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Feeling Twitchy

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on October 25, 2016| 1 Comment »

Almost every day I notice something about technology and its intrusion on our species.

The feeling leaves me twitchy, which is the opposite of feeling groovy. Feeling nervous, even jumpy about the upcoming election might be normal, but here’s where it gets downright “nasty.”

The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll — conducted among 1,999 registered voters Oct. 13 through Oct. 15 — shows that Trump’s repeated warnings about a “rigged” election are having effect: 73 percent of Republicans think the election could be swiped from him. Just 17 percent of Democrats agree with the prospect of massive fraud at the ballot box.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/poll-41-percent-of-voters-say-the-election-could-be-stolen-from-trump-229871#ixzz4O6sJNgAE

Now I always thought we could trust in our electorate to bring us the best democracy, with a capital “D,” in the whole wide world. I thought the Trump supporters, fully one third of the voting public, were just delusional about the system being “rigged.” Sure it’s rigged when the polls show their candidate losing, and fine when he was neck and neck. And if somebody says something enough, some people are bound to believe it.

But then I read about bad technology, via a Katie Couric Twitter link to US News. Granted it’s an opinion piece, and Jason Smith uses the word “could,” but it made me think. Maybe it’s not mass hysteria, maybe there is something rotten in Denmark?

U.S. elections offer scant assurance of accuracy or security, and our nation would fail recognized international election criteria that we impose on emerging democracies. This November, millions of Americans will cast their ballots on unverifiable paperless voting computers. These machines incorporate flawed, buggy software that would not pass a college freshman computer science class.  http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-10-18/our-election-could-be-rigged-because-of-bad-technology

Today 32 states employ some type of internet voting, and let’s face it, the computers they are using are dinosaurs – think the kind of behemoth we lugged into the Bride’s dorm room almost twenty years ago! Even when I was studying Technology in the Classroom at the Master’s level, we were always told to keep a back-up lesson plan IN PAPER at hand because you never know. Modems can get hit by lightening. Russians or a middle school student could hack them!

And to top it off, after a delightful dueling chef’s dinner last night benefitting “Georgia’s Healing House,” Bob and I sat down to a PBS episode of “GerryRIGGED.” A documentary film featuring politicians from both sides of the aisle, including Tim Kaine who probably didn’t know he would be the Veep pick at the time, explaining how legislators in both houses can redistrict their state to ensure their reelection every few years.

Gerrymandering is the enemy of representative government. It deliberately manipulates the system to take away from voters the very choice that should be a hallmark of our system,” says program producer William Oglesby. “We hope with this documentary to help citizens understand that this isn’t the way it has to be; that the voters have a right to choose their representatives rather than the representatives choose them.”

Needless to say I was up and wandering about at 3 am again. Our country is just like Great Britain drawing lines in the sand of its post-Colonial empire.  Let’s get a few more Republicans over here in District 12 shall we? And VA had a chance at reform, but who would vote for their own demise? Certainly the Old Dominion didn’t.

If you need a respite from politics, and all the mud-slinging of this election, I have a Netflix show to recommend from England. “Black Mirror” (a trope to our attachment to the smart screen) is about how technology is changing the course of human history in a very scary, sinister and smart way. I’ve only seen the first few episodes of Season 1, created by Charlie Brooker, but if you are wondering where our dystopian obsession with devices is going, tune into the future.

Parental warning, the first episode of “Black Mirror” involves a pig in a compromising position. Like any great science fiction writer, the truth isn’t too far off.   http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/10/black-mirror-nosedive-review-season-three-netflix/504668/

Forget the myth of voter fraud, put your feet up and your devices down, talk to your children about kindness and nastiness, and maybe go leaf-peeping this week!   img_5481

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Campaign: Creepy or Childish

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on October 4, 2016| 2 Comments »

Did you know there’s a “Creepy Clown Craze” going on around the country? Thanks to YouTube, killer clowns have been popping out of bushes and scaring people for years – wait, I should say “pranking” people. Because that was the intention, a social media joke for adolescent minds, not criminal…but then, somewhere along the way, children reported clowns lurking around schools, trying to lure them into the woods.

