Monday, January 31, 2011

Take me Away

I'm ready for a little vacation.  And is it mean to think I'd like to go alone?
Nothing against my friends or family, but I'd just like to unplug a little.  I'd probably end up napping the entire time.  And of course being ME I have requirements. 

Access to hiking trails or a long stretch of beach for walking
A large TV and a pile of movies and documentaries
A big pile of books
The perfect overstuffed reading chair with a bright lamp
A great coffee shop across the street and a $50 gift card, and another perfect reading chair
A wonderful sandwich shop next door and another gift card
A giant comfy bed - preferably with a canopy
A giant bathtub with unlimited hot water - with direct views of the TV and fireplace FROM the tub.
A massage wouldn't hurt either.




Friday, January 28, 2011

Songs to REALLY Hate Me By #3

I can do this entire song from memory. As well as all the other pieces from "Music Man". So can my siblings. You should get us tipsy sometime and ask us to do it for you. You'll either laugh till you pee or you'll clock us in the snoot. This particular version is missing a huge section. Trust me. I KNOW!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Songs to Hate Me By #2

I visited a Doctor yesterday.  He said I've got the Tom Jones Fever
I asked if its common.  He answered "Its not Unusual"

Actually DID visit the doctor yesterday.  I've got a sinus infection and my asthma is all stirred up.  I'm home with steriods, 2 inhalers, and antibiotics.  So this is the best post you'll get out of me right now.  

Isn't Tom cute?   In those lovely days before the afro and chest chair and jewelry took him down a dark road.  Before his publicity shots looks like someone had smeared him in taco meat grease. And is it me, or is he rockin a mullet here?


Saturday, January 22, 2011

Songs to Hate Me By #1

Here's my newest series! Songs to Hate me By!
I'm a music lover, and performer. And yes I usually have exquisite and eclectic taste. But sometimes something really cheeseball squeezes past and lightens my mood. Here's my first installment;

Friday, January 21, 2011

Yearly Post about Freezing My Giblets

I'm sure you saw this post coming down I-35.  Every year I have to complain, at least once, about this crazy-ass Minnesota winter weather.  Booger-freezing weather.  Make you swear like a sailor weather.  Tears squeezing out of your frozen eyeballs weather.

My Lord why do humans live here?  This morning it was -26 degrees.  That's 26 DEGREES BELOW ZERO.  The real live temp, without windchill factored in.  The local news channel was hammering nails with frozen bananas on their morning show.

But strangely I can still take this better than 95 degrees and 100% humidity, so maybe I'm in the right place.  And Minnesotans certainly have a sense of humor and acceptance of the frigid landscape.  The U.S. Pond Hockey tournaments are tomorrow in Minneapolis, where over 1,600 players will play outside, and like it!  Later will come the St. Paul Winter Carnival complete with ice castle, ice sculpture, and a great custom wine from a winery just 20 miles from me.  I sampled some last week and was immediately in love, but at $45 a tall beautiful slim cobalt blue bottle, I'll have to love it from afar.

Tomorrow, locals in my town will gather to sing away winter.  From northfield.org: members of the Northfield Historical Society will be serving ice cream and hot beverages at the first Winter Scream.  The NHS Exec. Dir has declared "enough is enough - we're going to throw off the tyranny of winter and celebrate with an ice cream social".  A communal sing designed to force the weather gods to release Northfield from winter's grip will be held at noon.


Minnesotans - you gotta love 'em.  You betcha!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Guvmint

I'm home with a miserable head cold, so of course my thoughts turn to politics and government.  Both give me equal pressure in my head.  I started to muse on what "government" should be, so here are my thoughts;

Government should be a force for good in every citizen's life.

Government's main focus should be making sure everyone gets a fair shot, meaning all citizens get at the very least adequate food, shelter, basic education, and healthcare.

Government should be a protecting force; it should have a powerful say over use of natural resources, pollutants, exploitation of the poor etc.

Government should never be in the business of propping up private corporations.

