Hanging Out in Texas

I arrived in Cisco Saturday night. It was an uneventful trip until about half an hour before I got there, probably somewhere around Clyde. I was driving about 5 or 6 mph over the limit, when I saw a law enforcement vehicle's lights go on. There was nobody else on the road near me who could have been the target, so I pulled over.

The officer was nice-looking with a strong jawline reminiscent of the evil terminator in Terminator 2. It left me unsure what to expect. He told me I was driving a bit fast and asked me where I was headed, and I said, "Cisco." Then he asked me why I was going there, without conveying any sense of surprise that anyone, especially from California, would choose to go there. I told him, "Family."

He took my license back to his car to check to see if I was a wanted fugitive from the law, then he returned with my license and a small piece of paper. "I'm giving you a warning. There's no cost." I thanked him and drove away at slightly under the limit and then got to my mom's house.

When I told my family about my warning, they all agreed that Clyde's speeding enforcement is brutal, and it's usually the local cops, rather than the state troopers, who are patrolling the interstate in that area. Duly noted for my return trip.

I had expected my arrival at my mom's house to be announced by her little dog Misty, but I managed to get there while Misty was away for her every-other-month grooming. Not long after I arrived, Misty was delivered by her groomer, who lives only a block away from my mom. Small towns sure are different from city living!

Misty had two bows on her head, one of which she lost almost immediately, and a pink and blue bandana around her neck. She started biting on the end of the bandana, and soon it was her newest tug-of-war toy.

Unlike Scooter, who kept my mom and me entertained on our big trip together, Misty doesn't play by herself. Scooter's favorite toy was one of my dad's old socks with a knot in the middle, and he would shake it until it was dead. And then he'd kill it some more. Scooter chewed on balls, but he didn't chase them.

Misty, on the other hand, loves nothing more than to chase a ball and bring it back so you can throw it again for her. She allows the variety of occasionally playing tug of war with her rope or her grooming scarf. This is Misty:


And here she is in the back yard yesterday morning, when I was trying to wear her out so she'd be calm in the house (she still, at just over a year old, has puppy levels of energy and relentlessness). Going for a catch:


Successful capture of prey:


Coming back for more:


My efforts were rewarded when Misty took the ball with her through the doggie door, dropped it on the kitchen floor, and drank lots of water. Then she found a spot in the living room to take a nap.

I was without internet access for over a day, because my mom's modem konked out since the last time I was here, and she had a new one with a new secret code that nobody knew. Only my nephew, who is the computer guy of the family, knew what the code was because he set it up, and he couldn't come over right away to give his sister and me access to the wireless. We're good to go, now.

Yesterday, my mom and I went over to Eastland to get groceries at Wal-Mart. The countryside around Cisco is mostly flat with occasional slightly rolling hills. Here are a couple shots from road to Eastland:




Once we got to Wal-Mart, we spotted this truck parked near us, and I snapped a picture right when the owner was coming back. "You like my truck?" she asked. We chatted for a bit.


Yes, I like her truck.

I also like how friendly people are here, although I can hear myself starting to drawl a little. It's one of the hazards of coming to visit Texas.

This morning, we had planned to drive to Abilene to go to Target and maybe Best Buy, but the new day gave us rain sent by Tropical Storm Hermine. The rain should clear up by Thursday, so we'll go then.

For the next couple days, I'll just be hanging out with family. My nephew (the computer guy) will be coming tonight with his wife and little daughter (who won't be nearly as little as she was the last time I saw her). And so far we have no plans for tomorrow. That's the way I like it on vacation.

Halfway There

I made it to Deming, New Mexico about 8:30 local time tonight. I had forgotten about the time change I'd have at the New Mexico border, making it an hour later. That'll happen again tomorrow when I get past El Paso, Texas.

It was eleventy-one (111°) when I was outside waiting in line for the lone restroom at a gas station someplace beyond Yuma. And no, Bekah, I didn't sweat. Not at all. That's why it's called a dry heat.

When I was driving along the stretch of road between Gila Bend and Casa Grande, the place where the smuggler warning signs are supposed to be, my car said it was 116° outside. I didn't see the smuggler signs, but I did see an actual "Miss Me Yet?" sign with GW Bush on it, and right after it was a sign with Reagan's picture and the message, "Remember real Hope and Change?"

Not far from there was a yellow diamond warning sign that said, "Do Not Follow Trucks." I have no idea what that was about.

I had brought snacks with me, so I wouldn't have to stop for food too much and could make good time. But when the temperature outside was 116° and the sign for Dairy Queen magically appeared up ahead, I made a decision to splurge. When I pulled off the interstate, I recognized the exit as the one by Picacho Peak, where my mom and I waited for AAA to come and replace the motorhome tire that blew out on our trip. I ate a chocolate-dipped cone, refilled my water bottle, and hit the road again.

Just as a note, the gas prices in Arizona are about 30¢ cheaper than in California. I should drive to Arizona to buy gas more often...

Vacation Coming!

I'm getting my ducks in a row, getting ready for vacation.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Texas to visit my mom and my sister. It's a two-day drive if I can get at least as far as Deming, New Mexico, which is within ten minutes of the half-way point.

Yesterday I checked the weather reports, only to discover that tomorrow will be Phoenix's hottest day (107º) of the next 10 days. My route takes me near Phoenix without hitting any of the city's normal traffic. Depending on the time I go through there, I could hit some Labor Day weekend traffic leaving the city, so I'll try to drag myself out of bed earlier than I want to.

The weather report for Cisco says that I'll be there in time to enjoy thunderstorms. I'm sure that means I may learn how to read all those satellite images on the Weather Channel. People in Texas like that channel. People in California barely know it exists.

Another fascinating development in my vacation preparation came in the form of a news item I saw at Michelle Malkin's blog. It seems the Obama administration's answer to border security is to post signs warning the gringos that Arizona isn't safe.

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

They warn travelers that they are entering an "active drug and human smuggling area" and they may encounter "armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed." Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to "use public lands north of Interstate 8" and to call 911 if they "see suspicious activity."

Perfect! That's where I'll be driving at 107º tomorrow. I'll have to look for the signs.

But once I get to Texas, I'll have fun. And the fun starts just east of El Paso, where the posted speed limit is 80 mph. Love it! Then, when I get to my mom's house, I get to meet her new little dog Misty. (My mom had to put Scooter down a while ago - He had liver cancer.) I've heard Misty already, because when I call my mom, Misty starts barking to say, "Hey! You stopped paying attention to me!"

When I come back, I'll be bringing my telescope with me. I didn't have enough room for it in my car when I came home from The Trip with my mom.

So tonight is serious packing, followed by serious sleeping, followed tomorrow by serious driving. I have some books on tape checked out from the library to keep me company. Life is good!

A Classic

I think I might be getting old.

This brings back fond memories of going to the movies when I was in high school:

Abusive Behavior (Updated)

It's hard to know exactly what's going on. A month ago, I fell down and hurt my knees. Those injuries have healed now, except for a few spots that are still a bit pink. I was able to get back to praying on my knees within a few days of the Shameful Incident, and I wore my jeans to work that Friday (and every Friday since) without any pain to my band-aid covered wounds.

I had even begun to believe that perhaps the SI was just a strange aberration, a freak of nature that randomly struck an otherwise steady person.

I was deluded.

Last night, my daughter and a friend of hers and mine came over to play games. I went into my roommate's room (she was out for the evening), where the games were, and turned on her light so I could read the names of the games. After calling out the names, we decided to watch movies instead, and I walked toward the bedroom door. As I did, the door to one of the under-the-bed compartments was slightly open, and I walked right into the top corner, which smacked my kneecap and then banged into the fleshy part below it.

