgetting what day it was and to turn Fox on. Ditto here, because my son refuses to have cable and the local stations caught via antenna (at least until February) are something tricky to bring in. For those not watching, it's an odd show that seems to be aiming to successor to the X Files. An overall sort of view suggests that they do indeed do some things better, but it just hasn't made me catch fire for it. I do, nevertheless, enjoy the crazy scientist Walter Bishop and the cool, suave and intimidating Agent Broyles.

So, last season of SGA. I confess, there's twinging at the thought of it, but my son and DIL watched seasons 1 and 2 of same and, despite flaws and too damn much exposition in the first season (except when there wasn't enough), I still feel the same way I did the first time. We've watched, or they've watched and I've occasionally watched. In still see John being far too much of a dick in one season, but the snarky friendship seemed to be back on track after that. Mouse got to the point that the crazed stalker and her buddies made her so angry and sickened, she didn't enjoy the show any more, there were admittedly clunkers, but until moving, I was staying caught up and still pretty much enjoying it, although I apparently have some deepseated subconscious horror of amputation because, well, just ew.

I did point out the Mouse that there were actually plenty of people who were decent in the fandom, and still are, for all I know. There are also a large number who swallowed a lot of crap, apparently, since they never respond to positive comments on fic when I leave them, or maybe they've noticed that sometimes when I do comment favorably, the author gets targeted.
as

As far as decency goes, I'll even give newbies a partial list: Brighid is always wonderful (well, at least to me you are, Briddy), Leah is not only decent, but genuinely kind or, dare I say it, nice, Cesperanza and Astolat have always been most gracious. Please do not assume that I believe those people are the only decent souls in the fandom. This is clearly a truncated list because my interaction with only a few centimeters of the fandom. I'm pretty sure that there are lots more who are fun, kind and decent, and I know there are lots more I believe to be all those things, but for whom I have no proof, having had no contact with them.

Listening to the little zootlet sing warped alternative rap songs is enough to make a body fear wetting onself. Heh. The kid is more savvy than most adults, I swear; she brings up applications on Daddy's iPhone like there's nothing to it.

Whacky little girl. This morning DIL and I said the rosary for the ex's dad, who died last night, and for the Our Fathers (Pater Nosters) she came and sat between us, and held our hands as takes place during Mass. And she said the words with us. Too freaking quick, let me tell you.

No job, but I may be able to get an extension of benefits, and maybe, maybe educational opportunities as a displaced worker. That feels a little better, but I won't relax until I actually have both those things in my metaphorical hands.

I've actually made my last rent payment on the Minnesota lease, and Mouse is now covered under her honey's insurance, so I'm actually going be better off this month. Potentially even better if the extension goes through.

Is that a light at the end of the tunnel or am I seeing the oncoming train?

I want a permanent epidural

2008-12-29T03:31:32Z

or something.

Ever since the broken wrist earlier this year, my degenerative disc problems have escalated in a major way. Of course, packing and hauling and moving didn't help.

What all this means, of course, is more medical bills. One supposes that it may help a bit with the SocSec disability application, but all that is sort of distant and removed and having my hands literally go numb when doing any kind of work with my hands is a lot more compelling. The other night, I had this brief, violent fantasy of getting a knife and diging into the major muscle spasms, which was absurd, since it 's obviously nerve involvement. I'm taking gabapentin for the nerve pain and one supposes it is working and would be much work withoutr, but mutha, let me tell you.

I got about two thirds of the disability application filled out and will finish it when I get my little W2 forms. I'm also going to have to go to a doctor and see if they're pain Nazis or I can get something to actually give me some relief.

Cuz honestly, it makes me fairly useless.

That little grandzootlet was talking when I arrived here, but since then, listening to her Mommy and me talk, she's taken great leaps in terms of sentences. You have to listen carefully, of course, but the other day she was in the back seat as we were getting ready to go to the ex husband's house and she was calling for Daddy. Out he came and got in the front seat, and she said, "Oh, d'ere you are" clear as a bell.

I asked her where her mommy was the other day when the minx made it downstairs to my room without anyone but me being the wiser. (She'd taken her baby gate at her door down and waltzed down the stairs naked. So, when I asked, she shrugged and said, "I do' know".

Then, and this cracks me up, she is used to me singing amazing Grace because lullabies I do not has them, so I sing a song I love and by golly it works.

