Positively Republican

That's a bumper sticker on a car that's often in the parking lot of my Walgreens. Someday, if I'm lucky, I'll bump into the driver.

I remember thinking kindly of Eisenhower, perhaps only because he was the first president I was aware of, and I believed, as a child, that presidents were right and good. Or heck, maybe Ike was right and good.

I assume I started viewing Republicans as absolute other around Nixon's time, but I wasn't always like that. I remember hanging Kennedy-Johnson posters with my best friend Linda Seth. She was Catholic: of course she was going to vote for Kennedy. Or would have if we weren't ten. The point is, I wasn't against Nixon. I was for Kennedy.

By the time W came to steal the election, my stomach hurt every time I heard his voice. I had breakfast the other day with a friend who couldn't stand his face. She covered her own eyes as she said it, just as I cover my ears when I say my bit. The repulsion is real. Perhaps it's just -- "just" -- that we've made him stand for everything that's stupid and violent, dangerous and arrogant in this country.

In this country? I almost changed that to "in the government," but these days, I see all Republicans as Bushites: stupid, violent, dangerous, arrogant. I can't stand that they're pro-life and pro-war. Just how does that work? I can't stand that they're big fat Christians, but killing is somehow okay. The bumper sticker WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB? doesn't even strike them as sarcasm. They stroke their beards and think about it. Hm ... who would Jesus bomb? Let's see, we got them A-rabs, of course, and maybe a buncha Jews ...

I got a mass email today with a really funny joke about a Muslim (of course) terrorist (of course). Our American forefathers, in this hilarious scenario, greet him at the Pearly Gates, although how such an evil person made it to heaven is not explained. These righteous Americans take turns committing violence upon him (yes! in heaven!), while quoting the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and their own historical speeches (although not the bit about religious freedom, of course). When the poor man is finally left alone, weeping, an angel appears. The Muslim cries bitterly that this was not what he was promised. "I told you there would be seventy-two Virginians waiting for you in heaven," quoth the angel. "What did you think I said?"

Heh.

I burst into flames when I read that, of course. Well, the email was from a woman in a group of friends from a conservative rural area. Does that also mean Christian? Probably. The kind that hate? Yeah. This whole God Is Love thing that Christians like to promote, based on their own holy text, is nonsense to most of them. Or maybe it's more like a selective love. God loves Christians and whites, for sure. I suppose He loves men more than women, brunettes over blondes, swords over ploughshares. I'm pretty sure He just doesn't have quite enough love for gays, though. Or liberals.

Enough.

I know I have at least one (1) Christian reader here who actually embodies that God Is Love thing. And I know there's at least one (1) Republican, based on that hopeful bumper sticker, who is probably merely conservative, not stupid, violent, dangerous, or arrogant. She (I'm so sure she's a she!) wouldn't refer to her president using a racial slur, even though she may have preferred McCain. So there's hope, right?

Mostly what I want is for me to quit being so sure that all Republicans are idiots. I can't stand it that I'm right there in the black-or-white, either-or world, but I am. I can subscribe to the theory that we're all multi-faceted and that we shouldn't be judged (if at all) by just one facet. What if you judged me only by my near-total inability to find my car in a parking lot? But if you believe in torture, then how we are in the world -- our orientation -- is so very different that I don't know if we could find things to talk about at lunch. If I know that you automatically think black people are less than white people, how can we even chat about books? Don't our politics reflect our core values? I don't know how I can enjoy your (non-religious, non-political) humor while also knowing that you think Palin is a fine example of American womanhood.

Deleting without reading emails from certain "friends" doesn't seem to be the answer. I'm already an ostrich in so many ways. Right now, I'm incapable of calm, political discussion, and I may always be so. I had to take a psychological test when I worked at The Widget Factory. It turned out that in all my reactions, I was never "neutral" or "moderate." I was either "passionate" or "extreme." That doesn't sound like a good dinner companion, does it?

The Big Game

I worked fifteen years for America's Favorite Junkmail®, so I know that Joe's Bar & Grill down the street cannot advertise any "Superbowl" specials. Oh no. That would bring a swoop of attorneys* down on his beer-soaked wooden floors. Now, if he spends the huge dollars and arranges licensing with the Superbowl boys, then it's okay, but those people are few -- and wealthy beyond belief. Therefore, poor Joe has to advertise "The Big Game" specials.

Each year at the junkmail factory, we'd receive a memo reminding us not to type "Superbowl," even if the advertiser did. They'd have to fax us a copy of the license to get The S-Word on a coupon, and I personally never saw one.

For some reason, I thought that law applied only to print advertising, but this year I noticed a couple bars with "The Big Game" on their marquees, and then I went to Publix ... on the day before The Big Game, which I'll never do again.

