Month: August 2018

Breaking News!

On Tuesday while all major mainstream news outlets were carrying word of guilty verdicts for Trump cronies, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, the ultra conservative media was singing a different song. Here’s what the Western Journal ran as “Breaking News”:

Wow! They really did a killer job of distracting readers, right? This site’s normal fare includes scathing articles about Hillary’s emails along with high praise for trump.

I subscribe to the WJ (whose name is so similar to the Wall Street Journal’s that one might believe it was titled in such a way as to mislead readers) in order to keep up with what far right conservatives are reading.

The Wall Street Journal, which also tends toward the conservative viewpoint, didn’t mess around with animal cracker stories yesterday.

I watched FOX news on Wednesday afternoon. Yes, I took one for the blog. It may require a year of counseling to shake off the nightmares that watching FOX brings on, but a girl has to make sacrifices.

Their take on the whole thing is that Democrats are just itching to impeach Trump and that Trump didn’t know about anything and if he did it wasn’t important and anyway, “Look! A squirrel!” A sitting president, they said, has never been indicted, so….Oh, and anyway, no one really trusts Manafort or Cohen. In other words, it was a word soup with very little nutritional value.

FOX was even trying to coach Sarah Huckabee Sanders on how to brief the press following Tuesday’s headlines. I wonder if she’ll address the animal crackers scandal?

The big news on FOX, though, dealt with the case of an illegal immigrant who is being charged with the murder of a college student in Iowa. They even broke away from regular news coverage and went live to the courtroom. I wonder why? Do they go live to every courtroom in which a man has been charged with raping and murdering a woman? If so, they’re going to be doing nothing but covering such cases. According to Ms. magazine, more than 1,600 women were murdered by men in 2017. FOX had better get busy. Between that and breaking news animal cracker stories the conservative media has its hands full.

Peace, people.

What I Didn’t Ask

She was sitting alone on the beach under her umbrella, this pleasant looking middle-aged woman, reading her book and looking up occasionally at the brilliant blue Gulf. I watched her surreptitiously from my own chair for many minutes, imagining the scenarios that might have led to her being there.

I wondered if she, like me, has a husband who travels frequently leaving her to her own devices during the week. Perhaps she was a recent divorcée trying to find herself in the timeless rise and fall of the waves before moving on with her new single life. Maybe she was an international jewel thief, hiding out on Florida’s Forgotten Coast until she could find a place to offload her ill-gotten booty. Oh, the possibilities were endless.

Then, she spoke to me, “Come, share my umbrella.”

The temperature was 95°. I could hardly refuse an offer like that, even if she was an international jewel thief, so I picked up my chair and settled in beside her, instantly relieved to be out of the direct rays of the sun. I thanked her and for the next hour we chatted like old friends.

She was closer to my age than I’d thought when watching her from several yards away, and attractive in a gamine sort of way. Her name was Tammy or Tammie, maybe Tammi. I didn’t ask for a spelling, and she and her husband were spending the week camping near St. George Island. Her sister and brother-in-law were planning to join them later that day.

Tammy/Tammie/Tammi lives near Thomasville, Georgia, where they farm. They grow pecans among other crops. Her husband of 40 years had contracted skin cancer from spending many long hours working in the sun, so he stays in the camper during the day and comes to join her once the sun starts to set. It’s their routine.

She’s one of four children, three girls and one boy, and their father died when they were all very young. Her mother was a strong woman who kept their family together and raised good kids. Her husband’s family is very big and boisterous and fun.

I told her about Studly and me, our kids, and grandkids, and our many moves from state to state in our 42 years of marriage. How we hoped we could retire and live out the rest of our lives in Tallahassee, but how hard it is to be so far away from the rest of our family. I told her about my deceased parents and how much I miss them. I told her about my brothers and their families, and about Studly’s own boisterous family.

Soon it came time for me to leave. I thanked her again for the shade and also for the conversation. As I walked away it occurred to me that she hadn’t mentioned children, and I hadn’t asked if she and her husband had any. Surely the existence of children would have come into the conversation at some point. Still I wish I’d asked. That, and about the jewel thief theory. That could still be a possibility.

Peace, people.

Choices

Great way to organize and prioritize the college (or college alternative) decision making process. Read more at wakinguponthewrongsideof50.wordpress.com.

Wakinguponthewrongsideof's avatarWaking up on the Wrong Side of 50

You know my family just completed a college tour road trip- 7 colleges, 16 states, 2800 miles.  Seeing 7 colleges brought the total up to 15 colleges visited.  My daughter has narrowed down her choices and is now starting the application process.  Here’s how she narrowed it down.

There are about 4000 colleges in the US.  Where do you go from there?  Well, the editor of the Princeton Review “Top 382 Colleges in America” gave a talk at my daughter’s school, and handed out copies of the book.  So we went from 4000 to 382 pretty quickly.  (Let me add, this is how we did it- you can narrow down the field anyway you want) But, along side this book, we had done a few tours of college campuses.  We spread the field a bit- we visited a few different campuses- state schools, private schools, undergrad enrollment less than 5000…

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Russian Television Offers Clarity

Alotfromlydia.wordpress.com lays out some key connections in this piece.

