The actor and author whose book I edited, Cliff Osmond, passed away on December 22, 2012. He had been ill for several years and fought a good battle with overwhelming odds against him. There will be a small family service this week, followed by a public event later in the month.
Although you may not recognize his name, you'll know his face and his body of work (cliffosmond.com). Although I talked with him often, I met him in person only once, sharing a nice dinner with Cliff and his wife, Gretchen. Cliff's smile was genuine and his charisma instant. He liked my "spunk," and laughed when he told me he "stole" my words to use on his blog. We had been talking about teaching, as Cliff's career as an actor, director, screenwriter, and acting coach provided him with a generous background for sharing his knowledge with others. I remarked that the difference between our careers as educators is that "teachers are actors with a captive audience." He roared with laughter and said he'd use that, and he did.
Hollywood also sent some of Cliff's contemporaries to heaven in the past several days, including Larry Hagman and Jack Klugman, so I'm sure "the boys" are telling some whoppers about "back in the day."
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
Superlatives
There are times when attending a performance leaves a profound impression on one’s soul, and such is the case with Les Miserables. Yes, it’s an operatic musical, and everyone sings their lines, but this is one of the most raw, the most natural and perfect “opera” I’ve attended. I saw Les Mis on stage many years ago and it left me wanting something I could not name. Now I know what that lack is: the musical performance is too large for a stage. Shakespeare said that "all the world's a stage," and this musical needs the world's stage, the big silver screen, to reach the pinnacle of performance.
It doesn’t matter if actors cannot sing perfectly as much as if they can act believably, and this performance is believable. Hugh Jackman sings one of my favorite songs (Let Him Live) in a key a bit too high for his singing talent, but it’s okay because it’s so raw, so gritty, so believable. None of us perform perfectly during life’s real moments, so it’s okay if the actor singing his role isn’t exactly right on perfect. Russell Crowe captures the essence of the stoic military bearing of Chabert, even in his most passionately emotional scenes, not because he’s a talented singer, but because he knows how to perform the role in which he’s cast. Anne Hathaway’s voice is one of the better in this film, but her acting is what makes her voice cut deeply into the heart of the viewer. Amanda Siegfried’s vibrato adds a layer of fragility to her performance as Cosette, a fragility that is perfect for an innocent young girl who suddenly finds herself in love at first sight.
But what the big screen can capture that a stage cannot contain is the largeness of the story: it’s the early days of the French Revolution and that story needs all of Paris, not just what a stage in a theater can capture through staging. The poverty and oppression of the people contrasts better with the opulence of the rich upper class when it’s shown in the carriages and frippery of the wealthy traversing the streets of Paris, the rich elite who ignore the pleadings of the abject poor standing aside to let them pass. The tension between the rich and the poor, and the passion of the poor to revolt and gain their freedom, needs the grandeur of the city in which it occurs, a grandeur that the stage could not capture for me during a live performance.
The comedic relief steals the show in the characters of Sasha Bowen Cohen and Helen Bonheim Carter, who are wonderful as the King and Queen of the streets. Their appearances are garish, a mishmash of costume elements and farcical make-up that mock the upper classes without a word being spoken. They are witty, they are comical, they are tragic representations of what their lives lack, and when they are front and center of the performance, they provide the emotional moments of release that the story demands of its viewers before going another layer deeper into the heart of the drama.
The symphony that tells the story in musical performance is incredible: the score provides the background that keeps the story moving forward for well over two hours, but it takes center stage to underscore both the depth of the tragedy and the lightness of the comedic moments. Much has been made of the technique of having the actors sing their performances and then adding the musical score to match the performances – and it works beyond imagining. Rather than being a music-driven production, it’s an actor-driven performance, and it’s excellent.
The theaters in the CV have been packed with the "grey brigade" of seniors, but this is a film that could teach many lessons to high school students who lack depth in their own lives. Of course, viewing demands sitting still and focused for over two hours, no cell phones allowed, which could be a deal-breaker for a younger audience. I recommend Les Mis as a must-see in the theater at least once, but the kind of film experience that can be seen again to enhance the richness of the experience. Just as the stage experience left me wanting something more, viewing this production on a TV screen will not create the same "surround sound" emotionally encompassing experience.
It doesn’t matter if actors cannot sing perfectly as much as if they can act believably, and this performance is believable. Hugh Jackman sings one of my favorite songs (Let Him Live) in a key a bit too high for his singing talent, but it’s okay because it’s so raw, so gritty, so believable. None of us perform perfectly during life’s real moments, so it’s okay if the actor singing his role isn’t exactly right on perfect. Russell Crowe captures the essence of the stoic military bearing of Chabert, even in his most passionately emotional scenes, not because he’s a talented singer, but because he knows how to perform the role in which he’s cast. Anne Hathaway’s voice is one of the better in this film, but her acting is what makes her voice cut deeply into the heart of the viewer. Amanda Siegfried’s vibrato adds a layer of fragility to her performance as Cosette, a fragility that is perfect for an innocent young girl who suddenly finds herself in love at first sight.
But what the big screen can capture that a stage cannot contain is the largeness of the story: it’s the early days of the French Revolution and that story needs all of Paris, not just what a stage in a theater can capture through staging. The poverty and oppression of the people contrasts better with the opulence of the rich upper class when it’s shown in the carriages and frippery of the wealthy traversing the streets of Paris, the rich elite who ignore the pleadings of the abject poor standing aside to let them pass. The tension between the rich and the poor, and the passion of the poor to revolt and gain their freedom, needs the grandeur of the city in which it occurs, a grandeur that the stage could not capture for me during a live performance.
The comedic relief steals the show in the characters of Sasha Bowen Cohen and Helen Bonheim Carter, who are wonderful as the King and Queen of the streets. Their appearances are garish, a mishmash of costume elements and farcical make-up that mock the upper classes without a word being spoken. They are witty, they are comical, they are tragic representations of what their lives lack, and when they are front and center of the performance, they provide the emotional moments of release that the story demands of its viewers before going another layer deeper into the heart of the drama.
The symphony that tells the story in musical performance is incredible: the score provides the background that keeps the story moving forward for well over two hours, but it takes center stage to underscore both the depth of the tragedy and the lightness of the comedic moments. Much has been made of the technique of having the actors sing their performances and then adding the musical score to match the performances – and it works beyond imagining. Rather than being a music-driven production, it’s an actor-driven performance, and it’s excellent.
The theaters in the CV have been packed with the "grey brigade" of seniors, but this is a film that could teach many lessons to high school students who lack depth in their own lives. Of course, viewing demands sitting still and focused for over two hours, no cell phones allowed, which could be a deal-breaker for a younger audience. I recommend Les Mis as a must-see in the theater at least once, but the kind of film experience that can be seen again to enhance the richness of the experience. Just as the stage experience left me wanting something more, viewing this production on a TV screen will not create the same "surround sound" emotionally encompassing experience.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
A Fly on the K Wall
Wouldn't it be fun to be a fly on the Kardashian wall during the holiday season? I can hear Kris lamenting that she just has to stick to her $100,000.00 gift budget "this year." However, once you've bought one daughter a pair of Loo-be-tons for $1500, I'm going to guess the budget is out of the window.
Wonder if any of them realize they probably spend more for Christmas gifts than most of us earn in a year or two... ?
Wonder if any of them realize they probably spend more for Christmas gifts than most of us earn in a year or two... ?
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Random Thoughts
It amazes me that hundreds of people can create a flashmob in hours, complete with choreography and costumes, while Congress cannot pass a bill in months/years of wranglin’ about the details.
It amuses me that so many people are willing to wear ugly Christmas sweaters, but spend hundreds of dollars to create the perfect outfits for parties and bar crawls by buying only the top labels in current fashion.
If people are willing to send donations every time a tragedy strikes to help out the people affected, why wouldn't they be willing to pay a bit more in taxes to pay for all the "social welfare" programs already on the government's books? Just think: people sent over 60,000 teddy bears to Newtown, CT.
If President Obama were really concerned about cliffs and falls, why not have a simple swearing-in ceremony instead of a full-blown repeat of his first inauguration? He’s already done this once, so twice is redundant, and not fiscally responsible. “Lead by example” is a motto everyone should contemplate, but especially the President of the United States of America, the economy of which is teetering on a fiscal cliff.
I wonder why my next-door neighbor calls on Christmas day to tell me that she’s cooking a big holiday dinner, asks me what I’m doing, then, after learning that I am home alone, doesn’t invite me to join her. She did, however, ask me if I made holiday cookies this year ... .
It amuses me that so many people are willing to wear ugly Christmas sweaters, but spend hundreds of dollars to create the perfect outfits for parties and bar crawls by buying only the top labels in current fashion.
If people are willing to send donations every time a tragedy strikes to help out the people affected, why wouldn't they be willing to pay a bit more in taxes to pay for all the "social welfare" programs already on the government's books? Just think: people sent over 60,000 teddy bears to Newtown, CT.
If President Obama were really concerned about cliffs and falls, why not have a simple swearing-in ceremony instead of a full-blown repeat of his first inauguration? He’s already done this once, so twice is redundant, and not fiscally responsible. “Lead by example” is a motto everyone should contemplate, but especially the President of the United States of America, the economy of which is teetering on a fiscal cliff.
I wonder why my next-door neighbor calls on Christmas day to tell me that she’s cooking a big holiday dinner, asks me what I’m doing, then, after learning that I am home alone, doesn’t invite me to join her. She did, however, ask me if I made holiday cookies this year ... .
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Inn the Holiday Mood
The Mission Inn in Riverside is spectacular any time of the year, but especially so at Christmas as every available surface is decorated and often lit with holiday lights. There are many shops that comprise the village atmosphere created both within and surrounding the Inn, which has become the heart of the city of Riverside. The historic Inn has seen both good times and bad, including almost a decade of non-use that precluded purchase by a new corporation, the Historic Mission Inn Corporation, which not only purchased the Inn, but renovated it beyond its original splendor.
This year, I invited both Yucheng and my dear friend, Nadine, to be my guests on a day trip to the Inn. We were all impressed with both the architecture and the historical aspects of the Inn, including original wood benches, artwork, and religious icons, as well as a museum feel to the locale. The Inn is decked out for Christmas, so there were decorations and lights from one end to the another, both inside and out, decorations that come to light with the Festival of the Lights, an evening event that draws thousands of visitors to the Inn. We, however, enjoyed a daytime visit, but still were able to enjoy the many different indoor displays.
We stopped just outside one entrance to the Inn to enjoy a cupcake from Casey’s Cupcakes, a recent winner on the TV show Cupcake Wars. All three of us enjoyed our cupcakes, but my loyal friends assured me that MY cupcakes are better. I will admit that the lemon cake I had was dry, but the buttercream icing was delicious. We also visited various shops in the mall outside the Inn, including one that featured the most unusual holiday tree I’ve seen – and loved! Nadine found the perfect holiday gift, a Santa on Skis, for her son who anticipates the annual holiday season solely for the skiing!
We enjoyed lunch at the American cuisine restaurant, which was filled to capacity the entire time we were at the Inn. The food was delicious, and sitting outside to enjoy lunch in late December was a real treat: beautiful weather and surrounded with Christmas decorations and music. Although Riverside may not be considered as a major tourist destination, the Mission Inn is certainly a must-stop while in the city, and most especially during the Christmas holidays.
This year, I invited both Yucheng and my dear friend, Nadine, to be my guests on a day trip to the Inn. We were all impressed with both the architecture and the historical aspects of the Inn, including original wood benches, artwork, and religious icons, as well as a museum feel to the locale. The Inn is decked out for Christmas, so there were decorations and lights from one end to the another, both inside and out, decorations that come to light with the Festival of the Lights, an evening event that draws thousands of visitors to the Inn. We, however, enjoyed a daytime visit, but still were able to enjoy the many different indoor displays.
We stopped just outside one entrance to the Inn to enjoy a cupcake from Casey’s Cupcakes, a recent winner on the TV show Cupcake Wars. All three of us enjoyed our cupcakes, but my loyal friends assured me that MY cupcakes are better. I will admit that the lemon cake I had was dry, but the buttercream icing was delicious. We also visited various shops in the mall outside the Inn, including one that featured the most unusual holiday tree I’ve seen – and loved! Nadine found the perfect holiday gift, a Santa on Skis, for her son who anticipates the annual holiday season solely for the skiing!
We enjoyed lunch at the American cuisine restaurant, which was filled to capacity the entire time we were at the Inn. The food was delicious, and sitting outside to enjoy lunch in late December was a real treat: beautiful weather and surrounded with Christmas decorations and music. Although Riverside may not be considered as a major tourist destination, the Mission Inn is certainly a must-stop while in the city, and most especially during the Christmas holidays.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Kindle Didn't Light My Fire
I stumbled across the HSN site while channel surfing, just in time to see the new Kindle Fire HD being offered at what I believe to be a reasonable price. I watched the on-air demo and decided that this might work for me as I read books on my Kindle, but have cataracts that are making reading at night more challenging than it used to be. I called and ordered the product, which arrived day before yesterday.
It's too much "stuff" for my simple needs, lots of features and fun I'll never use, so, alas, I repacked it and sent it back. I'll continue to use my simple Kindle and wait until the cataracts are removed in June and I have 20/20 vision for the first time in my life -- and they will even correct my acute astigmatism at the same time!
It's too much "stuff" for my simple needs, lots of features and fun I'll never use, so, alas, I repacked it and sent it back. I'll continue to use my simple Kindle and wait until the cataracts are removed in June and I have 20/20 vision for the first time in my life -- and they will even correct my acute astigmatism at the same time!
Frankly, I Don't Give a Damn
After receiving 3 separate phone calls requesting that I call in regards to my new US Airways credit card, I did so to find out that my account is "in arrears" and I needed to send payment immediately to avoid all sorts of dastardly repercussions. Just as there are always 3 sides to any coin (don't forget the edge, upon which a coin can balance), I called to hear US Airways side of this one.
Frankly, I'm not too hot for the idea of outsourcing customer services, but Frank was obviously sitting at a desk in India, based on my recollection of the call center featured in a recent movie, "Marigold Hotel." I had already been through the automated teller and knew that my payment due December 7 had not been received, and I was at the head of a long line of harassment if I didn't send it immediately.
However, what I knew that evidently the customer service call center employee did not know, is that I paid the bill on November 18 and it cleared my checking account on November 28. Thus, I was NOT in arrears and the phone calls could stop. Or not, if Frank is to be believed because until HE says the payment has been received and processed, it has NOT been received and processed.
It was frustrating to have him tell me to check with my bank to "find the error," and me tell him that I was online with my bank account in front of me and the check was cleared on November 28, which is according to my calendar, a full 10 days prior to the due date. Rather than slapping me with a $20 late fee and $2.40 accrued interest, he should be thanking me for being such a good customer. When it got to the point that I said to him, "You are accusing me of not telling the truth and are demanding that I get correct information from my bank, which I am telling you I am looking at on my online bank statement," it turned ugly.
When Frank told me that I was being "unreasonable and rude," I authorized him to (again) withdraw the money from my checking account IF he would take back both the $20 late fee and the $2.40 interest -- and I would not cancel the card effectively immediately.
Then I went to my banker, explained the issue, and she called the call center, eventually got a case number, then faxed a letter to US Airways directing them to reverse the additional payment and credit that amount back to me. See, she talked to David, who did a "Frank" on her, explaining that they have never received the alleged payment that cleared my checking account on November 28. My banker offered to FAX them the record of both sides of the check, including the "deposted into account" whatever on the back -- US Airways account. And FAX them she did because it seems that "the customer already made the payment" isn't in the script they use to handle customer issues. And my banker wasn't going to play the "unreasonable and rude" game with David. She wanted her bank's reputation restored as standing by its online banking services and that's what she received.
I don't know why the simplest things become so complicated, but if it involves outsourced services, I can almost guarantee that it'll be complicated regardless of the issue or services a customer calls about. I'll wait and see how long it takes to get my second payment back -- and then demand that they pay me a $20 fee and the accrued interest?
Nah, THAT would be "unreasonable and rude," wouldn't it?
Frankly, I'm not too hot for the idea of outsourcing customer services, but Frank was obviously sitting at a desk in India, based on my recollection of the call center featured in a recent movie, "Marigold Hotel." I had already been through the automated teller and knew that my payment due December 7 had not been received, and I was at the head of a long line of harassment if I didn't send it immediately.
However, what I knew that evidently the customer service call center employee did not know, is that I paid the bill on November 18 and it cleared my checking account on November 28. Thus, I was NOT in arrears and the phone calls could stop. Or not, if Frank is to be believed because until HE says the payment has been received and processed, it has NOT been received and processed.
