It's Been A While

KCET was having a pledge drive and usually I turn the radio off during the pledge drives, but for some reason the energy that I have to turn off the radio whenever Bush* speaks, or the energy I have to turn off the radio when there is too much bad news about the war, or the energy I have to turn off the radio when that Praire Home Companion guy comes on, escaped me and I listened for almost an hour. I really wanted to call in and pledge too. I do like KCET--I am a regular listener--I do want to continue to receive the benefits of membership. So I tried to memorize the phone number (since I was in my car and not at my computer). I couldn't do it. It's a wonder I had the energy to drive if I couldn't memorize a simple 10 digit number. So then I made a plan--I would figure out how much I could afford to give and then I would pledge on-line the next day. If I pledged $15 per month, I would go into a drawing for a prias (sp). So I tried to work out what 15 x 12 came out too. I was having a hard time with simple arithmatic. So I resigned myself to agree that I was not giving $180, so I would not be in the drawing for the prias. I should buy a prias, I thought--global warming is my fault too. If I buy a prias, I really can't affort to give to KCET. I think I need to concentrate on chanelling my energy to change the station next time.

The Mess

I have nothing to do. Well that's not true--I have tons to do. Well that's not true either. I have a lot of stuff that is my responsibility to complete, but I have nothing that neeeeeeds to be done this minute. This is a bad place to be and I am usually quite diligent about not getting to this place, because it is incredibly difficult to get anything done when nothing neeeeeds to be done. Then stuff waits and spider solitare is mastered once more and pretty soon there's a bunch of stuff that needed to be done yesterday and I'm all stressed out. The opposite of nothing needs to be done right now is no fun--no fun at all and to be avoided at great cost--even dare I say, at the cost of giving up my dream of being a master of spider solitare.

I have a strategy to get out of I have nothing to do. Make a list is the first stategy, but I have a list from last week that didn't get done yet and nothing on it neeeeds to get done. Another very effective strategy is to clean. When you clean and straigten and organize, you find those things that neeeed to be done, if only to make something cleaner and more organized. That would be a good thing right now, if only I didn't have spider solitare a few keystrokes away. Sometimes a good bribe comes in handy at this point--if you clean your office, I'll let you have a little bag of cheese its (that I usually allow myself every day about 10 a.m. anyway, but might not allow myself since it is now so close to lunch), but I already ate them while typing this blog, so that won't work.

Another strategy is to just do it. Just stand up and get it done. As I get older, that strategy works less and less. I tell myself--just do ittttttttttttttt. I make it echo in my head like an anouncer at a sports event. And then I silently mock myself by just sitting there. I'm so easily amused.

My final strategy and I hesitate to go to this length, is to enlist the assistance of someone else to light a fire under me. I recently told a co-worker not to let me leave the building until I completed a project we were working on. He completely failed at his mission. I used to have secretary who I would ask to come into my office and make a list for me and then as I was making the lists, we'd put time limits on things. That worked for a little while, but my current secretary is mean when I don't make a made up time limit and I have no patience for that. So that doesn't work. No I'm not ready to go to that extreme.

I think that I will play solitare until I win and then I will make a short list of things I would like to do today (including things I would not "like" to do, but perhaps should get done today) and then straighten just the main part of my desk and clear a walkway to it. That's a great plan--I should just do ittttttttttttt. (echo added).

Do I Live Close Enough to LA

When I was a kid, I was terrified of tornados. One babysitter told me that there could only be a tornado if it was raining. That helped when it wasn't raining, but was useless in the middle of the night when it was very windy and raining.

As an adult, I am not afraid of too much. I'm not afraid of earthquakes. I was in Florida for the tropical storm this summer and I wasn't too fearful of that, which was threatening to be a hurricane. I have absolutely no fear that someone is going to pull a gun on me or attack me. I get a yearly check up at the doctor, but I don't really "fear" desease. But for some unknown reason, I am terrified of a nuclear bomb. I went to bed Sunday night convinced that it was my last night in my nice comfy bed. I tried to memorize the softness of the blanket and pillows. When I woke up in the morning, I didn't go to the gym--I stayed in bed longer just in case it was my last time. Through the day when the nuclear attack did not happen, I calmed down inside enough to say no when I wanted chocolate. Well actually I said yes, of course you can have chocolate--we're all going to die a painful terrible death, but I settled for a cookie and didn't go and buy the little store out of chocolate bars, so I figure I must be calming down. Last night I just thought about being greatful for my comfy bed without trying to memorize how perfect my two pillows are for my head (well maybe I tried to memorize a little).