While none of the social media threats have been credible, there have been arrests made tied to these creepy clowns. These include two clown-masked teenagers who were arrested for chasing children in Virginia, where it is illegal for anyone over the age of 16 to wear any mask or hoodie that hides their identity.
According to a Sept. 29 report from the New York Times, there have been 12 arrests made across the country tied to these hoaxes.
– See more at: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/180672/20161003/what-creepy-clown-craze-unmasking-scary-trend.htm#sthash.6J6QrIsI.dpuf

Our Master of Horror, Stephen King posted on Twitter:

“Hey, guys, time to cool the clown hysteria–most of em are good, cheer up the kiddies, make people laugh.”

Now I know what you’re thinking. She’s going to compare the Donald to a clown, right? Not exactly. But the mass hysteria that can force one state to say there will be NO clown costumes allowed out on Halloween this year, or even make a hill near our first house in NJ a Virgin Mary sighting (God’s truth), could be what’s driving the Trump train – uh, campaign.

I found a funny (as in that’s really ironic kinda funny) poster on Facebook and had the audacity to share it. It compared Trump’s performance at last week’s debate with how a woman might be perceived using the same tactics. This is a great feminist strategy: “Imagine a woman unprepared, sniffling like a coke addict…5 kids with 3 men…multiple bankruptcies…” etc.  All facts mind you. The poster showed Donald’s head looking like Mrs Doubtfire.

Humor has long been a strategy to combat extreme right-wing movements around the world. Think Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. But we need to remember this can backfire, like a commenter on my Facebook page told me. He thought this poster was “childish.” Lest we forget, the GOP thinks they have the ear of God, only they know what the truth is, and only they have the courage to say it like it is! Absolutism at its finest. And of course my thought was nobody can do “childish” better than Trump.

He mocks the disabled, and he mocked Hillary Clinton’s pneumonia. He brags about his wealth and his women. He calls people names, even today. Remember his fondness for Elizabeth Warren,his biggest critic, calling her a Native American princess? And this week he implied that Hillary Clinton was most likely disloyal…because every jab that is thrown at him, and he has been disloyal many many times ladies…he throws one back even harder. He would not back down on Miss Universe, he just goes in for the kill and attacks her character. Like a schoolyard bully, the truth really doesn’t apply to him. Chivalry, nah, not so much either.

donald-trump-alison-jackson-ss05

Photo: Alison Jackson for Vanity Fair

Either he is having one big mental breakdown in public, or we are all buying the Kool Aid, this hysteria that a narcissistic/millionaire/man-baby could become the Next Commander in Chief. I would not make too much fun of this PT Barnum of Clown’s Candidate. Like rain on a cloudy day, it would not be ironic if he won.   ____white_flour

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/3/1509712/-Anti-Trump-posters-and-laughtivism

 

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Speaking Spanglish

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on September 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Instead of talking about Trump corporations wheeling and dealing their way through loopholes, jumping over restrictions, and just generally thinking the law doesn’t apply to Mr Trump when he conducts business in Cuba, we are all complaining about how he objectifies women. Miss Universe vs Fidel Castro. In case you missed it, Hillary had this to say about that:

Clinton told reporters aboard her campaign plane that the actions appear “to violate U.S. law, certainly flout American foreign policy, and he has consistently misled people in responding to questions about whether he was attempting to do business in Cuba.” http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-live-updates-trailguide-hillary-clinton-blasts-donald-trump-for-1475184860-htmlstory.html

The media jumped on the Miss Piggy train, instead of skewering his debate performance. In particular near the end,  when he was asked if he would support the outcome of the Presidential election, he smiled and did his usual semantic dance of divert and deploy a lot of other bullshit into the answer…thereby calling into question our democracy as a “rigged” system, in the same way he disavowed our first African American President with his “birther” nonsense for years.

HOLT: One of you will not win this election. So my final question to you tonight, are you willing to accept the outcome as the will of the voters? Secretary Clinton?

CLINTON: Well, I support our democracy. And sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But I certainly will support the outcome of this election. And I know Donald’s trying very hard to plant doubts about it, but I hope the people out there understand: This election’s really up to you. It’s not about us so much as it is about you and your families and the kind of country and future you want. So I sure hope you will get out and vote as though your future depended on it, because I think it does.