I said, "Damn it!" about five times, with the last one properly spelled in all caps, and this alarmed my daughter, who knows that I don't swear unless I'm really hurt.

She came in the room, and I pulled up my sweats to inspect my knee and check for bleeding. Swelling had already started, but I didn't see blood. She did, though, and mentioned it, and on my second look, I could see one wide drop trying to form.

I washed it, dried it, and applied a band-aid. Then I grabbed the gel pack out of the freezer (I got it from my chiropractor to use on my back when I feel a twinge) and put it on my knee for a while.

The ice didn't help much, and all night my knee had the look of a beluga whale with its bulging forehead. The swelling was about the size of a plum that had been cut in half and attached under the kneecap. I iced it several times while we watched Camille and then the Brothers Bloom.

At one point during the movie-watching, I glanced into my roomie's room and saw that the very door which had attacked me, AND WHICH I HAD CLOSED, was open again, waiting for another victim!

I gave it no quarter. Throwing off my ice pack, I went into the room and rearranged the stuff in the compartment until the evil door acknowledged that I was boss and stayed shut.

By this morning the swelling was down to the size of a large apricot. It doesn't look like there will be any lasting effects, but I can't help but wonder what is going on in me that my walking has suddenly become a danger to my knees.

Maybe I should consider attaching curb feelers to my lower legs as a protective measure...

Update (8/30/10, lunchtime):

I mentioned my new injury to my boss, and I told her I need curb feelers. She suggested rubber pads.

In retrospect, I think this is what she had in mind:


But this is what I thought of when she said it:


One on each knee. It'll look great with a dress.

The Truth About Your Congressman

I found this over at Power Line. Classic!

Zebras on the Loose

KGW News reported today about two zebras who got loose in Northern California. (Slideshow here.)



A pair of zebras on the way to Oregon got loose in traffic on a busy California road and it took hours to capture them.

The zebras were getting loaded into a horse trailer in Carmichael, Calif., a small suburb east of Sacramento, when two dogs apparently spooked them and sent them running in opposite directions. Much of the scramble was caught on camera.

Authorities said the zebras darted in and out of traffic and one of them was hit by a car but continued to run. Confused residents reported zebra sightings throughout the downtown area for next five hours.

Both were eventually caught and the animal that was struck by the car was checked over by a veterinarian and given a clear bill of health with just one superficial cut. The second zebra was found in the pool of an apartment complex.

Their owner, Michael Mastagni, was able to finally load the animals onto the trailer and transported his entire herd of seven zebras, including the two runaways, to the ranch in Bly, Ore., on Sunday.

I love that one of them found its way to a pool. It is summertime, after all...

Dereliction of Duty by ICE

Power Line reported Wednesday on a vote by the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents ICE agents and employees. The rank and file unanimously passed a vote of no confidence in the agency's leadership.

Did you get that? The vote was unanimous. Every single person voted against the leadership.

The union "stated that ICE has 'abandoned' its core mission of protecting the public to support a political agenda favoring amnesty. "

The union denounced John Morton, who heads ICE, and Phyllis Coven, assistant director for the agency's office of detention policy and planning. It stated that the integrity of the agency "as well as the public safety" would be "better provided for in the absence of Director Morton and Assistant Director Coven."

Among the other points unanimously agreed to are these:

• The majority of ICE's enforcement and removal officers are prohibited from making street arrests or enforcing U.S. immigration laws outside of the jail setting.

• Hundreds of ICE officers nationwide perform no law enforcement duties whatsoever because of resource mismanagement within the agency.

• ICE detention reforms have transformed into a detention system aimed at providing resortlike living conditions to criminal aliens based on recommendations not from ICE officers and field managers, but from "special-interest groups."

• The lack of technical expertise and field experience has resulted in a priority of providing bingo nights, dance lessons and hanging plants to criminals, instead of addressing safe and responsible detention reforms for noncriminal individuals and families.

• Unlike any other agency in the nation, ICE officers will be prevented from searching detainees housed in ICE facilities, allowing weapons, drugs and other contraband into detention centers -- putting detainees, ICE officers and contract guards at risk.

• Senior leadership ignores reports that ICE internal investigations by the office of professional responsibility conceal agency and supervisor misconduct and are used to retaliate against employees who make whistleblower-type disclosures or question inappropriate policies and procedures.

As Paul Mirengoff, the Power Line writer, says, imagine if this vote had happened during the Bush administration. Imagine if it was only a handful of ICE agents voting against Bush's ICE leadership. Every single paper and every single left-leaning news outlet would be trumpeting the news 24/7.

But under Obama, it's only the right-leaning Washington Times that ran the story.

Boys Will Be Boys

I spend an inordinate amount of time in and around parking lots in my daily life, and it's given me the opportunity to observe people and what they do.

A few weeks ago, there was a family gathered outside one of the doors of a building I was at. They may have been waiting for someone who was still inside, but one little boy about age 3 had separated himself from the rest. He had found a tiny puddle in the parking lot, the only spot of water in the dry, barren reaches of inland Southern California, and he was playing in it.

There must be something in the DNA of the Y chromosome, a gene that homes in on standing water and mud and compels the male to approach it, stick his hands in it and then stomp around in it until his mother lets out a horrified shriek and comes over to whisk said miscreant away. Being a girl, I don't completely understand.

There's another male gene that I see on display the parking lots, and this one afflicts older males, those of driving age. It's the Backing Into Parking Spaces gene. Although I'm willing to consider that this one may be an effect of the prenatal washing of the brain by testosterone that occurs early in the development of males and some rare females. By my estimation (not just at work but everywhere), about 90% of the vehicles that are parked for easy exit were parked by men. I think it's the modern manifestation of the same thing that caused Wild West men to sit in saloons with their backs to the wall. A lady doesn't normally think about that unless her man has drummed it into her over the years.

The other day I was looking out a window, and I noticed motion out in the parking lot, and I looked to see what it was. A pickup truck was starting to back into a spot. Naturally, my brain registered: Pickup = male; reverse parking = male. But then the truck pulled forward because the driver had miscalculated the proper trajectory. (My brain: Lack of awareness of surroundings and vehicle direction = potential female driver.) I watched more closely and saw that the driver didn't turn the wheels the right way to allow for a better approach, so he or she ended up in about the same position as the first time. Attempt number 3 was slightly improved, just enough to allow for full access to the parking space, but the driver wasn't sure how far back to go, so the truck moved forward a little then backwards again, and then it stopped.

I watched for confirmation of my conclusion that the truck was being driven by a rogue female, one who probably had to borrow hubby's truck because her little, maneuverable car was in the shop. The driver's door opened, and a man got out.

Hmmm. He parks like a girl when he's parking like a man. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

Missouri Rejects Obamacare

"The God of Israel spoke. The Rock of Israel said to me: 'The person who rules righteously, who rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of the morning, like the sunrise bursting forth in a cloudless sky, like the refreshing rains that bring tender grass from the earth.'

But the godless are like thorns to be thrown away, for they tear the hand that touches them." II Samuel 23:3-4, 6

It looks like Missouri has started throwing the thorns away, by nearly 3 to 1.

America is willing to be governed. But. We. Will. Not. Be. Ruled.

Falling Down on the Job

It's probably not what you think...

Yesterday. I needed to get to work (to my desk, actually) ON TIME. Which means I have to clock in on the wretched time clock system on my workstation no later than 8:07 a.m. so I can take not one minute less than a 30 minute lunch so I can leave work at 4:30 so I can make it home to grab a few things for an appointment at 5:15.

