Watching the Convention

A lot of people that I know have tuned out politics this month claiming it's just too vindictive and evil spirited.  Frankly, I'm highly entertained by all the politicking going on in Florida this week and then in Charlotte for the Democrats.

I listened to the speeches last night and contrary to the pundits who hated it, I found that Chris Christie's speech was exciting and well done.  I wish he were a Democrat.  He's got fire! 

Then very contrary to all the news media today, I was turned off my Ann Romney's speech.  She just seemed whimpy to me.  Maybe my main problem was:  do we honestly think this woman looks 63 years old, has had five children, suffered from cancer and now has MS?  Honestly?

It takes a heap of money to be as well maintained as this woman is.

Now compare her to Hilary Clinton who is only one year older.

Do you honestly think that genetics makes this much difference?




I know this is superficical -- but to be that well cared for says to me, this woman and her family simply don't relate to my life and how I've lived it.

Shoot me now!

Last week, in my grad class called "The Professional SPED Educator," we were required to write eight (8!!!) essays. I thought that was a tough week.

This week we had seven (7!) essays but the prof threw in a mid-term exam -- all essay questions. There were five (5 -- F I V E -- 5! 5! 5! 5!) questions.

That makes 12 essays in one week. There are only seven days in a week. Don't college professors realize that? Plus she assigned three chapters to read - another 150 pages. And some kind of form to fill out that I haven't yet even looked at.

One of the questions asked us to design a collaborative teaching model for our school with by-in from all staff members -- as well as design the training program from the model. This was one of the throw-away questions. This could a disertation! It can't be covered in a couple of pages!

Another asked us to interview a consultant in our district and write a detailed overview of his / her training.

Yet another essay must be developed as a group process, including four other team members. The topic: how to provide treatment integrity for a given intervention.

Finally, for this week there is the essay test -- the directions were: write in-depth answers with annotation. Four questions required some creativity but mostly were answerable by doing research from our reading -- with a lot of explanation. But the last question was a case study of a first grader! The kid is six! I work in high school, for pete's sake.

There is still a huge project due at the end of the course. I have an idea in my head about what to write about -- but I can't find any time to even outline my thoughts.

This is simply beyond incredible. This is I M P O S S I B L E.

A New Computer & New Software

Hubby decided, against my better judgment, to purchase a refurbished Dell computer with all the newest operating systems (Windows 7).

Last Sunday we went computer shopping together. I’m not the hardware nerd but I do have a pretty good idea of what software I need to be run and if we could find a good salesperson, they could steer us to the right machine. We found a PC we both liked with ultra high end graphics, but I just couldn’t see making a purchase this summer while we still haven’t optimized the Mac.

Yet like coveting a new car (which thankfully he never does), Hubby wanted the sweet computer we found at MicroCenter. He managed to get through Monday, but by Tuesday, the computer bug just couldn’t be overcome. That night he came lugging home the CPU, took a little nap, and then at midnight woke up thinking he wanted to access the new machine and see how it ran. He sat up all night, installing Office and virus protectors and registering the computer, while I slept blissfully unaware of the havoc he was causing. Without notice, he had unplugged my five year old Sony with all my files and email and he nearly caused a divorce in our once happy household.

Today we ran out and bought a 16 gig USB drive and he has promised to set Sony back up to a monitor so I can at least get all my documents off the machine (I have soooo many pictures and graphics that the files will be huge). I need to get this done before summer school starts. I HAVE to have all my Pittsburg State files intact just so I can feel productive and safe.

As an aside, two summers ago Hubby had all my files transferred to the MAC. But that still leaves two years of grad school files and updated contact lists and bookmarked web sites that need to be saved. Not to mention lesson plans and vocabulary lists and teaching strategies for the novels I’ve taught. And the passwords I’ve completely forgotten!

Today I was rooting around on the Dell when I found that the new Office / Windows has a Blog Writer called “Windows Live Writer” that automatically connects to blogspot. This is my test run to see if: 1) I like it; 2) it’s easy to use; and 3) it actually does work. If this looks weird, that’s why.

For the geeks, here are the specs on the new PC (purchased because of its graphic capabilities – otherwise we’d have never gone Dell): a Sudio XPS 7100 with a 6 core processor featuring vision ultimate technology perfect for movie/photo editing and advanced multitasking. I must say the gaming on this machine is really, really spectacular. Which is currently all I’ve done with it. I’m not as dumb-founded by the new office as I thought I’d be (except I have no real idea what to do with Access). I do love the full Outlook features.