HOLT: Mr. Trump, very quickly, same question. Will you accept the outcome as the will of the voters? TRUMP: I want to make America great again. We are a nation that is seriously troubled. We’re losing our jobs. People are pouring into our country. The other day, we were deporting 800 people. And perhaps they passed the wrong button, they pressed the wrong button, or perhaps worse than that, it was corruption, but these people that we were going to deport for good reason ended up becoming citizens. Ended up becoming citizens. And it was 800. And now it turns out it might be 1,800, and they don’t even know.

HOLT: Will you accept the outcome of the election?

TRUMP: Look, here’s the story. I want to make America great again. I’m going to be able to do it. I don’t believe Hillary will. The answer is, if she wins, I will absolutely support her.

So it’s conditional…IF she wins…and in Trump land that’s a very big IF…that’s a “let’s throw some doubt into our process IF.” That’s somebody may be voting one thousand times in Pennsylvania, felons are voting in Virginia; that’s the button might just get stuck on Clinton in Ohio. And all you second amendment folks know what to do about that right? It’s like we are meeting Faust incarnate, in real time.

You may find this article by a linguist about Trump-speak as enlightening as I did. It’s not just that when unscripted he avoids answering a direct question like most politicians. It’s disordered, full of careening sideways hyperbole, half-thought-out phrases, eruptions of memory and self-aggrandizing. He is a master salesman, using words like, “Some people say,” and “Believe me,” as catchphrases to make the unsavory seem plausible. He is treating us like QVC customers. If this is what we the people want in a leader, well I guess we deserve him. http://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12423688/donald-trump-speech-style-explained-by-linguists

“His speech suggests a man with scattered thoughts, a short span of attention, and a lack of intellectual discipline and analytical skills.” 

This morning’s Twitter tirade against Miss Universe is just more of the same old. Sure he’s a misogynistic pig, but that’s something we women of a certain age recognize clearly. This is not news, but we pick it up and feed on his incessant weight-shaming rants. He exhorts us to check out her reality show in Venezuela, she’s no Mother Theresa. Well you Mr Trump, are no John the Baptist. You are the Master of spin, the Ringmaster of election as entertainment, the Oz behind the Twitter curtain. Look how you keep us talking about YOU!

The American people would never bargain our democracy on your vote.

 

 

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Shrug, Sniffle,Side-Eye – Repeat

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Last night the Trump train went off the rails.

I’d rather use a transportation metaphor than a sporting event for “the greatest show of all time debate,” because any sport involves two usually, equally prepared teams – two opponents with a job to do, and that just didn’t happen. Because one candidate has an A game and the other doesn’t know the rules of any game except maybe the Con Game.

Halfway through their 90 minute exchange, Hillary Clinton told the Donald that indeed she had been preparing for the debate and not campaigning over the weekend; she said she had been “Preparing to be President.” <wink>

And at that moment the cloudy sky parted and a ray of sunshine hit Clinton on her perfectly highlighted head!

But most of the time, I felt as if I needed a body language translator, like the one who pointed out that if Clinton shrugs her shoulders while talking she is discounting what she just said. Or if Trump looks down and left he is lying. Because I just couldn’t stop watching last night’s train wreck: Trump’s inane sniffling which I chalked up to allergies, but some on Twitter thought might be a problem with “blow;” his exaggerated swaggering and swaying along with smug lip posturing; plus his inability to complete a simple sentence left me dumbfounded.

It was as if she was on the train to Pennsylvania Avenue and the conductor had already punched her ticket.

And he got on the wrong train, to some Monopoly board street, and forgot to buy the damn ticket…and anyway why would he need a ticket? He’s so big and important and we (the American people) should just forgive all those nasty things he may have said in the past, because for all we know maybe climate change is a Chinese hoax and President Obama is an imposter, and not paying taxes IS the American way…and just because a silly Tweet might enrage him, we should still trust him with our nukes. Right?

Trump points his tiny chin in the air and says, “That’s called business, by the way.” Declaring bankruptcy not four but six times! http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/21/hillary-clinton/yep-donald-trumps-companies-have-declared-bankrupt/  Stepping all over his vendors and not paying others, making more money while millions of Americans see their life savings dwindle down to nothing after the great/recession/depression of ’08, these are Trump tactics after all. The rest of the world must think we are collectively losing our minds.

