graffiti to bob in bonn

Tamla Recording Artist: Boy Wonder

Obama Sunday

lotsa obamas

i want to be more like the colonel's daughter

A middle-aged man stopped me in the store yesterday, pointed to the fresh pineapples in my cart and asked me if I was going to prepare them myself. He had a small, "cored" pineapple in his cart and noticed that it cost more than the two large pineapples in mine. I described how to prepare the pineapple and chose the rest of my produce. His question made me grateful that I had grown up in a home where we were expected to make our Christmas presents, where we ate over 95% of our meals at home, and where all of my siblings and I started paying for our own clothes as young teens. In grad school, my late husband and I made our own lunches and put the fifteen dollars a week savings into IRA's. I've never made a lot of money but I've clipped a lot of coupons. I own a home without a mortgage, drive a new car that's paid for, and I still clip coupons and prepare my own food. My basic rules of finance are that "all banks are evil" and "cell phone companies are worse." I work with my students on "avoiding the twenty-five cent nickel." Every day, I thank my parents for not giving me everything I asked for and for teaching me how to take care of myself so that I would be able to have enough to help others.

— the Colonel's daughter, Dunmore, PA

Breaking News

Sarah the Socialist

Happy Halloween

sarah palin jumps on the Victory train just hours before election day!


Sarah Palin jumps on the Victory Train!!

Hockey Dogs For President

where IS the self described Pitbull with Lipstick?
and why isn't she available for an uscripted interview?
is Steve Schmidt too busy house training her before she's allowed to Meet The Press?

Cuntry First: Election Gothic revisited

just a quick layout....

there are very few women to whom i'd assign this ugly epithet.
but Barracuda Barbie has broken that glass ceiling for me. and btw, the word Epithet is defined as:
3. a word, phrase, or expression used invectively as a term of abuse or contempt, to express hostility, etc. and yes, i admit, i feel hostile. that's exactly the word. and where does hostility come from? FEAR. i'm truly fearful about Sarah Palin and John McCain. i fear stupidity. i fear lack of substance. i fear lies and misrepresentation.
i fear the Republican party who desperately desires to cosmetically try to turn this election into American Idol. and mostly i fear the disillusionment i feel when i hear people i know say things like: Well it was a good speech.

huh????? is this a Speech competition? is this Cottillion???

visual disclaimer: this is obviously just a quick photoshop layout...pretty shoddy. i need to see if i can even tolerate painting this...and to give credit where credit is due, it was conceived while speaking to one of my highest spiritual advisors Ms. Malicious Benson, one of my team mates in life and blogging who suggested i "update" my previous Election Gothic piece rather than just wallow in depression over this situation.

coumadin chic

under the category of "If you've got a lemon, make lemonade" here are my well-trained children modeling the dayglo green bandage fashion option when having blood drawn. jonah, of course, didn't have anything drawn (except for the usual fantastical notion in his unpredictable head). but, at 16yo, he still had his big sister ask the nurse if he could have a fake one to match hers and look cool. he's considering having the entire personel of Brutal Force wear these at performances.

have Saks first

last night i was up till 3:30am "cleaning." that is....going through stacks of papers and bills and yo-yos and used ear plugs and i stumbled upon two expired Credits. one to Saks, one to Nordstroms. at midnight (the wonders of email) i wrote both establishments to see if i can still use my expired credits much like the time i served expired whipped cream and cookies to jonah and his friend. (see any blog entry from last year).

WELL, i was up soooo late last night i thought nothing would get me going this a.m. I was awakened early by a friend on his way to drug testing (that didn't do it). i was then awakened by my sister in law checking in about my mother's 80th tea party tomorrow and about our 18yos double date last night....that didn't bump me into any particular kind of functional consciousness....teenage dates and geriatric tea parties? ho hum. and lastly, one of any number of doctors offices called to give me platelet and/or coumadin results for the day. that almost woke me up - but not quite.

but then...i walked downstairs to SEE the fruits of my midnight labor, the perfectly clean, long dining room table with only an Alex Katz book on it and a vase of dried flowers. the table top is so clean and devoid of Citibank statements and a month of my daugter's blood levels that you can actually see the rings left from the plastic red cups of cheap generic brew when Jonah used the beautiful spanish colonial dark wood table to play beer pong with his friends one night last month.

and i walked over to my little office, adjacent to that room and on the email were two notes back from Customer Care. one from Nordstroms, one from Saks. they wrote me back telling me that they'd be in touch with me to resolve or at least help out with whatever issue i had. that's more than certain family members would do!!! i was delighted. i felt seen and heard. and the satisfaction of Getting to the Bottom of things. i knew exactly where my expired card and certificate were because i'm temporarily SO organized. i called the numbers they left me. Customer Caring People answered. Saks Lady said she'd move the date on the $21 credit to whatever i needed her to do. And Nordstroms Caring Person said "oh don't worry about the expiration date at all! - it's ALWAYS still good."

i suddenly felt adrenline in my body. an alertness. an acuity that i didn't think possible. i think, as i get older, if i have to ever stop drinking coffee to minimize bone loss, i can instead accrue SaksFirst Points and Nordstroms Notes to wake me up. and at the rate that coffee and gasoline have gone up in price lately, i think i'll be ahead of the game.