It was frustrating to have him tell me to check with my bank to "find the error," and me tell him that I was online with my bank account in front of me and the check was cleared on November 28, which is according to my calendar, a full 10 days prior to the due date. Rather than slapping me with a $20 late fee and $2.40 accrued interest, he should be thanking me for being such a good customer. When it got to the point that I said to him, "You are accusing me of not telling the truth and are demanding that I get correct information from my bank, which I am telling you I am looking at on my online bank statement," it turned ugly.
When Frank told me that I was being "unreasonable and rude," I authorized him to (again) withdraw the money from my checking account IF he would take back both the $20 late fee and the $2.40 interest -- and I would not cancel the card effectively immediately.
Then I went to my banker, explained the issue, and she called the call center, eventually got a case number, then faxed a letter to US Airways directing them to reverse the additional payment and credit that amount back to me. See, she talked to David, who did a "Frank" on her, explaining that they have never received the alleged payment that cleared my checking account on November 28. My banker offered to FAX them the record of both sides of the check, including the "deposted into account" whatever on the back -- US Airways account. And FAX them she did because it seems that "the customer already made the payment" isn't in the script they use to handle customer issues. And my banker wasn't going to play the "unreasonable and rude" game with David. She wanted her bank's reputation restored as standing by its online banking services and that's what she received.
I don't know why the simplest things become so complicated, but if it involves outsourced services, I can almost guarantee that it'll be complicated regardless of the issue or services a customer calls about. I'll wait and see how long it takes to get my second payment back -- and then demand that they pay me a $20 fee and the accrued interest?
Nah, THAT would be "unreasonable and rude," wouldn't it?
Monday, December 17, 2012
Gun Control
Just a thought as the hue and cry gains momentum to take away the guns from American gun owners: the guns used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting were all purchased legally and registered to their legal owner, who was shot to death with one of her own weapons. The mother apparently knew that her son was "troubled," the parental euphemism for mentally unstable and/or socially outcast, but she kept the problems to herself. Perhaps she blamed the schools for behaviorial issues as she chose to remove the boy from the system and "homeschool" him instead, reinforcing the "troubles" that perhaps led him to commit the horrific crime that ended both his mother's life and his own, as well as the 26 other victims of his mental imbalance.
No one who owns a gun ever thinks that anyone will use the weapon to harm others, much less themselves, but sees the weapon as a tool to use when they are confronted by hostility and potentially lethally situations.
We need better insight into the people who contact our lives and not be afraid to say out loud that so-and-so is potentially a lethal weapon in and of him/herself. We see the signs, but we are prohibited by right to privacy laws from saying anything. The finger is always pointed at the person who stands up and states aloud what others may be thinking: this person is "troubled" and potentially violent. Police cannot "profile" possible criminals without subjecting themselves to harassment and civil rights violation charges; teachers have to tread lightly when discussing the real classroom behaviors of students in their care because the child the parent sends to school is often not the same child the teacher greets each morning; bosses have to avoid discrimination lawsuits by watching every single word they utter that someone/anyone may take offense to; neighbors have to mind their own business.
We have gun control; what we lack are the channels for controlling the people who use guns to commit crimes.
No one who owns a gun ever thinks that anyone will use the weapon to harm others, much less themselves, but sees the weapon as a tool to use when they are confronted by hostility and potentially lethally situations.
We need better insight into the people who contact our lives and not be afraid to say out loud that so-and-so is potentially a lethal weapon in and of him/herself. We see the signs, but we are prohibited by right to privacy laws from saying anything. The finger is always pointed at the person who stands up and states aloud what others may be thinking: this person is "troubled" and potentially violent. Police cannot "profile" possible criminals without subjecting themselves to harassment and civil rights violation charges; teachers have to tread lightly when discussing the real classroom behaviors of students in their care because the child the parent sends to school is often not the same child the teacher greets each morning; bosses have to avoid discrimination lawsuits by watching every single word they utter that someone/anyone may take offense to; neighbors have to mind their own business.
We have gun control; what we lack are the channels for controlling the people who use guns to commit crimes.
The 27th Soul
Last evening's multi-denominational prayer vigil in Newtown, CT was both appropriate and emotionally moving. It was nice to hear prayers, rather than platitudes. We all know that this tragedy will take a long time to assimilate, and many people will never "get over it" no matter how hard they try to do just that. We all do what we all have to do, and that's get out of bed, put our feet on the floor, and start moving through one more day at a time. Someday, we'll be able to accept that we cannot change what happened, but we have to continue to live with it for as long as we live.
However, the constant reference to the "26 souls" lost in the massacre leaves me wondering about the 27th soul, the mother whose son shot her to death as she lay in her bed on that terrible day. Is ignoring her death deliberate? Is she somehow less worthy of mourning than the other 26 who died at the killer's hand? Her family, her surviving son, her friends mourn her death, so why is she publicly being excluded from mourning as one of the victims of her son's tragic actions?
Let's offer a prayer for the 27th soul, the first victim of the "school shooting" at Newtown, CT.
However, the constant reference to the "26 souls" lost in the massacre leaves me wondering about the 27th soul, the mother whose son shot her to death as she lay in her bed on that terrible day. Is ignoring her death deliberate? Is she somehow less worthy of mourning than the other 26 who died at the killer's hand? Her family, her surviving son, her friends mourn her death, so why is she publicly being excluded from mourning as one of the victims of her son's tragic actions?
Let's offer a prayer for the 27th soul, the first victim of the "school shooting" at Newtown, CT.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Google It
The dogs and I watch the opening dialog on "Live with Kelly and Michael," which is followed by a trivia question that results in a prize. Today's opening was good, including the reaction to contact lenses that can receive text messages, so I stayed for the travel trivia question: Who wrote Anna Karenina?
The guest's keyboard could be heard over the phone speaker, as she Googled it and took the first entry on the list, which was so totally wrong that it could be a punchline! Marilyn Edmonds.
She must have typed the title incorrectly as I Googled and came up with Leo Tolstoy, which is the correct response, and never saw "Marilyn Edmonds" as a choice.
There are sometimes reasons not to depend on Google, people.
The guest's keyboard could be heard over the phone speaker, as she Googled it and took the first entry on the list, which was so totally wrong that it could be a punchline! Marilyn Edmonds.
She must have typed the title incorrectly as I Googled and came up with Leo Tolstoy, which is the correct response, and never saw "Marilyn Edmonds" as a choice.
There are sometimes reasons not to depend on Google, people.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
It's Shorthand for Life
It’s a form of shorthand for remembering key ideas, and some well-known acronyms are commonplace in our language, such as SNAFU (Situation Normal/ All F---ed Up), SCUBA gear (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus), 24/7/365 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year). We have LALL (Living And Loving Life), as well as CAVU (Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited). In this same vein, we have become accustomed to using key words to capture our life: Eat, Pray, Love; Live, Laugh, Love. Sometimes, it's just easier to use the key words/phrases than it is to process the question and then respond in a meaningful manner.
Lots of people use the word “fine” to respond when asked, “How are you?”, but the folks at Betty Ford say that’s an acronym for “Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Escalating,” an interesting twist of shorthand. According to The Italian Job, “fine” means “Freaked Out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.” Sometimes, fine is just a shorthand way of saying, “I don’t want to talk about it,” or “My life is so fucked up right now that I don’t think I can talk about it.”
I was impressed with the brief comments made by the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, a football team trying to get a handle on two deaths attributed to one of their players, his own suicide and the homicide of his live-in girlfriend, who was also his 3-month-old child’s mother. According to news reports, they had been dealing for many months with the stress of the professional football career demands, as well as personal relationship issues and financial matters. It all came to a head last Saturday with the two violent deaths, to which the quarterback responded in a press conference that we don’t really communicate with the people in our lives. We tweet what other people want to believe and we say the words that others want to hear, but we seldom, if ever, put down our electronic “social media” connections and really connect with people, both to talk with and listen to the people in our lives.
When we ask, “how ya doin?” and they respond “fine,” we both move on. What more is there to say?
I’m seeing a psychotherapist because my past caught up to my present and the resulting collision was unnerving. I am bi-polar, which is a chemical imbalance within my body, so sometimes I’m up (way, way up) and other times I’m down (way, way down), while other times I’m “fine.” I grew up in a family that didn’t talk about that, no matter what the “that” was, and we didn’t do that, again no matter what the “that” was. I learned to keep my own issues to myself, but because of my body chemistry, that was the worst thing I could do – and things found their own way out no matter how much I tried to keep them inside. Seldom was I “fine,” meaning okay, but more often I was “Freaked Out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Escalating.” I became fairly good at masking my behaviors, but everyone has to remove the mask sooner or later, ready or not.
Today, I had my weekly visit with Jennifer, who is a good therapist for me. I asked her if she was more “eat, pray, love” or “live laugh love,” and she chose the latter as being more positive, more out there, which is what I thought she’d say. She agreed with my choice, “eat, pray, love,” based on the several months we’ve been getting to know one another. I do pray, but not fervently or endlessly, and I prayed yesterday while I was driving to San Diego to see an elderly friend of mine. I just wanted our time together to be good because my friend has steadily deteriorated during the last several months. I spoke with her Sunday morning and enjoyed her upbeat, positive reaction to the fact that I was coming down. Of course, she had a list of things we were going to do.
When I arrived, my worst fear was realized: she had another “mini-stroke” Sunday and this time, it was openly obvious with the blank facial affect, the constant drooling, and her inability to process conversation and respond to it. Although I doubted the wisdom of our going out and about, she insisted, so that’s what we did. It was “fine,” but filled with the stress of knowing her physical condition was not stabilized nor steady from one minute to the next. She would begin to speak, then stop and drift off somewhere other than in the present. I returned her to her residence, tucked her in for a nap, gave her a hug and told her I love her, then drove back home knowing that was probably our last visit.
She’s supposed to be leaving today for holiday time with her daughter and son-in-law, but I doubt she can make that trip. If she does get to Colorado, I doubt she’ll return to California once her family sees the deterioration. They will want her closer to them so they can share what time is left.
The holidays are a difficult time for me in a good year, and I will do my best to enjoy this joyful season this year, too. I do love the food of celebration and I love cooking it as much as I enjoy eating it, so that will take my mind off the negatives. It’s challenging to believe that the year 2013 is so few days away, and my goal for the new year is to do at least one “something” that I enjoy, want to do, and can afford each month. This includes both a visit to Oregon and another visit to Canada, as well as shorter visits to friends who live in Nevada and Wyoming. If retirement is about travel, I’m about to travel!
To be continued … maybe
Lots of people use the word “fine” to respond when asked, “How are you?”, but the folks at Betty Ford say that’s an acronym for “Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Escalating,” an interesting twist of shorthand. According to The Italian Job, “fine” means “Freaked Out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.” Sometimes, fine is just a shorthand way of saying, “I don’t want to talk about it,” or “My life is so fucked up right now that I don’t think I can talk about it.”
I was impressed with the brief comments made by the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, a football team trying to get a handle on two deaths attributed to one of their players, his own suicide and the homicide of his live-in girlfriend, who was also his 3-month-old child’s mother. According to news reports, they had been dealing for many months with the stress of the professional football career demands, as well as personal relationship issues and financial matters. It all came to a head last Saturday with the two violent deaths, to which the quarterback responded in a press conference that we don’t really communicate with the people in our lives. We tweet what other people want to believe and we say the words that others want to hear, but we seldom, if ever, put down our electronic “social media” connections and really connect with people, both to talk with and listen to the people in our lives.
When we ask, “how ya doin?” and they respond “fine,” we both move on. What more is there to say?
I’m seeing a psychotherapist because my past caught up to my present and the resulting collision was unnerving. I am bi-polar, which is a chemical imbalance within my body, so sometimes I’m up (way, way up) and other times I’m down (way, way down), while other times I’m “fine.” I grew up in a family that didn’t talk about that, no matter what the “that” was, and we didn’t do that, again no matter what the “that” was. I learned to keep my own issues to myself, but because of my body chemistry, that was the worst thing I could do – and things found their own way out no matter how much I tried to keep them inside. Seldom was I “fine,” meaning okay, but more often I was “Freaked Out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Escalating.” I became fairly good at masking my behaviors, but everyone has to remove the mask sooner or later, ready or not.
Today, I had my weekly visit with Jennifer, who is a good therapist for me. I asked her if she was more “eat, pray, love” or “live laugh love,” and she chose the latter as being more positive, more out there, which is what I thought she’d say. She agreed with my choice, “eat, pray, love,” based on the several months we’ve been getting to know one another. I do pray, but not fervently or endlessly, and I prayed yesterday while I was driving to San Diego to see an elderly friend of mine. I just wanted our time together to be good because my friend has steadily deteriorated during the last several months. I spoke with her Sunday morning and enjoyed her upbeat, positive reaction to the fact that I was coming down. Of course, she had a list of things we were going to do.
When I arrived, my worst fear was realized: she had another “mini-stroke” Sunday and this time, it was openly obvious with the blank facial affect, the constant drooling, and her inability to process conversation and respond to it. Although I doubted the wisdom of our going out and about, she insisted, so that’s what we did. It was “fine,” but filled with the stress of knowing her physical condition was not stabilized nor steady from one minute to the next. She would begin to speak, then stop and drift off somewhere other than in the present. I returned her to her residence, tucked her in for a nap, gave her a hug and told her I love her, then drove back home knowing that was probably our last visit.
She’s supposed to be leaving today for holiday time with her daughter and son-in-law, but I doubt she can make that trip. If she does get to Colorado, I doubt she’ll return to California once her family sees the deterioration. They will want her closer to them so they can share what time is left.
The holidays are a difficult time for me in a good year, and I will do my best to enjoy this joyful season this year, too. I do love the food of celebration and I love cooking it as much as I enjoy eating it, so that will take my mind off the negatives. It’s challenging to believe that the year 2013 is so few days away, and my goal for the new year is to do at least one “something” that I enjoy, want to do, and can afford each month. This includes both a visit to Oregon and another visit to Canada, as well as shorter visits to friends who live in Nevada and Wyoming. If retirement is about travel, I’m about to travel!
To be continued … maybe
Thursday, November 29, 2012
A Good Get
What is with TV station employees’ language skills? I cannot count the number of times this past week that a newsreader has used the phrase “as of yet” in the course of reading a news story. We know that “as of yet,” the name of the victim has not been released, when the road will reopen, or when the results of the election will be finalized. I'm not sure why this phrase has become so popular, but it seems to be accepted as Standard English because, I am assured, the language that people use is dynamic and I must be open to the fluidity of changes that originate with the people who use it.
Hence, I’ve given up the battle that requires people to send and invitees to receive an “invitation,” rather than an "invite." I’d dearly love to hear one person ask another, “Have you received your invitation?” rather than "Did you get an invite?"
The pesky fluidity of language simply assures me that the speaker (and, perhaps, the other conversant) has no idea that one, invitation, is a noun, and the other, invite, is a verb because it really don't matter to most speakers. And, of course, I know the answer to both questions is the same: “Not as of yet.”
Hence, I’ve given up the battle that requires people to send and invitees to receive an “invitation,” rather than an "invite." I’d dearly love to hear one person ask another, “Have you received your invitation?” rather than "Did you get an invite?"
The pesky fluidity of language simply assures me that the speaker (and, perhaps, the other conversant) has no idea that one, invitation, is a noun, and the other, invite, is a verb because it really don't matter to most speakers. And, of course, I know the answer to both questions is the same: “Not as of yet.”
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Lincoln
Daniel Day Lewis becomes President Lincoln, and Sally Fields is his beloved wife, Molly, in one of the best movies I’ve watched in 2012 – and there have been some fine films this year.
The actors absorb the audience into the story, making the audience participants in a bloody civil war the likes of which nearly tore the country apart permanently. Daniel Day Lew is low-key as Lincoln, allowing the scenes to unfold, especially when telling one of his endless repertoire of homey folk tales that help underscore a point. Many other actors would have oversold the story, losing the point of it in the telling, but Lewis lets the story speak to the issue at hand. Fields captures perfectly a flawed woman, one whose personal demons create a barrier between her and husband and children, as well as the attendees at White House functions. She, and Lincoln, have suffered grievous personal loss, but Lincoln is more able to accept the past, live in the present, and keep moving toward the future. It is amazing to see Lewis’s character age and become a victim of his time and circumstance during the course of the two-hour film.