I set my alarm clock about 20 minutes earlier than usual and got up after hitting the snooze button only once. The only problem was that my roommate's family was here, and everyone was still getting ready for Disneyland. The daughter (the one from Florida, who you may remember from the trip my mom and I took a couple years ago) was in the shower when I dragged myself out of bed. That was OK, because I got my clothes out and readied my breakfast stuff and was generally efficient with my waiting time. Then it was my turn.

The granddaughter took her shower while I was having breakfast, and then the son-in-law needed a shower, but since I hadn't finished my breakfast yet, I let him go ahead, rather than try to brush my teeth mid-breakfast. Eeeww!

But he took longer than I had counted on (I hadn't really given it much thought). When he finished, I brushed my teeth, grabbed everything, said my goodbyes (and told them I knew they were going to be SO JEALOUS of me being at work while they were suffering their way through the Happiest Place on Earth), and got in the car. That's when I noticed I was cold. I had forgotten my jacket. So I turned off the car, ran back inside ("Are you done at work already?"), grabbed my jacket and ran back outside to my car.

I ended up leaving with just enough time to get to work and still be able to clock in On Time, provided traffic wasn't bad. It wasn't, but my timing was close. I parked my car and walked very quickly to the entrance, and that was where my foot didn't quite clear the curb, and I went down.

My knees took the worst of it. I was wearing a dress, so it was skin on cement. Hard. My hands hit next, my left hand grazing the knuckles closest to the nails on my thumb and two middle fingers, because that's the hand that had my lunch in it. My right hand hit on the heel of the palm after letting go of my purse and sending some of the contents spilling, including my cell phone which opened up as if to mock me. And then, because I'd been walking so fast, my momentum kept me moving until my right cheek touched the cement, fortunately without any injury or pain. If it hadn't been for my knees taking the brunt of the damage, my face could have been.... no, I don't want to think about it.

One of the ladies at work was right behind me, and she asked if I was OK, but I had to be OK, because I had to clock in first and then survey the damage once that task had been accomplished. I walked quickly, without tripping up the stairs, and checking as I went to make sure I didn't feel any blood running down my shins, to my desk and clocked in at 8:06 a.m. Success with a minute to spare! Then I went to the restroom and washed my injuries with soap and water.

It's bad enough that I felt like a dope for falling down like a little kid, but my job includes tracking unusual occurrences and typing up some of them when they're reported. And this was definitely an unusual occurrence. I asked my boss if I had to write it up, hoping that I wouldn't have to immortalize my shame, but she said yes, I needed to do that. And I also had to send a copy to HR.

Later, my knees started screaming in pain at me, so I went to the mailroom and looked in the first aid kit, but all it had was teeny band-aids and some purple gloves. Nothing for pain. I walked down the hall to where the head pediatrician was in his office, and I asked him if there was something I could put on the abrasions to make them stop hurting but that would let me pretend that I wasn't seeking medical care (pediatricians see more of this type of injury than adult physicians do or I would have asked an adult provider). He told me to ask the nurse.

The nurse, whose office was right next door, told me that if I put some antibiotic ointment on it, it would keep the air from getting to the wounds, and it was the air that was making my knees hurt. She dug out a box of antibiotic ointment from a desk drawer and informed me that it was expired, which was why it wasn't in the first aid kit. As a nurse, she would NEVER suggest that I use expired ointment. As a friend, though, she was letting me know that it was an option should I decide I wanted to use it. But it was expired. Just so I know.

I didn't care. I took several of the little foil packets and used one to put some ointment on my knees and also my thumb knuckle, which was still bleeding slightly. I had just enough band-aids in my Bag of Tricks that I keep in my purse for my knees. My thumb got a red crayon-shaped band-aid.

The hardest part of the day was at night when it was time to pray. I do that on my knees with my elbows on my bed, but there was no way I was going to put my knees on the little rug I keep by the bed. So I climbed into bed and prayed sitting up straight, and even though I felt farther away from my prayers that way, it was still better than not praying at all.

Today I wore another dress to work, so my knees wouldn't have to rub against pants, and tomorrow it'll be a skirt and jacket. On Friday, Jeans Day, I'll have to see how I'm doing, because I'd absolutely hate to miss out on a Jeans Day just because I fell down on the job on Tuesday.

Obama Bumper Sticker Removal Kit

This is from NewsBusters, via Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's blog.



Doug Powers helpfully points out that the BS Removal Kit can also be used to remove the "McCain" half of your McCain/Palin bumper sticker.

I don't have any bumper stickers to remove, but I'm always happy to help a friend find something useful.

Then again, you might just want to keep those stickers on for posterity. I used to commute long distances to work and would frequently see another commuter with a really old Dodge Dart that had a Nixon/Agnew sticker on his car. Together, the sticker and car made a nice time capsule of another era. Something to consider before you plunge headlong into the BS Removal decision...

Happy Bastille Day!

Today's French phrase on my Page-A-Day calendar is:

La liberté à tout prix.

Liberty at all costs.

It's in honor of France's Bastille Day, their independence day. It's not a day I celebrate, although I remember, after having had 5 years of French in school plus various conversational French classes, that it falls on July 14th. But it got me thinking about France's revolution compared to ours.

Liberté. Liberty from what? The French liberated themselves from monarchy, a monarchy that oppressed them and left most of them starving in the streets. In return, they gained the Reign of Terror. Some liberty!

Égalité. Equality of what? The French are still basically ruled by elites. It may not be the monarchy anymore, true, but it's still a class system of the lessers being subject to their betters. I described the French school system, which fosters this class structure in this post from 2005. Yes, the French people all get to vote, but the elites still rule.

Fraternité. Fraternity with whom? "Disaffected" (Muslim) youths? The Jews who are being beaten? Fraternity seems to be only with other pasty-white French people. Outsiders need not apply.

The American Left loves to look to Europe, to France, for inspiration when they try to transform our country into something "better." But America, for all its faults, is the better place.

We gained liberty from the ruling monarchy without the bloodbath that followed France's revolution. Granted, geography had a lot to do with keeping King George III's head on his shoulders. But we had a peaceful transition to a new power structure that ensured liberty in the fledgling nation.

Within the context of the times, America promised equality in a way that hadn't been seen before. Property rights, the vote for free men, and equal opportunity were available to all.

Fraternity is what America does best. All who would subscribe to America's ideals and become citizens are welcome. It doesn't matter where you're from. It doesn't matter what color you are or what language you spoke in the Old Country. If you want to be an American, you can. Nobody is outcast. Nobody has to take the back seat. And anyone who wants to apply him or herself can succeed.

We're even seeing, this election cycle, a resurgence of would-be citizen-legislators.

America is a great country. Let us celebrate her greatness this Bastille Day.

Clark S. Judge on Governors

I like Clark S. Judge and look forward to his guest column every Monday at Hugh Hewitt's blog. Today he addresses the weekend's meeting of the National Governors Association.

The National Governors Association met in Boston this weekend. Usually NGA meetings rank among the blandest of political events.... Not this meeting. Guns were blazing in criticism of the Obama Administration.

Said one frustrated state chief executive, “They [the administration] have oversold the job creation part of [the stimulus legislation]… Whether the president of the United States inherited this [economic] situation or not, he’s now owning it…. [T]o have not delivered [jobs] more quickly has become a problem.”

Said another governor from another region: “Are we just protecting government, or are we really stimulating the economy.”