Three weeks later, there's a thunderstorm at night and she ends up in bed with momy and daddy and makes them lie down and close their eyes yea, verily, she sings most of the song picture perfect, to soothe them back to sleep. Today, she had her little Lilo doll with her and if I kissed her, I had to likewise kiss Lilo. Leaps and bounds, I'm telling you.

So happily on prescription drugs, as well as some over the counter, I am going to sleep. Ciao and Happy New Year.

{S Anais, for Myra, think Birmingham, a harpy and loon, and the person of whom I said, I am very glad not to be on the same side of the poind as she, although I worried that you were.

Have yourself a Merry Little Something....

2008-12-26T05:10:06Z

Or other.

So, Christmas was nice. Relaxed here at home with the kids, to dinner at the ex's, which was cool because his wife and I got to talk about him. Little zootlet adores her uncles, the ex's boys by his now wife, and they adore her, although they tend to forget they're supposed to be watching her, which led to her finding Nana's purse and putting mascara on her eyelids and the bridge of her nose. At least she has some idea of where it goes. She looked like a lovely little racoon in a white dress with silver embroidery and the cutest little not quite chignon on the top of her head.

Dinner was fun, and then back home for little zootlet's nap. My boy and dil got me, huzzah, a Shakespearian insults mug, and an I Can Has Cheezburger book. You can't say they don't know me, heh. Little zootlet had loads of fun with her uncles and her grandpa and grandma, and she adores her little black mary janes which click so nicely on the hardwood and kitchen tile. Clickety click.

Mouse and her man were likewise here. She's happy, or seems to be, and he's happy and they're still getting themselves settled, but all appears to be well.

All in all, a very pleasant day.

I'm going to be looking at the possibility for filing for disability. Give what others have gone through, I know it's not going to be a walk in the park. However, in addition to the fibro and CFS, which diagnoses are still looked at askance by the SSA, I do genuinely have degenerative disc disease in my neck. Lately, I've been waking up with the first few fingers of my left hand numb; last summer, it was the right that was screwed that way. Anyone reading this who has any pointers, please feel free.

I've sent my email address to a few people in case they are having difficulties, and since I've not heard back, I'm not sure if the holidays have kept them busy or if the emails failed to reach them. If the latter, please let me know here and I'll give it another shot.

And by the way, just for you Anais, I have to say, Jesus Frog, I just saw Myra Hindley reincarnated in an online photo and nearly fell off the bed.

PS I has opened ur presents and has eated them.

Irony, I has it

2008-12-24T17:01:38Z

Or something.

A year ago today, I was thinking that another year and stock prices going up, I might be able to exercise stock options, sell stock grants and borrow against my 401K to afford a downpayment on a house. In Minnesota.

How things change, eh?

So my daughter-in-law and I were somehow talking about New Year's resolutions and wandered from our mutual not much interest in them to things we'd like to have had closure on, and that eventually led to much snickering and reaching far backward in time and yadda....

So.

To the brat in third grade who took advantage of my naivete about racism to make me look like a very bad little girl--Bite me.

To Sue C in the 9th grade who just happened to be assigned to share a locker with me: I want to thank you for abandoning the locker in favor of one of your cheerleader pals and leaving me the fuck alone, especially once you figured out I wasn't one of them. As for your rich boy football player moronic boyfriend, I find I rather hope you ended up marrying him. Just remember, he was looking at my breasts even when he gave you his class ring. Hah.

To my dear friend J: As much as I care about you and as glad as I am that you've come to terms with your sexuality, I have to tell you, having you tell everyone at work that we were dating made me long to plant my size seven and a half pointed toe boots up the crack of your ass.

To Sister Mary C in the sixth grade: I know I drove you nuts, and now that I know it was ADD, I have to say, you did treat me reasonably decently, and actually, despite your usual crankiness, proved to me that not all Catholic nuns were sadists.

To Sister Caroline in the second grade: Beeyatch, you needed a beating and it's a good fucking thing I'm way too old to give it and you may even be dead. I can hope you never again taught small children, you were hideous.

To the squadron wife in England who was Sue C's twin, at least in personality and bitchiness: I still don't like you, but I hope that you recovered from the great Thunderbird air disaster and have gone on to have a decent life.

To the guy who apparently fell into unrequited love with me during my freshman year in college: I wish I'd had the wisdom to handle the situation with more grace and kindness, and I want to apologize for failing to do so. In this case, it really wasn't you, it really was me.