What is interesting to me is that the audience was solely comprised of grey-haired seniors, the demographic that will understand the content of the film because we were taught the background important to the film. I clearly remember not just memorizing math “times tables,” but also great speeches throughout the course of America’s history, including the Gettysburg Address and the preamble to the Constitution. This film brings the history to life, but if the audience doesn’t already have a nodding acquaintance with that history, much of the content of the dialog, as well as the historical settings, will be lost.
This film develops the story visually, showing the gritty reality of a bloody civil war and saving the words for direct interaction between characters. The epic debate in Congress is raw, gritty, passionate, nothing like the carefully engineered press conferences that pass for political convictions these days. How much better it would be to allow politicians to “fight it out” on the floor of the Congress, rather than talking it to death on the couches of the late night entertainment shows. The scenes of the fighting underscore the urgency of Lincoln’s need to pass his important Amendment, to assure that all of the Negroes who fought and died for this country did not do so in vain. With the conviction of his belief, Lincoln goes to the people who can effect change and challenges them to do so with passionate conviction and persuasive rhetoric.
All in all, I like this movie; I really like this movie. Both Daniel Day Lewis and Sally Field should be nominated for Academy consideration, as well as the finished film. If we could teach American history, or speech and debate, with fine films such as Lincoln, our younger generation would understand the legacy of those who have come before them in a country that is committed to its principles and willing to fight to the death to defend them from enemies both domestic and foreign.
The actors absorb the audience into the story, making the audience participants in a bloody civil war the likes of which nearly tore the country apart permanently. Daniel Day Lew is low-key as Lincoln, allowing the scenes to unfold, especially when telling one of his endless repertoire of homey folk tales that help underscore a point. Many other actors would have oversold the story, losing the point of it in the telling, but Lewis lets the story speak to the issue at hand. Fields captures perfectly a flawed woman, one whose personal demons create a barrier between her and husband and children, as well as the attendees at White House functions. She, and Lincoln, have suffered grievous personal loss, but Lincoln is more able to accept the past, live in the present, and keep moving toward the future. It is amazing to see Lewis’s character age and become a victim of his time and circumstance during the course of the two-hour film.
What is interesting to me is that the audience was solely comprised of grey-haired seniors, the demographic that will understand the content of the film because we were taught the background important to the film. I clearly remember not just memorizing math “times tables,” but also great speeches throughout the course of America’s history, including the Gettysburg Address and the preamble to the Constitution. This film brings the history to life, but if the audience doesn’t already have a nodding acquaintance with that history, much of the content of the dialog, as well as the historical settings, will be lost.
This film develops the story visually, showing the gritty reality of a bloody civil war and saving the words for direct interaction between characters. The epic debate in Congress is raw, gritty, passionate, nothing like the carefully engineered press conferences that pass for political convictions these days. How much better it would be to allow politicians to “fight it out” on the floor of the Congress, rather than talking it to death on the couches of the late night entertainment shows. The scenes of the fighting underscore the urgency of Lincoln’s need to pass his important Amendment, to assure that all of the Negroes who fought and died for this country did not do so in vain. With the conviction of his belief, Lincoln goes to the people who can effect change and challenges them to do so with passionate conviction and persuasive rhetoric.
All in all, I like this movie; I really like this movie. Both Daniel Day Lewis and Sally Field should be nominated for Academy consideration, as well as the finished film. If we could teach American history, or speech and debate, with fine films such as Lincoln, our younger generation would understand the legacy of those who have come before them in a country that is committed to its principles and willing to fight to the death to defend them from enemies both domestic and foreign.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Duh!!
The headline asks, "Why do men like Petraeus cheat?", perhaps in an effort to entice readers to the story. The cheapest, fastest answer is "because men have a penis."
Second place goes to a photo array accompanying the story that shows the slightly overweight, much older wife of 37 years next to the much younger, much prettier, probably more sexually active and exciting, biographer.
May not be fair, but much of life isn't fair; however, the publicized efforts to go back in time to active duty military service to determine if somehow the General can be penalized retroactively is ridiculous. Obviously, no one knew if he was involved outside his marriage when he was on active duty, but everyone knew that General Eisenhower was banging a woman to whom he was not married during WWII, and he became President, with his wife standing by her man as his First Lady.
Accept Petraeus' apology for his bad judgment and for resigning his current position. Enough said and done in a far too public trial of what is at its heart a private matter between husband and wife.
Second place goes to a photo array accompanying the story that shows the slightly overweight, much older wife of 37 years next to the much younger, much prettier, probably more sexually active and exciting, biographer.
May not be fair, but much of life isn't fair; however, the publicized efforts to go back in time to active duty military service to determine if somehow the General can be penalized retroactively is ridiculous. Obviously, no one knew if he was involved outside his marriage when he was on active duty, but everyone knew that General Eisenhower was banging a woman to whom he was not married during WWII, and he became President, with his wife standing by her man as his First Lady.
Accept Petraeus' apology for his bad judgment and for resigning his current position. Enough said and done in a far too public trial of what is at its heart a private matter between husband and wife.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Flight Plan
Imagine that you are sitting in a film production meeting, having recently read a great script for a movie about an airline crash. Your mind imagines the actors, sees the scenes of the film unfold, and then comes a moment of inspiration: let’s spend the first 20 minutes on the plane crash (the hook), and the rest of the film can explore the issue of the captain’s alcoholism. The end result is a dynamic opening scenario that captures the audience’s attention, but a really long, sometimes tedious, last 90 minutes.
Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed the movie, but there are holes that should have been anticipated to enhance the cohesion of the storyline, as well as the development of the characters. Denzel Washington is outstanding as the captain who saves the lives of the souls on board, but he’s even better as an alcoholic who uses cocaine to “come down” from the booze so he can fly the plane. Everyone knows he’s an alcoholic, but no one confronts him – no matter how many planes filled with however many souls he is called to captain, which I find hard to believe. If a flight crew member smells alcohol reeking off the captain assigned to fly the plane, s/he would say something as the risk is too great for disaster to follow. No one would continue to turn a deaf ear and/or a blind eye and risk their own life, much less the lives of all the passengers and other crew, to fly in a metal canister 32,000 feet in the sky with a drunk behind the wheel.
Sure, this captain flies better drunk that some pilots may fly sober, but sooner or later, the drunk behind the wheel of the car crashes, often surviving an accident that kills the people in the car s/he hits, and the same is true for the pilot of a plane – and the crew and passengers who go down with it.
There is a line in the film that should have come earlier: Don’t tell me how to lie to cover up my alcoholism; I already know how to do that. The line could have been a great set-up prior to the actual plane crash, and if it were inserted at the opening of the film in a scene that set the scene for what would follow after the plane crash, events that form the last hour of the film would have been more cohesive. The ending feels as if the filmmakers spent their budget on the opening, then had to figure out how to finish the film on the cheap. A tack-on, if you will.
Am I glad I saw the film? Yes, but … you know, “the but it could have been better” we sometimes tack onto the end of a review, which means I liked it once, but I would not see it again.
Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed the movie, but there are holes that should have been anticipated to enhance the cohesion of the storyline, as well as the development of the characters. Denzel Washington is outstanding as the captain who saves the lives of the souls on board, but he’s even better as an alcoholic who uses cocaine to “come down” from the booze so he can fly the plane. Everyone knows he’s an alcoholic, but no one confronts him – no matter how many planes filled with however many souls he is called to captain, which I find hard to believe. If a flight crew member smells alcohol reeking off the captain assigned to fly the plane, s/he would say something as the risk is too great for disaster to follow. No one would continue to turn a deaf ear and/or a blind eye and risk their own life, much less the lives of all the passengers and other crew, to fly in a metal canister 32,000 feet in the sky with a drunk behind the wheel.
Sure, this captain flies better drunk that some pilots may fly sober, but sooner or later, the drunk behind the wheel of the car crashes, often surviving an accident that kills the people in the car s/he hits, and the same is true for the pilot of a plane – and the crew and passengers who go down with it.
There is a line in the film that should have come earlier: Don’t tell me how to lie to cover up my alcoholism; I already know how to do that. The line could have been a great set-up prior to the actual plane crash, and if it were inserted at the opening of the film in a scene that set the scene for what would follow after the plane crash, events that form the last hour of the film would have been more cohesive. The ending feels as if the filmmakers spent their budget on the opening, then had to figure out how to finish the film on the cheap. A tack-on, if you will.
Am I glad I saw the film? Yes, but … you know, “the but it could have been better” we sometimes tack onto the end of a review, which means I liked it once, but I would not see it again.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
James Patterson, Author
Patterson used to be a better writer, with tighter plots, less wandering and unnecessary verbiage, and an action-driven writing style that kept me hanging from beginning to end. When Patterson began partnering with co-writers, the books became longer, less focused, more rambling, and with absolutely no punch at the end, just sheer relief when the book finally ended. After Andrew Gross’s partnership with Patterson, I stopped buying Patterson’s publications because they were, in a word, boring, and read like a college creative writing class’s collaborative final exam effort hodge-podged together just to get a good grade for using all of the elements of fiction in one poorly-conceived and executed story. [I do, however, continue to purchase Gross’s novels as they are reminiscent of Patterson at his best and, in my opinion, are better.]
A picture is worth a thousand words, and best writing practices show, don’t tell; somewhere in the writing process of his past Patterson forgot that basic guideline, but NYPD Red is old-style Patterson at its best. His characters are well-crafted and allow the reader to develop them based on actions and dialog, rather than the author telling the reader the way the character is supposed to be through extensive, meaningless verbiage. If the readers aren't savvy enough to develop the storyline internally, they aren’t real readers, but page turners who should wait for the movie version.
NYPD Red is a good read that kept me engaged and charging my Kindle battery. After reading the tease for the new Alex Cross novel, I’m going to order that next as it has the same “sound” as Red: action-packed, tight characterization that shows, rather than tells, what’s important for the story.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and best writing practices show, don’t tell; somewhere in the writing process of his past Patterson forgot that basic guideline, but NYPD Red is old-style Patterson at its best. His characters are well-crafted and allow the reader to develop them based on actions and dialog, rather than the author telling the reader the way the character is supposed to be through extensive, meaningless verbiage. If the readers aren't savvy enough to develop the storyline internally, they aren’t real readers, but page turners who should wait for the movie version.
NYPD Red is a good read that kept me engaged and charging my Kindle battery. After reading the tease for the new Alex Cross novel, I’m going to order that next as it has the same “sound” as Red: action-packed, tight characterization that shows, rather than tells, what’s important for the story.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Circling the Drain
When my old sink stoppers became grody, I decided it was time to modernize with newer, better, redesigned stoppers for a mere $1.99 each. The first set were mesh baskets, which seemed while shopping to be a good idea; however, there was no “plug” mechanism included with the basket and the mesh rusted within the first week of use. Money down the drain, so to speak.
Next came a set of sink stoppers that would not allow the water to drain from the sink unless the stopper was removed, retailing at $3.49 apiece. The purpose of the sink stopper basket is to catch the fall-off from the dinner dishes so it can be sent to the trash bin, not allowed to go down the drain with the water. No, I don’t have an in-sink eradicator and, if I had my way, the auto dishwasher would also be gone from my kitchen. This set of stoppers had just one setting: plug the sink. I went in quest of a sink stopper that both plugged the sink drain and also allowed the water to drain without removing the stopper basket.
The third set of stoppers were chrome plated, but more substantial than set #2, and I made sure there were options for stopping and draining before I bought these pricey pieces of drain equipment at $5.49 each. Yep, they stop up the sink, but only allow a trickle of water to actually drain without some manual interference in the process. Thus, the sink fills up with water as I use it to rinse dishes, rather than allowing the water to drain continually. There is not enough clearance between the basket, the stopper and the drain for dual stopper action during use, which seems weird, but that’s the way it is.
How hard is it to make a drain stopper that works? I wish I had kept the old, grody sink stoppers because they not only plugged the sink for the big dish jobs, but they allowed the water to drain from the sink when I was finished cleaning dishes. I am an unhappy kitchen kamper who wishes she could find stoppers that plug the sink and allow it to drain without removing the stopper!~!
Next came a set of sink stoppers that would not allow the water to drain from the sink unless the stopper was removed, retailing at $3.49 apiece. The purpose of the sink stopper basket is to catch the fall-off from the dinner dishes so it can be sent to the trash bin, not allowed to go down the drain with the water. No, I don’t have an in-sink eradicator and, if I had my way, the auto dishwasher would also be gone from my kitchen. This set of stoppers had just one setting: plug the sink. I went in quest of a sink stopper that both plugged the sink drain and also allowed the water to drain without removing the stopper basket.
The third set of stoppers were chrome plated, but more substantial than set #2, and I made sure there were options for stopping and draining before I bought these pricey pieces of drain equipment at $5.49 each. Yep, they stop up the sink, but only allow a trickle of water to actually drain without some manual interference in the process. Thus, the sink fills up with water as I use it to rinse dishes, rather than allowing the water to drain continually. There is not enough clearance between the basket, the stopper and the drain for dual stopper action during use, which seems weird, but that’s the way it is.
How hard is it to make a drain stopper that works? I wish I had kept the old, grody sink stoppers because they not only plugged the sink for the big dish jobs, but they allowed the water to drain from the sink when I was finished cleaning dishes. I am an unhappy kitchen kamper who wishes she could find stoppers that plug the sink and allow it to drain without removing the stopper!~!
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
A Quick Aside
I don't watch either O'Reilly or Hannity because both men have a general tendency to be Johnny One Note, harping on their side of any issue and obliterating anyone with a different opinion. However, I've watched network news and been concerned about the overwhelmingly positive media coverage of President Obama's lavish campaigning activities, from posh Hollywood parties to the ladies of The View and onto the couches of the late night's biggest names. Never has any serving President enjoyed such overt media fawning as the current President, who uses the media as his own personal PR office.
I decided this evening to see what's up with the radicals, and I must say that I'm impressed with the stories I haven't seen/heard anywhere else, including the attack on the embassy at Benghazi and who knew what, when, and why. Basically, the key American government players were in the White House SitRoom, watching in real time the attacks on American citizens at the embassy in Benghazi, and emails sent within the first two hours of the attacks made it clear that this was a planned terrorist attack and included a call for help that was never sent to them. There were those who escaped to other parts of the embassy compound and continued to fight for their lives while awaiting the help they called for, but which never came. This includes two Navy Seals who lost their lives seven hours after the initial attack, a very big window of opportunity for fellow Seals to arrive and effect escape.
Anyone who wants to know what it is like to be afraid for one's life as an American citizen in a foreign country should see Argo, a deja vu flash-forward from 1979 and a similar incident to what happened this month at the American Embassy in Benghazi. Had not one man, an "ex-fil" specialist played by Ben Afflect, been committed to saving those American lives, they, too, would have died in service to their country. The film is very well done and more than timely in its message.
I also listened more carefully to DL Hughley, a comedian and guest of Bill O'Reilly, who took great pains to clarify racism for me and other viewers. If a white candidate indicates that the President of the United States may not be telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that is dispicable and racist -- the white man calling out the black man. However, if the first African American President of the United States repeatedly tells his white opponent that he is not telling the truth and is, in fact, a liar, that's just good politics reflective of the office the A-A opponent holds. Language is no longer universal, but bound in meaning and intent by the color of the skin of the user?
My mind was thinking about geese, gander, and sauces in this land of the free, home of the brave.
I decided this evening to see what's up with the radicals, and I must say that I'm impressed with the stories I haven't seen/heard anywhere else, including the attack on the embassy at Benghazi and who knew what, when, and why. Basically, the key American government players were in the White House SitRoom, watching in real time the attacks on American citizens at the embassy in Benghazi, and emails sent within the first two hours of the attacks made it clear that this was a planned terrorist attack and included a call for help that was never sent to them. There were those who escaped to other parts of the embassy compound and continued to fight for their lives while awaiting the help they called for, but which never came. This includes two Navy Seals who lost their lives seven hours after the initial attack, a very big window of opportunity for fellow Seals to arrive and effect escape.
Anyone who wants to know what it is like to be afraid for one's life as an American citizen in a foreign country should see Argo, a deja vu flash-forward from 1979 and a similar incident to what happened this month at the American Embassy in Benghazi. Had not one man, an "ex-fil" specialist played by Ben Afflect, been committed to saving those American lives, they, too, would have died in service to their country. The film is very well done and more than timely in its message.
I also listened more carefully to DL Hughley, a comedian and guest of Bill O'Reilly, who took great pains to clarify racism for me and other viewers. If a white candidate indicates that the President of the United States may not be telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that is dispicable and racist -- the white man calling out the black man. However, if the first African American President of the United States repeatedly tells his white opponent that he is not telling the truth and is, in fact, a liar, that's just good politics reflective of the office the A-A opponent holds. Language is no longer universal, but bound in meaning and intent by the color of the skin of the user?