The place was so packed, I very nearly had to park across the street. The store was full of signs about The Big Game. Drinks for The Big Game. Snacks for The Big Game. Meat, potatoes, side dishes, napkins, cakes, balloons, and feminine hygiene for The Big Game. Okay. Maybe not, but the whole store seemed to have its very existence rooted in the idea of The Big Game. The PA system was full of it, too. At checkout, I gloated to the clerk. "Hah! You can't say 'Superbowl,' but I can!" A department manager overheard me, and we smiled and rolled our eyes in insider sisterhood.

So here's my dream. I want everyone to be so paranoid about saying or typing or even thinking "Superbowl" that we as a nation end up calling it The Big Game. Hah. Let's see 'em copyright that!

_____________

*It's like a pride of lions or a pod of whales or -- closer -- a murder of crows.

Finding Beauty in Death

I know few of you northerners had sympathy for us southerners during the cold weather at the beginning of this month, but perhaps you could dig deep and feel sorry for our plants. Most of them really suffered from the freeze, although I can't tell yet if the damage is permanent. René says this isn't the time for pruning. We're to leave everything alone and see what develops in the spring, which should be in another week or two.

In the meantime, look at how gorgeous these palms are. True, those copper fronds are probably dead, but what colors! In the sun, they're golden. In the shade, bronze. And the plant itself is still alive. I have a cactus of some sort, thanks to Vicki, that's now reddish, too, thanks to the temperature. Based on what happened to a frozen aloe a couple years ago, I think the cactus will resume its green, given time.

Now here's a picture of Silver who, despite the title, is not dead. He's an outdoor cat from down the street who occasionally takes an afternoon nap on my bed and usually shows up once a day for fish. I woke up one recent morning and opened the door to the porch. There was Silver in a chair and there -- stepping backward then -- was something slightly spongy underfoot. It was a three-legged squirrel, an apparent thank-you gift from Silver, for those soft naps and the daily Meow Mix.

The stump seemed pretty well healed, and there wasn't any blood anywhere; nor was there life. For all I know, Silver just happened upon a fresh corpse and decided to cash in on it. Well, why not?

I figured I'd pick it up like I pick up after Benji. I'd put my hand into a plastic bag, snatch up the poor squirrel, and then push the bag down off my forearm for a tidy package. Alas. I turn out to be much too squeamish for that. I couldn't stand the idea of feeling the squirrel's not yet rigid body with just the thinnest of plastic between us. I had to put on a big yellow Playtex glove and, holding four folded-over paper towels (that's eight layers now), lift the squirrel by the merest last hair on its tail, and lower it nose-first into the bag, trying very hard not to watch, yet wanting, at all costs, to have perfect aim.

Interestingly, I also had to make noises. I suppose it was just my version of whistling in the dark, but I had to make eewing and gakking sounds, and I had to gibber out loud. "Oh man. Silver. Jeeze. Thanks but really. Yuck. Ouch. What was that? Aw man."

Whenever I watch suspense movies, I picture myself in her -- always her -- shoes, and I know I could never keep my mouth shut while the demented stalker searches for me, muttering and panting while he tosses his knife from one scarred, rough hand to the other. I could tolerate about four seconds of hiding behind a post in a midnight parking garage before I'd burst into the open, hands in the air, shrieking, "Here I am! Here I am!"

I was going to take a picture of the dead squirrel but decided against it, even though it wasn't especially disturbing. (You're welcome, flahoos.) Instead, I'll include a picture of its initial resting place, a sort of funeral parlor. Or maybe this is the critter version of the Catholic Purgatory (assuming they've still held onto that little bit of dogma). Here's where the squirrel waits until it ascends into that Great Landfill in the Sky.

Two friends later told me I should've put the body in a public waste basket, like at Walgreens or by the Beach Bazaar downtown. That way, it would be taken away the very same day, instead of having to wait the whole weekend for Pickup Monday. So that's the Body Disposal Tip for today. You're welcome.

Parallelism

This is America, after all, so we'll assume that Whitco Insurance doesn't actually sell people, even though that's what its sign says. I understand that the sign isn't big enough to hold the word "insurance," or that they may have run out of S's. I know Mister Whitco is trusting Gulfport's citizens to use that phenomenon of closure to add "insurance" in their minds as they drive by on the way to Walgreens to get some Moose Tracks.

I don't mind any of that, but I do mind it that Whitco also sells "car" insurance. I mind the inconsistency of language here. Why is one type of insurance for an inanimate object (a car) and the other for an animate object (a person who owns a home)? Why not "car insurance" and "house insurance"? Or "carowners insurance" and "homeowners [insurance]"?