The surprising part is that even the New York Times reported the story. Clark Judge continues:

As yet another governor of the president’s party told the Times, in joining Republicans wondering why there was no attempt by his party’s Congressional leadership to at least add constructive immigration legislation to obstructive administration lawsuits, “There are 535 members of Congress…. Certainly someone back there can chew gum and hold the basketball at the same time.”

Priceless!

Judge goes on to mention a concern that I've expressed before:

November is not a done deal yet. We have a two-party system. It is not enough for the Democrats to fail in governing, as they have. The Republicans must come up with an alternative....

There is talk of Congressional Republicans issuing a new Contract with America, a pledge of actions the party would take if it were to control the next Congress. Apparently some are afraid of painting in such bold colors as endorsing repeal of Obamacare, stopping further spending of the stimulus money, and continuing the 2003 tax rates. With voter skepticism running so deep, Republican timidity is the greatest danger for the GOP this fall.

He's right. My congressman, Darrell Issa, is a rock star, and so is Rep. Paul Ryan, but the GOP leadership in the House, like Minority Leader John Boehner, strikes me as being made of Jello. We need to shed the go-along-to-get-along Republican members in Congress and elect some true Men of Steel to stand up against the Democrat agenda. If we do, maybe just maybe we can stop the hurtling of our nation in time before it plunges into the abyss.

Botched Clichés

There are so many upsetting things going on in the news that I can't deal with them all, so instead I'll head off in another direction.

When I was a kid, I didn't understand some of the figures of speech or clichés people used. The most confusing for me was, "A stitch in time saves nine." I pictured this as somebody, most likely God, stitching His way through the Fabric of Time. I had no idea why He would stitch time and what effect those stitches would have in the world and what His stitching would save nine of. Nine seconds? Nine minutes? Nine people? I'd get overwhelmed from pondering this (much like the recent news), and I'd have to push it from my mind so I wouldn't go crazy.

It wasn't until I was much older, probably when I had to do some mending, that I figured out it meant something more mundane than God and time. If you get a little hole in the seam of your clothes and you sew it up right away with a little stitch, it saves you from having to sew up a lot because you let the hole get bigger because you're too lazy to nip it in the bud.

Another misunderstanding I had was the (incorrect) saying, "Don't kick a gift horse in the mouth." In my mind, a gift horse fell into the same category as the goose that laid the golden eggs. Somewhere out there was a horse that, when it opened its mouth, wrapped gifts came out. You wanted that horse to keep on giving gifts, didn't you? And if you kicked that horse in the mouth, it would quit giving you the gifts. So don't do it!

Again, in teenagerness or early adulthood, I got this one straightened out. It's really: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," of the "Beggars can't be choosers" variety of saying. A gift horse is a horse that somebody gives you for free. And people who understand about horses (which certainly wasn't me) know that you can tell how old a horse is by looking at his teeth and how worn down they are. If someone gives you a horse, don't bother to look at his teeth. You don't want to know.

The rest of these are things that other people said.

I shared a cubicle with a guy who would say, "If it was a snake, it would've kicked me." Love it!

A British guy I worked with, a supervisor of some sort but not mine, was talking to a group of us about some work-related matter, and he said, "That opens up a whole new can of beans." We laughed at him later, when he wasn't around.

Finally, a guy I worked with who was from Costa Rica had come to America not knowing much English. He said he learned English by reading the New York Times every day with a Spanish-English dictionary close by. His English was excellent by the time he had moved to California and started working where I did. One time, though, he needed to vent, and he did. Then he finished by saying, "There. I had to get that out of my chest."

All I could think of was that first main scene in the first Alien movie where the horrible alien beats its way out of the guy's chest, and I didn't want to laugh, because my co-worker was really a nice guy (not like the British supervisor, who was a pain in the neck), but oh my goodness!

What about you? What botched clichés or figures of speech have you said or heard?

R.I.P. Robert Byrd

The longest-serving Senator, Robert Byrd, passed away this morning. There have already been plenty of moving tributes to him in the mainstream media.

Over at Power Line, Scott Mirengoff has links to several of them. He also adds this, because the MSM seems to have selective amnesia about Byrd's career:

Byrd was old enough, for example, to have vowed memorably regarding the integration of the Armed Forces by President Truman that he would never fight "with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

Even after his resignation from the Klan, Byrd continued to hold it in high esteem, writing to the Klan's Imperial Wizard in 1946: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia."

And Byrd was old enough to have participated in filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as to have voted against it after cloture along with 18 other Democrats -- in the name of the Constitution, of course.

Democrats love to accuse Republicans of racism, but the KKK's membership was Democrats like Robert Byrd. Don't expect them to tell you that, though.

Byrd's passing leaves its mark on the succession to the presidency, should anything untoward happen to President Obama and Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton and Speaker of the House Pelosi all at once. After Pelosi, now, the presidency would go to Daniel Inouye (D-HI). I understand he's much more bland than Sen. Byrd.

I'm going to miss hearing Byrd's rants from the floor of the Senate, from stories about his childhood to mentions of his little dog, to declarations that the Republicans' position on something is, "Wrong. Wrong! WRONG!!!" The Senate will be less colorful without Robert Byrd.

As for the hereafter, I leave it up to God to decide where Byrd will go. God knows much better than I do about such things...

Zoo Time

Saturday I went to the World Famous San Diego Zoo with my roommate, her son and daughter-in-law and their two little boys. I took my camera.

My roommate's son and grandson walking down Easy Street toward the monkeys...


We came to Gorilla Tropics first. This gorilla isn't a redhead. The red is a reflection of somebody's shirt in the glass that lets people get close-up shots. This picture was not cropped.


The baby gorilla, besides having an enormous belly, also had quite an attitude.


After the gorillas, we found the tigers. There were two, and they started out by the water, where the grass blocked some of what could have been some good photos (except for the huge yawn that I was able to capture), but then they wandered over to a better viewing area. They didn't stay long, though. After a quick walk by the glass, they climbed up the hill and disappeared.


We had a map, and we thought we were following it, but somehow we ended up back at the monkeys when we were trying to get to the polar bears to see their new digs. This picture of the Lesser Spot-nosed Guenon is the only one I'm posting that I cropped.


Since the monkeys were near the Zoo entrance and the polar bears were at the far, far reaches of the back of the Zoo, and since the boys were getting tired, we decided to come back another time for the bears (annual passes are beautiful things). Instead, we went to the kiddie play area near the petting zoo.

That route took us past the Reptile House, and what would be a trip to the San Diego Zoo without a look at the albino Burmese Python? He's been in the same corner exhibit since I was a kid. I believe, however, that this guy isn't the one I stared at when I was little. He looks a lot smaller, not as big around as he used to be. Plus, they only live about 20 or 25 years in the wild. I don't know what effect albinism has on their longevity.


And of course, the Zoo has Stuff For Sale. I took its picture, because buying stuff isn't in my budget, even if it's cute. These (and more) gourds are carved by Pablo Teodoro Hurtado Laveriano, a Peruvian artisan. I especially liked the owls he carved (not pictured here).


My roommate and I are planning to go back to the Zoo with grown-ups and do the photo safari thing. Zoos are different with kids than without. With the price of food there, though, we decided that it's best to eat an early lunch, then go to the Zoo and stay until just before dinnertime, then leave and get something to eat afterward. That will really help the cash flow not to hemorrhage.

And then when winter comes, we can go to the Wild Animal Park, because it's just plain foolish to go there in the summer. In the heat. When we could be at the Zoo where it's cooler.

Yep. Wild Animal Park. Winter. They both start with "W". Zoo. Zummer. It's meant to be.

Clint Webb for Senate

Just in case you can't tell, this is not a real candidate.