My mind was thinking about geese, gander, and sauces in this land of the free, home of the brave.
The Highlight Reel
It’s been a while since I’ve felt like writing as it seemed that everything I began sounded negative and not worth posting. However, a highlight reel of thoughts can ketchup on my life.
First, I cannot watch President Obama when anyone challenges his credibility because the smirky, arrogant, patronizing look on his face disrespects the person questioning him. He does the face at press conferences and incorporated the look during the campaign, but totally perfected it for the debates. A person does not “win” a debate by being derisive of the opponent; s/he wins it on the depth of the discussion. He has depth of knowledge that could be communicated forcefully and with a thoughtful face, but each time he commented, he did the smirky smug face, which, for me, eradicated any points toward the win column. Additionally, Obama has made public appearances on talk shows his primary campaign strategy, funded by gala Hollywood events that go for $25k a plate and are often hosted by prominent members of the gay community; hence, Obama’s reversal of his stance on same-sex marriage two weeks before Ryan Murphy’s (Glee) first pricey dinner party in his honor. I resent the hell out of the President using Air Force One as his personal cross-country taxi as he flies from one star-studded fundraising event and “late night” media event to another, all the while telling we, the people, that we have serious issues that need a serious commander-in-chief.
Frankly, the only person I find more offensive than President Obama is Whoopie Goldberg, whose racist rants and racial slurs against white people are inexcusable. I don’t know when “her people” came to this country, nor do I know where/when they were slaves, but I do know that my maternal grandparents came to this country at the turn of the last century with little more than their own determination to become Americans, to learn the language, to bear children who would speak English and be enriched through education and work experience and enjoy a better life than they would have had in their homelands. They were frugal, hardworking people who raised 3 children, 2 of whom served during World War II. My mother gave birth to 6 children, all of whom knew that priority #1 was a good education that would ensure a better life for them and their children. I never heard my parents threaten anyone to “look out” for the person occupying the White House as Goldberg did in 2008, when she dared “you white people” to “look out” because now there was a black man in the White House.
Next, the airlines have it wrong: mandate that all passenger luggage must be checked and transported in the cargo hold designed for that purpose, with the cost of that transport part of the price of the ticket, not a penalty fee. If there are passengers who absolutely must bring the contents of an over-sized backpack, a bulging roller board, and a temporary office in their briefcase, charge THEM to bring it on-board, creating traffic jams in the narrow passenger aisles as they cram all of that “luggage” into small, overhead bins. I am amazed at the volume of luggage passengers are allowed to bring onboard, and sometimes amused at what it takes to cram all those belongings into small bins designed for small items. I venture to guess that during an accident, such as a sudden downdraft that can pop the overhead bins open, more passengers are injured by the bulky, heavy passenger luggage stowed in the overhead bins than any other cause. Thus, if the airline personnel are not willing to monitor what’s being brought onboard and limit the size, as well as the weight of the items, they should require ALL luggage be checked.
Additionally, I am offended by the total sexualization of the media, such as the overt sexuality of the performances, as well as the costumes, on shows such as Dancing with the Stars, The Voice, X Factor, and Idol. These are all “talent” shows based on the participants’ ability to perform a skill with expertise that wins him/her the talent contest. Instead, we see Christina’s breasts barely covered by a series of garments designed to show off her private parts, especially when she r-e-a-l-l-y leans into the camera angle. Gilles Marini apparently won top votes not for his expertise as a dancer, but because his overtly sexual dance revved up Carrie Anne’s “babymaker,” causing her literally to fall off her chair in excitement. Contestants come to the preliminary rounds as “real” people, but compete in the performance rounds in stylized costumes that don’t reflect who they are and what they sing, but create a look that appeals sexually to audience members. On one of the make-over events on one of the daytime shows, a woman in a knee-length dress was accused of looking “old,” and the hostess suggested that she needs to “turn her sexy up” by wearing tighter, shorter, and more revealing outfits.
I cringe to think of the generations who are being raised with this mindset, both the young girls who have to meet this “sex” standard and the young males who are being urged into sexual relationships based on appearance, rather than on the content of a person’s character.
Finally, I am so glad that I have my new puppy, who is such a little love. She responds to her name, plays doggie toys with both me and the other dogs, and our potty training is going well. She has discovered her bark and joins the other dogs when they go to the fence to challenge anyone who comes onto their street. We did have a scare last week, when Cinnamon had her second in the series of puppy shots and reacted poorly to it, her eyes swelling shut and her tummy turning bright cherry red. We took her to the vet immediately, where she was given an injection of Benadryl, as well as an injection of steroids. No harm done, and she really slept well that night!
First, I cannot watch President Obama when anyone challenges his credibility because the smirky, arrogant, patronizing look on his face disrespects the person questioning him. He does the face at press conferences and incorporated the look during the campaign, but totally perfected it for the debates. A person does not “win” a debate by being derisive of the opponent; s/he wins it on the depth of the discussion. He has depth of knowledge that could be communicated forcefully and with a thoughtful face, but each time he commented, he did the smirky smug face, which, for me, eradicated any points toward the win column. Additionally, Obama has made public appearances on talk shows his primary campaign strategy, funded by gala Hollywood events that go for $25k a plate and are often hosted by prominent members of the gay community; hence, Obama’s reversal of his stance on same-sex marriage two weeks before Ryan Murphy’s (Glee) first pricey dinner party in his honor. I resent the hell out of the President using Air Force One as his personal cross-country taxi as he flies from one star-studded fundraising event and “late night” media event to another, all the while telling we, the people, that we have serious issues that need a serious commander-in-chief.
Frankly, the only person I find more offensive than President Obama is Whoopie Goldberg, whose racist rants and racial slurs against white people are inexcusable. I don’t know when “her people” came to this country, nor do I know where/when they were slaves, but I do know that my maternal grandparents came to this country at the turn of the last century with little more than their own determination to become Americans, to learn the language, to bear children who would speak English and be enriched through education and work experience and enjoy a better life than they would have had in their homelands. They were frugal, hardworking people who raised 3 children, 2 of whom served during World War II. My mother gave birth to 6 children, all of whom knew that priority #1 was a good education that would ensure a better life for them and their children. I never heard my parents threaten anyone to “look out” for the person occupying the White House as Goldberg did in 2008, when she dared “you white people” to “look out” because now there was a black man in the White House.
Next, the airlines have it wrong: mandate that all passenger luggage must be checked and transported in the cargo hold designed for that purpose, with the cost of that transport part of the price of the ticket, not a penalty fee. If there are passengers who absolutely must bring the contents of an over-sized backpack, a bulging roller board, and a temporary office in their briefcase, charge THEM to bring it on-board, creating traffic jams in the narrow passenger aisles as they cram all of that “luggage” into small, overhead bins. I am amazed at the volume of luggage passengers are allowed to bring onboard, and sometimes amused at what it takes to cram all those belongings into small bins designed for small items. I venture to guess that during an accident, such as a sudden downdraft that can pop the overhead bins open, more passengers are injured by the bulky, heavy passenger luggage stowed in the overhead bins than any other cause. Thus, if the airline personnel are not willing to monitor what’s being brought onboard and limit the size, as well as the weight of the items, they should require ALL luggage be checked.
Additionally, I am offended by the total sexualization of the media, such as the overt sexuality of the performances, as well as the costumes, on shows such as Dancing with the Stars, The Voice, X Factor, and Idol. These are all “talent” shows based on the participants’ ability to perform a skill with expertise that wins him/her the talent contest. Instead, we see Christina’s breasts barely covered by a series of garments designed to show off her private parts, especially when she r-e-a-l-l-y leans into the camera angle. Gilles Marini apparently won top votes not for his expertise as a dancer, but because his overtly sexual dance revved up Carrie Anne’s “babymaker,” causing her literally to fall off her chair in excitement. Contestants come to the preliminary rounds as “real” people, but compete in the performance rounds in stylized costumes that don’t reflect who they are and what they sing, but create a look that appeals sexually to audience members. On one of the make-over events on one of the daytime shows, a woman in a knee-length dress was accused of looking “old,” and the hostess suggested that she needs to “turn her sexy up” by wearing tighter, shorter, and more revealing outfits.
I cringe to think of the generations who are being raised with this mindset, both the young girls who have to meet this “sex” standard and the young males who are being urged into sexual relationships based on appearance, rather than on the content of a person’s character.
Finally, I am so glad that I have my new puppy, who is such a little love. She responds to her name, plays doggie toys with both me and the other dogs, and our potty training is going well. She has discovered her bark and joins the other dogs when they go to the fence to challenge anyone who comes onto their street. We did have a scare last week, when Cinnamon had her second in the series of puppy shots and reacted poorly to it, her eyes swelling shut and her tummy turning bright cherry red. We took her to the vet immediately, where she was given an injection of Benadryl, as well as an injection of steroids. No harm done, and she really slept well that night!
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Dem Bones
It’s uncomfortable to be the only person in the room who does not speak Spanish, especially when you know they are talking about you. My housekeeper commented repeatedly that I needed a massage because my posture is a mean copy of a mobile pretzel most days. Injuries that were not addressed properly by medical personnel left me coping with the injury and the consistent pain anyway I could, but I pay a high price for what’s past. When Lulu told me to “call Rosa,” I did; however, the message was in Spanish and I left a message in English, so we never hooked up. This past week was different: Lulu called and made the arrangements for the massage, and then she took me to the appointment: an apartment on the east side of the valley.
Rosa is not very tall, she’s chunky, and her smile reveals many missing teeth. She asked her son and Lulu to translate about all previous injuries, which, for me is a long list: I’ve broken both of my legs in separate injuries; had 3 knee surgeries on the left and 2 on the right; I broke my left arm, followed 3 months’ later with a fractured ball joint on the same arm, accompanied with fractures along my clavicle, and most recently, I fractured my L4 vertebrae. I have osteo-arthritis stem to stern, along with posture that would make any chiropractor cry. When I stood up to go into the massage room, I was a bit hesitant because it never entered my mind that the massage would be in Rosa’s bedroom, and I would be directed to lay face down on Rosa’s bed.
With uncanny accuracy, Rosa found every single sore spot on my body and mercilessly attacked each one and beat the muscles and nerves into submission. I tried “no mas” a couple of times, but she ignored me and continued to kneed, stretch, massage, and then pull my spinal column into alignment. At one point, she grabbed my head and wham! pulled it so hard and so fast that I thought she was using that stealth killer move that instantly kills a victim by breaking his/her neck!! I survived it once, but a bit later on, she did it again before I realized what the heck she was doing. I had asked for a full body massage, and, by God, I got it: in spades! There was no mercy until Rosa determined that she had won the battle of my bones.
Rosa may give massages, but she outdid any chiropractor I know. Most professionals take 6 months to do what Rosa did in 2 hours, and she did not stop once she began. When I finally lifted my body from her bed, there was not a single pain anywhere, which I consider a miracle just based on the force of the massage and spinal manipulation Rosa did for 2 solid hours. When I woke up this morning, I expected to see bruises from head to toe, but nope, no bruises, and no pain either. I don’t know how long the effects will remain, but I hope it lasts through Monday’s travel.
Rosa is not very tall, she’s chunky, and her smile reveals many missing teeth. She asked her son and Lulu to translate about all previous injuries, which, for me is a long list: I’ve broken both of my legs in separate injuries; had 3 knee surgeries on the left and 2 on the right; I broke my left arm, followed 3 months’ later with a fractured ball joint on the same arm, accompanied with fractures along my clavicle, and most recently, I fractured my L4 vertebrae. I have osteo-arthritis stem to stern, along with posture that would make any chiropractor cry. When I stood up to go into the massage room, I was a bit hesitant because it never entered my mind that the massage would be in Rosa’s bedroom, and I would be directed to lay face down on Rosa’s bed.
With uncanny accuracy, Rosa found every single sore spot on my body and mercilessly attacked each one and beat the muscles and nerves into submission. I tried “no mas” a couple of times, but she ignored me and continued to kneed, stretch, massage, and then pull my spinal column into alignment. At one point, she grabbed my head and wham! pulled it so hard and so fast that I thought she was using that stealth killer move that instantly kills a victim by breaking his/her neck!! I survived it once, but a bit later on, she did it again before I realized what the heck she was doing. I had asked for a full body massage, and, by God, I got it: in spades! There was no mercy until Rosa determined that she had won the battle of my bones.
Rosa may give massages, but she outdid any chiropractor I know. Most professionals take 6 months to do what Rosa did in 2 hours, and she did not stop once she began. When I finally lifted my body from her bed, there was not a single pain anywhere, which I consider a miracle just based on the force of the massage and spinal manipulation Rosa did for 2 solid hours. When I woke up this morning, I expected to see bruises from head to toe, but nope, no bruises, and no pain either. I don’t know how long the effects will remain, but I hope it lasts through Monday’s travel.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Details
The big gallon dog auto-waterer stopped working, which means that all the water flowed out over the kitchen floor (tile, so easy to mop up the deluge). I was going across the freeway anyway, so I bought a replacement, deciding this time to get the smaller model, which weighs less when filled with water as my age increases. Brought it back home, pre-cleaned it before filling with water for my thirsty dogs, then set it on the floor.
Woosh! All the water poured out onto the kitchen floor I had just mopped from the previous deluge. Picked the waterer up, as well as all the water, went back to the kitchen sink after thoroughly investigating the equipment operational aspects, and again filled the tank. I carried the water container back to install onto the stable base, and Woosh! All the water again left the tank for the kitchen floor.
Okay, so I am determined that this darned thing is going to work, but I don't know how, so I dried it off and took it back to the store of purchase for a refund. Something wasn't right, but I had no idea what it was ... until the clerk pointed out that I had purchased a feeder, not a waterer. The feeder backs up in the delivery shoot and the dogs removing feed releases more feed; however, when it is used for water, there is no "back-up," so the water floods the floor.
Well, now I know and I'll be more careful in the future to check out the equipment before I purchase it. When there's a picture of dog food on the side of the dispenser, it means that it's a food dispenser; when there is a picture of a dog drinking water, it's a watering system.
Benefit to the experience: my kitchen floor is clean! Feeling foolish is just another by-product of one's advancing age.
Woosh! All the water poured out onto the kitchen floor I had just mopped from the previous deluge. Picked the waterer up, as well as all the water, went back to the kitchen sink after thoroughly investigating the equipment operational aspects, and again filled the tank. I carried the water container back to install onto the stable base, and Woosh! All the water again left the tank for the kitchen floor.
Okay, so I am determined that this darned thing is going to work, but I don't know how, so I dried it off and took it back to the store of purchase for a refund. Something wasn't right, but I had no idea what it was ... until the clerk pointed out that I had purchased a feeder, not a waterer. The feeder backs up in the delivery shoot and the dogs removing feed releases more feed; however, when it is used for water, there is no "back-up," so the water floods the floor.
Well, now I know and I'll be more careful in the future to check out the equipment before I purchase it. When there's a picture of dog food on the side of the dispenser, it means that it's a food dispenser; when there is a picture of a dog drinking water, it's a watering system.
Benefit to the experience: my kitchen floor is clean! Feeling foolish is just another by-product of one's advancing age.
Monday, September 17, 2012
We're Outta Here
Has the US ever entertained the thought, while the people they are committed to "save" from either the government or themselves, riot in the street -- hey, we're outta here. Just pack up the military vehicles, equipment, and personnel and ... leave?
We've tried our best in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the other places wherein Muslims reside, and it is obvious that they do not want and/or need further help from us. Acknowledge the people's wishes and withdraw our aide in whatever form it takes.
We don't need more Americans killed while trying to do their best for people who don't want what we are offering.
We've tried our best in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the other places wherein Muslims reside, and it is obvious that they do not want and/or need further help from us. Acknowledge the people's wishes and withdraw our aide in whatever form it takes.
We don't need more Americans killed while trying to do their best for people who don't want what we are offering.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Sticks and Stones
Cinnamon is growing litterly by leaps and bounds. She has learned how to bark and play both tag and keep-away with Daisy; unfortunately, that madhouse occurs as often in the living room as it does outside. Daisy’s nose has been out of joint since Cinnamon came to live with us, but she’s slowly making her peace with the littlest dog in our house.
Mia? She’s never had her own litter, but she’s a “mama” when it comes to other dogs. Mia is the one who sniffs the appropriate places on Cinnamon to determine whether we need another trip to the potty place, and Mia is right more often than she’s wrong.