The poor Mac, though, now sits unattended once again. And I had such good intentions this summer. And it’s such a pretty machine.

It's the First Day of Spring?

The weatherman predicts 8 inches of snow tonight, tomorrow, and through Sunday noon.

Yeah! Spring!

Hero Bashing

I just finished watching the news coverage of Bill Clinton returning with two live journalists who had been sentenced to hard labor in North Korea for spying. Al Gore sent him, he met with Kim Jong Il, and secured the safe release of the women.

Now the conservative press have their story for the week. How many conspiracies do you think they can find in this event? How many villains can they name? Just how "het up" can they get? And how many evil, pernicious attacks can they make on Obama, Clinton -- both Hillary and Bill, Gore, and the press itself?

I'm all for free speech but the conservative pundits of this country have become vicious and ugly and mean -- and they see conspiracy and racism against THEM at every turn. How long will the American public buy into this reprehensible behavior?

Weighing In

We were reading the Washington Post in the Plymouth Church parking lot in DC when we came across the first article about Professor Gates arrest by the Cambridge police department. I hooted -- and read the article aloud to Hubby while we waited to meet with Hubby's sister and attend church with her. We both agreed that the Cambridge police has stepped "in it" big time -- and frankly we were delighted that a prominent and respected figure like Gates would now be the spokesperson for a disgrace that every African American, especially male, has suffered throughout his lifetime.

Do we side in any way with the police? NO. A resounding NO! Racial profiling exists, folks. If you are Black you live with it daily. If you are white, you probably don't understand because if you are polite and responsive when the police stop you -- for legitimate reasons -- you are treated in return in a polite, responsive way. If you are a Black male you can expect to be under suspicion, stopped, questioned, and even arrested -- just because you ARE Black. The police, once they make the stop, have in the main, learned to be polite in the stopping and questioning -- but THEY STOP you simply because YOU ARE BLACK. This is frustrating, humiliating, and degrading. And if you, the Black male, aren't properly respectful and polite, then, like Gates, you are arrested for "disturbing the peace."

In my white life (36 years now) living with a Black man I have been stopped numerous times in both Kansas and Missouri -- not because we were breaking the law but because we were driving through a white world. When our own house was robbed -- and everything that wasn't nailed down was taken -- my husband spent 40 minutes in front of the house proving his identity -- while the crooks one block over loaded a semi and drove away with all our possessions. Especially in the white suburbs of Kansas, we have had to prove we owned the car we were driving. I have had to assure the cop that I wasn't driving around with a Black man under duress. At night we have been stopped and asked exactly where we "thought" we were going and had to verify that we were visiting friends -- at their invitation.

Driving across country I can drive ten to fifteen miles over the speed limit, directly by a cop and never be stopped. Hubby can go three miles over the speed limit and he's immediately pulled over. In Arkansas, we were stopped and the car searched by the police because we were in our brand new Toyota.

When I was senior class sponsor I used to let the class treasurer drive to the bank and deposit our funds during the noon break. He would take my old beat-up Toyota, definitely not a car anyone would steal, and drive five blocks away to make the deposit. He was stopped so often in that car that I used to have a signed note with both Hubby's and my phone number on it so the cops could verify he was driving with my permission.

Hubby has always handled the repeated cop invasions into our life with quiet dignity and respect toward the law. He never says evil things. He doesn't spout off. He just accepts the numerous intrusions with patience and forbearance. He understands that to react in any way means jail time. Me? I'm furious. I've been known to ask the police, "Did you stop us simply because I'm a white woman riding with a Black man?" It makes me seethe with anger every time we're stopped and questioned.

I totally understand Gates reaction to his being questioned -- in front of his own house -- and his anger when confronted with the reality that fame, education, money, respect -- nothing keeps him from being lumped into the whole African-American "fear" mentality of this country.

Gates had a right to be mad -- and with his anger we are finally having a dialogue that has been hundreds of years in the making. I've enjoyed Gates' PBS shows on ethnicity -- now he's my new hero. The white people of this country can say he should have been more respectful towards the police. They've never experienced the degradation that comes from facing racial profiling. After years of fighting it -- you GET mad! And this is righteous anger!