Unbelievably, I'm not even complaining about "homeowners" being one word, or about the lack of a possessive apostrophe. No. I'm grousing about the disorderly usage.

I think it has to do with euphemisms. Really now, you don't buy a "home." You buy a "house." Only love and cinnamon -- not insurance -- make a house a home. But the whole real estate industry is about making the structures we live in sound better than they really are. Hence, "cozy" really means "cramped."

And speaking of synonyms, let raise our voices (in unison, of course) to wish Peter Mark Roget a happy birthday. Since he was born in 1779, he won't be smiling and blushing while we sing, but his famous Thesaurus, first published in 1852, has been in print ever since then, so perhaps his spirit is coloring with pride at such an accomplishment.

I think we should all celebrate this occasion -- observe, commemorate, keep, remember, solemnize, extol, honor, praise, eulogize, glorify, exalt, toast -- by using as many synonyms as possible, all day long, in everything we do. Repeat, reiterate, reassert. Another fun activity would be to ponder the fact that there's no synonym for synonym.

New Year's Vague Intentions

I have never been a resolute person. Opinionated? Sure. Passionate? Absolutely. Resolute? Um, not really. Well, let's give Noah* a chance, shall we?

[Busy pause.]

No. He's way too complicated. Oh heck. As long as we've stopped, let's take care of that asterisk right now. All my life, I've been thinking that Daniel Webster wrote the first American dictionary, but it turns out that Noah, called The Father of American Scholarship and Education, became associated with dictionaries because of the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 (but under a difference name).

Roget's Thesaurus will be quicker, and time is important. I mean, this very evening is New Year's Eve so this blog has to be disseminated to the masses by then or the consequences will be unthinkable.

Resolute: determined, purposeful, decisive, firm, steady, constant, fixed, unswerving, unyielding, flat-footed (goodness!), resolved, convinced, strong-willed, decided, steadfast, persevering, persistent, adamant.

The antonyms are more my style: weak, changeable, unsteady, faltering, purposeless, aimless.

You see, then, that New Year's Resolutions would be folly for me, guaranteed failures. That's not to say that I won't scramble up on any bandwagon that'll have me. I was perfectly sincere when I signed up at Curves. I absolutely believed I'd show up and work out three times a week, even if my foot hurt or I had a cold or I was too busy with Christmas preparations, even if I have to pay for it whether I show up or not.

Therefore, I have developed New Year's Vague Intentions, which work much better for me. It's not that I actually institute any changes, of course, but at least I feel better about the whole thing. I'm pretty sure that I let "Intentions" be plural just to march along nicely with "Resolutions," but the truth is that I only declare -- well, mutter, sotto voce -- one. I don't want to feel overwhelmed.

This year's Vague Intention is simply to Eat Breakfast. I want to eat a meal within an hour of rising. I've already been awake for three hours and I've still not eaten. I'm told that my body is, as we speak, preparing for me to wander in the wilderness -- surely aimlessly -- for weeks, so it's conserving energy for that event by slowing down my metabolism to the coma level. I'm helping by moving only from my chair to the couch, so, between us, we've probably burned about four calories so far.

So yeah: Breakfast. Soon.

I mean it.

See you next year!

Bad Combo

Santa asked for a Wish List from me this year, and I was happy to comply. One of the best pleasures of the season is figuring out what to get my friends for gifts, but in the end, the known preference is probably better than the unknown.

For instance, when my buddy Mike, who shall remain nameless, asked about gifts for his sister, I asked if she'd read the Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. She had not, declared my friend. Excellent! There's the gift!

Alas, sister Liz had in fact read at least part of the series. Mike went to the bookstore after Christmas and returned the book. He came back out with a gift card, since Liz doesn't remember if she was at #3 or #4 in the series.

So you see that a list can be very important, if less creative and romantic.

It's like the naming of the streets in St. Petersburg. I was so disappointed when I moved here on July 13, 1985, to discover that, with a sprinkling of exceptions, the streets and avenues are simply named numbers. Here I was in an exotic land with palm trees (They're not trees! They're pithy plants!) and draw bridges and tourists and the most amazing storms and the biggest birds ... and the most mundane street names, er, numbers.

But when I discovered how easy navigation was, I was delighted. You could tell me you lived at 5711 21st Avenue South, and I'd actually know how to get there. I lived on East Main in Rochester, but if you didn't know where that was, you just didn't know, and let's not talk about Monroe Avenue or Genesee Street.

So yay for numbered street grids and yay for Wish Lists!

I wanted a day-by-day calendar of quotes from His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. There's one in the bathroom at The Longhouse (http://www.longhouse.info/) and I always feel better -- uplifted -- when I read it. The wisdom, peace, and compassion that seep into me might last all the way to my car, so imagine how nice I'd be if I had my own daily dose of holiness.