Several weeks ago, I had a neighbor earn some spending money by hauling wheelbarrows full of dirt into the area along the fence that Mia digs up. He brought in 10 loads, so I thought we were set; however, Mia has managed to dig two large craters into which she folds herself when the nights are just warm enough, without being too hot, and therein she sleeps the night away. Cinnamon has discovered that there are small rocks throughout the sandy area, rocks that she roots out first with her nose and then with her ferocious digging (note rock in photo). She tosses sand this way and that until the rock is showing, and then she digs it out and brings it into the house, where she plays her own form of ceramic tile soccer. I have to keep picking up the rocks and taking them back outside because that is a slip and fall waiting to happen!
Cinnamon’s other favorite chew toy is a stick, but I try to be quick to take them away as she hauls them into the house. Sticks shred, and her digestive system is not ready to handle wood shards. Yes, I have indeed invested a small fortune in an assortment of chew toys, but just as the younger child likes the empty boxes and wrapping paper at Christmas, rather than the toy inside the wrapped box, Cinnamon likes her sticks and stones.
I’m glad I brought Cinnamon home, even though the timing is not the greatest. I’ve made arrangements for her to stay with my housekeeper while Yucheng attends classes and I'm away from the house. It’ll be a bit of back and forth, but it’s important that Cinnamon knows this is her home, even when I’m not here to play with her and cuddle. Of course, she's still small enough that I could stash her in my shoulder bag and take her with me, but that's not a good idea with the full house already planned for the wedding!
Several weeks ago, I had a neighbor earn some spending money by hauling wheelbarrows full of dirt into the area along the fence that Mia digs up. He brought in 10 loads, so I thought we were set; however, Mia has managed to dig two large craters into which she folds herself when the nights are just warm enough, without being too hot, and therein she sleeps the night away. Cinnamon has discovered that there are small rocks throughout the sandy area, rocks that she roots out first with her nose and then with her ferocious digging (note rock in photo). She tosses sand this way and that until the rock is showing, and then she digs it out and brings it into the house, where she plays her own form of ceramic tile soccer. I have to keep picking up the rocks and taking them back outside because that is a slip and fall waiting to happen!
Cinnamon’s other favorite chew toy is a stick, but I try to be quick to take them away as she hauls them into the house. Sticks shred, and her digestive system is not ready to handle wood shards. Yes, I have indeed invested a small fortune in an assortment of chew toys, but just as the younger child likes the empty boxes and wrapping paper at Christmas, rather than the toy inside the wrapped box, Cinnamon likes her sticks and stones.
I’m glad I brought Cinnamon home, even though the timing is not the greatest. I’ve made arrangements for her to stay with my housekeeper while Yucheng attends classes and I'm away from the house. It’ll be a bit of back and forth, but it’s important that Cinnamon knows this is her home, even when I’m not here to play with her and cuddle. Of course, she's still small enough that I could stash her in my shoulder bag and take her with me, but that's not a good idea with the full house already planned for the wedding!
Thursday, September 6, 2012
The Man with a Plan
It's already been too much for too long with too few details. The candidates vying for the win in November's election sound the same: I have a plan ... . The art of circumlocution is honed to a dull roar of meaningless patter at each stop on the campaign trail. I have a plan; you have a plan: my plan is better than your plan, but neither one of us can reveal our plan because it may not be as good a plan as the other guy's plan, and on and on and on it goes.
I don't want to know that you have a plan: I want to know what your plan is!! As a classroom teacher, I was required to have a specific lesson plan each and every day of the semester for each and every class/course that I was responsible for teaching. I could not tell my supervising administrator that my educational goal is "I hope to teach these students" because s/he wanted to know WHAT I would teach, how I would teach it (including the PowerPoint presentations with the bulleted major points), and what measurable outcomes I would use to evaluate the students' progress toward a specific goal.
I could not walk into a classroom with "hope" and call it either a lesson plan or an achievable educational goal. Hope is what I have; measurable outcomes are what the students' either achieve or fail to achieve. I could try blaming the previous teacher(s), but that sounds so ... whiny, unprofessional, irrevelant to MY job performance. It's always a factor, but my job was to find a way to progress beyond what last year's teachers did or failed to do, not go back 4 or 8 or 12 years ago and pin the blame on those teachers.
Ditto the political arena: don't tell me what failed in the past and then what you hope will happen once you are elected; instead, share the specifics of how you will achieve specific goals. If you believe you can add 2 million jobs in a faltering job market, tell me how you are going to do that ... specifically, and what measurable outcomes apply to your successful completion of that action plan. If you say you have yet another plan to turn this economy around, detail the key elements of that plan, as well as the contingencies for altering the plan if it does not go as planned. Blaming the past administrations and/or the opposing party is NOT a Plan B; these are tough times that require specific actions to happen before the economy can rebound, actions that begin when the person responsible for initiating them has a specific action plan that we, the voters, can understand and support, as well as measurable outcomes that detail what "I hope" looks like, rather than the old "just you wait and see" promise.
If you are still promising hope with your rhetoric, but cannot provide the educational plan and measurable outcomes in a PowerPoint presentation, I'm not tossing away my one ballot/one vote on your personal positive outlook on life.
I don't want to know that you have a plan: I want to know what your plan is!! As a classroom teacher, I was required to have a specific lesson plan each and every day of the semester for each and every class/course that I was responsible for teaching. I could not tell my supervising administrator that my educational goal is "I hope to teach these students" because s/he wanted to know WHAT I would teach, how I would teach it (including the PowerPoint presentations with the bulleted major points), and what measurable outcomes I would use to evaluate the students' progress toward a specific goal.
I could not walk into a classroom with "hope" and call it either a lesson plan or an achievable educational goal. Hope is what I have; measurable outcomes are what the students' either achieve or fail to achieve. I could try blaming the previous teacher(s), but that sounds so ... whiny, unprofessional, irrevelant to MY job performance. It's always a factor, but my job was to find a way to progress beyond what last year's teachers did or failed to do, not go back 4 or 8 or 12 years ago and pin the blame on those teachers.
Ditto the political arena: don't tell me what failed in the past and then what you hope will happen once you are elected; instead, share the specifics of how you will achieve specific goals. If you believe you can add 2 million jobs in a faltering job market, tell me how you are going to do that ... specifically, and what measurable outcomes apply to your successful completion of that action plan. If you say you have yet another plan to turn this economy around, detail the key elements of that plan, as well as the contingencies for altering the plan if it does not go as planned. Blaming the past administrations and/or the opposing party is NOT a Plan B; these are tough times that require specific actions to happen before the economy can rebound, actions that begin when the person responsible for initiating them has a specific action plan that we, the voters, can understand and support, as well as measurable outcomes that detail what "I hope" looks like, rather than the old "just you wait and see" promise.
If you are still promising hope with your rhetoric, but cannot provide the educational plan and measurable outcomes in a PowerPoint presentation, I'm not tossing away my one ballot/one vote on your personal positive outlook on life.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Puppy Love
Yes, I already have 2 dogs, both of whom I brought home with me already imprinted with someone else's early nurturing. I love my dogs, but Mia is having physical issues and I may have her put to sleep ... sooner, rather than later. Daisy is very set in her ways, and it's Daisy's way or the highway. She is not thrilled that I brought home a new puppy, but Mia and I are enjoying her very much. Today, as a matter of fact, Cinnamon crawled up from my belly to my left arm, which was tucked against the couch, scooted around until she was comfy, and didn't move for an entire hour. 
Cinnamon is Applehead Chihuahua and Pomerainian, and her mother and daddy are both about 2/3 Daisy's size. Her fur (refer to photo) is a soft, buttery yellow with one cinnamon dot; hence, her new name: Cinnamon. Her nails need clipping, and I must make a vet appt for her shots, as well as an appt to be "fixed."
As far as I can tell, she's smart, already playing with the crazy blue ball and quickly learning how to come in/go out the doggy door. Of course, the first time she made it through one side, she curled up on the little base between the inner and outer flaps, then went soundly to sleep. Imagine Daisy's surprise when she came bounding through the doggie door! When it's time to go to the potty place, both Mia and Daisy walk her over to the shaded sandy area they have all used until they were big enough to make it out to the dog run. It's cute to see the little troop of dogs heading out, single file, Mia in the lead, Daisy in the middle, and Cinnamon running furiously to keep up with the much larger dogs, on their way to pee.
Cinnamon can bark, at first tentatively, but when it's at Daisy, her bark becomes louder. A really obnoxious yapping dog is sometimes as effective at keeping strangers outside the fence as the ferocious bark of a bigger dog. My goal: less large poop piles to clean up every week.
I am by nature a nurturer, and right now I need something to nurture. I've killed almost all of my houseplants in the past 6 weeks, either by over-watering or under-watering, I'm not sure which. Instead of replacing them, I'm going to nurture the dog and fervently pray that the dog fairs better than the plants.
As far as I can tell, she's smart, already playing with the crazy blue ball and quickly learning how to come in/go out the doggy door. Of course, the first time she made it through one side, she curled up on the little base between the inner and outer flaps, then went soundly to sleep. Imagine Daisy's surprise when she came bounding through the doggie door! When it's time to go to the potty place, both Mia and Daisy walk her over to the shaded sandy area they have all used until they were big enough to make it out to the dog run. It's cute to see the little troop of dogs heading out, single file, Mia in the lead, Daisy in the middle, and Cinnamon running furiously to keep up with the much larger dogs, on their way to pee.
Cinnamon can bark, at first tentatively, but when it's at Daisy, her bark becomes louder. A really obnoxious yapping dog is sometimes as effective at keeping strangers outside the fence as the ferocious bark of a bigger dog. My goal: less large poop piles to clean up every week.
I am by nature a nurturer, and right now I need something to nurture. I've killed almost all of my houseplants in the past 6 weeks, either by over-watering or under-watering, I'm not sure which. Instead of replacing them, I'm going to nurture the dog and fervently pray that the dog fairs better than the plants.
Blueberry Possum
This morning, as I was reading all the tidbits from the night's news, my eyes caught the title of a small article: Blueberry Possum: luxurious locks you'll love.
Now, I know I have developed cataracts, but had no idea how it's affecting my vision until I figured out that ... Blueberry Possum is actually Burberry Prosum, and the "luxurious locks" I anticipated loving are not hairstyles, but "looks," as in clothing.
Before figuring it out, however, I had pondered just what the heck a Blueberry Possum hair-do could possibly look like when it was a finished style.
Sighing.
Now, I know I have developed cataracts, but had no idea how it's affecting my vision until I figured out that ... Blueberry Possum is actually Burberry Prosum, and the "luxurious locks" I anticipated loving are not hairstyles, but "looks," as in clothing.
Before figuring it out, however, I had pondered just what the heck a Blueberry Possum hair-do could possibly look like when it was a finished style.
Sighing.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
There's a Lesson to be Learned
My gardener, Jorge, arrives on time for the days I ask him to work, he works for a solid 5 hours (no break), then he thanks me for providing him with work, and calls every other month to see if my yard needs work. He bundles all the cut twigs and branches and ties them securely with twine because our trash pick-up won't take a pile of anything that's longer than 4 feet and/or not tied into a bundle. He rakes up all the loose trimmings and leaves, fastens them securely in a clean-up bag, and takes them to the trash can. Before he leaves, he uses his blower to make sure the yard is really clean.
He gets $10/hour + $10 for gas, and he doesn't want a tip: he says he's doing the job he was hired to do at the price he asked for, so it's fair and square. He usually has one client in the morning and another in the afternoon; he eats his lunch at home with his wife between the jobs.
Hello, out there: anyone learn anything from Jorge's work ethic?
He gets $10/hour + $10 for gas, and he doesn't want a tip: he says he's doing the job he was hired to do at the price he asked for, so it's fair and square. He usually has one client in the morning and another in the afternoon; he eats his lunch at home with his wife between the jobs.
Hello, out there: anyone learn anything from Jorge's work ethic?
'bout Time
It's finally been said publicly: President Obama is one of the "one-percenters" about whom he makes accusations of wealth without including his own wealth in the conversation. I have never heard the President admit publicly that he, too, is a millionaire, a couple times over, but I've heard him slam all the other millionaires far too many times simply because they, too, have earned millions. And, just as the President has earned his wealth, so have the politicians and business people he slams.
No one is in the basement, printing their own money, but it sure sounds like it when the Democrats are tossing blame at Republicans for being the "party of plenty." Talk about people living in glass houses and tossing stones through their own windows. When you toss a stone at Romney's house, be sure to visit the White House on the next block!!
No one is in the basement, printing their own money, but it sure sounds like it when the Democrats are tossing blame at Republicans for being the "party of plenty." Talk about people living in glass houses and tossing stones through their own windows. When you toss a stone at Romney's house, be sure to visit the White House on the next block!!
Monday, August 27, 2012
From the Headlines
I thought that the "restored" painting of Jesus was hilarious, and literally go into gales of laughter every time I see it. Today's favorite is a headline: Is 86 too old to wear a bikini? My mind is like popcorn, and it started popping:
My friend's husband passed away and the celebration of life is tomorrow: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
The weatherman is calling for record temps this week and I have to go to the grocery store: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
The gardener is going to work on the landscaping today: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
My great-grand daughter is bringing her new boyfriend over for an outdoor pool party: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
Match.com is having a mixer: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
It's casual Friday this week at the retirement center: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
My friend's husband passed away and the celebration of life is tomorrow: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
The weatherman is calling for record temps this week and I have to go to the grocery store: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
The gardener is going to work on the landscaping today: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
My great-grand daughter is bringing her new boyfriend over for an outdoor pool party: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
Match.com is having a mixer: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
It's casual Friday this week at the retirement center: is 86 too old to wear a bikini?
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Colorful World
Costco called to tell me my new glasses are ready for pick-up, so after my dr appt, I drove across the Valley and retrieved them. It's always weird getting used to a new prescription, but this one is REALLY weird.
Everything is outlined in yellow, shaded with red, and there's a blue band across the bottom. So, as I started for home, all the buildings, traffic signals and cars were yellow-topped, with a red band underneath. All the building foundations, light standards, and cars had blue at the bottom. It's kinda cool to see the yellow highlighting on the surrounding mountains, but kinda distracting at the top of the traffic signal. And, believe me when I say that cars with blue front bumpers and tires warrant a second look. Even the lane lines were shaded with blue!
The most spectacular color, however, was on the windmills! They look really good with yellow, red, and blue shading on each of the blades.
Unfortunately, my vision is totally blurry with the new prescription, rather than crisper and clearer, so I'm heading back to Costco tomorrow to see what happened between the prescription and the finished pair of glasses.
Everything is outlined in yellow, shaded with red, and there's a blue band across the bottom. So, as I started for home, all the buildings, traffic signals and cars were yellow-topped, with a red band underneath. All the building foundations, light standards, and cars had blue at the bottom. It's kinda cool to see the yellow highlighting on the surrounding mountains, but kinda distracting at the top of the traffic signal. And, believe me when I say that cars with blue front bumpers and tires warrant a second look. Even the lane lines were shaded with blue!
The most spectacular color, however, was on the windmills! They look really good with yellow, red, and blue shading on each of the blades.
Unfortunately, my vision is totally blurry with the new prescription, rather than crisper and clearer, so I'm heading back to Costco tomorrow to see what happened between the prescription and the finished pair of glasses.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Harry Balls
Weren't we Americans taught that the Crown Jewels are Britain's treasure and that they are not publicly displayed for the pleasure of amateur photographers'? Cell phone camera technology has advanced so much in the last couple of years, with amazing detail in the worst lighting!!
Covert Oops
Over the weekend, rescue teams, including a chopper, had to be called in for 6 covert law enforcement personnel from a bunch of alphabet agencies felled by heat exhaustion. No one's saying what they were doing up the tram hill, but half of them had to be rescued, so let's hope that no one's life depended on this mission!
Red Light/Green Light
In the past couple of years, I have been taking more prescription medications than I took in all the years previously. They all come from the pharmacy in the same brown plastic container, and it's challenging to decipher which bottle has which medication. I take one strong drug that could be dangerous if I took too many, but it looks just like all the other bottles, so I have to decipher a dozen different small-print labels to find the meds I need.
I sent a message to the Food and Drug Administration to suggest that prescription bottles could be color-coded. A RED bottle would mean danger: the prescription could be lethal, such as oxycodon. A YELLOW bottle would indicate caution as the drug is not immediately dangerous, but could be if too many pills are taken, such as sleeping medication. A GREEN bottle would indicate that it's a non-lethal, non-habit-forming prescription, such as a supplement. This is the new age of prescription medication and, as we age, it becomes easier to confuse one's self about which prescriptions to take when, and which ones are which when all the bottles look the same.
