you say you want a REVOLUTION?!

i think it's time to break this country into two. you go your way, the rest of us will go ours. why not?

the divide between those on the right and those on the left is, in my view, beyond repair. bipartisan schmartisan. it's time to face facts: our world views, beginning even with what constitutes life, for the love of God, are so divergent as to never be bridged.

people on my side think we are going to go over the cliff. i think we have gone over the cliff.

so, what happens when things go over the cliff? we start over. that's what.

let's start with agreeing to divorce. (we could try a dissolution but hell, that'd never work.) so, let's divorce. you line up your peeps on your side and we'll line up our peeps on our side and we'll duke it out - over everything. (hell, that'll be easy.....that's what we're doin' anyway!)

we'll fight and argue and negotiate over territory. who gets what. we'll fight and argue and negotiate over money. who gets what. etc. etc.

we'll finally figure out where the Traditional United States of America will be and where the Progressive Un-United States of America will be.


and by the way......we get minnesota. i love snow.

i've got your back.

sometimes, your back is the most important thing.


looking back, while often painful, can teach you a lot. somebody (i forget who) once said that it's a shame we don't live our lives in reverse........we'd be born at an old age and have all the experience and wisdom we need to get through life capably. and then we'd die as infants, curled in our mother's arms. 

not such a bad idea.

but it's not as good of an idea as how we currently do it - we live our lives going forward. which means we have the backward to look at.

and the backward can tell us a lot. 

we see where we've been and why we might not want to go there again.

we ache.

we ache with regret and we ache with what might have been. and maybe even with what should have been.

but the aches are there to teach us. without aches, most of us wouldn't learn diddly.


yep......sometimes your back is the most important thing.


and it's nice when you have someone to watch it.

                                                  

                                               

at last......my love has gone.......and i am getting better.

i haven't bought anything frivolous since my husband left. i've been too afraid to - not knowing if or when the financial bottom of my life is gonna drop out. the same way the emotional bottom of my life dropped out.

i haven't shopped anywhere fancier than target. i haven't traveled farther than urbana, ohio. 

with the exception of occasional fast food (and i try to stick to the dollar menu), birthdays and other celebrations, and having lunch with abby and the kids, i have not eaten out. this from a person who used to know every fine restaurant in every nook and cranny of this city like the back of her hand.

when i go to the grocery, i look for the cheapest and not necessarily the best. thank heavens i'm creative in the kitchen.

but, today.......today i splurged. and the funny thing is, it isn't even a splurge. there was a time when i would have considered what i bought today to be not even a blip on the radar. i wouldn't have thought twice about it. see it, buy it, out the door. that's how i used to live.

but, today.......today i splurged. i went to crate and barrel and bought a wine glass and a coffee mug. and then i went to pottery barn and bought a partridge in a pear tree salt and pepper shaker thingie-do.

it came to a grand total of $58.08.

and i have not stopped smiling since i bought these things. not because these things are so wonderful, but because:

1. i did something for myself. after all. this. time. and...
2. i'm getting over him.

why i'm pissed at rosie o'donnell (THIS time)

did i read the entire story? no. do i have all the facts? no. do i need all of the facts? no. because the one fact that i do know is the only one i need to know - rosie o'donnell offered to rehab honey boo boo's house. 

how dare she. regardless of how grateful honey boo boo and her family might be (and they are - they have accepted).

re. gard. less. of. an. y. thing. how dare rosie o'donnell make such an offer.

i think one of the hallmarks of many liberals is that they think they know what everybody else needs and wants. they think they know better than everybody else what everybody else should need and want. if we have half a brain. which, of course, we don't.

as contrasted to rosie o'donnell, i have never once watched the honey boo boo show and thought to myself, those folks need a better house. on the con. trary. i have thought to myself, many times, what a good house they have. not fancy. not fine. but good. and not just good........them. it's them! their house seems to suit them just fine. to a "t." (to a "sweet tea.") moreover, i have never once heard them complain about their house. i have never heard them say it's too this or not enough that. the subject of their house has never come up. at least not on t.v. which is the only place rosie o'donnell would (should)  know about.

to pre.sume that because the house is next to a railroad track and because the house is white clapboard and because the house is not huge (although, it certainly appears spacious enough. i've never heard the family say it wasn't.)........but to presume that something newer, something hipper, something more. like. what. rosie. o'donnell. would. want. to. live. in is..... 

in.sult.ing.

not to mention what should be the most obvious fact of all but apparently isn't......what honey boo boo's house may or may not lack in grandeur, it makes up for in spades in love. i admire the hell out of this family for the love, the connectedness, the roots that they have put down and nurtured. there're no amount of stainless steel upgrades that are gonna trump that.

the fact that the family has jumped at ms. o'donnell's generous (yes - it's generous. horribly misguided, but generous) offer doesn't change my outrage that ms. o'donnell made the offer in the first place. how many people wouldn't jump at such an offer?

my point is not that there is anything wrong with having a big house. nothing wrong whatsoever. nothing wrong with having it be nice, either. nothing wrong with wanting to move on up.

what's wrong is, ms. o'donnell had the audacity (of hope? ha!) to assume what somebody else's "up" should be.

steel cut oats and hand dipped ice cream

steel cut oats are oats. and hand dipped ice cream is ice cream.

 and a fool is a fool.


we people fall so many things it isn't even funny. i remember the time (we were young, people!) when david and i fell for one of those "free" vacation offers for 3 days and two nights somewhere in florida. 

