Random Ponderings

CO and I leave begin our vacation tomorrow, so posting will be nil this next week. Before I leave, I thought I'd jot down a few random thoughts.

1) My husband is awesome. Seriously. Now and then with the flow of one day after another and all of life's little messy details, well, it's not that I forget this fact, but it sometimes gets obscured...side-stepped...taken for granted.

But then CO will do something so completely wonderful that the day-to-day bullshit becomes obscured, and all I can see is the tremendous amount of awesome that is my CO. It is usually not some grand gesture, but some teeny-tiny little thing that just reminds me of who he is, and why I love him.

I am doing a bad job of explaining this, but I wanted to at least write it down for myself, so that I might never forget what a lucky girl I am.

2) Melvin, my beloved middle son, is waxing political lately. It is so odd to be having these adult conversations with him. I know he is a father, but sometimes in my mind he is still a boy.

But what is even more shocking than having the conversations, is the thread of them. His political views are vastly different from mine...and even more extreme than his father's (who's are also pretty different from mine). I truly appreciate him learning and growing and developing his own opinions. I think more people should educate themselves on the issues, rather than just doing what their parents did. But at the same time, it is bizarre to think I helped raise this child. How could I have had such little impact on him? Who is this...man? I am all at once proud of him, and confounded by him.

Yet another reason I will be glad when this election is over!

3) CO and I went to a Halloween party Saturday night. Pictures to come...maybe. Our costumes were hideous...frightening beyond all measure. The flat baby accompanied us, and spent the night with us all by herself for the first time. She slept between us, and cuddled her tiny little body right next to me all night. In the morning she rubbed her big brown eyes and greeted us with "Hi Papa. Hi Comma." It was the very best thing ever. I never knew Grand-parenthood would be so flippin' great. It makes every single thing we went through with those boys worth it.

4) I spent Sunday with my in-laws, and still I am grateful for their forgiveness. I shouldn't continue to harp on this subject, but I cannot help it. When I was last visiting my parents, my mom told me I wasn't a very forgiving person. She is right. Traditionally, I have not been very good at this. But I am trying to learn something from my in-laws...people I once thought were my cross to bear. I was wrong. I think they were a gift instead. They were meant to teach me to be a better person in this way. I hope this is a lesson I can learn.

5) Speaking of forgiveness, tonight I have a board meeting that will prove to be difficult. Several of the board members are calling for the executive director's resignation. I am pretty new to this board, and don't quite know what to think. The man has served as E.D. for 23 years. 23 years!! This year, he made a mistake...a BIG one. Really big. Huge. TWO mistakes, actually...mistakes that could potentially cost the organization its very existence, and more than one person their job.

But should these two mistakes negate 23 years of dedicated service?

I find myself thinking of my dad, who served his employer faithfully for 12 years, only to be hung out to dry after a single mistake (albeit one much less huge that the E.D. in question, but...). Now he is in what should be the twilight of his career, and he can't find employment. He has been off work for over 6 months, and my parents are in grave danger of losing what they worked a lifetime to achieve. Is this fair?

Am I confusing two completely unrelated issues? What IS the right answer?

Thanks for putting up with my pondering. If you have any insight, especially on issue number 5 here, please share. Otherwise, I'll see you next week...on election day, after what is hopefully a restful, and much needed vacation. I'm going to need it just to deal with election day!

And Under More News

...Melvin's girlfriend is pregnant. I am going to be a grandma for the third time.

While this isn't nearly as traumatic as the last time we found out Melvin's girlfriend was pregnant (many of you remember the "Flat Baby" story), there is still plenty to be upset about.

And plenty to be happy about as well.

I think this time, we will focus on the happy. It will make a nice change.

For the Love and Hate of October...Random Thoughts

October is the culmination of love and hate for me.

The first half is unfailingly busy, marking the official end of the 2007 tax filing season. Many people do no know that extended corporate returns are due September 15th, and extended partnership and individual returns are due October 15th. So while we breathe a huge sigh of relief in April...it isn't really over until October. And that October deadline hits hard...so I hate it.

But once October 15th passes, things at work calm way down, coming to an almost screeching halt. The second half of October is time for cleaning out desk drawers, reviewing and revamping…a nice break in an otherwise blistering pace. Of course October also means autumn, football, Halloween, the World Series and our annual camping weekend at the NHRA races in Las Vegas...all things I love.

Then too, in my neck of the woods, every thing is on fire in October, making the very air around you thick with smoke, ash and anxiety.

Unfortunately this year, we can add that the anxiety of an economic crisis and all things political. Politics in general make me feel stupid. I read things. I hear things. I discuss things. And I wonder how other people, people I know to be very intelligent, can come away from the same things feeling so vastly different. I assume it must be me. I am missing something here. So I read and I listen and I discuss, and still I end up scratching my head. I don't like feeling stupid. And this year in particular, well, I am really am starting to hate this election.