To my ex-husband: I'm really glad we are on good terms, even if I wonder what the hell you were thinking when you told our son that fascists were leftists. Are you on CRACK? I know you're far more intelligent than that, unless somehow becoming a born again Catholic and decent husband ate precious brain cells. Maybe you were just baiting the boy to get him riled; he got that from you. At any rate, while I would never say this to you, you killed my cat Barney and my sheltie Sandy. :sticks tongue out:

To all my former co-workers at my former place of employment: I would be devastated rather than cynical, but I note that I am still good friends with co-workers in the Fourth Reich and I only worked there for a year, not to mention a few friends from what is now US Agbank, which I left fourteen years ago. I am forced to conclude that while it might have been partly me, it was more you. Have a nice life.

To the crazy falcon who outright encouraged near plagiarism, painted herself as poor little victim, and now hosts gatherings in which, apparently, I remain an object of conversation: Put down the crack, sweetie, and stop feeding your coterie hallucinogens. As another friend once told a whacky whacky fellow XF fan, get therapy now. It's been seven years, get over it.

To the Birmingham cuckoo: Lady, if I were going to plagiarize meta posts, I would certainly steal from people more intelligent and better at writing than you. Have you ever heard the term bottle neck? Apparently not. It's a phenom in which fandom spreads meta ideas like a bad case of flu and EVERYONE is talking about the same thing. Moron.

To the Birmingham cuckoo's buckaroos: I have no idea, obviously, but I hope to hell you've realized what you are dealing with and wish you all the joy in the world of dealing with it when it comes your way next. Karma, she is a beeyatch.

And last, but not least, to the outgoing Administration: So, now the American public is no longer terrified of you and there is open discussion as to whether or not you had your little evol troll murdered before he could testify about election irregularities, in addition to other subjects. Myself, I don't find it something you would never do, and all I can do is hope to heaven someone was stupid and all the truth does come out. Die in fires, all of you bastards.

So, the grandzootlet, she is a double handful, beautiful as she can be (even with her hair in her eyes), smart as a whip, and loves to sing. Unfortunately, this means she wants Nana to sing so she can sing along. She also goes to sleep for me during some songs, and her mama called me SuperNana. Bradleybear is actually READING, and in kindergarten. Man, they push them hard these days. Little girl is smart and wilful and stubborn and is scarily similar to her auntie Mouse at the same age. No wonder Mama gets overwhelmed. Sheesh.

No job, unemployment running out at the end of January, and apparently all the work from home opportunities are shills.

Ah, well. Here's to Christmas and Auld Lang Syne.

heartsansraison @ 2008-11-23T20:36:00

2008-11-24T02:36:13Z

For anyone interested, I can now be reached at {firstnamelastname}@gmail.com.

Anyone who doesn't know either my first name or my last name, you can try the lj/ij email; I've changed and confirmed my email address.

heartsansraison @ 2008-11-15T13:22:00

2008-11-15T19:22:45Z

Every other day or so, I'm again caught up in the notion that Holy Mother of God, Obama won. I have to admit, I prayed, I wrote, I did all the things I could do in my power, but there was a part of me that was sadly so certain the assholes would again try to steal an election that I didn't really believe it was going to happen.

I think this was the first time since 1972 that I actually voted FOR someone, as opposed to against someone, and we all know how 1972 turned out.

There's something funny about the fact that my father and I are both far more, well, progressive and radical than my daughter is. My son is just completely cynical about the entire political process, but you know, even Mr Cynicism was happily stunned by Obama's victory. Or, as he said, "Holy Crap, Obama won!"

This suggests that my suspicion about him is correct, and that he was just plain terrified to hope for change. Hey, I've always said that his worst grumpiness and cynicism are related to his extreme idealism and tenderheartedness. It's just that you'd have to have known him as a kid to understand that he's not really a grouchy bastard.

Heh.

So counting down...

...15, 16, 17. 18, 19....

The nineteenth is the day we pick up the truck--or rather that my future son in law picks up the truck, anyway--and we load that puppy up. I'm not precisely sure how we're going to handle the night of the nineteenth, but I have a vague plan involving only mattresses and bedding.