Slowly on Saturday

Another paper is due on Tuesday for my grad school class. Three more chapters in the text book need to be read besides the three I only skimmed from last week. The stereo cabinet is still not completely redecorated. The bottom two shelves need arranging. A whole heap of wash has piled up both in the bedroom and in the basement.

My heart just isn't feeling industrious today. Last night was a long night of non-sleeping. I caught up on the news magazines and People while the boys snored softly curled next to Hubby. Eventually, when my legs could no longer stand the tingling, I got up and read on-line journals until my eyes were bleary. Then I tried again to sleep. Eventually around 4 a.m. I managed a couple of hours of dozing in and out. Consequently, I feel all fuzzy headed and disoriented today.

The weather isn't cooperating either. We have had a succession of days with temps hovering in the low 90's but the humidity has caused the heat index to read over 100 every day. My body feels like it's infested with mold and damp rot. This especially happens in my little car which has no air conditioning - and the 5 p.m. drive to class is like I've put in 40 minutes in a sauna. In the house we're blessedly cool and dry with a very powerful central AC system -- but anytime I venture outdoors, I'm miserable.

Somehow I seem to run through all the USA network NCIS reruns -- and now I have no TV to watch during my down time. I'd start a book - but I need to read that darned text book so I can't justify opening a new novel. The boys would love a walk in the park, but it's sooo hot outside. I don't want to clean, do the wash, or write a paper. I don't want to read a text book. I've already caught up on all the on-line journals and played my computer games until I'm bored with them.

Whine. Whine. Whine.

And that's the news for today from my world. I'll be better tomorrow (I hope).

I've Been Stimulated!

Got my paycheck this afternoon with the new tax table applied -- supposed to help stimulate the economy, don't ya know, when you have more cash to spend.

My stimulus package: a whopping $3.04 for a two week period.

Damn. I'm rich! Wonder what thrilling thing I can spend it ALL on?

Goodbye -- Hello

My SLC (Small Learning Community) is experiencing turmoil. For at least the last seven years , my SLC has had only one coordinator to interact with administration. The role, as interpreted by the current coordinator, has been mainly disciplinary. Given an extra 45 minute planning period, the coordinator has handled tardies, student disputes, and teacher / student problems -- and been the intermediary between these discipline problems and the floor administrator.

As one can imagine, the role of coordinator rather became like a mini-fiefdom, entrenched, like the role of department chair became in more traditional schools. The administration, under a new principal, began to troll the communities, asking for a more wide-spread taking-on of responsibilities within them.

Yesterday we "deposed" our coordinator. Instead of acting like adults, we acted like the more dysfunctional students we teach. The coordinator took the loss of his role personally. Today one community teacher stayed home in bed rather than face the "discord" created within the community. She did, however, text the current coordinator to explain why she couldn't come to school. However, at yesterday's meeting she fully backed the usurpation -- and this is the woman wanted to fullfill a role in counseling our SLC students.

Two people actually wanted to be the new coordinator for next year -- but only one could get the job. Now that he has it, he wouldn't eat lunch with the rest of us today because he couldn't face the tension that has been created by his new selection. In point of fact, every single member of the community stayed away from our normal lunch together -- except for the foreign language teacher and me. We ate lunch together, rather quietly, talking mainly about the weather.

Instead of acting like professionals, we teachers have behaved like squabbling teenagers. I suppose its expecting too much to want us to act like the role models we really should be. This so clearly reminds me of why I left education in 1990. I'm sure we'll work our way of this little silliness. And silliness it is when we face students who are homeless, on drugs, in gangs, and fearing for their lives every day.

I still love the classroom. I love the school I'm in. I love the kids I work with. I find great joy in seeing my students gather knowledge, take leadership roles, and feel successful. Every organization baulks at change and I should expect that -- I just wish we'd act more grown-up in our discontents.

Hair

Getting my hair cut and permed makes me feel free. Getting up every morning will be a lot easier because that awful flat hair will now have some body. Getting all the sides shaved so hair no longer hangs over the arms of my glasses makes me feel trim.

Getting all the old dyed hair cut off makes me feel very, very old. I'm ridiculously white haired now -- not pretty white but ugly, dishwater white. And I've become really, really gray white.

I feel old, very old. But clean and neat, at least.

Humbug!

If you claim that your campaign is in support of change, how in the world can you go with the predictable, ulta-expected, choice for voice president of an old white man with bad hair?

How? Why?