Joey

brutal force fan base

metal mom metal sisters

Brutal Force: Makes a Mother Proud

this is my son's metal band, Brutal Force. they have a website on MySpace. aren't they adorable? that's MY guy in the front flipping the bird. do you think he might be able to go to Bard and be Ava's roommate after her Gap year at Paris Vogue's runway show in Darfur?

networking parents: the Bard chapter has begun

hi Ava--

It's Thorina. My friend Nancy (in email above) has a daughter attending Bard next fall. I thought perhaps it would be fun for you and her to connect before you go off to school!

all the best,
Thorina

hey thorina,

great idea.

ava's actually doing a gap year first. probably spending some time in cuba, a big fashion event in london in the fall, and then who knows. she'd like to teach in india or maybe africa, work at paris vogue, etc. we'll see what really happens. either way, she has to make some serious money first.

where did nancy daughter go to school? lycee?

b i l l

dear Bill,
Maddy went to public school in Santa Monica and is currently on bed rest from a serious illness with her half jewish/half el savadoran boyfriend who's kindly offered to be on bed rest with her and aid her recovery. she could probably ask for a Gap Year too but she doesn't like their jeans. she's thinking of getting a job at Cheviot Camp (at Pico and Motor) now that she can't go to Greece and drink Uzo with her best girlfriends. she loves fashion and is lucky enough to regularly inherit bags of hand me down Graham & Spencer from her dear mommy friend Leslie who works for the line but she only wears panties from Ross Dress For Less because after she wears them, Otto the dog usually eats them and it's too expensive to buy nice boy shorts knowing they'll have such a short shelf life. we like to think it's a form of recycling anyway. she gets a week or two out of the pantie, Otto gets an all natural fiber meal. and it all goes back into the earth where it began. no harm no foul. her only connection to Cuba was seeing it off the balcony off the Princess Cruise ship (or was it the Disney Line?) as her parents marriage imploded. and her knowledge of India is mostly limited to tech help for her MacBook and a great love of Chicken Tikka Mahkahni. she does however make Serious Money babysitting for the toddlers of the anesthesiologist and ER doc across the street. they pay her handsomely and they round up. she also gets dividends from bonds from her dad's side of the family who's really rich. she's got more money than her mom....who fritters away time blogging and highlighting the Fact is Funnier (and scarier) than Fiction follies of the wacked out parents who write emails like the one above with a perfectly straight face.
look forward to meeting you bill....though i don't think our girls have much in common. but, just for laughs, please keep us posted. we're dying to know which third world continent will be lucky enough to receive your daughter and we're even more excited to know which couture designer gets nabbed to dress her for the community service after "working" for Paris Vogue.

oh - and i guess you figured out. no, maddy didn't go to Lycee. she doesn't speak a word of french. a little yiddish and spanish and ghetto, but no french. sorry.
nancy

Clarification: Obama apologizes for calling woman "Yo Bitch"

That must be what the hoopla is about. I can't imagine it's for calling someone Sweetie. Because if that's the case, then I'm in BIG TROUBLE along with a thousand moms I know. Shit, we say that ALL the time. "Sweetie, do your homework" "Sweetie..I'll be right there"...." Sweetie I can't buy you that right now...and Sweetie...brush your teeth" Sweetie works wonders, I've found. I specifically use it when I want to let someone down gently...because i CARE.

There must be a mistake in this blurb i pulled from the latest "news" report because someone seems to be mad at him for calling her Sweetie. well, if we're gonna scold Barack for that, let's jump back on him for making speeches that are just a bunch of intelligent and inspiring WORDS. and let's get on him for being too Hopeful. darn him. what a drag. and while we're at it, let's let him have it not having enough Experience but nevertheless having the judgement to vote against a stupid awful war. shame on Barack. what has this world come to?
gosh he should've said: i'll get back to you fuckhead, as soon as i'm done touring this bankrupt, obsolete US car company that failed to wake up and smell the gasoline.

so here it is, fresh off the press:

According to an account on the Web site of WXYX TV in Detroit, Obama was touring a Chrysler plant when he tried to brush off a question from WXYZ reporter Peggy Agar about help for autoworkers. "Hold on one second, sweetie," Obama replied, explaining he would answer in a later media availability.

Later, in a voicemail left on Agar's cell phone, Obama apologized for not answering her question.