Soviet Slide

A friend and I were talking, and she said she heard a short portion of the Glenn Beck radio show this past week. He took a caller who said he had come to America from the Soviet Union, and I asked if the Russian guy's name was Boris. She thought it might have been.

I asked that, because last week I also heard a Russian guy who immigrated to America from the Soviet Union. The guy I heard on Hugh Hewitt's radio show was named Boris, and he lives in Cleveland. My friend said her Boris is in Miami.

After Hugh asked Cleveland Boris if his wife's name is Natasha (it's not), Boris said that Obama and the Democrats are remaking America in the Soviet image. According to my friend, Miami Boris said the same thing.

My friend and I were discussing the Borises on our way to a meeting where we'd be seeing at least half of a Russian couple who came to America in 1979. Briefly, this is their story:

They met in Moscow, talked for a long time, and really liked each other. He asked her out, and then he stood her up. A few months later, they saw each other again on public transportation, talked some more, he asked her out, and this time he showed up for the date and impressed her parents by bringing a basket of fresh fruit in the middle of winter. They got married and had to live with one of their grandmothers, because in the Soviet Union, they weren't allowed to have their own place, even though he had a cushy, important job that gave him access to fresh fruit in the winter.

At his job as an engineer, he got to work around 10:00 am, shuffled papers until 11:00, went to lunch until 1:00, when he locked his office door and listened to the Voice of America broadcast until 2:00, and then at 3:00, he decided he'd worked enough for the day, so he went home. Because of his important engineering job, his boss, who liked him, got him a deferment from mandatory service in the Soviet military.

It wasn't what you knew that counted in the Soviet Union, but who you knew, what they had to offer, and what you had to offer in trade. He had access to airplane tickets, which is how he got the fresh fruit from someone who had access to that.

After listening religiously to the Voice of America broadcast every day, he eventually decided he wanted to go to America. He told his wife, who was horrified, but he said he was going with or without her.

It doesn't seem like much to us to decide to move somewhere, but in the Soviet Union, any defection reflected badly, VERY badly, on the people around them. His boss would be damaged goods and would likely lose his job. His wife's father was high up in the Communist Party, and it would be bad enough that his son-in-law was going to America--they could salvage the situation if she divorced her husband and stayed behind--but for the both of them to go to America would destroy her dad's position.
Her mom advised her to stay, because you can always get a new husband, but you can't get new parents. But she decided she and their baby would go to America with her husband.

Somehow, through connections and probably luck, he was able to get the documents giving them permission to leave. But in getting them, it signalled to his boss and the rest of the Soviet hierarchy that his heart had turned against his home country. Immediate orders were generated for him to enlist in the Soviet Army and be shipped to Siberia. The small family had to go into hiding, avoiding all family, friends, and acquaintances to keep him from being taken into the Army, while they waited for the paperwork to come through. When the papers were finally ready, they got out of the country with only a few minutes to spare before the travel documents expired.

They had lived under socialism, where the government controls everything, where you are not your own. The choices you make are only those choices allowed you by the government. Everything else is controlled, except the Black Market, and that puts you at risk if you're discovered partaking. We have no concept, here in America, what that's really like. Some on the Left have idealized it, I believe because they envision themselves as the Ruling Party and not as the controlled masses.

On our way back home, my friend told me she had asked the wife what they thought about what's been happening in America under the Obama Administration. She said they're scared. We're sliding quickly into what the Soviet Union used to be, and we as a nation don't see it, because we don't know what to see.

I'm not entirely optimistic (this is me talking here, the woman who was once accused of being Pollyanna). We have November coming, and it may be our last opportunity to stop the slide. But that depends on electing enough Republicans to be able to overturn the Obama takeover of so much of our nation. And if we manage that, it depends on those Republicans having enough backbone to FINALLY stand up to the Democrats and mean it and to Shut. The. Heck. Up about "my good friend across the aisle." Those words spoken by Republicans between now and January 20, 2013, will signal compromise, the white flag being waved. And that will be closely followed by the hammer-and-sickle being waved in spirit over a once-great nation.

Pray. And vote. And pray some more.

Fathers Day

"The greatest danger our nation faces now is not oil leaking in the Gulf. It is fathers leaking from the family."

-- Pastor Mike Openshaw

Geography Puzzle

Here's another puzzle I got on the back of my Page-A-Day comic this week:

Find the name of the country from the starting letter and the number of letters in the name. For example, E7 is England.

Z6

L10

I9

E7 (not England)

B6

J7

I'll give the answers later this weekend, unless somebody comes up with all of them before then. Leave your answers in the comments.

Obama Starts Takeover of Your Health

Not your health care, no. Your health.

Obama issued an Executive Order on June 10, 2010, while the rest of the country was busy watching the Gulf Oil Spill. (Thanks to my brother-in-law for sending me the link.) This order establishes another bureaucratic nightmare, the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council. Its purpose is 7-fold (emphasis mine):

Section 3:

The Council shall:

(a) provide coordination and leadership at the Federal level, and among all executive departments and agencies, with respect to prevention, wellness, and health promotion practices, the public health system, and integrative health care in the United States;

(b) develop, after obtaining input from relevant stakeholders, a national prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care strategy that incorporates the most effective and achievable means of improving the health status of Americans and reducing the incidence of preventable illness and disability in the United States, as further described in section 5 of this order;

(c) provide recommendations to the President and the Congress concerning the most pressing health issues confronting the United States and changes in Federal policy to achieve national wellness, health promotion, and public health goals, including the reduction of tobacco use, sedentary behavior, and poor nutrition;

(d) consider and propose evidence-based models, policies, and innovative approaches for the promotion of transformative models of prevention, integrative health, and public health on individual and community levels across the United States;

(e) establish processes for continual public input, including input from State, regional, and local leadership communities and other relevant stakeholders, including Indian tribes and tribal organizations;

(f) submit the reports required by section 6 of this order; and

(g) carry out such other activities as are determined appropriate by the President.

Section 5:

The national strategy shall:

(a) set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of the United States through federally supported prevention, health promotion, and public health programs, consistent with ongoing goal setting efforts conducted by specific agencies;

(b) establish specific and measurable actions and timelines to carry out the strategy, and determine accountability for meeting those timelines, within and across Federal departments and agencies; and

(c) make recommendations to improve Federal efforts relating to prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care practices to ensure that Federal efforts are consistent with available standards and evidence.

This is all brought to you by the authority of section 4001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), aka Obamacare.

What concerns me is that this is not just recommendations on what people can do to be healthier, but it is intended to achieve national wellness, including on an individual level. And there will be goals and timelines and measurable activity for carrying out those goals.

What will happen if you decide you don't want to do the exercise they say you should (or your aches and pains prevent it)? Will they, as has happened in the UK, not let you get medical care because they don't think you, with your vices, deserve it?

Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but with this Administration, I don't believe I am. It's coming, and November may be our last chance to prevent it. If we can get some Republicans elected with the cojones to stop playing nice with the Dems and stand up for We The People instead.

Implosion

President Obama gave a speech tonight (full text here) from the Oval Office, discussing the Gulf Oil Spill (GOS). It was infuriating.

Did you know he's been on top of this catastrophe from the get-go? And did you know he has Nobel Prize winners working on the problem? And did you know he's going to make BP pay?

Yes, it's true. Because President Obama said so.

And tomorrow he's going to finally meet with the CEO of BP, and Obama is going to boss him around some more, because if Obama doesn't tell him what to do, the BP CEO won't do more than twiddle his thumbs. It's sure a good thing our President has been on top of the GOS from the get-go.