My mother used to confuse her pills all the time because she had dementia and could not remember whether she had taken them. It didn't matter that they were all organized in one of the multi-day/week organizers as she had no idea what day it was, nor whether she'd already taken her meds. When she stayed with me, I had to hide her meds to keep her from re-dosing herself. A close friend also created a medical emergency when she did the same thing with her meds. She lives in a residential facility that closely monitors her medications so there is not a repeat of the incident.
Just as the hospital prepares medication in small paper cups, it would be helpful if combination medications were packaged together, using rice paper, so the patient could pick up one packet, rather than fumbling with loose pills. The rice paper dissolves on the tongue with no unpleasant taste to it, but adds a level of safety that could prevent either an accidental over-dose or the loss of needed medication if it falls from the patient's hands.
I sent a message to the Food and Drug Administration to suggest that prescription bottles could be color-coded. A RED bottle would mean danger: the prescription could be lethal, such as oxycodon. A YELLOW bottle would indicate caution as the drug is not immediately dangerous, but could be if too many pills are taken, such as sleeping medication. A GREEN bottle would indicate that it's a non-lethal, non-habit-forming prescription, such as a supplement. This is the new age of prescription medication and, as we age, it becomes easier to confuse one's self about which prescriptions to take when, and which ones are which when all the bottles look the same.
My mother used to confuse her pills all the time because she had dementia and could not remember whether she had taken them. It didn't matter that they were all organized in one of the multi-day/week organizers as she had no idea what day it was, nor whether she'd already taken her meds. When she stayed with me, I had to hide her meds to keep her from re-dosing herself. A close friend also created a medical emergency when she did the same thing with her meds. She lives in a residential facility that closely monitors her medications so there is not a repeat of the incident.
Just as the hospital prepares medication in small paper cups, it would be helpful if combination medications were packaged together, using rice paper, so the patient could pick up one packet, rather than fumbling with loose pills. The rice paper dissolves on the tongue with no unpleasant taste to it, but adds a level of safety that could prevent either an accidental over-dose or the loss of needed medication if it falls from the patient's hands.
Friday, August 17, 2012
A Dream is a Wish that Won't Happen
OMG: I found the most wonderful afghan pattern by Laura Aylor, called the Lizard Ridge afghan, and fell in love with the pattern, as well as the yarn. One drawback is that the Kureyon yarn is 100% wool; the other drawback is that, on sale, it's still $8.00 a skein and the afghan needs about 22 skeins.
That's about $180.00, at least 100 hours of labor, to make yet another blanket. Not going to happen for an entire pyramid of reasons, beginning with the 100% wool and ending with the 100 hours of labor.
It is nice to know that I can still be captivated by yet another blanket project ... .
That's about $180.00, at least 100 hours of labor, to make yet another blanket. Not going to happen for an entire pyramid of reasons, beginning with the 100% wool and ending with the 100 hours of labor.
It is nice to know that I can still be captivated by yet another blanket project ... .
Bourne, Baby, Bourne
The newest in the Bourne series of films was released recently, so my movie buddy and I inked in a day/time that worked for both of us, bought the senior snack pack at the concession stand, and settled in for what we hoped would be high action and interesting adventure. Matt Damon is Jason Bourne, so it is good that the writers/producers did not try to re-create that character with another actor’s face, and Jeremy Renner physically fit the role of an engineered government assassin. Rachel Weisz as a Bourne sidekick? Nah, not so much.
What’s puzzling is the lack of a cohesive story, with the film beginning in Alaska, a strong premise for the storyline, then becoming a tedious, overly-long chase, capped off with an unbelievable 20-minute motorcycle chase, and ending on a boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean. What ties these vignettes together is a very thin thread and almost no story continuity. I waited for the Alaska exposition to become the film, but the focus turned to the quest for the green and blue pills, not an interesting storyline at all. The bad guys were typical government bad guys (Edward Norton, Stacy Keach) covering their asses when covert operations go awry, but Renner’s character, Aaron Cross, identified them, showed up at exactly the right place at exactly the right time, and dispatched them almost too easily and quickly. Weitz’s character, a PhD scientist, was unsure, scared, and whiny, so it was confusing that Renner’s character would waste his time and energy on using her to get to the green and blue pills: he was stronger without her than he was with her, which is not “typical” for Damon’s Bourne strategy.
The ending? So what? Who cares? There is no significance as the “adrift in the great oceans of the world” tack-on seems specifically aimed at a sequel, a sequel I doubt I’ll either anticipate or attend.
There is a reason that successful books make successful movies, and also a reason that screenwriters often don’t have the writing chops to create their own original concepts with the same depth and scope of a writer’s creation. Base the movies on Ludlum’s concepts and they turn out a whole lot better than creating a faux Bourne story just to keep the franchise alive in the box office.
I give this Bourne offering a C, with nothing that makes it either stand out or stand alone in the line of Bourne offerings. I'd rather watch a rerun of any of Damon's films than see this one again!
What’s puzzling is the lack of a cohesive story, with the film beginning in Alaska, a strong premise for the storyline, then becoming a tedious, overly-long chase, capped off with an unbelievable 20-minute motorcycle chase, and ending on a boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean. What ties these vignettes together is a very thin thread and almost no story continuity. I waited for the Alaska exposition to become the film, but the focus turned to the quest for the green and blue pills, not an interesting storyline at all. The bad guys were typical government bad guys (Edward Norton, Stacy Keach) covering their asses when covert operations go awry, but Renner’s character, Aaron Cross, identified them, showed up at exactly the right place at exactly the right time, and dispatched them almost too easily and quickly. Weitz’s character, a PhD scientist, was unsure, scared, and whiny, so it was confusing that Renner’s character would waste his time and energy on using her to get to the green and blue pills: he was stronger without her than he was with her, which is not “typical” for Damon’s Bourne strategy.
The ending? So what? Who cares? There is no significance as the “adrift in the great oceans of the world” tack-on seems specifically aimed at a sequel, a sequel I doubt I’ll either anticipate or attend.
There is a reason that successful books make successful movies, and also a reason that screenwriters often don’t have the writing chops to create their own original concepts with the same depth and scope of a writer’s creation. Base the movies on Ludlum’s concepts and they turn out a whole lot better than creating a faux Bourne story just to keep the franchise alive in the box office.
I give this Bourne offering a C, with nothing that makes it either stand out or stand alone in the line of Bourne offerings. I'd rather watch a rerun of any of Damon's films than see this one again!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
I See ...
The months of increasingly blurry vision that I attributed to the addition of prisms into my lenses after the last eye exam over a year ago is actually the symptom of cataracts. I’ve organically taken some corrective actions in an effort to “fix” my blurry vision, constantly adjusting the glasses' fit to my face, which only helps as long as the frames stay in place, purchasing extra bright Ott lights to help me see, and using a magnifying glass for close-up work and small print. All of these actions helped me cope with the frustration of not being able to see clearly; however, the bottom line is that I’ll need surgery when the cataracts are the right size for it, which will be in about 9 months.
What’s interesting is that the development of new replacement lenses may correct my vision issues and, after wearing glasses since I was age 5, there is a distinct possibility that I could be freed from corrective lenses altogether! Those who develop the vision correction inserts for the cataract surgery have been quite successful with a special lens for patients with acute astigmatism, which is one of my issues; thus, with the transplant lenses in place, no more astigmatism. My eye doctor said that I may need OTC reading glasses after the surgery, but perhaps not for several years after it—if at all.
So, cataracts become a blessing in disguise. Of course, having spent the majority of my life with glasses as part of my facial recognition process, it will be challenging to see my face naked, but I’m willing to go there, especially since my blurry vision will also be a thing of the past, rather than an increasingly irritating part of my present and future.
What’s interesting is that the development of new replacement lenses may correct my vision issues and, after wearing glasses since I was age 5, there is a distinct possibility that I could be freed from corrective lenses altogether! Those who develop the vision correction inserts for the cataract surgery have been quite successful with a special lens for patients with acute astigmatism, which is one of my issues; thus, with the transplant lenses in place, no more astigmatism. My eye doctor said that I may need OTC reading glasses after the surgery, but perhaps not for several years after it—if at all.
So, cataracts become a blessing in disguise. Of course, having spent the majority of my life with glasses as part of my facial recognition process, it will be challenging to see my face naked, but I’m willing to go there, especially since my blurry vision will also be a thing of the past, rather than an increasingly irritating part of my present and future.
Monday, August 13, 2012
One More Olympic Thought
I watched the opening ceremony, incredulous to think that anyone could find the retelling of the extensive history of the British Isles appropriate for setting the stage for a world-wide athletic competition. Danny Boyle needed to edit his vision to make it palatable for the minions. Boyle reinforced the belief that Bollywood bigger is not always better.
For all the rave reviews of the closing ceremony for England's Olympics, I found the whole event to be monstrously tedious, uninteresting, visually confusing, marred with poor audio, and a complete waste of [my] time. Yes, I did watch it, all the while hoping that something, anything would improve the experience and that it would suddenly rise above the on-going presentation and dazzle with brillliance.
Didn't happen.
For all the rave reviews of the closing ceremony for England's Olympics, I found the whole event to be monstrously tedious, uninteresting, visually confusing, marred with poor audio, and a complete waste of [my] time. Yes, I did watch it, all the while hoping that something, anything would improve the experience and that it would suddenly rise above the on-going presentation and dazzle with brillliance.
Didn't happen.
Big Block Battle
I hate computer games, but found myself engaging in one at Yahoo's games: Big Block's Battle. The reason I hate computer games is that the gamer has to figure out what to do and then how to do it, which teaches determination based on the old try, try, then try again strategy because there is no way to go to the next stage until the current stage is complete. I like knowing the objective, the "what to do," but often computer games let the gamer figure that out as they participate in the game.
I figured out that the blue guys are the bad guys, the green guys are the good guys, and my job was to knock off the blue guys, and keep the green guys. Once I figured out how to do that, I could complete the task and move onto the next stage. Sometimes, it was easier to figure out than others, but I made it all the way to level 30 of the 35 currently in the game using the trial and error gaming style that I seem able to perform. At level 30, I was stuck for well over a week and needed someone to help me past this blockage.
When all else fails, call in the troops, family members who don't waste time playing these piddly games, but are serious gamers. My S-I-L told me his "go to" is Youtube, and he graciously sent me the link to level 30 of Big Block's Battle, which showed me how to play battle 30. Once I saw it, it not only made sense, but was easy-peasy; however, without that solution, I could die a very old lady without ever finishing stage 30 as the key to winning was the pendulum, which I made rock back and forth in my many attempts to find a solution, but never would have realized that it could rebound up and take out the blue guys!!
I am happy to say that I have finished Big Block's Battle, but the game-makers provide an additional challenge: I can go back to the stages that took me longer to complete and replay them to earn a medal!! They don't realize what it took for me to complete some of these tasks, which is, in itself, worthy of a medal. There is no going back and trying to recreate my fumbling through the stages to completion. I earned medals on 18/35 battles, adequate for my skill level, but not enough to be even a marginally good gamer. However, for the gamer who wants to improve his/her problem-solving ability, redoing the tasks better the second time around is good motivation to improve this skill.
As both a teacher and a life-long learner, I look for the lesson; in this case, it's persistence in problem-solving. If children will spend literally hours solving the challenge of computer games, why won't they spend a fraction of that time learning the educational basics? Spelling is often just patterning, matching the sounds of the letters to the sounds of the words in order: game-playing 101. Math is easy once a child learns the basic concepts, which is also basic gaming: figure out the system, then repeat it to solve new problems. The multiplication tables are simple memorization, which is also one of the foundations of game-playing: memorize the players, the equipment, the route, the challenges, and the game is easy to complete.
There are lessons to be learned from game playing, but putting the knowledge on-line does not fulfill the obligation to educate. When the student completes the 35 stages of Big Block's Battle, a conversation can help him/her clarify the learning that accompanied the activity: the persistence in problem-solving. How can that learning be applied to the next educational task, to problems encountered outside the classroom, on the job, or in a family?
It's not about playing the game, but it's about learning from playing the game. Without the learning, computer games are just another way for kids to waste time.
I figured out that the blue guys are the bad guys, the green guys are the good guys, and my job was to knock off the blue guys, and keep the green guys. Once I figured out how to do that, I could complete the task and move onto the next stage. Sometimes, it was easier to figure out than others, but I made it all the way to level 30 of the 35 currently in the game using the trial and error gaming style that I seem able to perform. At level 30, I was stuck for well over a week and needed someone to help me past this blockage.
When all else fails, call in the troops, family members who don't waste time playing these piddly games, but are serious gamers. My S-I-L told me his "go to" is Youtube, and he graciously sent me the link to level 30 of Big Block's Battle, which showed me how to play battle 30. Once I saw it, it not only made sense, but was easy-peasy; however, without that solution, I could die a very old lady without ever finishing stage 30 as the key to winning was the pendulum, which I made rock back and forth in my many attempts to find a solution, but never would have realized that it could rebound up and take out the blue guys!!
I am happy to say that I have finished Big Block's Battle, but the game-makers provide an additional challenge: I can go back to the stages that took me longer to complete and replay them to earn a medal!! They don't realize what it took for me to complete some of these tasks, which is, in itself, worthy of a medal. There is no going back and trying to recreate my fumbling through the stages to completion. I earned medals on 18/35 battles, adequate for my skill level, but not enough to be even a marginally good gamer. However, for the gamer who wants to improve his/her problem-solving ability, redoing the tasks better the second time around is good motivation to improve this skill.
As both a teacher and a life-long learner, I look for the lesson; in this case, it's persistence in problem-solving. If children will spend literally hours solving the challenge of computer games, why won't they spend a fraction of that time learning the educational basics? Spelling is often just patterning, matching the sounds of the letters to the sounds of the words in order: game-playing 101. Math is easy once a child learns the basic concepts, which is also basic gaming: figure out the system, then repeat it to solve new problems. The multiplication tables are simple memorization, which is also one of the foundations of game-playing: memorize the players, the equipment, the route, the challenges, and the game is easy to complete.
There are lessons to be learned from game playing, but putting the knowledge on-line does not fulfill the obligation to educate. When the student completes the 35 stages of Big Block's Battle, a conversation can help him/her clarify the learning that accompanied the activity: the persistence in problem-solving. How can that learning be applied to the next educational task, to problems encountered outside the classroom, on the job, or in a family?
It's not about playing the game, but it's about learning from playing the game. Without the learning, computer games are just another way for kids to waste time.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Define Discrimination
Huge billboard next to the mid-Valley Parkway advertising the Gay telephone directory.
If I don't allow gays to be included in my telephone directory, that is discrimination. If I don't allow diverse ethnic groups in my telephone directory, that is racism.
However, if I publish a "straight" telephone directory, that isn't discrimination because if it's okay to have a "gay" telephone directory, then it's okay to have a straight telephone directory, right?
If I don't allow gays to be included in my telephone directory, that is discrimination. If I don't allow diverse ethnic groups in my telephone directory, that is racism.
However, if I publish a "straight" telephone directory, that isn't discrimination because if it's okay to have a "gay" telephone directory, then it's okay to have a straight telephone directory, right?
Saturday, August 11, 2012
People I don’t want to be this week:
The lady with the live spider hiding out in her ear canal.
The little girl who wanted to dive like an Olympian and went ass over tea kettle into the pool instead -- and her dad caught it all on tape for a lifetime of mortifying reliving.
The little boy who rescued a toddler in danger of drowning in a lake, only to die from a brain-eating amoeba that inhabits the lake where they were playing. The obvious question is why the lake has not been posted as off-limits to all human beings with a brain.
The naked guy treading water, fending off hammerhead sharks, and trying to figure out how to cover the family jewels while the overhead news copter filmed his rescue.
The driver of an over-loaded van that flipped/rolled several times on the nearby interstate after a tire blew. The driver and the shotgun passenger, both of whom were buckled into their seatbelts, were not injured seriously; however, the remaining six included one fatality and numerous very critically injured victims of the horrendous accident.
The younger man who was yahooing across the desert in the open bed of an ORV that flipped, throwing him out minus one of his feet.
Randy Travis: drunk, naked, arrested, and about as low as a man can go. Let the good alchohol-fueled times roll!
Any Olympian athlete who is sent home for partying way too much and/or using drugs. With what it takes to get there, who would risk losing their chance to medal?
Lindsay Lohan, who doesn’t realize that there is a finite number of “one more chance” opportunities before people simply don’t give a damn anymore.