When we left our tour group in Prague, and hopped on a tram to see the city we didn’t see a conductor or an engineer. The tram moved along of its own accord, like a drone, stopping every few blocks. We wondered how we should pay for our ticket, but noticed everyone else was just getting onboard and sitting down. Later, we found out you need to buy your tram ticket elsewhere, at a convenience store, and just keep it in your pocket. It’s all on the honor system. Once in a blue moon, an official may come aboard a tram and check tickets. If you are a freeloader, you will get a hefty fine.

I hope that the undecided among us, the Millennials thinking about voting for a third party, the Republicans who know a con game when they see one, will consider casting their vote for Hillary Clinton in November. Because Mr Trump doesn’t believe in an honor system, in our Allies, or in fair trade. He postulates about 400 pound shut-ins hacking the DNC and tells Fox he was self-righteous for not mentioning how Bill treated women.

Trump lives in an alternate reality, where private jets await and gold escalators move him around his tower. He invites people to touch his hair, like Rapunzel, so he can prove to himself and others that he is real. And maybe by telling us he’s renovating the post office on Pennsylvania Avenue, he’s purchased his Hotel in DC, because he fully expects to have his name emblazoned across the Front Lawn, win or lose.

It’s not like Trump is on a different track to the Presidency…he doesn’t need a train ticket because he thinks he owns all the Monopoly railroads. His Wild Card is Putin and whatever else jumps into his head and spills off his tongue. And after all, he had six Get Out of Jail Free cards.

Here is my man on a tram, with Google Maps. Priceless.img_4677

 

 

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To Trust or Not to Trust

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

My brain has been news-free for a week, and look what happened! Hillary is slipping from the polls, and commentators/strategists/pundits have been making jokes about Trump “softening” on immigration. It’s enough to make me believe what the Flapper always said, the TV is a “boob box,” from the ancient meaning of boob, meaning  – a stupid person; fool; dunce. It would seem our intelligence is bound to diminish in relation to the number of hours we spend in front of a screen.

But the radio, now there’s something that can capture your imagination and leave you maybe just a bit smarter! On our nine and a half hour drive home from Nashville, Bob and I listened to a few podcasts from NPR’s TED Radio Hour. I was sad to leave my grandbabies, but it was great to share this mind-numbing drive with Bob; he could jockey my smart phone while I navigated my way between trucks in the left lane climbing the Smokey Mountains. The show about Trust was enlightening:

http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/406238794/trust-and-consequences

Restoring trust in government was one of the subjects it tackled. A former Prime Minister of Greece was the speaker, but look at what’s happening now in Brazil. In case you were too busy watching the Olympics to notice what was going on behind the scenes, and I don’t mean Ryan Lochte’s little fib, the democratically elected first woman president in Latin America, Dilma Rousseff, is fighting for her political life. By tomorrow, we will know if her congress has voted to impeach her on grounds that she concealed the growing fiscal deficit – ie, she lost their trust somewhere along the way. Because in fact, there is NO evidence she did any such thing.  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37217633

…senators blamed her for the tanking economy and accused her of concealing the growing fiscal deficit as she sought re-election. They also questioned how she could not have been aware of the corruption at state-run oil giant Petrobras, when for years she chaired its board of directors.
The revelations about corruption at Petrobras, in which members of Ms Rousseff’s Workers’ Party as well as business executives and influential members of other parties have been implicated, have played a crucial role in undermining the government’s credibility.

Trust is a basic human need. If we can’t trust in the unconditional love of a parent, for instance, we might grow up to be a frightened, anxious human being. Jack Welch, the former CEO of one of our biggest corporations, GE, once said that Trust is THE absolute in business. The last part of TED’s podcast had to do with trust within a marriage, “How Can Couples Rebuild Trust After an Affair?” Now this could apply to both political candidates, as well as the latest Weiner scandal.

Psychotherapist Esther Perel wrote a book titled “Mating in Captivity.” She specializes in marriage counseling, and insists that couples can grow stronger after an affair, if they are willing to do the work. “Adultery has existed since marriage was invented, and so has the taboo against it.” She tells us that it is the only commandment in the Bible repeated twice!

Perel defines an affair as a secretive relationship, an emotional connection, a sexual alchemy – Proust said it’s our imagination that is responsible for love. So Jimmy Carter was right when he thought lusting in his heart was a sin, right? And sexting a la Weiner, with his toddler asleep in the bed next to him, is an even bigger, corporal sin. In 1998 President Bill was impeached for a casual affair with an intern, one in which he tried stupidly to define sex. But the evidence Congress used to prove their point was that he lied under oath to a federal grand jury.