One of Obama's decisions that concerns me, and not just for the reasons I've seen in the typical objections (killing jobs, driving up oil prices). In the last couple days I read something by an oil-drilling industry guy (darn! but I can't find it now - Found it!), and he says there are two things that are... problematic. The first is that the most dangerous part of the operation of a deep water oil rig is during the shut-down process. That's where things are most likely to go wrong. Normal oil extraction is the safest part. So Obama is going to put all the other deep water rigs at higher risk by shutting them down. Great idea.

The second concern is what will happen in six months, assuming the Administration gives the go-ahead to resume drilling. From a financial standpoint, the moment the oil rigs are shut down, the oil company stops making money from them. What does a company do with an unprofitable hunk of equipment? It sells it to a company that can use it somewhere else. Then, six months from now, when operational improvements have been determined, there aren't any rigs left to restart. And that means there aren't any jobs for the out-of-work oil drillers. And our gas prices go up, and more of our oil dependence is on foreign sources rather than our own. Great idea.

So naturally all the liberal commentators loved the speech, especially the part where Obama blamed President Bush (without actually mentioning his name) for being the real cause of the disaster, and the part where he promised that he'd replace oil with "clean energy jobs and industries" like China's. They liked those parts, right? Here's what Chris "Thrill Up My Leg" Matthews said on Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC:



For Matthews to bring up President Carter when he's talking about Obama means the Left is losing its love for their Leader. And my favorite Olbermann quote is, "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days."

I posted this video back in January, but judging by MSNBC's harsh reaction to the President's speech, it looks like the sentiments of the video are only growing stronger.



And if this ominous assessment of what's happening under the ocean at the oil leak proves true, it'll be more than just the earth's crust imploding. President Obama is driving the Democrats' chances into the ground.

Photo source: Michelle Malkin

Channeling Carly

I got a haircut Thursday. She went much shorter than I expected, and now every time I see myself in the mirror, I see Carly Fiorina in her post-chemotherapy hairdo (pictured here).

The nice thing about hair (if it isn't falling out) is that it grows.

Helen Thomas Retires Immediately

Helen Thomas, the Grande Dame of the White House Press Corps, has announced her immediate retirement. It's because of this:



How someone as media savvy as she is supposed to be can look into a camera and say such anti-Semitic comments that invoke the Holocaust is beyond me. But to be fair, maybe she thought she was talking to the questioner's boutonniere and not a microphone at all.

Two explanations for her brazenness come to mind. Either she is still living in the Dark Ages of ink and paper and has had no idea before her clever little answers went viral that there's an electronic medium invented by none other than Al Gore, or she counted on her like-minded Israel-hating lefties in the mainstream media to have her back on this and not report it. Or both.

In fact, most of the MSM didn't bother to report Helen's comments. They didn't report her apology much either, because then they'd have to explain what she was apologizing for. Can't have that. Here's how the New York Daily News described her apology:

Thomas posted a lukewarm apology on her personal Web site.

"I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon," she wrote.

Umm... Yeah.

On the Politico article I linked to at the top, I like the way Larry, a commenter, reworded her apology:

A more accurate statement would read: "I deeply regret that I my long standing anti-semitism was captured on videotape, and in light of this becoming public knowledge, I am no longer employable and have decided to retire."

That's more like the truth, not that the MSM was around with that kind of anaylsis. No, most of the MSM coverage started when her agency threw her out faster than I shake off a spider that starts crawling on my hand. It continued when a high school canceled her appearance where she was to give the graduation speech. And then the rest of the media had to start covering the whole thing too, when Helen found herself suddenly without a job.

It's an ugly affair, start to finish, but there's a glimmer of hope in it. Sometimes--not very often, but every once in a long while--someone prominent with hate in her (or his) heart gets her comeuppance. Now maybe the other Israel-haters in the media will stand up and take notice and not be so quick to condemn Israel.

I won't be holding my breath, though.

Dogs in Boots

When I was a kid we had a little dog named Fifi. I was very defensive about her name, because the kids at school mocked me about it if I didn't get the explanation out there quickly enough. When someone would ask what my dog's name was, I would say, "Fifi, but she already had that name when we got her."

We got Fifi from the dog pound when my dad was out on WestPac on his submarine. If he had been home, he would have tried to talk us into getting a more substantial dog than a 5-pound (6 pounds after dinner) poodle/terrier mix. By the time he got back home, though, Fifi was part of the family, and Daddy just had to get used to the idea.

There were times when he would hold Fifi in the crook of his arm, and while he scratched her tummy, he would say to her (always within our hearing, of course), "Now, dog (actually, he threw an "r" in there, so it came out, "dahrg"), you know I don't like you (more tummy-scratching). And I've tried to teach you how to run away, but you just won't learn." Then about that time, one of us kids would let out an exasperated, "Daaad-deee!" and he would give us a look that said, "You don't believe me?" while he kept up with the tummy scratches.

When my dad retired from the Navy, we moved to Montana to be near both sets of grandparents, and that first winter was Fifi's introduction to snow. I've told the story before this way:

Fifi grew up in San Diego and then moved to Montana with us, where she learned about snow for the first time. Little snowballs stuck to the hair on her feet, and she shivered. It was so sad.

So my sister bought Fifi a set of doggie snow boots for Christmas, and my grandmother accidentally shrank her dog's sweater, so she gave it to Fifi. My dad rigged up string to hold the snow boots on like idiot mittens, because Fifi hated the boots and would kick them off. The sweater kept the strings in place, and we'd let her outside all decked out for snow. For fun, one of us would put her at the end of the driveway and the others would be by the door, and we'd call her. She'd run as fast as she could, flicking all four feet to try to get the snow boots off, and we'd just about roll on the ground laughing at how funny she looked.

Not too long ago, I was on YouTube, and I found a couple "pictures" that are worth a thousand words each. Somebody else (more than one somebody else) has a dog with boots. This is what it looks like, only Fifi's boots were black and she ran and flicked faster:



Or this:



Dogs are so entertaining, and Fifi's entertainment value was endless. This was just the tip of the iceberg.

Gov. Christie Takes On Teacher's Union

I want Gov. Christie to come and be the governor of California!

His accent is kinda cute, much cuter than Ahnold's. And he's taking on the teacher's union. Go get 'em, Governor!

How Did They Know?

Let's get this straight. My calendar was made last year. Before this year. Before the middle of April when the BP oil rig exploded and started leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I peeled off yesterday's comic and found this for today (click to enlarge):

Credit: Guy and Rodd

How could they possibly have known?

Quote of the Day

"If it involves more than talking, this president doesn't do it."

-- Hugh Hewitt

Memorial Day Tribute

This is from The WordSmith from Nantucket at Sparks from the Anvil.



May we never forget those who have given their lives in service to our country.

Gulf Oil Photos

The Boston Globe has a series of stunning photos showing the effects of the oil on the Gulf of Mexico and the Louisiana coast. Here are two of them (click to enlarge):

A dragonfly tries to clean itself as it is stuck to marsh grass covered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in Garden Island Bay on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana near Venice on Tuesday, May 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Dr. Erica Miller, a member of the Louisiana State Wildlife Response Team, cleans a pelican of oil at the Clean Gulf Associates Mobile Wildlife Rehabilitation Station on Ft. Jackson in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, May 15, 2010. (REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Justin Stumberg)

Quote of the Day

“Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.” --- H.L. Mencken

Presidential Polling

He's fading fast. Again. Rasmussen's daily presidential approval index is back down into -20 territory.


At the same time, Rasmussen found that a record 63% want a repeal of Obamacare STAT.

