My World … and welcome to it!

I’ve been over on Huffington Post reading the many MANY responses to the story of the California woman who recently gave birth to octuplets.

Granted, my initial response when I heard of the births was, wow! a litter! But that’s as far as my thinking went.

Not the rabid folks over on Huffpo. They are all for the government yanking her uterus, stealing her 14 children and giving them to foster homes and disemboweling the doctor who did the IVF treatments. Well, maybe not the last one but they are calling for his figurative head on a platter.

What the hell is wrong with these people? Do they actually want Big Brother to come back into their lives. I mean, we just got rid of him. Do they believe that they can insist on this one case and then go back to things as usual?

Perhaps most of them are not old enough to remember the bedroom police of the pre=60’s. When legislation existed telling people what they literally could and could NOT do in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

Do they really want to go down the same road as China where more than one (or is it two?) children is all a couple is allowed to have? Which results in the abortion of female fetuses … boys being so much more revered, of course.

Or is all this hoopla really displaced anger over the state of the economy, the fear of losing homes, jobs, a good way of life?

People are really really angry right now and really really scared. The problem is they are not addressing the real basis of that anger and fear and have, instead, chosen to go on a witch hunt.

What a mess.

It’s been one year since I quit the Jenny Craig program. I blamed the diet for my slowed metabolism, for being tired all the time and for not being able to lose weight any faster than about 1/4 pound a week.

Turns out there was something wrong with ME.

I mentioned a while back I was reading Suzanne Somer’s newest book, Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness and I decided that perhaps a little hormone replacement therapy might be needed, I made an appointment with the ND in Billings. I had blood tests done, agreed to get a mammogram, and also sent my saliva in to have my adrenal function checked.

In the course of our phone discussions she also mentioned that another ND had told me I needed to do a liver detox and she concurred. I thought about it and finally decided what the hell. Also, we had discovered that I was, indeed, suffering from adrenal fatigue. I don’t know how severe THAT is but my levels look to me to be about flatlined.

Anyhoo. I did the 3 week detox, had a visit with the local acupuncturist (now that was weird in a good kind of way), am TRYING to get a minimum of 8 hours sleep a night and have started a very modest walking program. Oh and I’m also tryout out some detoxamin. The upshot is I’m feeling pretty good and decided I’m ready for another go ’round with Jenny.

Over the course of the last year, in spite of my “no sugar, no wheat, no white stuff, no HFCS (which means no commercially prepared “food”), no fruit I regained 30 pounds. What did I eat, you might be asking. Well, protein, veggies and fats.

I HATE that I regained the weight. The good doc says that by detoxing my liver I will now be able to lose excess weight and KEEP IT OFF so this is a test.

My plan is to do the diet for 90 days (with a short 9 day break for our trip to Ireland), then do another 3 week detox, followed by 3 weeks of “maintenance” and then another 90 days of the diet. My goal is to lose the 30 I regained and an additional 20. If it goes well I may revise that number to an additional 30. We’ll see.

So keep your fingers crossed.

Let me start by just saying I’m a Clint Eastwood fan from waaaaaaaay back. And I mean way back. I had SUCH a crush on him when he played Rowdy Yates in Rawhide. I must have been 15 or 16 at the time. I just “swooned” when he appeared on that little black and white screen.

Then came the Dirty Harry movies. I didn’t like them because they were so violent but Joe wanted to see them so I went. I’d close my eyes when the gunfire started. Boy have times changed.

The spaghetti westerns were ok but they, too, seemed violent in the extreme. But they were “strange” compared to most Hollywood films of the time and that appealed to me.

His latest round of films, both directing and acting, have shown a maturity and thoughtfulness I would never have guessed of him. But Million Dollar Baby was one I chose to skip. I don’t like boxing, period. And the idea of a woman boxer? No freaking way. It’s just not a “sport” to me, punching someone out. ugh.