Today is garage day, which is simply a case of sorting out crap to throw out, retrieving the last few boxes that are stacked against the wall in non-box mode, and more packing. Tomorrow is trash day, as in taking everything out to the dumpster that is being discarded from inside the apartment. Tuesday is hopefully paperwork at the apartment complex day. Wednesday is arrival day for the future son in law--or evening, as the case may be. Thursday is, as mentioned, the truck day. Friday is driving day, a day I am both dreading and wanting to get over with as quickly as possible, because it involves having two cats in carriers in the car, and poor Sophie really really hates driving, even more than Lily.

Lily's eye is damaged by glaucoma and I've been pretty faithful about the drops, despite Lily's best efforts to disrupt this. We're doing this love hate thing wherein Lily gets really mad after getting her eyedrops, and goes out into the livingroom to sulk under one of the tables. This is the case no matter where the application of drops takes place. In the evening, it's tough, because I have to give her a dose in the wee hours, given our schedules, and that usually means she's curled up on Emily the stuffed Oliphant and one of my pillows (she loves that damn oliphant, let me tell you) and is all sleepy and happy. I try to do something to irritate her enough to get up, so that I am not actually dosing her on the bed where she feels safe, but last night, there just wasn't any help for it.

I am worried, however. The inflammation and glaucoma do not, apparently, just happen to cats, unless there's an underlying medical condition. Since I couldn't afford the $300 bucks for additional bloodwork, I don't know what that might be.

We have our medical records - all of us, meaning me, Mouse and the kitties - and I have a stack of paper that is almost embarrassing that covers all prescriptions. I didn't realize how elderly I was getting until I noted last week that I have this little huddle of prescription bottles.

I felt oddly better about being--at least temporarily--a live in Nana after talking to my beloved Rodent, who is still in touch with a mutual friend from XF days, LuvMulder, and who informed me that even though it was Luvmulder's home that the kids and grandchildren rather than vice versa, LuvMulder was also a live-in Nana.

She and LM correspond via snail mail, which fact cracks me the hell up and led me to say, I always knew you were more of a grown up than I am.

We then laughed our asses off about the olden days of fandom craziness, and I said, "Geez, I wish that's the worst thing I had to worry about, but it doesn't even hit the radar," and we both cracked up again.

So in between packing like a maniac, ruthlessly sorting out things to be discarded, and dosing the cat, I have been revisiting SGA fic by Cesperanza, Astolat, Resonant, Brighid, and to a lesser degree, Amireal, Seperis, Sheafrotherdon and others just to keep myself diverted from the fact that I am cutting finances so close that I can feel the breeze as the blade whips past. Or maybe that's actually the blade. All my savings are officially gone. I have two more months of unemployment, both of which are already earmarked for a) the remaining rent I have to pay after breaking the lease and b) medical insurance.

But, we're leaving Minnesota at last.

And hey, grandbabies.

Life could be worse, but let's not tempt it. We've sort of entered the black comedy level at this point where I'm laughing, even if it's a little hysterical.

heartsansraison @ 2008-11-04T22:22:00

2008-11-05T04:22:24Z

I won't relax until there's a concession speech, but right now, I'm flying a bit anyway.

Right now, it looks like I might be able to start trusting my fellow Americans again for maybe the first time in a decade.

At the moment, my life sucks so far beyond the telling of it that the reality and the telling are in different galaxies, and all I am flashing on is Bobby Kennedy and this tentative, cautious hope blooming for the first time in a decade.

There's still a helluva lot of irreparable damage from the last decade, and a lot more possibly reparable damage, and let's not forget the vengeful trogs in the current administration who can still do so much damage prior to January.

But still, irrational as it may be, there's hope.

And that's pretty damned grand.

heartsansraison @ 2008-10-25T17:55:00

2008-10-25T22:55:44Z

Things are falling into place. On November 20th, I will leave Minnesota and arrive in Kansas. Are there any SGA fen there who aren't friends with the Birmingham cuckoo? Quien sabe. I am going to look up real life friends, however, and reconnect; I already have four in the queue, hah.

There are a few others I am also hoping to connect with as soon as I get there. Ironically, it's too bad, but Ardelia isn't there any longer, she's in Phoenix. There are, I hope, SCA people I can get locate later, I think, as well as others.

So, we've got the election taken care of, the move scheduled, and now it's just a question of making sure Lily isn't going blind and paying the lease cracking fee. And finishing the packing.