Do you really WANT to lose this election? Is that the game plan all along for the Democrats?

Didn't you realize that you energized your (my) party by going outside the standard "old white guy with bad hair" candidates?

Don't you know that going back to the old white guy who's been in politics for 35 years is going to turn us off?

Obama wasn't my choice for change within the Democratic party but once he became the heir-apparent, then I supported him fully.

Now he's rejected change for what the Dems undoubtedly call the "safe" choice.

I'm totally turned off.

I'm even considering NOT voting.

McCain, Obama, Biden -- no different between 'em.

I'm so very disappointed. In fact, I'm more than disappointed -- I'm sick at heart. Hillary, we needed you -- and Buba! You represented change, you AND Bill. I'm so sorry that once again the Democrats took the path that will lead to another four years of the same old, same old . . .

I think I'm losing hope that ANYthing connected to a power structure can ever evidence real change.

Frustration

One more week of summer and then back to work on a permanent basis. I'm not ready.

Hubby came home on Thursday night from his family reunion with a bad virus -- awful head congestion, low-grade fever, he lost his voice, coughing, earache, stuffy nose, sore throat, achy limbs. By Monday I had caught it full bore.

Also, we discovered, unhappily, that my stomach upset during the week he was away was caused by medicine interacting badly -- because Monday night I got the damned thing again, just 20 minutes after swallowing the pills. Seven hours of throwing up is NOT pleasant under any circumstance. With this dreadful virus, I have been laid low, down, and put out. The count has reached 10 and I can't get back up.

Somehow, this summer just didn't work out the way we had anticipated: slow, restful, lazy days of enjoying each other and our lives. Most of the summer I've been sick -- ridiculous as that is. For the first time in 15 years my blood pressure is normal. It's perfect, in fact. Mostly I run 120 over 80 and it seems the sicker I get, the lower it goes. Plus, since I've started back teaching, without doing anything different, I've lost 30+ odd pounds -- which undoubtedly helped the blood pressure.

I guess I can be grateful the bad back, the medicine interactions, and now this dreadful virus (OH GOD I'M SICK!) didn't happen while I was in school. I get to lay around in bed and not feel guilty that a sub was doing all my work. Of course, I don't do anything around the house, either.

The crowning glory to my summer woes -- the dentist decided I had a cavity that needs to be filled after I finally managed to keep an appointment with her on Tuesday. One more happy thing to look forward to.

So Fritzy, Hubby, and I lay around being lazy and indolent and gasping -- and NOT eating, because when it's 100 degrees and your kidney won't work (Fritz) and your nose won't breath (me) and your temp is at 101 at 3 p.m. (Hubby AND me), nothing sounds tasty.

And school starts in one week's time. I'm just not ready.

Traveling / Staying Home

I piled out of bed this morning at 4:10, flipped on the light, went to the john, swallowed a handful of pills along with a caffeinated diet coke, and fumbled my way to the car, after checking to make sure the U.S. Air flight was still flying. Hubby who had packed everything last night took his own morning meds, pulled on his clean undies, long pants, a shirt, some socks with loafers, yoked the dogs to their twin's leash, and picked up his suitcase. We made it to the car by 4:25 a.m.

The airport in our burg is miles and miles from home but we were there by 5:10, traffic being non-existent on a Monday morning pre-dawn. It took a bit to get him the wheelchair but soon he was being pushed through the sliding doors, away to get his boarding pass and in line for his 6 a.m. flight.

The dogs and I sadly drove home, muttering under our breath (me), and whimpering pitifully (them). One final stop at the dog park for a good morning pee and we drove home to await the car repair men who were picking up our only running car to see if they could get some repairs done on and thus give me safe transportation for the week.

I begged Hubby not to travel during the school year. The thought of my having to walk the doggies at 5 a.m. before leaving for school blew my mind. So he delayed this trip until school was well out, we had a running vehicle, and nothing big was planned.

Hubby is off to Washington, D.C. to see his elder sister whom he has not seen in 55 years. Frankly, it seems to me that if they hadn't connected in all that time, then what was the sudden rush? However, after she had contacted him this winter and they had talked on the phone several times, the bug hit him to pay her a visit - and the visit needed to be soon, for after all, he's 72, she's 98, and the brother they are visiting in Philly is 89.