Maybe before our country considers electing Trump, we should investigate his previous affairs, and see if he tells us the truth. Maybe we should put every single member of Congress, men and women, in a grand jury room and grill them for hours about their sexual peccadillos! Trump wants America to be great again, to close our borders and while we’re at it, how about a Senator Joseph McCarthy-like witch hunt for sexual transgressors?

Am I kidding? Of course. The problem is, nobody knows when Trump is kidding. And that’s the kind of lack of trust, of dishonesty, one might expect from a sociopath. Not a President. Hillary may parse her words, but when they come out, I believe her.

This little guy trusts the adults in his life not to start up this tractor, but he always wants us to vacuum!  IMG_5103

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A Shot Mind

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2016| 6 Comments »

Ageism. It’s hard to avoid these days since many of us will live for nearly a century. Each “woman of a certain age” knows what I mean when I say there comes a time when we become invisible. Young people, after all, are walking around chasing invisible fictional characters on their ‘dumb’ phones. We, otoh, are trying to find ours!

So it came as no surprise that the Donald would malign my hero, the Notorious RBG, by saying on Twitter of course, “Her mind is shot – resign.” Not the best use of “shot” as a noun, the day after that Dallas Police memorial service. Still, 83 year old Justice Ginsburg said in an interview she thought the GOP front-runner was a “faker.”

“At first I thought it was funny,” she said of Trump’s early candidacy. “To think that there’s a possibility that he could be president … ” Her voice trailed off gloomily.
“I think he has gotten so much free publicity,” she added, drawing a contrast between what she believes is tougher media treatment of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and returning to an overriding complaint: “Every other presidential candidate has turned over tax returns.”  http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/politics/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-donald-trump-faker/

There’s something radical about a woman who speaks her mind. But a woman in a black robe, how dare she?

Bob has seen many a nursing home patient with little to no mind left, and it’s not pretty or something to hurl at a Supreme Court Justice. In fact, he once saw a woman who had forgotten how to cook. I asked him if that could ever happen to me; then I thought, would it be such a bad thing? Never to cook again?

But let’s leave women out of the kitchen for a minute and think about the GOP platform for 2016, it’s as if they are playing a game of one step forward, five steps back. They don’t want to play “identity politics” by ensuring the rights of the LGBT community, but the fetus still has an identity. “Personhood” should be protected. Oh, and just when women won the right to equal pay and to serve in the front lines of the armed forces, the GOP thought it better if we ladies stayed out of combat. Better yet, back in the kitchen. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/republican-platform-continues-move-right-day-two-n608031

Since we are still without air conditioning, this is the fifth day, my mind is starting to melt. I left the house one day without my dumb/smart phone AND my glasses! I’ve been trying not to cook for the simple reason that 83 degrees is too hot to play with fire. Supposedly, the part will be in and the tech will fix our AC unit tomorrow…sometime tomorrow. Meanwhile the humidity has returned and today should see us nearing 90. Fingers crossed.

But back to the shot mind. I love following Glenn Greenwald on Twitter @gggreenwald. He is a reporter without an agenda. Here is what he had to say about the latest kerfuffle:

“Hard to take seriously court impartiality/Ginsburg furor after 5 GOP-appointed judges stopped vote-counting & made George W. Bush president”

Now that says it all! Yessiree, I will be voting this November with a mind to keep the Supreme Court on the right side of history. I think Bernie’s revolution has just begun, and it will start with our first woman President. And just so you know, I will be forgoing Snapchat and Pokemon Now. My mind can only tech so much.

Here we are at the Apple Genius Bar, trying to catch up. And ps, Bob actually installed 16 RAMs of memory in my MacBook Pro, so my hot messy mind has a fast laptop. Take that young’uns!!  IMG_4808

 

 

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A Serious Time

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on March 22, 2016| 2 Comments »

This morning I climbed the stairs to my aviary to write about the mating rituals of birds and how they compare to a Chinese internet dating site, and then I heard about Brussels.

Instead of listening to conjecture and panic about terrorism, Bob and I set off to the Miller Center in Charlottesville to listen to a taping of American Forum TV, to see what an ex-diplomat and policy advisor to presidents had to bring to the table.