It's funny how things go full circle.

heartsansraison @ 2008-10-22T18:18:00

2008-10-22T23:18:09Z

The names are changed to protect the innocent.

The company that laid me off after three years had a contract with another company for which my new sister in law works. The work they did was so uniformly bad and the documentation so horrible that her company decided to terminate the contract and do their own work. So today they had a RIP party for the company that laid me off.

Maybe that's why the stock has dropped from 12.00 in January (30.00 a year prior) to 8.75. It is evil, but I confess, I am laughing my ass off.

heartsansraison @ 2008-10-22T13:13:00

2008-10-22T18:13:37Z

Go here to vote on Sarah Palin's qualifications and spread the word. Evidently, the Repuglicans had advanced warning and have flooded it.

http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

heartsansraison @ 2008-10-22T11:47:00

2008-10-22T16:47:40Z

Packing sucks. After four years in one place, I'm afraid more has accumulated, but it may simply be that adding Mouse's belongings is the difference. So, I have to get rid of more of my accumulated. I'm shooting for late November to allow Mouse to get a lot of overtime before Thanksgiving.

Naturally, no job news yet. I still have three months of unemployment, and what the hell, a job is a job, if nothing in my field comes up, I'll go be a bank teller or something for the time being. While I'm living with my boy and his family, I won't need to worry about big rent or a mortgage payment. Of course, in Wichita, there is no big rent.

Strangely enough, having surrendered to his needs and necessity, I'm okay with it. It won't be forever, and Mouse still is insistent that once she's married I go to Houston, so hey. Hopefully, by that time, the Boy's family issues will be resolved and I won't be needed there.

Of course, the grandkids are still a powerful magnet, but I did promise Mouse I would be living there when she has her first child a few years down the road. Her Man doesn't want to wait too long because hey, he's nearly eleven years older.

Packing is such a serious pain and I'm thinking I'm actually going to have to buy more boxes, an eventuality that is very annoying. I won't borrow trouble yet, thought; I still have several from the last move in the garage and I do think I have enough to finish the books. Sheesh.

Just for the record, watched 'The Other Boleyn Girl" and I not only didn't recognize it from reading the book, I nearly through said book through the television screen in a fit of pique over the character portrayal.

I think Anne of A Thousand Days is still the best. (Was that the name of the film or am I in a different dimension.)

Despite the writing, Natalie Portman came the closest to capturing Anne's alleged vivacious and somewhat reformist personality. She even captured a bit of the Anne who was very intellligent and well educated. Of course, they were compressing six to eight years into an hour by the time they got to Anne's marriage to Henry.

Oh, those Howard/Boleyn girls. Tsk tsk.

I do hate moving, however. And the older I get, the harder it gets. Bah.

heartsansraison @ 2008-10-14T21:24:00

2008-10-15T02:24:18Z

Well, it isn't often one gets asked, but it does appear that I very possibly will be moving to Kansas. No job, yet, but family stuff.

Hey, I said I was over Minnesota. I just didn't expect to be out so quickly. I need to give notice to the apartment complex manager, and make sure that this doesn't affect my unemployment. Still, it can't be before the election, because, well, voting.

Strange days.

WTF Polar Bear?

2008-10-11T20:15:05Z

Is this still the United States of America? Or did I somehow, somewhere slip into an alternate universe where it's good practice to whip up crowds to make threats of murder against the opposite candidate?

In 2000, I honestly did respect John McCain. I was a moderate back then and I actually thought they I might vote for him if he won the Republican nomination. My opinion and respect began to slide when he began to remake himself in George's and Dick's image. It slid further when he started his current campaign. I thought it had hit the bottom when he chose Sarah Palin, the poster child for ignorant bigotry mixed with a dash of religious wrongness and a sprinkle of crookedness.

Now? I can't believe it but my opinion has entered the third level subbasement.

My opinion of my fellow Americans isn't always the highest, mostly because stolen elections or not, Georgie had enough voters to make it possible to fuzzy up the stealing. It took nearly one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation to actually pass an anti-lynch law. Every new wave of immigration was met with hatred and fear enough that assimilation tended to take at least two generations. As a matter of routine, anti-Catholic candidates have always managed to go on and on about the Whore of Babylon (and continue to do so). There's the KKK and the Posse Comitatus and all their cheap imitations. There's the Oklahoma federal building explosion. There's segregation and school busing riots, and racial profiling and all that shit.