I'm not afraid of death I don't think--I'm afraid of not dying in a nuclear blast. Is 10 miles too far away from downtown for the bomb to kill me. I watched that Jerico show, but I haven't paid enough attention to see if they give the distance and that's tv, so I'm not sure I should be taking my scientific analysis from fiction. I'm hoping that the bomb goes about 20--that would totally get me. But then, that's kind of mean to the people who don't want to die. I wonder if I should move downtown, but then I might start worring about that getting mugged thing that I don't worry about in Glendale.

The End of Rational Discourse

My alarm is my radio and it goes off at about 6:15 a.m. I don't actually get up that early and I'm well trained to hit the snooze over and over. My radio is tuned to NPR news and many times I wait to hear the news story before I hit the snooze. I'm half asleep and I usually get the story in the middle, so maybe that makes the stories seem much more important. This morning they interviewed a fellow from Pakistan who said that the fundamentalists and taliban came to Afganistan and Pakistan in the 80's as part of a world wide jihad (whatever that means). Over the years they made it almost impossible to be a moderate or liberal in those countries. He called it an end to rational discourse.

Gee that sounds familiar.

Now granted I like to get my news from Jon Stewart, so I'm not claiming that there's anything fair or balanced about how I prefer getting information, but unlike Stewart I'm not amused by Fox news, I'm afraid. The morning that Foley abruptly resigned from Congress I had just caught the end of the story on NPR, so I turned on CNN and Headline News to see what it was all about. They were on other stories, so I flipped around and came upon Fox News. The trailer at the bottem of the screen said something like Foley, republican from Florida accused of sending sexual explicit instant messages to 16 year old page or something shorter like that--I don't remember exactly. Fox News had two people apparently giving both sides of the story (fair and balanced). The first person was a bright young girl, obviously a conservative republican and she said that the allegations against Foley were very serious and warrented investigation, but that a complete investigation was needed. Ok, I thought to myself, that's a stock conservative approach--what's the other side. The next commentator was an older white guy who was even more conservative republican who said that the leadership couldn't have investigated because that would be gay bashing. I admit that shocked me into a stuper and I turned the tv off.

Gay bashing? Investigating sexual harrassment by a Congressman against a minor is gay bashing? That guy must be from another planet, right?

Then I saw Jon Stewart and he showed a clip of Newt Gingritch (sp) saying that investingating the allegations against Foley would have been gay bashing. [Jon Stewart does this thing sometimes where he shows lots of people in the Bush administration all using the same words and phrases to describe something to illustrate how they have a memo of talking points and everyone just uses the talking points, so the fact that old Newt used the same phrase suggests that this was on the Conservative Repulican talking points memo.] Jon adroitly pointed out that lumping a 52 year old who sends sexually explicit messages to a 16 year old in with gays, is why the republicans are accused of gay bashing.

Ok, I'm not big on personal scandals--the guy was a weirdo and he resigned. The congressional pages are safe from further harrassment. I hope no one sues, because we already have a pretty big deficit and I don't want my taxes to go up.

But wait, the scandal lives on, because the leadership in congress knew all about the inappropriate behavior by Foley over a year ago and did nothing. Might be accused of gay bashing. Inquiring minds (fostered and trained by the nuns in catholic school) want to know if the leadership used this information to blackmail Foley into voting with them. Inquiring minds want to know if there are other skeletons in the closets that we should be worried about. I mean if they don't do anything about a guy who exploits minors IN CONGRESS (and he's the head of the committee for the protection of exploited minors shudder ) then what else is out there?

I'm depressed. So I turn off the news, but I tuned into Jon Stewart for a few minutes last night and he showed a clip of Fox News on the Foley story. He highlighted the caption at the bottom and they had "Foley D-Fla" If you don't like the fact that he's a republican, just subtly call him a democrat. Now I was really depressed.

The fact is they don't even need to go to those ridiculous measures. This morning NPR did a non-scientific annodotal survey of conservative republican voters to see if the Foley scadal would affect the way they are going to vote. The commentator said that their results match a gallop poll due out today which says, no. One lady said, she's pro-life and for the war in Iraq, so she's voting republican because that's what they stand for--she doesn't care who the person is that she votes for.

I'm with her. I never cared a hoot about the Clinton scandals. I agreed with his policies and that's all that mattered to me.