I'm sure the President knows how lousy his numbers are looking right now, but I get the impression that he doesn't think we're smart enough to know that he knows what's best for us. And we'll just confirm our stupidity for him when we throw a bunch of his favorite, most loyal bums out come November. I bet it just sticks in his craw when he thinks of our ingratitude.

Yeah, craw-sticking. It's what's for dinner at the White House...

Arizona (Updated)

The changes in The Arizona Situation keep happening all the time. It's hard to know when to stop and comment on it all, because tomorrow will bring something new, so it might as well be now.

So, Arizona passes a law (text here) that is a whopping 17 pages long, including amendments and the cover page. This authorizes Arizona's law enforcement people to do the immigration enforcing that the Obama Administration won't do. It's way too long for the Obama Administration to actually stop and read it.

And of course, the Open Borders crowd doesn't like it, so Left-run cities start boycotting Arizona right and left (OK, not right, just left). Los Angeles. Seattle (but not Starbucks). San Francisco. San Diego does Boycott-Lite with a censure. And now Sacramento is moving in that direction as well.

The backlash is a thing of beauty. San Diego is hurt to the quick that Zonies think its censure is a true boycott and are canceling their vacations to San Diego's beaches in retaliation. And Los Angeles got a dose of boycott "cooperation" when an Arizona utility regulator offered to keep from sending L.A. the 25% of its electricity that it gets from the Grand Canyon State.

Not nearly as beautiful is the advertisement by the Mexican state of Sonora's tourism bureau:


¡Sign me up for a trip to Sonora right now!

Not to be outdone in anti-Arizona-ness by cities up and down the West Coast and by Mexican turismos, Obama's Department of Homeland Security declares it reserves the right not to do its job of processing the suspected illegal aliens handed over by Arizona under the new law. They say that checking on a suspect's immigration status is "not good government." I suppose thumbing your nose at America's citizens and legal immigrants is what constitutes good government in the eyes of ICE officials. At least now we know.

And the Democratic pop-up toys bounce to their feet when Mexican President Calderon slams Arizona during his speech before Congress. It's almost as inspirational when Obama does the same slamming of Americans himself. But even more inspirational is when our Assistant Secretary of State tells China "early and often" how horrible America is because of this law.

Does anybody in Washington besides Congressman McClintock get it? I have my doubts.

It may look like President Obama finally gets it, but he's really nothing more than Gesture Man, offering lip service and token action when his polling shows him backed into a corner. He's finally going to Do Something on the border: send 1,200 National Guard troops. It's not clear, though, if those troops will be patrolling the border in Arizona, or if Obama will just send them to California, where he's still got some supporters.

If I had some good vacation time, I might visit Arizona for a bit of dry heat. But that won't be happening soon. So I'll have to console myself with supporting businesses that are headquartered in Arizona. My favorite so far is Coldstone.

Update:

Now it comes out that Obama does not plan to use the 1,200 troops on the border for immigration enforcement at all. It seems they listened to Mexico's request that the troops be used to stop the smuggling of guns into Mexico and not for the prevention of illegal encroachment of our country by foreign nationals. Sheesh!

Lee Like Never Before

I haven't said much about American Idol, besides the mention that I've been beyond ready for Casey to get sent home. This is only the second season that I've watched the show. The first season was two years ago, when Bekah was blogging about it and my curiosity got me to watch, and then I was hooked. I didn't watch last year because I had cancelled my cable in a budget-reduction effort.

This year, though, I'm back. My roommate has watched it since the early seasons, and so our mid-week bonding time is American Idol on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, DVR'd and watched after our respective Bible studies.

With this year's crop, I found myself liking quite a few of the contestants but not any particular standout. Most of them had great voices, but a few failed to deliver. Andrew was one of my least favorites, and he didn't get voted off quickly enough to suit me.

Casey's got a good voice, and he's good-looking but in the way that says he knows you know he's hot. The longer the season went, the more annoyed I was with both his smile and his lack of growth as a singer.

Meanwhile, my roommate took a liking to Crystal almost right away. Her voice is strong and distinctive, and she seemed to be by far the most confident of the top singers and able to deliver a great performance week after week. I loved what she did with Summer Wind, even though the judges didn't, and her rendition of People Get Ready made me cry. I was leaning toward wanting her to win. Until this week.

Until Lee.

Lee DeWyze came to the auditions from his job squirting colors into paint cans at a paint store. He started out the season singing well enough but with a terrible lack of confidence. It gave him a vulnerability that made me want to encourage him, while I hoped each week that he wouldn't get voted off before he could gain the strength he needed. His crooked smile, mixed with a touch of embarrassment, was endearing. But he needed to pick up his game if he had any hope of getting into the final weeks of the show.

He did. He made it to the top 3, and this was the week when they would have to sing twice: once with a song of their own choosing, and a second song selected for them by one or two of the judges.

Casey was OK. Crystal was really good. But Lee found his own this week. For his first song he sang Simple Man. Great. Way better than the other two. Even my roommate started thinking she liked him better than she liked Crystal.

Lee sealed the deal when he sang the song Simon chose for him. The singing starts at about a minute into the video.



Unless Crystal pulls a miracle out of her pocket and Lee crashes and burns next week, Lee is going to win. My roommate thinks so too.

Jury Duty

I had jury duty today. At juror orientation, they always play a video that tells about the importance and uniqueness of America's justice system with its jury trials. It's inspirational enough that it gets me choked up a little every time.

About half an hour after juror start time, one of the judges comes in and gives us a judge's perspective. Today's judge told us something I hadn't heard before, about the good that we do as jurors just by our seemingly endless waiting.

He told us that we get there at 8:00, and then at about 8:30 to 9:00, the attorneys and plaintiffs and defendants and everyone connected to the trials start arriving. They go through security right next to the jurors' lounge, and they see us there, ready to be selected to decide a verdict for their trial.

Just seeing us there, waiting, is enough to help light a fire under them, in the way a deadline can help get us to make a decision at the last minute. The judge said that our waiting serves a valuable purpose. As cases go to trial and juries are called for selection, and as the potential jurors are forced to wait, much of that waiting time is spent by the attorneys coming to an agreement rather than letting a group of twelve unknown people decide their fate.

It reminded me of the trial I was sent to a few years ago. It was a civil case about a dog attack, and the two parties had spent 4 or 5 years fighting about it and never coming to an agreement, until it finally went to trial. We spent most of the first day in jury selection, and they still hadn't found their twelve plus alternates when they sent us home and told us to come back at 9:00 in the morning. That next day, instead of calling us in to question more people, they left us cooling our heels for over an hour in the hallway, while several people grumbled about how we were being treated. Then the bailiff came out and told us the two parties had come to a settlement, and he thanked us and sent us home.

The judge this morning mentioned the jurors' grumbling as they wait. He said, "When you jurors are out waiting, we're in the courtroom watching TV and eating chips and drinking beer." We laughed. Then he got serious and said that while juries wait, they're doing what they can to speed the process along.

He gave the example of one trial he presided over lately, one that was expected to last six weeks. After the opening arguments, the judge sent the jury out of the room and called the attorneys forward. He told them that there were five points to be decided in the trial, but their opening arguments showed that they agreed on three of those points. He asked the attorneys how many of their 60 witnesses would be testifying about those three points of agreement. By having the jury wait in boredom and possible irritation for twenty minutes, the judge was able to get the trial cut from six weeks down to only three and a half weeks, but he couldn't tell the jury that until after the trial was over.

So, the next time you're sitting and waiting... and waiting on jury duty, just remember how important your waiting can be.