Fareed Zakaria, the journalist and media analyst who ignored the advice always to cite his sources. Always because yes, it is still plagiarism if you subtly change some of the words in the sentence from which you copy the bulk of the information you claim is your own.
Bruce Jenner, former Olympic decathalon champion, admitting that “the K girls” don’t give him one red cent of their multiple millions, confirming what we already believed and he seems not to know: he’s so totally pussy-whipped!
Any Chinese athlete who has trained for a lifetime to serve his/her country – and fails miserably during an Olympic performance, especially a performance that involves twirling a ribbon.
Best Mom of the Week: the dog in Chile who rescued her 10 pups from a burning building. Two of the 10-day old puppies died, but the other 8 appear to be doing just fine. If people could be more like dogs, the world would be a kinder, gentler, better place for both the dogs and mankind.
The little girl who wanted to dive like an Olympian and went ass over tea kettle into the pool instead -- and her dad caught it all on tape for a lifetime of mortifying reliving.
The little boy who rescued a toddler in danger of drowning in a lake, only to die from a brain-eating amoeba that inhabits the lake where they were playing. The obvious question is why the lake has not been posted as off-limits to all human beings with a brain.
The naked guy treading water, fending off hammerhead sharks, and trying to figure out how to cover the family jewels while the overhead news copter filmed his rescue.
The driver of an over-loaded van that flipped/rolled several times on the nearby interstate after a tire blew. The driver and the shotgun passenger, both of whom were buckled into their seatbelts, were not injured seriously; however, the remaining six included one fatality and numerous very critically injured victims of the horrendous accident.
The younger man who was yahooing across the desert in the open bed of an ORV that flipped, throwing him out minus one of his feet.
Randy Travis: drunk, naked, arrested, and about as low as a man can go. Let the good alchohol-fueled times roll!
Any Olympian athlete who is sent home for partying way too much and/or using drugs. With what it takes to get there, who would risk losing their chance to medal?
Lindsay Lohan, who doesn’t realize that there is a finite number of “one more chance” opportunities before people simply don’t give a damn anymore.
Fareed Zakaria, the journalist and media analyst who ignored the advice always to cite his sources. Always because yes, it is still plagiarism if you subtly change some of the words in the sentence from which you copy the bulk of the information you claim is your own.
Bruce Jenner, former Olympic decathalon champion, admitting that “the K girls” don’t give him one red cent of their multiple millions, confirming what we already believed and he seems not to know: he’s so totally pussy-whipped!
Any Chinese athlete who has trained for a lifetime to serve his/her country – and fails miserably during an Olympic performance, especially a performance that involves twirling a ribbon.
Best Mom of the Week: the dog in Chile who rescued her 10 pups from a burning building. Two of the 10-day old puppies died, but the other 8 appear to be doing just fine. If people could be more like dogs, the world would be a kinder, gentler, better place for both the dogs and mankind.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Romney for President?
Dear Mr. Romney:
This week, I’ve received 3 separate mailings from your campaign, thanking me for my generous support of your candidacy for President; however, I do not yet support your campaign either philosophically or financially because I am not sure what you will actually do when you are elected.
You stand back from your achievements as a businessman, allowing your opponents, as well as the media, to turn your personal success into political shame. In the same way that I am appalled by the younger generations’ hue and cry about all the “old people” who have money in savings accounts, who pay their bills, who live within their means, I am appalled by anyone who is successful down-playing not only the success, but the sacrifice it requires to be successful. I do not receive my retirement income as a government entitlement; I earned it by working long hours day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year -- for 35 years in my career field. I am pleased that my life-long dedication to being able to pay my own way after I retire is paying off for me. I don’t feel that I owe anyone coming behind me anything more than I put into my career: long hours, hard work, and the determination to succeed. If they want what I have, they, too, can earn it, just as I did. Why pretend otherwise?
Secondly, you are a successful businessman, so present the public with a business plan for success. When a candidate says s/he has a plan, share the plan. My specific plan to be ready for the overwhelming influx of senior citizens who require medical care is one I devised prior to the last Presidential election. Create a Health Care Corps, ala John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps, using all the empty malls and big box buildings as community clinics that provide the basics: annual screening/health check-ups, lab work, baby wellness, and physical therapy for the elderly. This can be created by providing appropriate health care education to future providers, similar to two years’ of compulsory military service in other countries. Two years of intense training requires a payback of four years of service, and then the educated worker, who also now has job experience, can move into the private sector if s/he so desires.
Take all the empty shopping malls and big box megastores and repurpose them as community health care centers. We certainly do not need to build new facilities right next door to the ghost towns of commerce past! Putting our tax dollars to work for the citizens benefits the citizens who work. Stop providing generations of families with welfare, subsidized housing, food stamps, and free medical care by requiring that they become educated, productive workers in the health care system. Create jobs for the unemployed, hiring them for the construction required to repurpose the empty buildings, to provide equipment/furniture for the health care complexes, to staff the offices, to work as custodians of the property, to monitor the parking lots/garages, to provide security, to staff a daycare so the mothers can go into the doctor’s office without carting numerous crying, mischievous children with them. It would take time to get the process moving, but once it starts, it can become a driving force for change America can believe in, change that actually serves Americans, rather than the politicians in Washington, DC.
Mr. Romney, if you want my support, earn it. Don’t believe for even one minute that I am going to donate my retirement dollars to someone who thinks he deserves it because he says he represents my political perspective. You have to earn my support and my donation, just as I earned it, saved it, and now have to decide the most effective use for my retirement income. I don’t need a color photo of you and your wife glad-handing at a political rally: I need your business plan in black and white, with details, specifics, time lines. Send me that and I’ll send a donation to your campaign.
This week, I’ve received 3 separate mailings from your campaign, thanking me for my generous support of your candidacy for President; however, I do not yet support your campaign either philosophically or financially because I am not sure what you will actually do when you are elected.
You stand back from your achievements as a businessman, allowing your opponents, as well as the media, to turn your personal success into political shame. In the same way that I am appalled by the younger generations’ hue and cry about all the “old people” who have money in savings accounts, who pay their bills, who live within their means, I am appalled by anyone who is successful down-playing not only the success, but the sacrifice it requires to be successful. I do not receive my retirement income as a government entitlement; I earned it by working long hours day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year -- for 35 years in my career field. I am pleased that my life-long dedication to being able to pay my own way after I retire is paying off for me. I don’t feel that I owe anyone coming behind me anything more than I put into my career: long hours, hard work, and the determination to succeed. If they want what I have, they, too, can earn it, just as I did. Why pretend otherwise?
Secondly, you are a successful businessman, so present the public with a business plan for success. When a candidate says s/he has a plan, share the plan. My specific plan to be ready for the overwhelming influx of senior citizens who require medical care is one I devised prior to the last Presidential election. Create a Health Care Corps, ala John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps, using all the empty malls and big box buildings as community clinics that provide the basics: annual screening/health check-ups, lab work, baby wellness, and physical therapy for the elderly. This can be created by providing appropriate health care education to future providers, similar to two years’ of compulsory military service in other countries. Two years of intense training requires a payback of four years of service, and then the educated worker, who also now has job experience, can move into the private sector if s/he so desires.
Take all the empty shopping malls and big box megastores and repurpose them as community health care centers. We certainly do not need to build new facilities right next door to the ghost towns of commerce past! Putting our tax dollars to work for the citizens benefits the citizens who work. Stop providing generations of families with welfare, subsidized housing, food stamps, and free medical care by requiring that they become educated, productive workers in the health care system. Create jobs for the unemployed, hiring them for the construction required to repurpose the empty buildings, to provide equipment/furniture for the health care complexes, to staff the offices, to work as custodians of the property, to monitor the parking lots/garages, to provide security, to staff a daycare so the mothers can go into the doctor’s office without carting numerous crying, mischievous children with them. It would take time to get the process moving, but once it starts, it can become a driving force for change America can believe in, change that actually serves Americans, rather than the politicians in Washington, DC.
Mr. Romney, if you want my support, earn it. Don’t believe for even one minute that I am going to donate my retirement dollars to someone who thinks he deserves it because he says he represents my political perspective. You have to earn my support and my donation, just as I earned it, saved it, and now have to decide the most effective use for my retirement income. I don’t need a color photo of you and your wife glad-handing at a political rally: I need your business plan in black and white, with details, specifics, time lines. Send me that and I’ll send a donation to your campaign.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Kissin' at the Chik-fil-A
Currently, the majority of the American voters do not support legitimizing same-sex marriage; therefore, a person who says, "I don't support same-sex marriage," echoes what the majority of the American people believe and is not attacking LBGTs for their sexual orientation. The question is whether the accepted, centuries old definition of marriage as between a man and a woman should be changed to accommodate those who believe it's also between same-sex couples. The will of the majority is supposed to prevail, but the raucous uproar from the LBGT minority pressures politicians to pander to the media that serves as the scorekeepers for those who support gay marriage – and everyone else, who is branded as discriminating against LBGTs by refusing to support same-sex marriage.
Amazingly, even President Obama changed his mind about whether he supports same-sex marriage or does not, which was his stand on the issue before his stand on the issue became one of the five keys to re-election. Our country’s laws are based on the will of the people, not on the public posturing of a mayor who claims to be standing up for the minority of his/her constituency, rather than standing up for the majority, or a President whose core beliefs go whichever way the media winds blow. Until we, the majority of the American people, vote to change the legal definition of marriage, it should remain in its historical context as a religious commitment between a man and a woman.
I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman; I don't believe that marriage is between one man and many women, as practiced by some religious sects, but if that is what the people involved in the marriage believe, they are free to practice what they preach. I also do not believe in same-sex marriage, but I know same-sex couples who are married, as well as those who have made legal commitments with their life partners, and I applaud them for having the courage of their personal convictions. Just because I don’t believe in a lifestyle practiced by some people, such as polygamists and same-sex marriage advocates, does not translate into discrimination against those who choose to live their lives differently from mine.
Kissing at a Chik-fil-A isn't going to change anyone's mind about same-sex marriage, and most especially the mind of the CEO of the business that hugely profited from being the target of the same-sex marriage controversy.
Amazingly, even President Obama changed his mind about whether he supports same-sex marriage or does not, which was his stand on the issue before his stand on the issue became one of the five keys to re-election. Our country’s laws are based on the will of the people, not on the public posturing of a mayor who claims to be standing up for the minority of his/her constituency, rather than standing up for the majority, or a President whose core beliefs go whichever way the media winds blow. Until we, the majority of the American people, vote to change the legal definition of marriage, it should remain in its historical context as a religious commitment between a man and a woman.
I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman; I don't believe that marriage is between one man and many women, as practiced by some religious sects, but if that is what the people involved in the marriage believe, they are free to practice what they preach. I also do not believe in same-sex marriage, but I know same-sex couples who are married, as well as those who have made legal commitments with their life partners, and I applaud them for having the courage of their personal convictions. Just because I don’t believe in a lifestyle practiced by some people, such as polygamists and same-sex marriage advocates, does not translate into discrimination against those who choose to live their lives differently from mine.
Kissing at a Chik-fil-A isn't going to change anyone's mind about same-sex marriage, and most especially the mind of the CEO of the business that hugely profited from being the target of the same-sex marriage controversy.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Spirits or Superstition?
Several weeks ago, I heard a metallic tapping, 3 times, like a quarter being tapped on my bedroom window. It woke me from a sound sleep and I explored the interiors, trying to figure out if "someone" was tapping on my window or if it's a sound I heard in my sleep. The dogs, who share a room with me, weren't riled up, so I went back to bed. Another night recently, as clear as if she were standing next to my bed, I heard my mother say my name, somewhat forcefully. Again, I immediately awakened and checked the property, but everything seemed secure, so I again went back to bed. I've been having grusome nightmares, often involving snakes, one of which I dreamed was imbedded in my head in a big hole from which it entered and exited. I'm waking up often throughout the night and, sometimes, giving up sleep and staying up from what seems to be my 3 AM weird wake-ups.
Last time my housekeeper came, I told her that strange things have been happening to me, and as I described these recent events, she turned pale, began praying loudly in Spanish, and crossed herself repeatedly. She stared at me and said, "You are in danger. There is a witch in your house and you have to get rid of her." She said that the long string of injuries I've had, as well as the repeat bouts with community-acquired pneumonia since last November, reveal that there is something evil in my house and it's trying to take away my happiness, and, maybe, my life. She said she feels a "darkness" about me that wasn't there when she first began working for me and she's worried.
That's the point at which I had to decided (quickly) whether to laugh, acknowledge her superstition, or brush her off. I chose to acknowledge her concern and thanked her for providing that insight. "No," she repeated, "I am serious." I could see in her eyes that she was afraid for me, worried that something bad could happen to me, so I asked her what was there to fear. She asked me if I still had that "book" I brought back from Greece, the one written in Greek that the "witch" in the platka had given me with such strong insistence. I told Lulu I did still have it, and she told me to burn it. Now.
Again, there was a strength to her concerns, no humor nor hint of it, so I found the booklet -- and she refused to touch it or look at it directly. She again told me to burn it, so I put it into the sink and lit it. Suddenly, brilliant green flames shot up almost a foot high, which worried me because (1) I had never seen anything burn completely brilliant green before and (2) My house has sprinklers in case of fire, and I didn't want to set them off and water damage everything I own. When the booklet was ashes, I washed them down the sink, but we weren't finished with our exorcism.
Lulu got an egg out of the 'fridge and began making the sign of the cross all over my body with the hand holding the egg, all the while praying in Spanish. I recognized some of the words, especially Dios and diablo, and she was quite thorough about the ritual. Then, we broke the egg into a glass filled with water and, believe it or not, swirling white filaments, like a spider's web, filled the water. Lulu jumped back, told me this was not good, and directed me to flush the egg down the toilet. She explained that it's a cleansing ritual and all that filament effect was an evil spirit that had gone inside the egg. She told me that the egg-orcism would do until she could bring me a candle.
Today, she brought the candle. The glass container is covered with all kinds of symbols of evil, including the devil and witches and black cats, with the words "Arrasa con Todo" (Destroy Everything) written at the bottom. The way it works is I light the candle and let it burn itself out, and then whatever has taken up residence in my home is gone. I think we double-check with another egg ceremony the next time she comes to clean, but she's confident that the candle is going to rid my house of the spirits that have taken up residence in it.
At this point in time, I'd like to make it through the rest of this calendar year without breaking a bone or having another surgery or dealing with yet another intense respiratory issue, so between burning the Greek booklet, capturing the spirits in an egg, and burning a candle to destroy everything, let's hope that the evil spirits have moved on to another house.
Last time my housekeeper came, I told her that strange things have been happening to me, and as I described these recent events, she turned pale, began praying loudly in Spanish, and crossed herself repeatedly. She stared at me and said, "You are in danger. There is a witch in your house and you have to get rid of her." She said that the long string of injuries I've had, as well as the repeat bouts with community-acquired pneumonia since last November, reveal that there is something evil in my house and it's trying to take away my happiness, and, maybe, my life. She said she feels a "darkness" about me that wasn't there when she first began working for me and she's worried.
That's the point at which I had to decided (quickly) whether to laugh, acknowledge her superstition, or brush her off. I chose to acknowledge her concern and thanked her for providing that insight. "No," she repeated, "I am serious." I could see in her eyes that she was afraid for me, worried that something bad could happen to me, so I asked her what was there to fear. She asked me if I still had that "book" I brought back from Greece, the one written in Greek that the "witch" in the platka had given me with such strong insistence. I told Lulu I did still have it, and she told me to burn it. Now.
Again, there was a strength to her concerns, no humor nor hint of it, so I found the booklet -- and she refused to touch it or look at it directly. She again told me to burn it, so I put it into the sink and lit it. Suddenly, brilliant green flames shot up almost a foot high, which worried me because (1) I had never seen anything burn completely brilliant green before and (2) My house has sprinklers in case of fire, and I didn't want to set them off and water damage everything I own. When the booklet was ashes, I washed them down the sink, but we weren't finished with our exorcism.
Lulu got an egg out of the 'fridge and began making the sign of the cross all over my body with the hand holding the egg, all the while praying in Spanish. I recognized some of the words, especially Dios and diablo, and she was quite thorough about the ritual. Then, we broke the egg into a glass filled with water and, believe it or not, swirling white filaments, like a spider's web, filled the water. Lulu jumped back, told me this was not good, and directed me to flush the egg down the toilet. She explained that it's a cleansing ritual and all that filament effect was an evil spirit that had gone inside the egg. She told me that the egg-orcism would do until she could bring me a candle.