I was "semi-" invited to visit with him, however, the doggies were definitely NOT invited as elder sister "HATES" dogs and cats and any kind of pets at all. Fritzy is really in such poor shape that traveling is out for him anyway and I certainly cannot board him in this condition, so I'm holding down the home front.

Except that things have not gone smoothly, as we had originally planned. The Lincoln is getting a new motor. The Aurora, sweet car that it is, is just too expensive for Hubby to drive, considering the amount of miles he enjoys traveling on a daily basis. At $100 a tankful, we need a car that takes regular unleaded and gets somewhat better mileage than the Aura does. Admittedly the Lincoln only gets two more miles to the gallon, but it does not require the premium variety gas. So "used" parts have been scavenged and the Lincoln currently sits in pieces at the mechanics, who is replacing the muffler and the engine.

We thought the Aurora, which is now designated as MY car, would be fine, but any car that is 13 years old and has sat for over a year pretty much un-driven will throw you a curve every now and then. Saturday night Hubby thought the water pump was going out. The car began to shake and rattle and make incredible noises. Sunday morning though the car was quiet except it now had no air-conditioning. Meanwhile we are replacing the motor-mounts on it and some screws that have mysteriously disappeared and there are other problems, though not serious, that have caused it to buck rather like a kangaroo on starting up. The mechanic pretty much knows what's what but the problem is finding the parts at a reasonable price for a car that is no longer in production.

So I'm currently carless and not sure exactly the ETA on my getting wheels back. Meanwhile, I'm walking the dogs separately. The tandem leash has been dismantled and I take Fritzy for a brief stroll. He has little energy and only wants to go a short distance. Gus, however, thinks we should be walking to the shopping mall for treats and then galloping home -- a distance of at least five miles.

Hubby called and safely arrived in D.C. in good time. He is staying with Sister and is unhappy that her house in without air conditioning. He first question was, "Do you have the car?" and when I said, "no," he thought I should call the mechanic and discuss what was being done. After listening to my silence for a moment, we both had a good laugh. I can take care of doggies and do early morning walkies and make plane / travel reservations on line - but I have absolutely no idea what makes a car run, other than the little fairies inside the engine that undoubtedly produce some kind of fairy dust to get a combustion engine running. He hung up then to call the mechanic himself.

Thankfully, Hubby is coming home Thursday night. Hopefully, we'll have a car by then. Or maybe Gussie will get to enjoy a really long hike . . .

TV Reprise

We really like TV in our household and we're not real particular about our viewing choices, either. We're music snobs -- but truly low-brow in our TV watching. Every night from 6 until 8 p.m. Hubby has Walker, Texas Ranger tuned in. Personally, I find the Chuck Norris show bland and repetitive, so that's usually my computer gaming time. I enjoy an eclectic mix of TV shows: Boston Legal, Reapers, Numbers, Brothers and Sisters, American Experience, Antiques Roadshow. And lately I've found that at 10 a.m. in the morning, ABCFamily is rerunning my one of my favs of all time: Gilmore Girls . I record every episode faithfully. We're not much into the reality series that are so popular now. Hubby can't abide American Idol; he claims they rarely have anyone on who can actually sing on key. I can't stand the antics of the judges, though I usually can't tell if someone's off-key unless it's really bad.

Our TV set runs day and night. We have it on all night long, tuned first to the late night showings of Walker (on the Hallmark channel) and then to the all night news stations: either local news or CNN. Hubby claims to be unable to sleep without the noise from the set. I wake up enough time during the night to find the light from the TV comforting. We get out of bed to the morning newscasts, watching the Today show until the View comes on (or lately, Gilmore Girls). Then, if Hubby is home in the afternoon, he watches all the judge / court TV shows. Once in awhile he tunes in Oprah, but not often. At 5 p.m. we watch the news again -- until Walker comes back on (this show runs five days a week) and now we've come full circle through our 24 hours of TV watching. If I'm reading and home alone, I tune in the classical music station on the TV for background noise.

Because we like TV so much, we subscribe to Dish network and take their most extensive package. We have every TV channel that isn't porn related. We have all the HBO's, Showtime, Starz, and Cinemax channels. Automatically bundled with that comes a bevy of sports and music channels we actually don't watch. I love all the cooking and home improvement channels though, and Hubby likes National Geographic, the Animal channel, and Hallmark. I go through spells where I watch many of the BBC programs, but lately their serializations aren't attracting me.