His name buzzed in my head. I knew this man. A long, long time ago, when I was a Rumson-Fair Haven School Board member, I was given the honor to write about him from my friend Bobbie VanAnda (Hi Bobbie!!). We were creating a “Hall of Fame,” a wall near the cafeteria which would permanently show our current students the places our alums had traveled, the numerous avenues to success they walked to get there.

I was assigned Eric S Edelman, an ex-diplomat to Finland. Here is my copy:

Thirty years after his graduation from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, Eric Edelman was sworn in at the State Department as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Finland. Amidst friends and family on July 20, 1998, Mr. Edelman said that he hoped his parents would finally be convinced he did the right thing by not going to law school. On August 27, 1998, he presented his credentials to President Martti Ahtisaari in Helsinki.  http://www.rumsonfairhaven.org/about/hall-of-fame/2001-inductees/

I vaguely remember a phone call, and some research back in the day when the internet wasn’t easily available. I loved writing biographies. Many times I would write a “split-page” bio for the newspaper; digging out the qualities and eccentricities of someone who may not have been a celebrity, but may have been infamous nonetheless.

Edelman retired from the US Foreign Service in 2009, and is currently the Hertog Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. That’s a mouthful right?

Today he really didn’t say much about terrorism. It seems he is part of a Republican group that would like to deny Donald Trump the nomination. I know this type of Republican, very Christie Todd Whitman. Someone who is thoughtful, conservative and reasonable; they are a dying breed.

Edelman spent his time, unfortunately, delivering a critique of our President, saying that Obama has an “…ideological aversion to American power.” And that in his two terms in office, Obama tended to prioritize relations with our adversaries, and not with our allies. There was a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, even though it’s Tuesday. He is a bit hawkish, wishing we had been more aggressive in Syria from the start. Saying that our policy, or lack thereof,  has allowed “…a major region (the Mideast) to descend into disorder.”

Edelman’s interview will be on our PBS stations this weekend. http://millercenter.org/americanforum

Bob thought he drank the Kool-Aid of the GOP, I thought he was more of a Kissinger-era policy wonk. But I did connect with him afterwards, he told us he was a Democrat in the beginning. He said his parents sold their Fair Haven home in 1980, and that he’s never been back. I wonder if they moved to Florida. He said he’s not on any social media sites, which makes getting national security clearance so much easier!

I wonder if he can succeed at keeping the Donald out of the White House. These are serious times. Good Luck Mr Edelman, and Godspeed. Here is a picture of RFH High School.

Unknown

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I’m a Little Teapot

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on December 10, 2015| 2 Comments »

I can hear Ms Bean snoring at the foot of the stairs. Our pup has bad hips. She stopped climbing the stairs to sit on my mountain-view chaise, dutifully watching me write, last year. She knows her limitations, and although she’s not that old in doggy years, she’s made a few adaptations in order to continue living the good life. Adaptability, a very Darwinian trait.

While cleaning out and sorting through our unfinished basement last month, we came across an unopened box. “No,” I said to Bob, “absolutely not!” Up until that point I had been perfectly adaptable. It seemed like a fine plan to toss or donate whatever had survived the journey from NJ to VA without being opened and inspected. Why cart a bunch of packed boxes around with us forever?

But this box was filled with teapots. I don’t know why, and I wouldn’t call it a collection exactly, but I’ve always loved teapots.

There’s the red Chinese pot with a bamboo handle my first room mate in college gave me. There’s the aubergine art nouveau teapot I found at the Monmouth Art Show. And there are no words to describe the delicate, pale yellow Belleek teapot from Ireland, with its tiny, iridescent shell feet. One of the few treasures I have from my Nana is a small porcelain tea leaf strainer and saucer. Which is why Great Grandma Ada’s expression is so apropos this morning.

hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik

stop bothering me, leave me alone

It literally means don’t bang a teakettle at me; don’t hammer on a teapot.

This morning I had to turn off the news. This news junkie has had enough of Donald Trump. What does he mean, how do you feel about him, is this the final nail in his coffin? My head is spinning from too much teapot banging Trumpisms. I wish the media would leave him alone already!

My adaptability strategy? I’m going to a Christmas Concert at the Catholic School. Hopefully, tea will be served! Here is my antique doll cupboard with what else for the Love Bug, a porcelain tea set!   IMG_3487

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