(the brochure looked sooooooooooo good.)

i paid $4.75 the other day for a "pumpkin joe" cup o coffee at a hip neighborhood coffee shop called "cup o joe."

i was looking at a bunch of winter coats online yesterday and not a single one of 'em looked like they'd add a layer of warmth in the summer. much less in the winter.


but they suuuuuure looked cute.

gearing up

i will be taking care of the triplets this weekend. the whole weekend. by. my. self. it's like the night before you have to catch a plane in the morning - you can't sleep cuz you're worried you'll sleep. you keep going over and over in your mind all the things you have to do to get there on time.

i have rehearsed this weekend in my mind so many times that truthfully, i think we can skip it. i've already done it. abby and eli? you don't need to go to chicago after all. 

the twins will be spending the weekend with a babysitter, so that leaves me with "just" the triplets which, truthfully, really is "just." those babies are so mild-mannered and so laid back and generally so happy that it's pretty much cake taking care of them. 

but even a good baker needs to practice.

and so, in preparation for this weekend, i have been "working out." going through drills. putting myself through the paces.  mental paces, i mean, not  physical ones.

oh, damn! turn the car around, we have to go back. i forgot the physical paces!

the beauty of shunning

i look at it like this: at least the amish have the balls to draw a line in the sand. 


i also look at it like this: we have the balls to draw a line in the sand, too, but we do it in the reverse way that the amish do it. the amish shun people if they break too many rules. we, on the other hand, "shun" you if you don't break enough. to wit:

if you don't support gay marriage, you're "shunned." 

if you don't support abortion, you're "shunned."

if you define a family as a mom, a dad, and a kid, you're "shunned."

if you go to a traditional Christian church, you're "shunned."


with the amish, if you don't do the right thing, you're shunned. with the "english" (what the amish call anyone who isn't amish), you're shunned if you do.

shunned if you don't, shunned if you do.


and we call the amish backward.

summer smells like sweat. fall smells like cloves.

they talk about summer romance but summer doesn't have any romance. summer has sweat.

summer has mosquitoes. and mosquito bites. it has poison ivy.

summer has summer camp, which has mosquitoes. and mosquito bites.  and poison ivy.

it has sunburn. it has cicadias. summer has not being able to get the kids to sleep cuz it's so dang light out.

summer has vacation, which sounds good on the surface, but summer vacation is either boring (mom, there's nothing to do!) or you get home from summer vacation and you need a vacation to recupe from vacation.

summer has sweat.

fall, on the other hand, has cloves.

it has hickory and wood smoke and caramel lattes. (it has caramel everything, if you're creative enough.)

it has pie in the oven and soup on the stove.

it has what, if friendship and love had a scent, what that scent would smell like.

it has cloves.

buttons (and bows)

abby and eli bought me a new laptop as an early birthday gift. which should be a good thing - and it is. it's a wonderful thing. but, it's a bad thing.

i react very differently to things than most other folks do. not to everything, of course, but to a lot of things. technology being one of them. technology pushes not just my computer buttons but my personal buttons as well. and boy, do i ever have some personal buttons!

technology, in a nutshell, makes me feel like a moron. it frustrates the hell outa me. practically none of it makes sense to me. and there never seems to be anyone who can explain it to me - at least not in the unbelievably simplistic terms that a moron like me requires. however simple you explain it to me, i need it simpler. simpler than that. simpler! on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being the most simple, i need a -500. at least.

so, trying to get used to a new computer is a chore for me. a fun chore, in some ways - if that oxymoron makes any sense - but a chore nevertheless. a chore that underscores, at practically every key stroke, what an idiot i am.

and it makes me feel bad about myself. period. it just does.


on the flip side, though......i am like a fish gliding through blue waters when it comes to people. if technology is my button, then people are my bows. i totally get people. i get their moods, i get their non-moods, i get their needs, their wants, their fears. you bring me a stranger (which, as a matter of fact, is what my job is - i meet strangers fresh off the street everyday, sit down with them for an hour or two, and diagnose the hell out of 'em. then i send 'em off to a clinician in another department to fix 'em)..........but............you bring me a stranger, and i am in. my. element. i feel as comfortable with people as i do in my jammies.

so why can't the world be like that? a world of people and not things. not computers.

(cuz abby and eli can't buy me people for my birthday, i guess.)