Handmaid’s Tale, the Series

More than once I’ve read Margaret Atwood’s novel of the dystopian country of Gilead, formerly known as the United States of America. Each reading of The Handmaid’s Tale has caused me to see some new and horrifying aspect of a brave new world in which some women, those who are fertile, are reduced to being nothing more than brood mares, while their infertile counterparts serve men in other ways.

When I first read the novel I was a young mom with two children underfoot, and I was devastated by the main character’s separation from her child. I couldn’t imagine anyone trying to take my babies away, and her heartache was my heartache.

The second time I read The Handmaid’s Tale my children were teenagers, and all I could think of was that my daughter could be used in this birthing scheme, while I would be relegated to being a Martha or an Auntie–someone whose only purpose in life was to cook or clean for a commander and his family.

When I read the book for a third time, Donald Trump had just been sworn in and I had just taken part in a women’s march to protest his misogynistic views. Now I read the book from a whole world perspective. I saw how women, with just a few winks and nods from Congress, could drop rapidly in status just because men declared us to be second class citizens.

Friends kept urging me to watch the Hulu series based on the book, but I was afraid I’d be disappointed. Now, after spending two days binge watching the first season on dvd, I’m in awe. Not only has the series captured the book perfectly in scope and mood, but it has also brought back every one of those emotions I experienced during my past experiences with the book.

The Handmaid’s Tale will take you by the shoulders and shake you until you’re only capable of seeing the paths that lie ahead. We really are on the cusp in this country, and this series reminds us to be wary. Keep resisting.

Peace, people.

What a Great Day!

Monday was about as perfect as a day could be. I’m too pooped to write much, so instead, using a series of bullet points and emojis, I’ll share my experiences:

  • Dressed in my 👙 and a long 👚
  • Drove to the post office to mail two 📦 📦
  • Cast a 🗳 for Gwen Graham for Florida’s governor in the Democratic primary
  • Drove to St. George Island 🌴
  • Ate yummy scallops at the Blue Parrot 🌊
  • Set up a chair on the 🏖
  • Watched 🐬 🐬 frolic in the 🌊 🌊
  • Ran into 👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 from Tallahassee on the 🏖
  • They gave me a bottle of 💦
  • Visited with a nice lady from Georgia who shared her ☂ with me
  • Got a bit of 🌞 on my lily white skin.
    Ate 🍦on the way home
    Showered and petted two anxious 🐱 🐈 upon returning 🏠
    Getting ready to eat dinner with a🍴
    Really must go now, so I can chow down, but there’s no emoji for leaving. There is for 👋🏻 👋🏻, though.
    ✌️ , people!

Snapshot #218

This morning seemed like a beach day to me, so I dressed in a swimsuit, forgot the makeup, and pointed the car to St. George Island. First, though, I had to stop by the post office to mail a couple of packages and then I voted in the Democratic primary.

I call this one, “I Voted for Gwen Graham in My Swimsuit, Baby!”

Tiramisu for Breakfast

On Saturday evening, my husband, Studly Doright, took me to dine at one of his favorite Italian restaurants in Tallahassee, namely Riccardo’s. He and his office staff eat there at lunch fairly often, and even though Studly isn’t crazy about Italian food he likes Riccardo’s.

The restaurant was packed when we got there. A family with three small, tired, and cranky children was seated before us, thankfully across the room from where we ended up. Don’t get me wrong, I love kids, but when I’m enjoying a date night with Studly I’d rather not have my meal be punctuated with whining and tears.

We decided fairly quickly what we wanted to order, but by some quirk of fate we had to share our waiter with the aforementioned family of five. After pinning down their drink orders he finally made it to our table. Studly and I didn’t waste any time. We knew exactly what we wanted: A caprese salad and a glass of wine for me, and a pepperoni, onion, and pineapple pizza for him, with a half order of bread for us to share.

To make a long story short, our bread never arrived, and Studly’s pizza was delivered sans pepperoni. Our waiter never checked to see if we needed more to drink (neither of us did, but that’s beside the point). In lieu of bread to go with my salad I nibbled on one of Studly’s pineapple and onion pizza slices. It was decent, but I’m a fan of a less sweet sauce.

When we finally got our waiter’s attention we told him about the missing bread and the pizza faux pas. He was contrite, but I think the family of five had him totally flustered. And honestly, we probably had a much healthier meal without the bread and pepperoni.

As an apology he brought a slice of tiramisu over with our check, and with that move the healthy aspect to the meal flew right out the window. Boom. I did limit myself to half of the slice, saving the other half for breakfast. It doesn’t look like much now, but trust me, it was delicious. See, even a healthy cloud might have a tiramisu lining.

Peace, people.