Well, Santa brought it to me. Yay, Santa! Alas, it's from a strange publisher, indeed, a publisher who clearly wanted to give his customers a little something in addition to sacred words of His Holiness, a publisher named Andrews McMeel Publishing, at 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri, 64106. This bonus is in the form of THE DAILY EXTRA on the back of each of three hundred and sixty-five pages. Oh wait. That can't be the right number, because Saturday and Sunday share a page. What the heck?

Okay. Let's skip the numbers and just get down to the problem. Here's the Dalai Lama for Friday, July 16: Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.

Fine. That's not so very very profound, but it's okay. But what ho! on the back of the page is THE DAILY EXTRA: Match the Artist with the Song.

1. Summer Breeze
2. Summer Wind
3. Summer in the City
4. Boys of Summer
5. Girls in Their Summer Clothes

1. Lovin' Spoonful
2. Bruce Springsteen
3. Seals and Crofts
4. Frank Sinatra
5. Don Henley

Still thinking about that honorable life, are you?

Here's October 6, with apologies to David Rogachefsky and Olga, born on that day: Mistakenly apprehending inherent existence in all phenomena serves as the root of all other delusions. And THE DAILY EXTRA: Cool But Disgusting Fact. "Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour -- about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person will have lost 105 pounds of skin."

Okay. Maybe thinking about rogue skin is easier than trying to understand what the heck was going on with that quote, but you get my point.

One more and I swear I'll quit. Says His Holiness: If you fulfill the value of a human lifetime through engaging in religious practice, then there is no point in worrying about death. THE DAILY EXTRA: Household Hint. "Old nylon stockings, cut lengthwise, make great ties for tomato plants. They won't cut into the stalk, are weather resistant, and are very strong."

Have mercy!

The Camels Are Lowing

Today's long-awaited blog will be a mishmash of Christmas images and thoughts, starting with the traditional Mahon Camel Cookies. Saudi Arabia is dear to this family's collective heart (and the family is dear to mine), so I started making molasses camels for them. I had trouble this year. I used the wrong recipe (from The Joy of Cooking), and produced a dough as stiff as pasta dough, which Olga tells me is as tough as the dog biscuit dough I'll be making for Benji later on. I let Mike test-drive the camel, and it came up substandard for both taste and texture, so I herded the rest into the trash and went back to the tried and true Ms. Crocker. As you can imagine, the dough sometimes gets stuck in those hooves, so we have to pretend that some of the camels are sitting down.

These festive bells are made with The Joy of Cooking's Rich Sugar Cookie recipe, substituting 100% of the vanilla with 150% of maple extract. Yum. Meee. For the paint, I beat an egg yolk with another drop or two of the maple, some water, and some food coloring.

Moving out of the kitchen into the living room, behold this package from a dear friend in The Land of Several Lakes. It was a tight fit in my mailbox, so I had to yank it out, and when I did, it fell to the ground and was hoisted, sort of, on its own acorn. As you can see, that acorn is really in there. I'm counting it as a Christmas Miracle, right up there with the fact that I was able to use Photoshop to erase enough of my friend's address to render him or her anonymous.

Now let's go outside to the Fallen Santa. I raved enough about this last year, but nothing exceeds like excess. Really, in the daytime, it looks as if hordes of barbarians entered the village and slaughtered all the brightly dressed townspeople. Or maybe the Florida sun melted all of Santa's helpers and then the cooler evening hardened them again. And again. I mean, it's cheerful in its own way, but gee, the same could have been said about my grandmother's funeral procession (sixty miles from Kane to Oil City, PA, at 40mph, the teenagers and mid-twenties in the last cars, laughing and singing with the radio, carrying on as if death had no sting).

Down a couple more blocks, though, you'll see this holiday-heavy lawn. These people keep the decorations inflated -- and aloft! -- all day and all night.

I sure hope the Santa Pilot stays clear of all that Spanish moss, which, by the way, was used to stuff furniture, like sofas and mattresses, in the Olden Days. This is on René's street. Further up 49th (maybe around 5th Avenue North), but sadly without a photo here, is a house with five trees in row, each in a rainbow color (=). [The preceding is not a ridiculous emoticon of a surprised person with vertical eyes, which would be surprising, indeed, but the equal sign, indicating the desire for equality under the law for non-heterosexual people, too.]

And look at this inclusive setup, on 58th Street: a dreidel and a manger. I can't tell if the dreidel is looking curiously at the manger or if it's acting in a menacing fashion, but it doesn't matter: They're together.

In checking the spelling of dreidel, I found out that it's a game of chance involving pennies or, preferably, chocolate money. Really now. A religion featuring chocolate and money? How bad could that be?