And now we come to the taliban and fundamentalists making it impossible to be a moderate, much less a liberal. Here I am in a conservative republican city with a smatering of conservative democrates. I keep my politcal opinions to myself and pride myself on keeping politics out of my everyday discourse. To keep the middle ground, there must be a balance to the ultra conservative, but I don't know any ultra librals--I can't think of one. Jon Stewart is not a liberal--he's a moderate and he's the only voice that I hear tipping the balance back toward the middle. He runs a fake news show. Sandra Day O'Connor is not a liberal, she was barely a moderate and yet she was the only voice on the court keeping an even keel.

Abortion was the bellweather. 9-11 changed this country fundamentally. Just what we warn will happen in Iraq (terrorists will incite a Civil war by pitting sunis against shiet) we are letting happen here without even realizing it. Conservatives are getting more and more conservative (Congress voted to end habis corpus for detainees accused of terrorism--what's that all about--how can they blatantly pass a law that is so unconstitutional, Jefferson is spinning in his grave????) and the middle is becoming the ultra liberal. Inquiring minds want to know, who's getting rich over this senerio?

How Many Things Can We Pile On ...

"to the outcome of this case." is a line from "My Cousin Vinny." I think in movie quotes a lot, which I think officially means that I need to get a life, but really, I'm way too busy.

I have a lot piled into this week and this is supposed to be the easy week after convention. I should be done with Kiwanis, but I still have a final finacial report and some left over awards. I should be done with ABWA, but I still have to prepare for the audit, remind everyone to buy their Sees candy, get a date and place for our Winter social, get a date and a place for the Fashion show, get a place for Associates Night and make that blood oath not to volunteer for anything else.

Two more years of PTA and I am counting the days. I only have two homes for the tour, but I just got a list of 20 more homes. I'm getting so desparate that I'm going to ask them to be on the tour without seeing their home--this is dangerous. I can't line up the florists until I have the homes and I can print the tickets until I have the homes and the florists and the art work and we haven't even set the price yet. I'm in trouble.

There's good news in Girl Scout cookies--I don't have to train the leaders--they are taking care of that at council (and I'll have to be careful not to answer the phone so that I'm not the person from council doing the training). They are going to a web based record keeping system, so they said it will be 95% paperless. Yea!

I did my touching speech last night for Toastmasters (sorry Timmy--I didn' use yours--I went with my weepy one and didn't die). I haven't signed up for anything else at Toastmasters, but I know that it's only a matter of time.

It's election time, but I get a hundred dollars (woopee), so I can't count all the work to get ready for that and I have a ton of work to do for the class I teach, but that doesn't count, because I get paid a whoppin $27 for each classroom hour--nothing for all the prep time. But the 10 kids I have this semester are totally worth it--I'm having a great time. We watched 12 Angry Men yesterday and one girl asked why aren't there any women on the jury. I tried to explain the historical nature of the film and caught myself--there were no women on juries in the 30's and 40's--what's the deal with that, but I digress.

And then there's my real job. I won my trial a few months ago and I'm in the middle of two appeals (really three, but we haven't started yet), so that's kind of fun. Otherwise, it is not nearly as glam as I try to make it sound for my students. Oh well. Nora Robers has a new book out and I'm anxiously awaiting a free moment to read it. I haven't had the roof checked, or the heaters, or the electric and I'm out of money so we're going with defered maintenance for a while.

Caitlyn is a card and a half--it is amazing that one very short little person takes up a whole house and then some and not just in stuff. She's starting to walk alot and pretty fast too. She wants to take in everything, but always gravitates to the dog's bowl in the kitchen--go figure. She is absolutely fasinated by the ice maker. When she hears it, her head pops up and she makes a beeline for it. When I hold her and get ice--her eyes light up with such excitement. She's started by the noice, but too excited to look away. She is such a card.

Speaking of cards, it's almost time for Christmas cards and I have nothing this year. Ris gave me a catalog to order them this year and I have to say I was very tempted, but I know they cost too much. And Mel's moving--no fair. She's giving Adam her little fridge--we'll have to see how that goes. I hope he doesn't turn into Jerry and become a hermit in his room--we'll never see him again.

Well I was going to tell my touching weepy speech in this blog, but I'm out of time. It was so weepy, that I never did finish writing it, but interested viewers can make a request by e-mail and I'll try to type out the last few lines and attach it. It was called the greatest gift I ever got and it was about Karl. I have to finish it and polish it up. I won the best speech, but how could they not vote for me up there weeping.

My fax that I've been waiting for all week is here--back to work!