Spiffying Up

Spiffied up the place a wee bit - finally updated my blogroll on the right hand sidebar.

I bet ya'll thought it would be weeks or even months.

Sad Goodbyes, Hello New Beginnings

My buddy TRex has left FireDogLake and has shiny new digs of his own now. I've moderated his posts at the lake for almost a year now and my first reaction to hearing the news was to loudly cry Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Now that I have gotten my selfishness out of the way, please stop over at his new place and say hi. I'll be updating my blogroll as soon as I get off my lazy tush and dig into it - its way overdue for culling and additions.

Here is a picture cookie from the FireDogLake Bear Creek Meetup that took place at my place on the 17th - we called the cookie TRex, naturally.



Here are some pictures, taken by TeddySF, who posts Sunday nights at the Lake of the pups and I at the little cottage by the creek in the redwoods.

Songs From The Estrogen Palace

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out who would be playing what song: jen-the-bride-to-be, babygirl or little ole me.

This post will not self-destruct in 10 seconds.

Day After Thanksgiving

I warned ya (laughing) what always follows Alice - The Chipmunks.

While looking for that one, I also found this classic:



For those of you who overate yesterday, let me offer up some Lime In The Coconut.

Happy Thanksgiving

A family Thanksgiving tradition back when my girls were still at home (and we were known as The Estrogen Palace) was the playing of Alice's Restaurant Massacree on the phonograph.

My girls are grown and moved out of the house - and we had individual Thanksgivings this year instead of a family one - but I still blasted Alice's Restaurant on the stereo - its been playing every 4 hours on KPIG all day.

For those of you who do not listen to KPIG online (gasp), here's a video of Arlo doing it live. I was going to embed the UTube but embedding has been disabled by UTube for that.

:(

Those who just wanna listen or can't do UTubes, head over to FireDogLake where Jane has Arlo up on the music player. I gotta figure out how to do that here for those of you who can not do UTubes - as I was until I gave up the dialup and went to DSL.

Happy Turkey Day.

Time to dig out the Chipmonk's Christmas cassette.

Bear Creek Songs

This song is late summer nights, all the windows open, listening to the gurgle of the creek outside, and the breeze rustle the leaves. Except for the Desert Skies in the title, it is what living up here is all about; I'm living, I'm happy and I'm free.

Speaking of Bear Creek, here is some John Prine doing Up On Bear Creek, where the water tastes like cherry wine. It isn't the best audio but it is the only UTube of this great song.



That video references Johnny Cash, which means I get to share this:



I'll save my Rodney Crowell videos for another night. Three is my self imposed limit and I Walk The Line.

I'm A Fast Woman

*surfacing from utube land* I got DSL the first of the month and have been spending all my time enjoying all the things on my to view list over at UTube. I'm gonna be posting several of my favorites so ya know what I've been enjoying.

I had a friend tell me tonight that there is a new UTube 12 step recovery program she found suring the web - it is a series of 12 UTubes (laughing).

Let's start the evening with some Paul Thorn.

And another.

Hippo Birdy To Me

Happy Birthday to me
happy birthday to me
happy birthday dear meeeeeeeeeeeeee
happy birthday to me
(and many more)

This is my joker year (deck of cards plus one) - but next year is the year that I will be the same age as the year I am born. That will be easy to remember and involves no math!

UPDATE: gosh oh golly gee wiz, lots of visiters but no one left a comment

New Hair

Today, I had my hair cut. Short. It had been down to my waist. When I was married to ex #2, I was prohibited from trimming it more than 1/4" - women's hair was to be long. The ex did measure to make sure that 1/4" only rule was not broken. After I found out about his adultery with our next door neighbor, I cut it short as a visible sign of my independence from him and his rules.

I then proceeded to grow it long - because I wanted to - not because I was told that I had to. I long ago proved my point - my hair reached my waist. I would occasionally whack a couple inches off it with my scissors but kept it long, always pulled back into a bun or a ponytail - and I started to think seriously about cutting it several months ago.

Yesterday, I did a consult with a beautician in town - we went over the hair books - and came up with a style and made an appointment for today.

It is a long shag in the back, to shirt collar length, with layers that flip up at the ends - and then cut shorter around my face - I can finger comb it back and make it look shorter or can just let it fall where it will. The cut requires no products, no styling techniques - in short, it is the perfect kinda of hair style for me.

My computer for some reason is not speaking to my digital camera (or visa versa - I'm not sure of which) but when I get their differences mediated, I'll put up a picture. For the time being, think of a cross between Halle Berry and Twiggy with a little Dorothy Hamel tossed in.

Less Than One Month

My birthday is less than one month away which means it is now socially acceptable to say what I want, need, desire, and/or covet.

Bakeware. When I moved up here, an entire box of my kitchen things disappeared. All my pots and pans, cookie sheets, cake pans, pie plates, bread tins, muffin/cupcake trays - poof. Mixing bowls. Rubber spatulas. My grater. My rasp for grating nutmeg and cinnamon (and is also great for creating lemon zest). An offset spatula for frosting cakes. A springform pan for cheesecakes, tortes, and other goodies. Wood spoons. Thank goodness I only had a cheap handheld electric mixer to be lost instead of my yet to be acquired dream mixer.

