Shut Up and Sing

To speak or not to speak. That is the question.

I do NOT like to promote political talk here. Although I love a good debate! I made the mistake of wandering across that line in my last post and I would like to address some of the responses here. People are free to rant in the comment section here, but after this, we will let this subject lie, like a sleeping dog. Maybe. Probably.

Brad K. said:

About the Dixie Chicks... I served in the US Navy. And it seems to me that making a statement against the President, overseas, from an entertainment stage, ignores a lot of lessons learned. Natalie's statement surely created confusion among allies, weakened the President's ability to serve and protect America. She also increased the probability that foreign forces would shoot and kill American soldiers, and increased the number of Americans in uniform and civilian that would be killed overseas.

There are ways to prosecute attacks and complaints about our government that don't endanger American service men and women. The Dixie Chicks didn't use one of them.

I would expect no other opinion from an ex military man. You can take the man out of the military, but you can't take the military out of the man.

I grew up in that environment and I know it very well. I do not at all agree with what Brad K. says. I also don't agree with Sornie and Soccer Mom that you must vote in order to have the right to complain. I believe just the opposite is true. If you agree to participate in the voting process, then you agree to accept the outcome. If you remove yourself from that process, then you are not bound by that acceptance clause. But I will defend to the death anyone's right to speak their own passionate conscience. (When my children were at home, they were welcome to disagree with me. But all complaints had to be in writing. This cut the complaints WAY down! Hehehe.)

I would never begrudge someone their right to be strongly supportive of the war and George W. Bush. I would also never begrudge someone their right to be strongly against the war, as well as George W. Bush, etc.

My point was not that we should agree or disagree with what someone believes (and says in public or private, in country our out of country) but to stand beside them as fellow humans and say, "Give me liberty, or give me death!"

You may view my short article from some time past here ~

The Dixie Chicks

Georgia On My Mind

I was gonna say George, but I like Georgia better.

2020 Presidential Candidate Diesel McPhlanigan (I think that's the best last name for a Diesel) has got me thinking about voting. Well first Hillary and Bob Loblah (that one guy) got me thinking about voting.

I've been listening to chatter in the background. The things people say. It does often amaze me that people let such things pour out of their mouths. Sort of like the day I was attending a local Baptist gathering in Southern California, when I heard member after member shout the plaintive cry, "Why, oh why, do we have to let all of these Mexicans live in our country? And seriously, why would we have to educate their illegal children?" They were right. I think we should throw out every single person in the country who is of foreign descent. And if we can't, then the least we can do is make sure that their children are not in school, but on the streets where they belong! Oh wait. The Mexicans were here before we were. Or at least before I was! Dammit, now I have to leave! Or toss my children to the streets.

Yes, I'm sure Diesel's Jesus quote was very close, only I think it was more like, "You will always have the poor with you, but be sure you keep them out of your country."

It's good to be a Christian.

ANYWAY, sorry to have gotten off track. The chatter I've been hearing has been like this:

1. If you don't vote, that's fine (which it's not ~ anyone who doesn't vote will tell you that no one tells them that it's fine) but you will have no right to complain about the elected leaders!

2. The Dixie Chicks had no right to bad mouth the president. They voted, and the one they picked didn't win. They need to accept it and stop complaining!

So which is it? If you vote you don't get to complain or if you don't vote you don't get to complain? I'm thinking the message is, "Sit down and shut up!" Which is of course the most American of messages, right?

Silly me. I always thought the American message was to speak up.

Vote for Diesel

Farrah Moans

I attended a sex toy party while I was in Utah. Yep, right there in the middle of one of the most conservative spots in the entire country. (The C-Spot, if you will.) The next day, there was an article in the paper about the swarm of these parties sweeping the state. They said that there are so many children being born there that we can only assume that SOMEBODY is having sex! I told my Slumber Parties “sex consultant” that this was a good thing, since I once read (via Kevin Bacon) that the key to a lasting relationship is to “keep the fights clean and the sex dirty!”

They offered up all sorts of “romance enhancements.” One of them being bottled pheromones. The next day I received a text message from my sister that she used her “farrah moans” and couldn’t keep her honey-pie’s hands off of her! This is my clever sister. Once I was trying to check the volume control on my hands-free cell phone device. I called her and asked her to start talking so I could do some adjustments. I realize that as soon as you say this, people clam up, so I came up with a suggestion. “Recite the Gettysburg address to me while I work on this.” A moment of total silence. During which I remember that my sister knows as much about history as I do about nunnery! But she’s a trooper. Without a word of complaint she began…. “Fourscore and seven years ago… our Father, who art in heaven… indivisible… with liberty and justice for all… oh, and the home of the braves.” I could have died laughing.

