catch up

I decided to boycott blogging for a while to see if I had anymore interesting things to come up with to put into the cosmos...apparently not.

I did start reading a book. "Julie & Julia - My Year of Cooking Dangerously" by Julie Powell. Julie decided to cook all of Julia Child's recipes from her cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol 1" in one calendar year. She was in a job she didn't like, in a marriage that was a bit ho-hum, and facing that horrid biological ticking with hormonal issues to boot, all at the age of 29. In the book, her husband says she should cook and then blog about it. Turns out, it turned into a book deal and a NY Times Bestseller! How wonderful for her. Now she writes in her flat in Long Island City, NY and can stay in her pajamas all day if desired. I am feeling a bit green with envy just now.

Lots has happened since I last blogged. Let's recap, shall we?
1) the Eagle scout thing for the son...success. Although....all the work on the outside of the house was for not. I mean no one got to see the outside of the house for long...we had some weird weather...it rained, snowed (no kidding...on Sunday morning it snowed 4" and by 6pm for the ceremony it was sunny & clear!), it was cold, it was humid, it was a mess! Oh well, it just meant that all those people were smushed into my little house! Horrid sometimes, ok others.

2) We coached baseball again. Horrid. Just plain awful. Our kid did great, and was selected as an All-Star, but rest of it was absolutely horrific...and we are still paying off the bills from the umpires, uniforms. Many players never paid their fees, and we were stuck paying over $1200 out of pocket ourselves. Never, ever again. Never. Ever. Ever.

3) Kid is now a senior in high school. Costs are going through the roof. Senior pictures turned out great. Now we have to pay for cap/gown, yearbooks, senior night (which is a record price this year: $170.00 for the night per student - to go to the big city and eat and play video games until 6am - woo-hoo), and all the other costs I have yet to encounter....*sigh*.

4) summer was ok....weather was ok this year, but no trip cause all of my money went to pay for baseball crap. Did I mention never again?

There, that's it in a nut shell.

Today I texted with my pilot friend. He was suppossed to fly to Dallas for 2 months of flight school today to learn systems on a new jet that he will begin flying in January. He is not there. His dad is in his final stages of cancer. He and his 2 sisters are at the family home in a vigil as dad is making his way from this world to the next place. I have been through this with my mom's 2nd husband - he got ALS, and died almost 2 years to the day from diagnosis. Pilot's dad, Bob is a great man. He was always so nice to me. A really great dad, and granddad. And he was an engineer - working on the Lunar Rover for NASA! I remember looking at the poster size picture of an astronaut zipping around the lunar surface while working on projects in the garage! He is a good man, and not deserving of this terrible disease, and will be missed terribly. I am putting in this blog how sad I am that my friend & the family has to go through this.

Cancer should stop being a source of unlimited income for the drug companies, and they should really just come up with the cure and stop with the maintenance plans that make them millions and millions of dollars per year. It's disgusting and immoral.

Now - the election is just 2 weeks away. Unlike most Americans I am really interested in the political machine. This year we have stooped to a new low in tolerance of bad behavior by rich white politicians. I am so tired of the promises, although I know that's how it's done. But the mud slinging this year gets to include racial slurs, and religious slurs, and other slurs as well.
A woman, now fairly famous, at a McCain rally said that Obama was an Arab. McCain took the microphone from her, and said, "no, no, he's a decent man." So my question is, why did McCain even say that? Being an Arab isn't a bad thing. But saying that he was a decent man, didn't refute the inference that Obama was an Arab. You can certainly be an Arab and be a decent man (or woman). In his attempt to sound like he was educating the woman as to Mr. Obama's heritage, he did nothing of the sort. There will no doubt be more and more hatred spewed out of the mouths of the undereducated as these 2 weeks trundle along.

One more political observation: when did the Republicans claim God? Jesus, especially, would hate republicans. Jesus hated the rich. And if I remember all those years of CCD, Jesus wanted us to all help each other. Not amass a fortune, and keep it for yourself. You were supposssed to give some to charity, and help your neighbors, and stay away from glutony, excesses of all sorts (even financial) and not once in the bible do I remember Jesus telling us to send our money to men on tv with bad hair and dimples who say they have a hotline to God. When our forefathers thought up this great country they did a good job to remind us over & over to separate our politics from our religion, leaving ample room for you to apply your time to both if you want, but not to mix and serve them on the same platter. So when did the republicans claim God as their champion? And how on earth do they get to keep bringing him up at conventions, rallies, and every single opportunity they speak. Oh, yeah, and the wacko uberchristian running mate...she's a gem...*sarcasm*... if you haven't see it, you tube her having her demons exercised by some other wacko voodoo doctor looking religious man at her little wasilla church...Oh.My.Republican...I mean, God! I honestly think she would poison McCain within 1 year of taking her oath, if he doesn't croak by then, just so she can put her religious seal on anything liberal.

I wonder if she will try to sell Air Force One on ebay?