How did my waiting go? I wasn't picked for the first of four trials scheduled for today, so I waited until almost lunchtime. And then they announced that one of the trials wasn't ready for a jury yet, another one was delayed until next week, and the last trial came to a settlement, so we were free to go. I got my timesheet stamped and went to work for the afternoon. I'm glad all the crocheting I did while I waited helped the cause of justice today.

Hugh Hewitt's Powerful Influence

I listened to Hugh Hewitt's radio show tonight after work and caught about the last half hour of the movies with Emmett of the Unblinking Eye. Tonight's Top 10 movie list was the ten best movies having to do with tests or contests. The part of the show I heard was when listeners call in to offer their suggestions of movies that should have been on the list instead.

When someone called in to suggest No Time for Sergeants and Emmett had to explain to Hugh just which scene had the test, Hugh commented that he had never seen Emmett laugh that much about a movie.

The last time I saw that movie, I was probably in high school. I enjoyed it, especially the scene where Andy Griffith performs his duties as PLO.

So tonight, after my roomie got home, I asked her to add No Time for Sergeants to her Netflix instant queue. It's plenty old to be downloadable, after all.

For some reason, though, this movie is only available on DVD. And when she went to add it to her DVD queue, it said it has a "very long wait."

A very long wait? Since when was No Time for Sergeants as popular on Netflix as a newly released movie?

I'll tell you since when. Since Hugh saw Emmett laughing about that movie and mentioned it on national radio.

And people think conservative talk shows have no influence...

Happy Mother's Day!

To all you moms, here's the Mom Song:



Have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Back So Soon?

Just when I realized it had been longer than I thought since I posted anything, my laptop did me wrong!

I'm sure I've mentioned before that the firewall at work keeps me from checking my emails or going to any social networking or personal forum sites, which is what it thinks most of our blogs are. It lets me get to the Big Name blogs, like the ones in my Working Group links (except for Power Line - it thinks that's a message board and won't let me near it), so at lunchtime whenever I bring my lunch to work, I read the Important (to me) News and Opinion sites.

When I find an article that grabs my attention, I paste the link into an email with the subject line, "Good Articles," and send it to myself at home. A few days ago I found some that were so alarming, I made my subject line, "Holy Cr@p! Articles," but that's very unusual.

But then I get home and I barely have enough time to eat some dinner before running out of the house for Bible Study or my Financial Peace University class (which just ended - I'm a university graduate!) or whatever else is going on, and then stopping at the grocery store afterward, because I seem to always be on the lookout for more bananas whose primary color is yellow and not green (and also whatever else I need). And then when I'm back at home again and (on Wednesdays anyway) have to watch and find out that stupid Casey STILL hasn't been voted off American Idol, and then I can sit down and check my email and the Forbidden Blogs, and then I'm too tired to muster up the ire to post even the most alarming news, because I still have to do all my bedtime things like prayer and Bible reading, and a little sleep would be nice too.

Now, back to where I started, which was the realization that despite all the other things I have to do, I really do want to carve out some time, so all those Good Articles don't become stale old news and so my (possibly misguided) pearls of wisdom can be thrown before swine and clean animals of all kinds.

Well, the other night, my computer did one of its regular automated updates, and for most of them it just tells me it's done and shuts up about it. But this was one of the ones where it pesters me to Restart Now or Restart Later, and of course I'm always in the middle of something, so I tell it to leave me alone now and Restart Later. That night, after I had finished what I was doing, I let it Restart Now, and I got in my jammies, and then I shut it down when it was done with the restart.

In the morning, after I booted up, it couldn't find the internet! I went to the icon on the lower right that looks like a speaker or an aerial view of an amphitheater but that has nothing to do with sound or theatrics (except for at that moment, when it was quite dramatic) but is for the wireless connection, and it said to double-click to find wireless networks.

I obediently did just that, and it opened up to show me my roommate's wireless network with all the bars. So I selected it and hit the Connect button, but instead of connecting, it told me, "Another application is controlling the wireless adapter." Huh?

So I tried the old, unused icon that looks like a monitor with wireless signals going out the side, and that one told me the computerese equivalent of "It's not MY job!" too. I unplugged my roommate's internet router and plugged it back in, just in case it had lost its ability to send the proper signals, but that didn't help any.

No internet! No ability to take my laptop to some "Free Wireless!" coffee shop location, because my laptop's internet workhorses had both just gone on strike. And I had to get to work, so I didn't have any more time for trouble-shooting, not to mention that I was out of trouble-shooting ideas.

In a momentary stroke of genius before I left the house, I slipped my laptop into my laptop-friendly backpack and took it to the IT guys at work, who relished the thought of a computer puzzle to solve.

What happened was that when the nice man came a few months ago to reload my laptop after it had become corrupted, the reinstall gave the Intel wireless adapter (the amphitheater-shaped icon) all the control of connecting to wireless networks. But the latest automated update must have stomped all over that control without actually giving control back to Windows (the monitor-shaped icon), leaving me blind to the virtual world. But the IT puzzle-solver gave control back to Windows, so there shouldn't be any more stomping of that kind in the future, and now I can see!

As for those going-stale articles, they'll be coming soon. But first, I have a few things to do, one of which is to try to find some yellow bananas. I'm out.

Bologna

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work yesterday, because I was out of pita bread. In the checkout line, I heard the guy behind me speaking a foreign language that had some soft sounds in it but that I didn't recognize. So I asked him (very nicely and with an "Excuse me" at the beginning) what language that was.

He said it was Italian.

Instantly, my brain did what it always does in such a situation: it searched through the Foreign Language Storage Unit (FLSU), grabbed the first words it found in the given language, and shoved them out of my mouth. I said, "Mangia! Mangia! (pause) Basta! Basta!" Which means, "Eat! Eat! (pause) Enough! Enough!"

We chatted a bit (the couple in front of me had WIC vouchers, which takes a while). He and his wife are just visiting right now, but they love it and plan to move here soon. I told him that was great, that we like people from other places, and he seemed happy to hear that (his wife was quiet, maybe shy or else she doesn't speak much English).

They're from "Roma," where I've never been. I told him that Italians are openly mean to bicyclists, and he agreed that Italians are aggressive drivers. (Hmm, he ought to fit in pretty well driving in Southern California.)

Then I told him that on one vacation, I had been seated at a table with my then-husband and six Italians one time, and for chit-chat, I asked the English speaker what part of Italy they were from, and he said, "Bologna." I asked him, "If we were to visit Bologna, what should we see?"

The man started to tell me, "Oh, you don't want to come to Bologna," and the others in the group agreed. But then one guy said, "Tortellini." And the others agreed that if we come to Bologna, we need to eat the tortellini.

(Back to the grocery store now.) So when I told the Italian man this story, he said that yes, I must have the tortellini in Bologna. And I should see the Donkey Tower. And then it was my turn to get rung up.

What a great trip to the grocery store. I love talking to strangers!

Google Celebrates Earth Day

Yes, Earth Day is really annoying. A bunch of environmental extremists telling you that YOU have to live your life as though we were in the Dark Ages.

I think I might celebrate by being more like Al Gore. I'll turn on all the lights and leave them on all day. And run the dishwasher again. And do a load of laundry that needs to be dried on High.

Or maybe not. Instead, I'll just celebrate today by remembering my Grandma, who was born April 22, 1912, and who played a mean game cards with her grandkids, and when we would start to win, she'd say, "I'll fix your little tugboat!" She passed away many years ago.

I'm a much happier person when I think about my Grandma than when I think about Earth Day, so:

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Quote of the Day

"Don't you just love technology, except when you hate it?"
-- SkyePuppy