Off the subject, I am tired of getting warnings via email. Warnings about everything under the sun. From “don’t walk alone on the streets at night” to “always wear a space suit when going to the moon.” I received a warning today from a very dear friend of mine. I do hope she doesn’t read this. :) This warning was about the dangers of using your cruise control on wet or icy roads. Are you fucking kidding me? Anyone who has ever actually driven under such conditions knows that the KEY to controlling your vehicle is CONTROLLING YOUR VEHICLE! No, no… let’s let the car control itself… that should do the trick! I mean really… the car wants to remain intact as much as I do, right? WRONG! The car LOVES to hydroplane. Loves, loves, loves it. It’s fun! And if anyone tells me that they have made this mistake, I’m gonna slap them fuckin’ silly!

Utah, Oh Utah, You Four-Letter-Word

Hello from the land of Zion! I'm so sorry to my friends out in blogland for my absence. I KNOW how awful it is when someone seems to be on the dark side of the moon! It's been a trip full of stress, some good and some bad. But, I am leaving here day after tomorrow and will get back to at least a small amount of normalcy.

Thanks for your patience, everyone ~ for not forgetting about me! :)

Love and Hugs to all.

Okay fine. Here's a little something anyway. While out one night ~ in CLEARFIELD UTAH, of all places (Saturday, to be specific-er) ~ we met the comedian Jim Gaffigan. Here's a picture of him chatting with my niece. (It's an awful picture of him. He's plenty good looking in real life.) He and his friend bought us a couple of rounds of drinks. Very nice guy. Down to earth and friendly. Didn't behave like a drunken party animal or anything! (Which he could easily have gotten away with, since we were acting just LIKE that!)

Paddling on the Potomac

Ah, this is the life. I'm visiting a friend who lives in Alexandria. We left from the marina and, once anchored, we dropped into the river on little chairy rafts. One fella was so cute, he would just pull us in by our ropes and refill our champagne glasses. Total ya-ya day. Fun in the sun.

Thanks so much to everyone for leaving your well wishes! It's odd to be so out of touch with my blog world. We're going back to Hampton today for a couple of days and then off to Utah for my REAL vacation. I'll be stopping by from time to time when I can. I'll expect someone to fill my glass. :)

Hampton

Two weeks. :)

This Is Not About Diesel

There's a man in the apartment building who walks his dog. I see him often in the elevator. He has a weenie dog. Yeah, I know what they're REALLY called, but this man is such a weenie, that I have to call his dog a weenie, too. ANYWAY, every single god damned fucking time I've seen this man, his dog wants to lick my feet. And the man spends he entire time in the elevator telling the weenie not to do that. Doesn't say a word to me. Just keeps telling the dog to stop it. The dog does not even pretend to start stopping. And it occurred to me that this man constantly gives commands to his dog and the dog never listens. "Ginger... blah blah blah blah..."

Comedians have something to say...

No, seriously! They do! They are not kidding around!
Even Diesel has something to say! Go visit him at his mattress place!

As for me, I'm going to dinner.
BUT, as a comedian, I have something to say.

A man who loves money more than he loves his woman is an idiot!

That's all for now.

Love to all (as in Tiny Tim love.. Dickens' Tiny Tim, not the weird singer guy)

No, wait! That's not all for now!
I'm gonna be a grandma again! So there!

Which Way Is Up?

Don't you think it's strange that people are willing to pay $20 plus per hour to someone to clean their house and they want to pay only $10 per hour to take care of their precious children? I always thought this was odd. My daughter sometimes babysits for a friend who pays her at LEAST $20 per hour to watch her son. She explains it just that way. "Why would I pay her less than I pay someone who is just cleaning my earthly possessions? He is the very most important thing in the world to me~!" No shit. That lady is right on.

So I was looking at a picture of my boyfriend today and it made my mouth water. Yes, he was fully dressed. Good thing I'm seeing him on Friday.

Sex, sex, sex all weekend. Then to the East Coast on Monday to work at our office out there for a couple of weeks (That's my birthday ~ I'll take sex for my present). Then to hit Utah for a few days on my way back here to the West Coast. So you'll just see me in snatches. (hehehe.. I said snatch..)