Lets face it, the replacement 7 piece cookware set I got at KMart for $39.00 is not even close at being sufficient.

Slippers and heavy socks. They seem to appear on every list in direct proportion to the increase in my age - I get older and my toes get colder.

Flannel jammies. Ditto. Last year I got two sets of scottie dog jammies - this year I'm thinking plaid. Jammies with pockets get extra brownie points.

Cookbooks. Especially baking cookbooks.

Potholders - mine are pretty ratty looking.

Coffee bean grinder - so my fresh cup of coffee is really fresh.

Other than the whole staying warm bit, looks like 53 is going to be the year of the kitchen.

Token

Got an email today that reminded me of this picture of the cutest dog in the world sleeping on my lap - was taken in June of last year.

He is getting his summer crew cut this week and will be looking like a dog instead of his usual furball with legs. He has been picking up a bunch of burs and stickers and since he walks with his nose to the ground, his beard and moustache will be much shorter. Giving him the crew cut now because we have another two months before we start getting rains, which will end the bur and sticker problem.



My mom and step-dad are coming up tomorrow for a visit this week so I'll be offline until this weekend.

On Getting Old

I got this in an email from my mother -- 'splains it all. There was no attribution in the email of who wrote it, but who ever did, surely took a peak inside me, and I send my thanks for saying it so well.

The other day a young person asked me how I felt about being old. I was taken aback, for I do not think of myself as old. Upon seeing my reaction, she was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question, and I would ponder it, and let her know.

Old Age, I decided, is a gift.

I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don't agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avant garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60&70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

Reagan's Take on Bush

From YellowDogJim in the comments section at FireDogLake:

May 17, 1986:

'A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work.'

~ Ronald Reagan diaries

Ronnie sure had George W Bush pegged - too bad Nancy didn't release the diaries until after Bush was in the White House.

UPDATE: From a comment left this morning:

Anonymous said...

Hoax

http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/kinsley.asp

Bush Dissolves Congress

Bush has essentially dissolved Congress with this

Read it and weep for America, 1776-2007. All hail King George 43, who has the power to declare you an enemy of the state, disappear you, and confiscate all your assets.

Thanks, DoverBitch for letting me know.

Put Impeachment Back On The Table, Madam Speaker

If you were not watching Bill Moyer's Journal Friday night, please try to catch in on re-runs or at the above linked site. Here is the transcript PBS provided of the show.

Bill Moyers had on former Reagan Administration Associate Deputy Attorney General now constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the First Article of Impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and The Nation's John Nichols, author of The Genius Of Impeachment.

Both Fein and Nichols agree that impeachment proceedings need to be initiated now against President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

John Nichols said this:

“The Scooter Libby affair gets to the heart of what, I think, an awful lot of Americans are concerned about with this administration and with the executive branch in general: that it is lawless. That it can re-write the rules for itself. That it can protect itself. And you know the founders anticipated just such a moment. If you look at the discussion in the Federalist Papers, but also in the Constitutional Convention, when they spoke about impeachment one of the things that Madison and George Mason spoke about was the notion that you needed the power to impeach particularly as regards pardons and commutations. Because a president might try to take the burden of the law off members of his administration to prevent them from cooperating with congress in order to expose wrong-doing by the President himself. And so, Madison said that is why we must have the power to impeach.”

He further said that Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi is wrong for having said that impeachment was off the table. Impeachment is the cure for the Constitutional Crisis we find ourselves in with the Bush Administration and that Congress was being derelict in their duty under the Constitution for not fixing the great wrong that has been done by this Administration.

Here is some of the transcript showing Mr. Fein's view (keep in mind he drew up the Impeachment of President Clinton and was a Reagan era DOJ lawyer):

BRUCE FEIN: Well, this is an unusual affair of president/vice-president, where the vice-president is de facto president most of the time. And that's why most of people recognize that these decisions, especially when it comes to overreaching with executive power, are the product of Dick Cheney and his aide, David Addington, not George Bush and Alberto Gonzalez or Harriet Miers, who don't have the cerebral capacity to think of these devilish ideas. And for that reason, they equate the administration more with Dick Cheney than with George Bush.

BILL MOYERS: Bruce, you talk about overreaching. What, in practical terms, do you mean by that?

BRUCE FEIN: It means asserting powers and claiming that there are no other branches that have the authority to question it. Take, for instance, the assertion that he's made that when he is out to collect foreign intelligence, no other branch can tell him what to do. That means he can intercept your e-mails, your phone calls, open your regular mail, he can break and enter your home. He can even kidnap you, claiming I am seeking foreign intelligence and there's no other branch Congress can't say it's illegal--judges can't say this is illegal. I can do anything I want. That is overreaching. When he says that all of the world, all of the United States is a military battlefield because Osama bin Laden says he wants to kill us there, and I can then use the military to go into your homes and kill anyone there who I think is al-Qaeda or drop a rocket, that is overreaching. That is a claim even King George III didn't make--

BRUCE FEIN: --at the time of the Revolution.

Put Impeachment Back On The Table, Madam Speaker.