Now comes Gran Torino. And for some reason I just didn’t want to see it. Joe did, however, so I put on my coat and braved the below zero cold and off we went.

My take? TWO THUMBS UP. Five freaking stars. Holy batmobile, what an amazing film.

Eastwood, crusty and growly as ever, turns in a bravo performance as an aging widower, Korean “war” vet, and basic bigot. He hates everybody, most of all himself.

His neighborhood in (Detroit, I’m assuming) Michigan has run out of white folk and the Hmong have moved in. His only friend is his yellow lab, Daisy. The story follows his reluctant acceptance by and of his neighbors and how he learned to love again. I wept at the end.

This is a slow moving film especially if you’re used to high action flicks. It’s longish (in other words, longer than 90 minutes which is what most films have shrunk down to). But it’s worth every minute. This is a definite MUST SEE for 2009.

This falls under the “guilty pleasures” heading … I am nuts about the Tomb Raider games.

I first met Lara somewhere around 1997-98 via a demo included on a MacAddict CD-ROM. I remember my mouth dropping open as the game began. I called to Joe to come look and we both were astonished.

I ordered the game and was instantly hooked. Although it took me a very long time to get over shooting “animals” and then “people.” I also still have a tendency to physically lean right or left to try and peer around corners, LOL.

So I was really bummed when it was announced the PTB were not going to bother releasing a Mac version of “Legend” aka Tomb Raider 7. I finally gave up and bought a used GameCube and a new copy of “Legend” which, quite frankly I was less than impressed with. Mainly because I couldn’t SEE what I was doing, the game was so dark. I also had to buy an Elgato EyeTV 250 so I could run the GameCube through my iMac.

Eventually I just gave up. Then they announced “Underworld” complete with tv ads. OH MAN THIS IS JUST SO UNFAIR!

Near the holidays I hinted that what I truly longed for was a copy of Underworld and a Wii to play it on. Well, suffice to say I’m spoiled rotten by DH and that’s what I got. I soon discovered that it’s playable on the “big” TV only during early morning or evening hours as there’s too much light in the room otherwise to make out detail. That’s OK. I don’t mind. What I DO mind is discovering early on that the Wii version should be labeled “Tomb Raider LITE” as it’s a “reader’s digest” version of the actual game. I was NOT happy to find this out given all the money shelled out for the game and the console.

And so I finally relented and (horror of horrors) installed Windows XP on my beloved iMac. Yes, I CAN and did do that using Boot Camp. It was easy and painless and I have to say XP appears to run much more nicely on my Mac than on the in-laws Dell. Take THAT Michael. And then I bought an unused copy of “Legend” on ebay. Well yahoo. DAMN. Works like a charm. Wish I’d done it sooner because now I have a PC AND a Mac version of Anniversary.

See the PC version won’t run under emulation. Takes too much power. So I flatly refused to put the dark side on my computer and wound up buying the Mac version. Which, btw, has become my all time #1 favorite TR game. I mean the graphics alone will knock your socks off and the game play is just AWESOME. Especially after I bought a cheapy game pad and could then actually PLAY the game. Keyboards are out these days it seems.

Now that I have experienced “Legend” on the dark side I found a used copy of “Underworld” on ebay and am anxiously awaiting its arrival so I can compare it to the Wii version. And since I’m having so much fun I found copies of the old “Dragon’s Lair” game on ebay and bought them. I have the original version from about 3 computers ago (in AppleSpeak that’s approximately 15 years) which I never managed to finish but always wished I had. I actually think I still have a Mac it’s playable on but that’s another story.

I will say this, graphically the PC version just sucks compared to the Mac. I’m speaking here of Legend. It’s clunky looking like the first couple of games. Especially when compared to the mac version of Anniversary which was breathtaking.