Let me see if there is a fun picture to post here. Hmmmm... no, you don't get to see my boyfriend. Some of you lucky few have seen him, though! Um...........

Okay, Marilyn. Who doesn't like to look at Marilyn?

Pieces of Eight

A bad, bad boy rag-ama-tagged me. He knows better, too. :) But was so sweet of him to think of me, so I’m gonna let him get away with it. HOWEVER, rebel that I am, I shan’t be passing the tag on. So I assume that causes me to remain IT.

Eight Random/Idiotic Facts About Me Me Me:

Un) I’m obsessed with pens. So much so that, when I see someone writing with what looks like a smooth writing instrument, I want to snatch it out of their hands! I hate pencils and will only write with a pencil under great duress. I will write with a strawberry before I will write with a pencil!

Deux) If my bra and panties don’t match, I am quite put off. This is why I usually only buy white or black. Recently, I was forced to buy several colors because my favorite brand is now discontinued. (This always happens to me.) So you can now see why I’ve been put off a lot lately. It really pisses me off, too, that when I buy a bra from Victoria’s Secret, they rarely have panties to match. I fuckin’ hate that. It should be against the law. They have stupid panties anyway.

Trois) I hate chewing gum. If you ever see me chewing gum, it is probably because it’s some kind of bubble gum that I can’t resist putting in my mouth, but I almost immediately remove it because I hate how gum feels after it’s begun being chewed. And I think people can look really, really stupid if they are chewing gum and have been guilty of actually judging people based on that fact alone. Obviously, I don’t judge everyone that way, because almost every single person I know and love chews gum and offers it to me constantly and have never figured out that I hate gum, even though I always say “no” and sometimes even add, “I don’t chew gum.” Hehehe. I can relate to this, though. Because my sister has plainly stated that she hates coffee for years, but we still offer it to her.

Quatre) Even though I am the epitome of femininity in my style, I don’t wear earrings. In fact, I own a very small amount of jewelry. And what I do own is good jewelry. I am normally only wearing one bracelet and that’s it. A few men have purchased jewelry for me, one of them an engagement ring. He asked what I wanted and I said I didn’t care, as long as it was real and he picked it out. A male friend of mine once asked if I thought a woman would mind if, instead of a genuine tiny diamond, he bought her a very large and dazzling cz. I replied, “I don’t know, would you rather have a dazzling, fake woman or a simple, genuine one?”

Cinq) I wear my fingernails very, very short, with clear polish. I started doing this when I had small babies at home and found myself accidentally scratching them when changing their diapers. When they got older, I tried to start wearing longer nails again, but everyone I knew kept having babies, and so I’ve kept them short. Now I keep them short because when I give my boyfriend backrubs, I like to not give him puncture wounds in his flesh! (And my toenails are ALWAYS painted pink.)

Six) I would pay ten dollars per gallon for gas if they would pump it for me at the station.

Sept) You will never hear me say that I’m on a diet.

Huit) I don’t believe in the word, “please.” If you do see/hear me use it, it’s usually just for dramatic effect.

Speaking of babies…

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankrolls smaller, homes happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten and the future worth living for.

What's the Buzz?

Hey y'all. I loved your sweet comments! I do adore my children and yes, my daughter is quite the hottie! Too bad for the men that she's also smart. Purrty Jami asked if she uses the word "fuck" conversationally, and I would say yes. Doesn't everyone?

I've had a whirlwhind weekend, visiting Southern California and all. Arriving back here on Monday and taking off for a tour of Alcatraz that evening. Then shopping all day in San Francisco yesterday, where a good time was had by all. I'm just kidding, who the hell likes shopping? Who invented that as a fun thing to do? When I got to bed last night, those last few stumbling steps that landed me on my bed felt like I was surely weighing hope against hope that I would never have to wake again! Holy hell! I don't even like people, and I just spent several days doing everything I could to be where the people are!

You can be sure that today won't be a parade day for me.

But the company I was in made it all worth it. I found some nifty way that this lovely concept was expressed much better than I can do it!

I read an old post by Brad K regarding romantic notions on Valentine’s Day. I liked what he had to say about how romantic expectations are not mature, adult feelings. His concluding line, stating his idea of how to spend that day, is something I'd like to commit to memory.

Just one more day celebrated in each other’s company and regard.

The Light in the Darkness

Here's my beauty.