Today, she brought the candle. The glass container is covered with all kinds of symbols of evil, including the devil and witches and black cats, with the words "Arrasa con Todo" (Destroy Everything) written at the bottom. The way it works is I light the candle and let it burn itself out, and then whatever has taken up residence in my home is gone. I think we double-check with another egg ceremony the next time she comes to clean, but she's confident that the candle is going to rid my house of the spirits that have taken up residence in it.
At this point in time, I'd like to make it through the rest of this calendar year without breaking a bone or having another surgery or dealing with yet another intense respiratory issue, so between burning the Greek booklet, capturing the spirits in an egg, and burning a candle to destroy everything, let's hope that the evil spirits have moved on to another house.
Stashing
I am working on diminishing my yarn stash, the process of which I call stashing, knitting and crocheting projects that use up both the left-over full skeins and the little bits. Mostly, I enjoy making hats, scarves, gloves and blankets (some of this summer's stashing is shown in the accompanying photo). I give all the finished products away, to family, when they cannot think of a reason not to need another hat, set of gloves, or scarf fast enough to avoid my gifting, as well as to a local homeless facility. A couple years back, I provided that organization with 6 brand-new, large handmade afghans and specified that they be given to residents who are on the streets during the winter. When I was told they would be sold in their shop to bring in revenue to help with operating costs, I clarified that was NOT my intent, so I would not donate afghans in the future.
Yesterday, an email from one of my many craft sites offered the pattern for a hand-knit “key cozy.” It’s actually a covering for the fat part of the key, the part the fingers hold onto when inserting/ removing the key from keyholes. Not only can I not imagine why anyone would need, want, or use a hand-knit key cozy, but that use of silly bits of yarn goes too far even for me. If I have that small a bit of left-over yarn, I’m going to toss it!
There has to be a line beyond which hoarding yarn should not go, and I believe I’ve finally found it. My family members are safe: there will be NO hand-knit key cozies arriving in the mail ... this year. I may have to make one just to see why anyone would take the time to make even one and then publish the pattern so others can make them, too. After all, if you are wearing gloves and the key has gloves, it'll be impossible to hold onto the key, which defeats the purpose of the hand-knit key cozy ... unless I'm missing something.
Yeah, this is how it begins.
Yesterday, an email from one of my many craft sites offered the pattern for a hand-knit “key cozy.” It’s actually a covering for the fat part of the key, the part the fingers hold onto when inserting/ removing the key from keyholes. Not only can I not imagine why anyone would need, want, or use a hand-knit key cozy, but that use of silly bits of yarn goes too far even for me. If I have that small a bit of left-over yarn, I’m going to toss it!
There has to be a line beyond which hoarding yarn should not go, and I believe I’ve finally found it. My family members are safe: there will be NO hand-knit key cozies arriving in the mail ... this year. I may have to make one just to see why anyone would take the time to make even one and then publish the pattern so others can make them, too. After all, if you are wearing gloves and the key has gloves, it'll be impossible to hold onto the key, which defeats the purpose of the hand-knit key cozy ... unless I'm missing something.
Yeah, this is how it begins.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
All A-twitter
I thought that freedom of speech means that anyone who feels compelled to express whatever is protected for doing so as long as the words do not slander or libel, pose a direct threat, or create a harmful situation that puts others in immediate danger. If a female athlete wants to tweet a racist joke, recipients have the right to deny a public reaction that validates the message. I know that in other countries, with other forms of government, public speech is both controlled and censored, but in America, we are supposed to have the right to speak our minds without fear of reprisal.
Thus, I'm not sure why the top echelon of Twitter people shut down accounts for people whom they deem have offended/upset/dismayed someone somewhere for something. I also don't understand why athletes are being kicked out of the Olympics based on their "inappropriate" tweets. Who decides what's inappropriate? If it were up to me, the 4-hour long, horrifically tedious and boring opening ceremony for this year's Olympics was inappropriate. I also think the skimpy "penis pouches" worn by male swimmers and divers are inappropriate. And, do we even need to hear yet another male commentator discuss the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-bikinis worn by the women's volleyball players as if they are critiquing the new Playmate of the Month centerfold?
Sure, I'd think twice before I shared my personal pettiness with anyone outside my immediate circle of friends, but if a tweeter is willing to be judged by others for inappropriate thoughts, who am I to tell him/her not to send an ill-advised tweet? Obnoxious tweets speak volumes about the person who sends them and we more effectively deal with the individual by not providing feedback. It's the old "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is there any sound" approach.
Today, verbal graffiti is spread through Twitter and text messages. If you get something you don't want, delete it, rather than send it to everyone on your friends' list. If you are appalled by a tweet or text message, chances are others also will be appalled, so spare them that experience!
If you send it on, you exacerbate the issue, rather than stopping it before it goes viral, and are, therefore, guilty as an accessory to poor decision-making.
Thus, I'm not sure why the top echelon of Twitter people shut down accounts for people whom they deem have offended/upset/dismayed someone somewhere for something. I also don't understand why athletes are being kicked out of the Olympics based on their "inappropriate" tweets. Who decides what's inappropriate? If it were up to me, the 4-hour long, horrifically tedious and boring opening ceremony for this year's Olympics was inappropriate. I also think the skimpy "penis pouches" worn by male swimmers and divers are inappropriate. And, do we even need to hear yet another male commentator discuss the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-bikinis worn by the women's volleyball players as if they are critiquing the new Playmate of the Month centerfold?
Sure, I'd think twice before I shared my personal pettiness with anyone outside my immediate circle of friends, but if a tweeter is willing to be judged by others for inappropriate thoughts, who am I to tell him/her not to send an ill-advised tweet? Obnoxious tweets speak volumes about the person who sends them and we more effectively deal with the individual by not providing feedback. It's the old "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is there any sound" approach.
Today, verbal graffiti is spread through Twitter and text messages. If you get something you don't want, delete it, rather than send it to everyone on your friends' list. If you are appalled by a tweet or text message, chances are others also will be appalled, so spare them that experience!
If you send it on, you exacerbate the issue, rather than stopping it before it goes viral, and are, therefore, guilty as an accessory to poor decision-making.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Good Enough Isn't
When is good enough … good enough? Howard Stern spoke out this past week on America’s Got Talent (which should be America Has Talent) and defined the difference between good enough and good, voting against a contestant who, Howard clarified, would be an okay lounge singer, but not good enough to compete against the better, more talented, candidates in a talent show. The other panelists want to coddle, to support, to ooh and ahh over the mediocre performers, rather than wait to be blown away by the best. When it’s a huge pot of gold at the end of a contest rainbow, not just anyone deserves to be there or to win. We used to say, “May the best man win,” but today, it seems that everyone deserves to win something for doing not much of anything.
This “good enough is good enough” mentality is being revealed more and more as competitive TV shows crowd the airwaves. In Opening Act, a panel of entertainment industry movers and shakers watch videos on YouTube and select their favorite musical performance to open for a famous concert performer. This past week’s contestant, a 16-year-old singer/songwriter with her own garage band, lamented that she’s wanted this all her life (she taught herself guitar when she was 11) and has worked so hard for so long (5 years) that she really deserves this opportunity to showcase her talent. She did a good enough job for a 16-year-old garage band singer/songwriter with no vocal training and limited performance experience, but there are thousands of other talented singers who are much better and “really deserve” a break, too.
The winner of Design Star, Danielle, is also disappointing because she is the contestant who consistently failed to complete her design challenge each week, but squeaked through because someone else did worse than she. In the final design challenge, her competitor Brittany (who I just discovered lives in the Valley and has a design studio here) did a more finished, polished room that spoke to the family, while the winner apparently provided more specific information about the process of decorating the room, information good enough to win her own show on a TV network. The judges assured all twelve of the original contestants that “everyone here is a winner,” but that’s not true: one person won her own design show and the others return home with shoulda, woulda, coulda stories to share.
Ditto the recent winners on Cupcake Wars: those who do better than the worst cupcake baker move on, while the winner is not the one who provides incredible finished cupcakes, but the baker who screws up less than the other contestants. When this show began, the bakers not only made delicious, unique, interesting cupcakes, but their decorations were spectacular and reflected the theme of each week's competition. This season, the cupcakes aren’t that good, an endlessly boring repeat of the same old/same old favorites. Even the viewers can see that a fondant cut-out on top of a pile of buttercream icing is not a decoration, but a desperate last-minute attempt not to have a naked cupcake! Will there be a week when there is no winner of the $10,000.00 prize because there is no best? That’s a lot of money to give to “good enough" and lowers the performance standard for the contestants who follow.
On the cooking channel, a contest for the next network Food Star recently concluded. Again, a dozen began and one won a spot in the fall line-up. This time, however, when the judges were asked to eliminate a contestant to create the final three, they refused to do so because all of the chefs were “so good” that the judges could not make a decision, a manipulation that seemed to favor the judges' star contestant, Marti, who consistently mismanaged her time, as well as her intended recipes, and winged it through the eight weeks of competition, while other, better chefs were eliminated. Then, for the first time, the show asked the viewers to select the winner by voting online or by telephone. Happily, the public voted for the underdog, the guy who took risks, who did his thing (he fried fish bones!), rather than pander to the panelists and select Marti, who may have been good enough for the judges, but, for the public, wasn't, and the best man won.
I admire the Bachelorette for sending “good enough” Ari home. Ari is a nice guy, but he isn’t the best man for Emily. It is difficult to explain why one is okay and the other so much better, especially when it results in hurt feelings, but why settle for second best? I watched the home viewer winner of a day on Live with Kelly and all I could think was, “Is this the best they could do?” He was obnoxious, so overly gay as to be an offense to gay men, and he delighted in completely taking over the opening dialog, as well as the rest of the show. I thought the show was looking for the best viewer to be the guest host, not someone who may be good enough (and I almost want to finish that sentence with “because he’s gay.”).
I admire Ryan on The Glee Project: his approach is that if one of the contestants doesn’t have the talent, the drive, and the stamina to win the contest this week, s/he is cut from the competition. This week, Abraham got the axe, even though he came back onto the stage after the final performances to explain that he wasn’t making excuses, but … a whine that Ryan interrupted to clarify: “I don’t believe you. A person who says he isn’t making excuses is making excuses.” Well said, Ryan, and right to the point. You may have been good enough last week, Abraham, but you weren’t good this week, so pack your bags and head back home.
After all, we don't allow everyone who wants to compete in the Olympics to do so: we only take the best of the best athletes to compete against the best that the rest of the world has to offer. When an Olympian says s/he has wanted this all my life, s/he has been training for their entire lives for a chance to compete and qualify for the Olympics. Before they are selected to be on the Olympic team, they compete against the best athletes in their field of expertise -- not against anyone who wants to suit up and show up! To be the best, you have to beat the best.
We have become so accepting of good enough that we are losing our ability to know the best! At the top of my favorite novels list is Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, which also features my all-time favorite character, Atticus Finch. In Atticus’s famous courtroom defense of Tom Robinson, he explains that “We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men” (CH. 20).
For some reason, we have forgotten that we are uniquely different from the moment of conception. I am much better at some things than other people, and not nearly as good at many things as other people. There is a hierarchy of bad, so-so, good, better, best and we rank somewhere within those parameters, a recognition of the reality of being human. We cannot continue to lower our standards of excellence so everyone can be awesome, amazing, fabulous, outstanding, legendary, heroic and/or earn a 4.0 gpa or even be good enough; instead, we need to maintain our expectation of excellence and then encourage each individual to strive to reach it, as well as to accept the reality that many won’t ever be the best, but maybe only good enough, and, sometimes, baldly bad.
Good enough isn’t, so if you cannot become better, step aside and let the person who can do the job better, the person who is the best at doing whatever it is, do it.
This “good enough is good enough” mentality is being revealed more and more as competitive TV shows crowd the airwaves. In Opening Act, a panel of entertainment industry movers and shakers watch videos on YouTube and select their favorite musical performance to open for a famous concert performer. This past week’s contestant, a 16-year-old singer/songwriter with her own garage band, lamented that she’s wanted this all her life (she taught herself guitar when she was 11) and has worked so hard for so long (5 years) that she really deserves this opportunity to showcase her talent. She did a good enough job for a 16-year-old garage band singer/songwriter with no vocal training and limited performance experience, but there are thousands of other talented singers who are much better and “really deserve” a break, too.
The winner of Design Star, Danielle, is also disappointing because she is the contestant who consistently failed to complete her design challenge each week, but squeaked through because someone else did worse than she. In the final design challenge, her competitor Brittany (who I just discovered lives in the Valley and has a design studio here) did a more finished, polished room that spoke to the family, while the winner apparently provided more specific information about the process of decorating the room, information good enough to win her own show on a TV network. The judges assured all twelve of the original contestants that “everyone here is a winner,” but that’s not true: one person won her own design show and the others return home with shoulda, woulda, coulda stories to share.
Ditto the recent winners on Cupcake Wars: those who do better than the worst cupcake baker move on, while the winner is not the one who provides incredible finished cupcakes, but the baker who screws up less than the other contestants. When this show began, the bakers not only made delicious, unique, interesting cupcakes, but their decorations were spectacular and reflected the theme of each week's competition. This season, the cupcakes aren’t that good, an endlessly boring repeat of the same old/same old favorites. Even the viewers can see that a fondant cut-out on top of a pile of buttercream icing is not a decoration, but a desperate last-minute attempt not to have a naked cupcake! Will there be a week when there is no winner of the $10,000.00 prize because there is no best? That’s a lot of money to give to “good enough" and lowers the performance standard for the contestants who follow.
On the cooking channel, a contest for the next network Food Star recently concluded. Again, a dozen began and one won a spot in the fall line-up. This time, however, when the judges were asked to eliminate a contestant to create the final three, they refused to do so because all of the chefs were “so good” that the judges could not make a decision, a manipulation that seemed to favor the judges' star contestant, Marti, who consistently mismanaged her time, as well as her intended recipes, and winged it through the eight weeks of competition, while other, better chefs were eliminated. Then, for the first time, the show asked the viewers to select the winner by voting online or by telephone. Happily, the public voted for the underdog, the guy who took risks, who did his thing (he fried fish bones!), rather than pander to the panelists and select Marti, who may have been good enough for the judges, but, for the public, wasn't, and the best man won.
I admire the Bachelorette for sending “good enough” Ari home. Ari is a nice guy, but he isn’t the best man for Emily. It is difficult to explain why one is okay and the other so much better, especially when it results in hurt feelings, but why settle for second best? I watched the home viewer winner of a day on Live with Kelly and all I could think was, “Is this the best they could do?” He was obnoxious, so overly gay as to be an offense to gay men, and he delighted in completely taking over the opening dialog, as well as the rest of the show. I thought the show was looking for the best viewer to be the guest host, not someone who may be good enough (and I almost want to finish that sentence with “because he’s gay.”).
I admire Ryan on The Glee Project: his approach is that if one of the contestants doesn’t have the talent, the drive, and the stamina to win the contest this week, s/he is cut from the competition. This week, Abraham got the axe, even though he came back onto the stage after the final performances to explain that he wasn’t making excuses, but … a whine that Ryan interrupted to clarify: “I don’t believe you. A person who says he isn’t making excuses is making excuses.” Well said, Ryan, and right to the point. You may have been good enough last week, Abraham, but you weren’t good this week, so pack your bags and head back home.
After all, we don't allow everyone who wants to compete in the Olympics to do so: we only take the best of the best athletes to compete against the best that the rest of the world has to offer. When an Olympian says s/he has wanted this all my life, s/he has been training for their entire lives for a chance to compete and qualify for the Olympics. Before they are selected to be on the Olympic team, they compete against the best athletes in their field of expertise -- not against anyone who wants to suit up and show up! To be the best, you have to beat the best.
We have become so accepting of good enough that we are losing our ability to know the best! At the top of my favorite novels list is Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, which also features my all-time favorite character, Atticus Finch. In Atticus’s famous courtroom defense of Tom Robinson, he explains that “We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men” (CH. 20).
For some reason, we have forgotten that we are uniquely different from the moment of conception. I am much better at some things than other people, and not nearly as good at many things as other people. There is a hierarchy of bad, so-so, good, better, best and we rank somewhere within those parameters, a recognition of the reality of being human. We cannot continue to lower our standards of excellence so everyone can be awesome, amazing, fabulous, outstanding, legendary, heroic and/or earn a 4.0 gpa or even be good enough; instead, we need to maintain our expectation of excellence and then encourage each individual to strive to reach it, as well as to accept the reality that many won’t ever be the best, but maybe only good enough, and, sometimes, baldly bad.
Good enough isn’t, so if you cannot become better, step aside and let the person who can do the job better, the person who is the best at doing whatever it is, do it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)