There was Swift Boat and the cow from Texas at the RNC who put a bandaid on with a purple heart which, in my opinion, was a slap in the face not at Kerry, but at every man or woman who had earned a medal in any war.

There's George and Dick and Anthony Scalia.

But I did not expect a candidate in this day and age to actually get away with the kind of unmitigated viciousness that feeds into all of the above to the extent that at rallies, people have begun to call Barack Obama an Arab and to shout that they should kill him.

I don't care about Sarah Palin's personal life. I don't even care that she's a creationist, although frankly, I think that's a dangerous thing to have in shouting distance of the White House. I have never seen the conflict between science and faith as a true conflict, but one drummed up by one set of extremists to pick a fight with other extremists and one that goes both way. I detest Philip Pullman as much as I detest James Dobson because they're both extremists who believe that only they know the truth.

I do care that she's an ignorant and vicious imitation Marie Antoinette who gives not only women, not only Americans, not only Alaskans a bad name, but the entire human race. I may personally dislike Hilary Clinton, but that's more about the fact that I believe she presents herself as one thing when she's really another, and because she's so much part of the old style political machine that she makes me tired.

During the last election campaign, the Secret Service guys were routinely getting rid of people who even questioned the policies of the incumbent. Where are they? What the fuck are they doing? I sure as hell hope that the Secret Service details on Obama and his family and Biden and his are honest. After the last eight years, it seems awful to me to even have that question in my mind.

Allegedly, the prediction is that Obama will have at least 343 electoral votes. If things continue as they have this month, he might very well have more. Is the current administration going to state a putsch? Are we going to be stuck with the robber barons forever?

Why aren't the people making these threats being detained and investigated? This isn't like a cheerleading rally gone awry. The shouts began at a very recent rally and for once, McCain let sense catch up with ambition and apparently forgot that he'd sold his soul to the devil and said words to the effect that no, his opponent was a good man, but that they obviously had major disagreements over what the country needed and his own supporters jeered at him.

heartsansraison @ 2008-10-10T11:21:00

2008-10-10T16:21:19Z

As always, I do adore Anais. Talking politics with her is lively and funny and relieves some of my angst. Plus, looking at polls last night, I was comparing 2004's polls and predicted electoral votes to this years and barring a repeat of illegal and invalid votes, I have some hope.

McCain's big deal 5K health insurance credit also made me laugh hysterically. Why? Because continuing our health insurance--absolutely a must considering this hideous year--costs me $940 dollars a month, and with rent, utilities and groceries on the side, 5K is hysterical. And taxing health benefits. My cousin in Calgary pays $110 CAD for hers. America, America, God shed His Grace on thee, all right.

My parents were born during the depression, so one does have to take their view with one tiny grain of salt, but they're convinced that we're already in a depression.

I will admit to a petty pleasure in discovering that the company which laid me off in January appears to be crashing just as badly as everyone else. The stock was $12-$13 when I was laid off. Today? $9.45.

The petty part isn't because they laid me off. It's because of the rudeness of the people I worked with. I never expected two particular parties to keep in touch, and didn't mind that at all. I did, however, extend invitations to the remaining three parties and never received any response whatsoever. I found a book belonging to one on my bookshelves and sent an email advising him that I'd drop it in the mail, and never received a response at all. Because I am feeling petty, I plan on sending an email asking if he received it. The only time I've heard from the other two apparently coincided with reference checks, so I tend to believe it was curiosity about that: they each sent 'how is work and life' inquiries at different times, but when I responded, there wasn't any follow up.
Of course, if the company is having trouble, the stress level can be enough to explain the failure to initiate contact. Failure to respond to invitations, however...

It's somewhat amusing that I worked for only a year with the folks in the Detroit area and I am still hear from them, write back, etc.. Hell, my manager there wrote me a note to ask what and where I was looking for jobs and has steered recruiters my way. I'm still in touch with people I worked with in Grand Rapids, for heaven's sake, and that was only ten month stint. I am still in touch with friends who were coworkers in Wichita. If it weren't for that....

Let me tell you, I'm pretty much over Minnesota. Nonstop health issues and stressors from day one here. I love Minnesota in a lot of ways, but apparently, it's not too fond of me.

But enough of that, let's talk politics some more.