"Second apology," he said, "is for using the word 'sweetie.' That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front."

And so am I. So glad political correctness has come full circle, chasing its tail.

Jungle Fever: Edwards Endorses Obama 48 minutes ago!

Jungle Fever! Yep, that's what my picture-drawing-during-mathclass-son says i have, and i thought i was masking that pretty well with all the high-road politics!! And that's why he got me this blow up of Barack for Mothers Day. or maybe just to shut me up and get me to stop picking fights with anyone who disagrees with me - which is very non-Obama of me, but yet again what i admire so much about him. i learn from such steadiness. which is good advice for any mother....so back to mothers day: my son greets me in the morning with a FABULOUS, unwrapped (as in the celaphane is even off!) CD of Jackson Brown's latest acoustic thing....exactly what i wanted. he tells me he ripped off the plastic so i wouldn't see the price tag from Best Buy. then he tells me to go downstairs because someono is there trying to make me coffee but he's not very good at it. i stumble down to the kitchen to greet a 6 foot tall smiling cardboard Obama! now i can put him at the lunch counter and we can eat panini and discuss Change in Washington and a Moral Clarity and a better future for the kids and no one interrupts me and he's cute and smiling and smart and agrees with my politics!
and he's coming in handy right now as i'm on my cell, calling and emailing as many people as possible to tell them about the Edwards endorsement. i like being the first to tell good and bad news.
i like the attention even at the risk of killing the messenger. so i'm hoping some of you have the blog on "alert" and i'll get CREDIT for telling you first.

i guess that's it. it's a credit thing. and i understand, after applying for a car loan recently, i only have a B or B+ credit rating so that's why i'm working extra hard for my A.

i think i do get an A for something, or double-E's for effort as they used to grade us back in the day - because i picked our next president a year and a half ago, so there. now, even John Edwards agrees! and he's extremely cute too.

mom, look what i drew in math class

disclaimer, dog breath and obama

here's the daily Orbit: the disclaimer is that TooLazyForTrafficSchool.com does not, in fact, allow you to launch multiple windows of tests simultaneously as i hoped (and experimented with). they turned out to be more clever than i thought. you actually have to read through each test/category which was quite worthwhile i might add. so my high jinks were foiled and i'm grateful for it. i learned a lot about blood alcohol percentages and much common sense advice (always good to be reminded) about driving defensively and yielding to idiots on the road even if you have the right of way. it's much the same advice i got going through my divorce and it has served me well. and it's much the same stance Obama is smartly taking on the gas tax ploy this week. short fixes are short fixes and distract from deeper more positive and substantive trends..but we'll get to that later.

regarding dog breath, Otto ate this entire package of chewing gum. i'm sure he didn't spend much time chewing it but i will be giving him a little smooch in a few minutes to see if it had any positive effect on his breath. or perhaps i can check the backyard later to see if it manifested out the other end. yuk yuk. probably there will be no aromatic consequences, just more paper and plastic to recycle.

regarding the tough week Obama had...i personally feel heartened. here's what i think is happening. when you're gonna disappoint someone (Hillary)...ie: she's NOT going to get the nomination, it's clear...then you want them to end on a high note,
where they can save face and graciously step down. if Hillary does a little better in Tuesday's primaries but not well enough to win both or certainly win the insurmountable delegate vote, then at least she looks like the feisty fighter she is, like she gave it her best shot, and Obama the Gentleman (and he really is) gets to look like Oh well, I won....but thanks for the good fight. now let's let the votes and the math decide the decision.

in other words, i know there have been times when it's been thought: Hey Obama, tell Rev Wright to put a sock in it and show Hillary who's the man. but in fact - and this is what i truly admire about the guy - he's taken the high road. Rev Wright has a right to say whatever he wants (and frankly his talk to the NAACP was absolutely wonderful.....I didn't see the Bill Moyer interview and I don't want to....the spin on this thing is like a witch hunt, boys are dying in Iraq as we distract ourselves with this bullshit. and the war is EXPENSIVE to boot.).....

anyway...i'm saying i learn from the way Obama has carried himself through his recent stupid PR troubles. he's got dignity and smarts. he keeps his eye on the prize, the prize being a more enlighted direction for this country. and i'd say he's even deliberately demonstrating respect for Hillary Clinton who's super delegates are embarrassingly deserting her and who I predict finally has an out to Step Down because Obama refused to get too too nasty with her. Maybe i'll be wrong. but that's my Orbit (or elliptical path) of reasoning for the day. beats the dog breath of the Republican party if you ask me.....with all due respect to dog breath which can be very sweet in its context of love and loyalty. and much of this recent nonsense of exploiting Rev Wright has everything to do with context, and understanding it a little better.

Americans who don't understand that need a breath mint or a stick of Orbit.