OK that’s enough about the game play. On a beady note, I’ve been away from the torch for almost 3 months. My hands are recovering nicely and I’m ready to get back to work. However with the state of the economy that seems rather pointless if I’m only doing it to make money. So I’m working on a new attitude for 2009. Which means there won’t be a lot of bead sets showing up on my website, Etsy store, ebay or JustBeads (which I hope will be back up and running again soon after their little disaster). Instead I’m going to focus on more artistic stylings. I have longed to master the aquarium bead and I have been meaning to really work on my florals. So keep an eye out for those coming sooner or later.

I may try making some small frit sets for sale. I’ll have to see how it goes. I can’t keep throwing money away just so people have something to look at.

I love animated features. I’ve been hooked on ‘em since I was a wee lass and saw Cinderella the first time. I’ll admit I’ve become somewhat of a snob since Pixar hit the scene. They haven’t turned out ANYthing so far that I haven’t loved. Well, maybe Ratatouille but I didn’t HATE it. Just was sorta luke warm about it.

Now comes Bolt from the Disney studios and I have to tell you … DING DING DING DING … we have a winner. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long long time. And they made me cry at the end. sheesh.

I tell you this thing is laugh out loud funny. The guinea pig is the real star of the show and I’d adopt Mittens ANYtime. scraggly old black cat that she is. The story was just perfect.

I kept thinking I could ALMOST see the woman behind the voice of Mittens but turns out I couldn’t. Ditto with Rhino (the guinea pig). Don’t know either of them but their voices are very VERY outstanding. On the other hand, both John Travolta and Miley Cyrus were forgettable as the voices of Bolt and Penny. And frankly I’m sick to death of Cyrus even though I’ve never even seen Hannah Montana. You can’t walk into a big box store without being assaulted by her image coming at you from damned near every department.

So while I’m on the subject I’d like to know what she plans to do once she reaches adulthood? Right how she dresses like a 35 year old hooker (Walt is spinning in his grave, I’m sure), she acts like a spoiled 9 year old and I can’t speak about her talent since I’ve never seen her “work.” Thankfully, just like Sarah Palin, she’ll have a short shelf life.

Hope you all had a great turkey day. We dined at the local golf club and the food was DIVINE. Good/bad thing about that is no leftovers. Oh well.

OK first off I have a receipt from Big A Convenience in Wheatland, WY dated 11/21/08 (hubby was headed to Colorado and stopped to gas up) and the price for unleaded was

are you ready?

$1.229 a gallon!!

Seems they were having a price war (WTF?! I haven’t heard that term since the early 70’s!)

So I ask you. Just WHAT do you think Big Oil is pulling here? Last summer we were paying over $4 a gallon here in Wyoming (yeah, that’s right. We’re one of the “energy” states. Coal, oil, uranium, etc). And now that dubya is a dead duck (he passed “lame” about midnight EST on November 5th) and the bank barons and automotive dukes are looking to rob the taxpayer one last freaking time before the Big O takes over, we’re seeing TRUE prices at the pump.

I’m not going to get into a rant on the bailouts. Not today I’m not. I’m trying to protect my digestive tract so I can enjoy my turkey. Instead I offer up for today’s amusement a couple of “thank you, Sarah Palin” ads:

Can’t get enough Palin? Yeah right, me too. And also. I wish she’d shut up.

Except. Well, the fun thing is finding gems like this one from Dick Cavett about the twit from Alaska:

Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn’t ailing. Three out of these five implements — answering machine, fax machine, printer, phone and electric can-opener — all dropped dead on me in the past few days.

Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will only get Sarah Palin.

I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.

There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying.

What have we done to deserve this, this media blitz that the astute Andrea Mitchell has labeled “The Victory Tour”?

I suppose it will be recorded as among political history’s ironies that Palin was brought in to help John McCain. I can’t blame feminists who might draw amusement from the fact that a woman managed to both cripple the male she was supposed to help while gleaning an almost Elvis-sized following for herself. Mac loses, Sarah wins big-time was the gist of headlines.

I feel a little sorry for John. He aimed low and missed.

What will ambitious politicos learn from this? That frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences that ramble on long after thought has given out completely are a candidate’s valuable traits?