"

Obscured by Obama's dithering is the fact that his Republican counterpart is one of the first presidential candidates in history to run as a parody of himself. John McCain has decided on a cheap and dishonorable campaign. He has embraced the tactics with which he was slandered in 2000, and he has hired the people responsible for them. In so doing, he has become something of a mockery of everything he once purported to be. He has stated that he wouldn't now vote for his own immigration bill. He has operated in violation of the very campaign-finance law that bears his name. And even though his own body bears the scars of torture, he has silenced himself on the issue of the torture sanctioned and designed by the government he seeks to lead, so as not to alienate "the base." The most underutilized trope of the campaign is the notion that John McCain is running against John McCain.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the senator was leading a movement that had been exiled for decades and was now storming back to Washington to save the country from its oppressors. Of course, the truth is that it is the excesses of McCain's own party from which the country needs to be saved. That McCain is now attempting to seize the mantle of "change" for himself is profoundly absurd. And that he expects the American people to swallow it is profoundly insulting. History demands that this election be a referendum on the Bush years, and John McCain has tried desperately to change the subject.

There was a moment, in 2000, when he might have gone a different way. He gave a brave speech in Virginia, and he seemed genuinely interested in prying his party from the clutches of corporate avarice and theocratic lunacy. If he had held to the substance of that speech, instead of merely to its form, he might have been as transformational a figure on his side of the aisle as Obama has been on his. However, McCain has spent the past few years dancing like a monkey on a string, making brave noises in public that he later abandoned in private. And now he genuflects to Pastor Warren and a hundred other preachers who are a hundred times worse, people whom he called "agents of intolerance" eight years ago, when John McCain still had the soul he's sold off piecemeal to pay the salaries of the men he's hired out of Karl Rove's shop.

Then, of course, he picked an agent of intolerance to join him on his ticket. But it is not Governor Palin's religious beliefs that are of concern to us. More to the point, there is no serious debate to be had over Sarah Palin's preparedness to be president of the United States. Because in fact, she is stunningly unqualified, having never taken a position of consequence on an issue of consequence before she was selected in the last days of August. But she has now been put in a serious position to assume the presidency, and her selection is the clearest indication yet of the contempt that Senator McCain -- transformed into nominee McCain -- now feels for the process of governance.

More important still, however, is that nothing John McCain has done or said in this campaign would lead you to believe that anything the incumbent administration has done is simply wrong -- just badly executed -- and he's saying that now only because public opinion has turned so radically against Bushism and all its works. And the ultimate price of his capitulation is to continue Bushism, in all of its manifestations. Not even the presidency should be worth that.

Not even the presidency is worth what it's made John McCain do to himself."

That pretty much sums it up for me, far more politely than i would have put it. But then I'm really really pissed off right now. I've been laid off four times now since January of 2002, out of work for the last three months, have had only three interviews in those three months, had to use my admittedly modest IRA to pay for our health insurance, pay off the medical bills for surgery and MRIs, a stay on the cardiac observation floor, replace a car engine and all co-pays for prescriptions and medical care. I have ten to fifteen year to go until retirement age and I now have nothing but whatever meagre Social
Security benefits I've paid for over the year. And I'm not even in the layer of people who are really really badly off.

Bah.

Not Quite Futurama

2008-10-09T22:13:21Z

So I'm having an email conversation with my cousin in Calgary and she says, hey, what about Calgary, and I said, sure, but I'd have to kidnap my kids and grandbabies, but then if another election gets stolen, you may have to adopt me or something. And she said, hey, we're no better off up here.

That didn't stop me from dreamily looking at a bed and breakfast in New Brunswick listing for a mere 439K CAD. With a third floor that could be used as the owner's suite. :sighs: Lovely, too. Ah, well.

And I continue to think highly of the party who emailed me the other day, despite having all the crap stirred up again; it certainly wasn't her fault, and it's a tremendous relief to me to be able to continue to think well of her.

Either that or I'm deluded, and just this once, I think that's preferable.

Less than a month to go, and so many unpleasant ads, and of course, the local 'Christian' radio station is exhorting listeners to register to vote and to get out there and vote.

Heh.

I hope Sojourner magazine is right about the new Evangelicals. It would be sweet reward to watch the alleged religious right get covered in a new kind of Evangelical landslide.

We can but hope and pray, if we're praying sorts.

Teddy Roosevelt's head on Bender's body, I'm telling you. Mouse is definitely right.