I got to spend some time with her yesterday. We all went to the Charthouse in Malibu, which was quite lovely. (How could it not be!)

I talked her into letting me take her picture in front of the fountain-in-the-wall at the entrance.

Daughters don't get any better than this one! (Even in that uncomfortable moment when one of our dinner guests mistook my boyfriend to be with my daughter instead of me! I didn't correct the guest, but the look on my face made Erin have to walk away for fear she'd laugh much too hard and ungraciously reveal the faux pas!)

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing. ~ Wm. Shakespeare

Okay, I Am a Retard

It's almost midnight and my brain finally feels sorta clear. I realize now that my post was very confusing because, who are all those people?

I have three children. We are of mainly a scandinavian background.

#1 Son is Jake, soon to be 26. He is recently married. He is pictured with his new wife whose name is Mrs. Peterson. :) I really do know her name, but she loves this one so much. Jake is the father of BrynLeigh, the Maori princess who loves her bunny. Her mother (Jake's ex-girlfriend) is my Tiny, whom I adore. Tiny's mother's ancestors are from New Zealand. All of these previously mentioned people live in Northern Utah.

#2 Son is Brady, age 19. He is the father of Lexi. Lexi's mother is Laura, whose mother is of the Aztec heritage. (I just made that part up. Or at least I think I did.) He is a nanny, taking care of two boys who are a real handful, lemme tell ya! They live about an hour northeast of San Diego, but I am hoping he and his family will be moving up here soon!

#1 Daughter is betwixt the Sons. They are the stars and she is the moon. Erin is 22 years old living and loving and working in the Los Angeles area at, oh gosh so many jobs I can't name them... cocktail waitress, nanny, bookkeeper, the list goes on. These are current jobs. She is extremely diligent in her work ethic. There was a time when she had no car and had to walk to find a job and walk to work and walk everywhere she went. She had blood in her shoes. (Yes, she had to wear real shoes once she started that lifestyle.) She has no children so I can't very well state where they come from, whether real or imagined.

The end. (Or the beginning, depending on how you look at it!)

I'm Not a Retard

So today I have a migraine. This is the me that people see when they walk into my office. (I think I'll keep the sunglasses on all day long.)

Thought I'd post a little post about the littlies. (The word "littlies" comes to us by way of Rebecca. Hi Rebecca!)

The oldest of my littlies got married on June 19. He called and said, "Mom, I'm getting married!" I said, "Okay, honey." And so he did.

People might think it's foolish. I'm no big fan of marriage, as you all know. But sometimes it just makes sense. She is happy to be his wife and he is happy to be her husband. I stopped thinking in terms of forever a long, long time ago. (Forever ago, in fact!) So here is the darling couple.



And then, this is the princess (with her Bunny). She really is a princess. She is from the Maori tribe called Ngai Tahu. Her mommy is my beautiful Tiny.

And then there's Littlie Lexi and family.

I don't have a picture of the middle of my littlies. Well yeah, I probably do. It's a few years old and she's kinda hammered after driving all night from Southern Cali to Utah, but it's cute. (She ain't really into wearing real shoes. Even in the snow!)


All typos are to be forgiven. I have a headache. And I'm not a retard.

Why Bother?

Seriously.

I could spend all night typing my little fingers to the bone,
but if this Brilliant Woman says it all better than I can,
why bother?

Smooches, Embar! You're my hero... uh... ine... heroine!

Okay fine!
A couple of swimsuit pics, too!

What a babe!

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

There has been some questioning over who this hot babe is. Why, she's my granddaughter, Alexa Jade!

And this here is Little Lexi's Mommy!
Someday, when I grow up, I wanna be not-a-retard so I can post a few pictures without going through seven kinds of hoops!

Quick Post Script on the subject of "texting" ~ I do not have textual conversations with very many people. Yes, I'm fairly good at being speedy, but that's just cause I'm speedy that way! I was great, actually, at using the predictive text and then I got this new phone that flips sideways and has a keyboard. Well that's just fine and dandy, except that my fingers are the ones who know where the keys are, and guess what? My fingers don't fit on that fuckin' keyboard! Anyway, texting is mostly just fun for sending a quick (or down and dirty) message to someone. It is something that is hard to get used to. I taught a friend of mine how to do it, and after about ten minutes of watching her work hard at it, she turned to me and said, "Well I sent you a message. I was trying to say hi, but I think I wound up saying G4!" Ah well, at least she tried! :)