And how much more of all that lies in our future if God points her to those open-a-crack doors she refers to? The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the syntax-serial-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)

(How many contradictory and lying answers about The Empress’s New Clothes have you collected? I’ve got, so far, only four. Your additional ones welcome.)

Matt Lauer asked her about her daughter’s pregnancy and what went into the decision about how to handle it. Her “answer” did not contain the words “daughter,” “pregnancy,” “what to do about it” or, in fact, any two consecutive words related to Lauer’s query.

I saw this as a brief clip, so I don’t know whether Lauer recovered sufficiently to follow up, or could only sit there, covered in disbelief. If it happens again, Matt, I bequeath you what I heard myself say once to an elusive guest who stiffed me that way: “Were you able to hear any part of my question?”

At the risk of offending, well, you, for example, I worry about just what it is her hollering fans see in her that makes her the ideal choice to deal with the world’s problems: collapsed economies, global warming, hostile enemies and our current and far-flung twin battlefronts, either of which may prove to be the world’s second “30 Years’ War.”

Has there been a poll to see if the Sarah-ites are numbered among that baffling 26 percent of our population who, despite everything, still maintain that President George has done a heckuva job?

A woman in one of Palin’s crowds praised her for being “a mom like me … who thinks the way I do” and added, for ill measure, “That’s what I want in the White House.” Fine, but in what capacity?

Do this lady’s like-minded folk wonder how, say, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, et al (add your own favorites) managed so well without being soccer moms? Without being whizzes in the kitchen, whipping up moose soufflés? Without executing and wounding wolves from the air and without promoting that sad, threadbare hoax — sexual abstinence — as the answer to the sizzling loins of the young?

(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)

I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.

Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word “intellectual” an insult? (And yet…and yet…we did elect Obama. Surely not despite his brains.)

Sorry about all of the foregoing, as if you didn’t get enough of the lady every day in every medium but smoke signals.

I do not wish her ill. But I also don’t wish us ill. I hope she continues to find happiness in Alaska.

May I confess that upon first seeing her, I liked her looks? With the sound off, she presents a not uncomely frontal appearance.

But now, as the Brits say, “I’ll be glad to see the back of her.”

**********

PS: Lagniappe for English mavens: A friend of mine has made you laugh greatly over the years. David Lloyd is a comic genius (I can hear you wince, David) who wrote for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Cheers,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and me, not necessarily in that order. As a language fan, he has preserved many gems for posterity in his prodigious memory bank. Here comes my favorite:

A Navy lecturer was talking about some directives on the blackboard that he said to do something about, “except for these here ones with the asteroids in back of.”

Even David couldn’t make that up.

You’ll find his blog here.

Well that’s enough for one morning. I’ve been amusing myself reading responses and posts over at Mudflats. And I thought Wyoming was fun.

An open letter to Sarah Palin and this guy says it SO much better than I could. Be warned it contains an overabundance of exclamation points and 4 letter words:

A Plea to Sarah Palin

OK so I’m home, relatively rested back up and trying to get back into the groove. but all the bad news out of the financial sector has me about as mesmerized as the 2008 campaign. Plus I can’t stop going over to Mudflats and reading up on the latest shenanigans in Alaska. Yup. I’ve been palinized. It’s like watching the aftermath of a 20 car pileup during rush hour. I can’t look away. THE HORROR THE HORROR.

Oh what the hell. I think I’ll go watch Casino Royale as a runup to seeing Quantum of Solace.

I’m still in Colorado tending to my SIL but am overjoyed at the election. Not only is it FINALLY over but Obama won!

I plan on heading home this weekend and will post more next week.

A parting shot as the McCain campaign throws Palin under the Straight Talk Express:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: “Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin.”