This summer, TV programming in our Heartland city has been suspended. Instead, all evening, every night, we have weather warnings. The rain has pre-empted shows on every channel except the cable shows. The big storms have also disrupted satellite connection to Dish network. They have improved dish reception tremendously in the past two years, but heavy storms still cut the transmission.

Last night was a rather more than typical night of TV viewing in our city -- but demonstrates the point perfectly. By 8 p.m. all local TV stations had suspended programing to report on the weather. Thunderstorms with heavy lightning had hit the area and in the river bottoms a huge gasoline fire had been started by lightning. The rain was barreling down and there were flash flood warnings out. North and south of us were tornado warnings.

Obama's historic winning of enough delegate votes to be the first African-American presidential candidate from a major political party wasn't even broadcast here. A roof that collapsed on an apartment building (where no one was injured) was reported every 10 minutes while we saw aerial and ground views of the huge fire by the river (where again, no one was injured). For four hours the local news covered nothing but weather. And frequently, the rain was heavy enough to disrupt our cable reception, leaving us nothing to watch but local programming.

Every night in the past week, and certainly the majority of nights in the past month, our TV screen has been filled with weather related images: little maps filling the corners of our screens showing where the floods/tornadoes/severe thunder storms/heavy winds/ hail might occur. Frequently, network programming has been disrupted so the weather people could bring us up-to-date reports on the storms in the area. And the storms keep coming. Rain, thunder, lightning. Power outages, flooding, lightning fires, people left homeless, property destroyed, businesses in ruins. And our TV programming totally disrupted! Bah! We need to get our priorities in order here. Rain, rain, go away . . .

In My Lifetime

I am so excited. I never imagined in my lifetime we would actually have a pretty decent chance to have either a woman or an African-American as president. To have either Hillary or Obama as the Democratic nominee is just mind boggling.

Living in the Heartland, in a state that during the Civil War was Southern -- and in every area but the two major cities (one of which I inhabit) is still voting prejudiced -- I am astonished.

Here's how I feared Super Tuesday would actually turn out:

My state, and all the others surrounding it, would vote Edwards. The good old boys still aren't willing to vote for a woman, by God. Also, though they're afraid to actually admit it, once behind the privacy curtain of the voting booth they can't bring themselves to vote for a minority. The reality would be that the actual votes they cast were going to be for Edwards. He'd do a huge surge on Feb. 5th, carrying the majority of the Heartland States -- and the Southern ones, too. And suddenly, he would be seen as the guy who could beat the Republicans . . .and he'd win the Democratic nomination. Once again, two white guys would be competing to run the a country always run by white guys. Nothing at all would really change -- just the name of the president.

My heart is overjoyed that Edwards has pulled out. The good old boys are going to have to live with a campaign that is going to feature a woman. Or a Black man. The unthinkable has happened IN MY LIFETIME!

Maybe there's hope for the United States yet.

Obama was in my state yesterday -- and pulled a huge, overflow crowd of screaming fans. Hubby and I wanted to go, but he ended up holding his rally in a place where we would have had to stand for up to four hours, and with my bad feet and Hubby's bad knees, we simply weren't up to it.

At this point, Hubby and I will split our votes on Super Tuesday. He's voting his heart -- Obama. I'm voting mine -- Clinton. Both of us agree, though, that either nominee would be fantastic! We've contributed to both campaigns.

I'm not sure that we will see a woman running for President again in my lifetime. I think, just maybe, we have come to a place where a minority can run and get cross-over votes. I don't think that's true for a woman, but I think Hillary deserves the chance to run -- and this could possibly be the year a woman might eek out a victory, especially if the economy keeps tanking and Bush continues to be a burden on the Republican party.

I've been a fan of Hillary since Bill first ran -- I even had a Hillary button way back in the 1990's. I thought she was great then -- and my opinion has grown even stronger. I think Obama has a better chance to win the presidential election -- because the white men in my state will vote for a black MAN over any woman alive, no matter her qualifications.

Either candidate, Obama or Clinton, leaves me amazed. My family may still utter the prejudiced words, my collegues may still tell the racist and sexist jokes, but this change is huge. We are sending encouragement, not just to our own people, but to the world. This country can change. We are able, slowly, to heal the divisive wounds of the past. Maybe we can find common values among our diverse population. This is a new era. We should celebrate it!