The extremists on both sides are creating a truly frightening turmoil...worse than I have ever seen. If one of these candidates does not get assassinated, it will be a miracle. You've got one side playing a dangerous card by calling a black man with a strange name a terrorist and playing on people's fears of things that are different. On the flip side, painting a successful woman as an airhead, and a bad parent to boot, simply because she is, in fact, a working mother is also incredibly unfair. No one would be questioning her parenting skills if she were a man with five children. Both sides can try to spin this however they like, but this smacks of 1960's racism and sexism to me.

I get these e-mails that are crazy, illogical and flat out wrong in their factuality. The sad thing is, millions of people are getting these e-mails, and believing them. Who is out there telling these people the truth, and letting them make a decision based on fact instead of fiction? I have nothing but respect for another person's opinion, provided that it is based in some kind of logical fact, and not "I think Sarah Palin is an idiot because she doesn't pronounce the 'g' on the end of an active verb," or "I think Obama must have accepted money from terrorists because he had no other way to pay for a Harvard education." Yeah, it's called an accent, and it doesn't make you stupid. None of my family in the Mid West pronounces the "g", and they are far from idiotic. Oh, and there exist too little things...one us smart kids called "scholarships," and another us poor kids called "student loans." If you were lucky enough to be smart and poor, like yours truly, you got some of both.

But no one hears these logical explanations. They only hear the radical ones...and they believe them. Logical explanations are too mundane. The extremism is much more glamorous. Each side is so damned concerned with winning, they could care less about the truth. So nobody wins. Least of all America...and I really hate that.

Land of the Free

I know I wasn't going to wax political on this blog, but I received two of the most obnoxious e-mails in the past week, and I just have to...HAVE TO rant about them. I cannot contain the rant.

Hence begins the first rant.

The first e-mail was one warning me that the Book of Revelations defines the anti-Christ as, in this individual's opinion, Obama. Now I am no fan of either candidate. That is the one political statement I am confident in making. I don't like either one of them. But the anti-Christ? Uhm, no. That is a bit much.

But that isn't even the good part of the e-mail. The e-mail goes on to say the following:

Dear friends, as I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack Obama made the statement with pride. . .'we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . . As with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this man say with pride that we are no longer that.

First off, while we may be a predominantly Christian nation, there are many others in this country who do not adhere to Christianity. Obama's words did not make it so. It just is. If you didn't know that before, you need to crawl out from under that rock once in awhile.

But my favorite sentence..."To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation."

Try reading a history book along with that Bible, Jack. Have you actually read the Bill of Rights? Do you know what it really says? Let me help you out here. The first amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The word Christianity is no where indicated in that statement. While yes, the founding fathers were predominantly Christian, they were not all Christian. Thomas Jefferson was a Deist, and a strong opponent of organized religion, having authored the following in a correspondence to John Adams:

The whole history of these books [The Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine.

Likewise, George Washington, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin are credited with speeches and writings that opposed organized church doctrine.

My point is, it is no accident that the word Christianity does not appear in the first amendment. Our forefathers were not trying to create a Christian nation. In fact, they were fleeing a Christian nation...a nation that held to one Christian doctrine only, and did not allow for variant religious practices, even other forms of Christianity. They were strictly opposed to a national religion, and were trying to create a nation that allowed all individuals the right to practice, or not, as they saw fit.

The freedom of religion does not in any way equate to the freedom to practice Christianity only.

To believe it is shameful to say that we are a nation where all can practice freely, whether we are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Wiccans, Buddhists, Deists or what have you, you are in the wrong country, Jack.

This is America...Land of the Free. That is what our forefathers fought and died for.

The Horrifying Stereotype Test

Your result for The Horrifying Stereotype Test...

Sports Dick

You Are What You Are

Why can't you understand that the accomplishments of your state's sports teams have absolutely nothing to do with you? No matter whether your favorite team wins or loses, you're still a loser.

Take The Horrifying Stereotype Test at HelloQuizzy

Hahahah! I assume it would do me no good to deny this.

VP Debate Drinking Game

Of course I am listening to this while I am at work, but if I were home and so inclined...the buzz word would be "maverick."

Phew! I'd be hammered!

Update

My grandson is doing MUCH better. He is out of the hospital, and on the mend. He had some sort of lung virus that apparently is common to premie babies, and it can be fatal if not treated. So thank goodness he has nervous new parents who rushed him right to the hospital where he needed to be.

Anyway...thanks so much for all your concern, prayers, and well wishes. My blog friends are awesome! I really appreciate you all!