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

– Continued here –

It started, of course, with Sarah Palin, the most unqualified candidate for high office this country has ever seen. I mentioned yesterday about the Dunning Kruger effect which is what I believe we are seeing with Governor Bible Spice. She’s incompetent but thinks she’s performing at the top of the heap. It probably doesn’t help that she’s achieved rock star status thanks to the $150,000 closetgate and the near $23,000!!! spent on her stylist for 2 weeks worth of work. So this article over on HuffPo comes as no big surprise:

Politico’s Ben Smith reports on the internal tensions that are roiling the McCain campaign, with many Palin allies voicing their unhappiness at how the campaign has been run. According to Smith, there are now “stirrings of a Palin insurgency.” Some of the highlights:

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain’s camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain’s decline.

“She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane,” said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to “go rogue” in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.[...]

Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.

–Continued Here–

Seriously. She thinks her “handlers” are to blame for her tarnished public image? SERIOUSLY?

Speaking of those who are out of touch with reality, I have been reading a few more articles online about Michelle Bachmann, CongressCritter from Minnesota. And the more I read the angrier I get.

Michelle is a BLIGHT on the political scene, an embarrassment to her fellow CongressCritters, and an affront to every single citizen of this country.

It seems I’m not alone in my outrage … Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation magazine had this to say:

Last Friday, one of the guests preceding my segment on MSNBC’s Hardball was a then-little known Congresswoman from Minnesota named Michele Bachmann.

She’s not little known now.

Bachmann said of Barack Obama, “I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views.” She then called on the media to “take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?”

I’ve heard a lot of toxic words in my time as Editor of The Nation. The magazine and its editors have been called un-American, unpatriotic, America- haters, and worse. But Bachmann’s name-calling, and brazen channeling of Joe McCarthy made me angry. Really angry. When Matthews turned to me for my response I told him exactly what I was feeling, “Chris, I fear for my country…. This is a politics, at a moment of extreme economic pain in this country, that is incendiary, that is so debased that I’m kind of almost having a hard time breathing, because I think it’s very scary, because this is a country I love.”

I said what I believed, nothing more. Bachmann’s over-the-top baiting angered many Americans who’ve had it with the fearmongering and division that has characterized our politics for too long. That emotion poured forth in e-mails which I was extremely moved to receive from so many people – across the country – who wanted to tell me that they shared my views and were grateful that I had expressed the fear and outrage they feel about this kind of poisonous politics. Here are some excerpts from those notes:

Paul in California wrote: “…You make me proud to be an American. Keep it up, we are with you.” And from Autumn in Kansas: “Thank you Katrina, for sticking up for all of us out there that might be perceived as ‘anti-American’ by the likes of Rep. Bachmann.” Jan in Arizona: “That took guts. We know how upset you were and want to support you…. So just a note of thanks.” And from Brad in Chicago: “Thank you for sounding the alarm bell, and for speaking for us all.”

Since then, the backlash to Bachmann’s (and McCain-Palin’s) politics of fear and loathing and demonization, division and distraction is reason for hope, and it also looks as though it might lead to this right-wing ideologue’s well-deserved defeat in November.

Bachmann’s challenger, Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg, has raised $1.3 million from approximately 20,000 people since Bachmann gave voice to her politics of (self) destruction. According to the Washington Post, he has quadrupled his television advertising, the Cook Political Report now calls the race a “tossup,” and Bachmann’s Republican primary foe has decided to conduct a write-in campaign. (Support Tinklenberg however you can and make sure Bachmann is forced out of the People’s House.)

–Continued here–

Frankly I hope Tinklenberg kicks Bachmann’s sorry, scrawny, anorexic ass so hard her great grandchildren holler OUCH.

OK I promised pics of the Obama rally that was held yesterday. It was a small rally. But Sheridan is a hard core RED town. So I think it was pretty good. Although to be honest I was a bit surprised given the turnout during the primary. 4 years ago there were about 30 of us. This year there was about 300. So where was everyone?

That’s hubby on the right and his friend and former co-worker, John Roberts, on the left.

The hard working and hard core Democrats of Sheridan County.