Getting One's Just Desserts

So, after months of silence -- hell, years of non-communication -- my mother called me on Friday of last week. However, when I answered the phone she asked for someone else. I told her, politely, she had the wrong number, and without us ever acknowledging each other she hung up.

Back fill is that sometime in October, I suddenly told Hubby that I was having premonitions that she was in trouble, probably rapidly failing health and that I wouldn't be surprised to hear that she had had to move into a nursing home. She's 81 years old after all, lives totally alone -- well, as alone as a woman with a huge pile of money can be, considering she can afford all the care she needs.

On Tuesday night she had her best friend call me because 1. she had received our Christmas card in the mail and 2. she had also received her Christmas gift from UPS. I had ordered an assortment of old-time food stuff from the Vermont Country Store, things she and I had enjoyed eating when I was a kid: plum pudding and hard sauce, oyster stew, Vermont cheese, and B&M brown bread, special crackers, etc.

Mother, herself, could not call me -- but she had her friend call and say that she would enjoy knowing something about my life. I was totally honest. I told the friend I was done with the situation. I would acknowledge Mother on holidays and her birthday because I felt she didn't have anyone left who would remember she was alive. Certainly there is no other living family other than me. I would send things like flowers and food and warm nighties but I was no longer making a personal investment in the situation. The 35 years she had tried to hurt me in every way she could think of had finally taken their last toll two years ago and I WAS D.O.N.E.! The family that had stood by me during those 35 years, even if not blood relations, would be the family I choose to include and support with my love and affection.

The friend said Mother had been thinking that she might like to send Hubby and me a gift for Christmas, something other than the pears from Harry and David that she had sent every single Christmas for the last 15 years. Four pears -- that's what we got every year. Granted, they are very good pears, but still . . .

And in the middle of that conversation about Mother wondering what we might like as a Christmas gift, the friend told us that Mother had bought the town she lives in a fire truck. Not a toy truck, mind you. The entire real red fire engine. The one they had was old and run down and sometimes they could not get up the mountain roads to isolated cabins. So she bought them a new truck.

For 35 years we've gotten pears and gifts from Goodwill and once a set of stuffed cloth wise men.

I've told myself over and over that she can't hurt me anymore, that she won't make me mad. Still -- over $100,000 for a fire truck -- while I get four pears every year?

I understand that she and my dad made me independent and self-reliant and I have the skills to take care of myself. I know that she was the sole heir for my grandfather's money and she can do with it as she chooses. But goddamn -- what a small fraction of that kind of money would have made in our lives all these years while we drove second hand cars and lived in a tiny bungalow and worked every days of our lives to meet the bills!

If, as the saying goes, you reap what you sow, just exactly what does this say about me?

I understand she's failing in health, a broken hip requiring a replacement, new knees that are not healing properly, twelve thousand a month in home care services because she's terrified of going into a nursing home, some dementia. Maybe she's reaping just a bit of what she's sown, too.

Certainly, neither of us are happy about the situation. We can't resolve it, fix it, or even patch over it for "old time's sake." She won't talk to me; I can't talk to her, not even for a fraction of what that new fire truck cost. It's a total impasse. How sad. How unutterably sad.

Happy Holidays

I just got another of those annoying e-mails about saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" to prove I'm a good Christian God-fearing woman who wants to celebrate the birth of Christ. This is the fourth one I've received in the last two weeks -- and they make me angry.

It's highly egotistical to believe that the only holiday being celebrated in December / January is the birth of Christ. There is nothing wrong in including all the celebrations in my "Happy Holiday" salutation. There is nothing politically correct about it -- it's just good, kind decency of character and sensitivity of spirit.

So bah and humbug to all those "good decent Christians" who must force Christ down everyone throats in December. I'm proud to say "Happy Holidays" -- that makes me part of the human race, not just part of the Christian community.

And as an evil aside, at least three of the Merry Christmas enforcers were people who DON'T go to church -- or only show up when it's convenient. I, however, go to church nearly every Sunday of the year. Granted, it's partly to support Hubby who is the music director at our little church -- but I'm still there, serving God and the community in which the church resides. And those folks think they have the right and duty to tell me how to wish my family and friends the greetings of the season. Phooey on them!

The second to last fall graduate class was tonight -- and I presented my final paper to the class and turned it in to the professor. Talk about feeling relieved! Maybe I can even find some time to write a little on this blog now -- and wish everyone a "Happy Holiday" while I'm at it.