Government should always break up monopolies.

Government and it's use of our tax money should be transparent as hell.

Government should be a fairly constant rollover of citizens serving in leadership rolls.

Government at the state level should have a much great influence over our daily lives.  What works in Minnesota isn't going to work for Arizona.


What would you add?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

No Shame

Six innocent bystanders are dead in Arizona.  An elected official, a wife, a mother, lies in a hospital bed with a bullet wound through her brain.  A couple in Tucson will bury their 9-year-old daughter.

Yet Sarah Palin wants us to watch her video and reflect on how hurt SHE is by the nation scrutinizing her words, actions, and political images.

Can she truly not understand this moment?  Must she really interject HER hurt feelings right now?

I have pledged in my own heart to end vitriolic rhetoric when I hear it, and to not write it myself anymore.  Therefore I will refrain from name-calling or hyperbolic metaphor both in my speech and my written words.  But I will not refrain from calling out bad behavior.  And her behavior right now is crass at best.  Has she no shame in the end?

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

No violent suggestions from the right? Let's hear and see it in their own words.

"Your leaders will be in the enemy’s crosshairs. You never win playing defense, get on offense! The crossfire is intense, so penetrate enemy territory.  Use your weapons. Shoot with accuracy; aim high and remember it takes blood, sweat and tears to win. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead reload!"
- Sarah Palin's Biography, America by Heart

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back."  Michelle Bachmann




Rep. Steve King (R-IA) "If I could start a country with a bunch of people it would be the folks standing out here the last few days. Let’s hope we don’t have to do that. Let’s beat that other side to a pulp. Let’s take them out, let’s chase them down."



On the gay community and same-sex marriage: “This is a very serious matter, because it is our children who are the prize for this community, they are specifically targeting our children.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, appearing as guest on radio program “Prophetic Views Behind The News”, hosted by Jan Markell, KKMS 980-AM, March 20, 2004.



"You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.
I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."
Sharron Angle in an interview on talk radio, January 







"I don't really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester. ... I am personally opposed to shooting abortionists, but I don't want to impose my moral values on others." --Ann Coulter on the murder of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller, FOX News interview, June 22, 2009







"If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."  Ann Coulter


"We need to execute people like (John Walker Lindh) in order to physically intimidate liberals."   Ann Coulter



"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."   Ann Coulter



"I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo."  Ann Coulter


''If Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.'''

—FOX News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, after San Francisco voted to ban military recruiters from city schools, Nov. 8, 2005

''I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. ... No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out.''

—Glenn Beck, May 17, 2005


''The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them.''

—Rush Limbaugh


''I just wish Katrina had only hit the United Nations building, nothing else, just had flooded them out, and I wouldn't have rescued them.''

—Bill O'Reilly, on his radio show, Sept. 14, 2005

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Proper Under Attire

I've had inquiries lately as to what, exactly, constitutes a good bra.  This was based on a bad day being set off by the last good one falling apart. That question and the curiosity about my 2011 panties have come from one source but I digress.  You know who you are.

The following are characteristics of a BAD bra
It was once a pretty pastel hue, but has faded into a mottled gray the color of the February Minnesota sky.
There are thousands of little broken ends of elastic weave popping from the sides.
The underwire has worn through and will impale the wearer's left ventricle next time they bend over.
The side has taken on a dark bluish hue from all the black and navy clothing.
The straps have reached their optimum stretch and can't be tightened further
There is one operating hook in the back where there used to be three.
Every woman owns one, and keeps wearing it because she'd rather chew on tin foil than go bra shopping.

Men have no idea what level of annoyance bras cause.  (Well I suppose your average fumbling 17-year-old might in his own way.)  For one thing, a good one now costs as much as the GDP of a small emerging country.  And hunting for just the right one is like searching for an actual compassionate conservative.

First you have to go to an expensive department store, because all women know that the cheap ones from Target will last about 6 months and cost just slightly less.  In the lingerie department, women must get a giant shopping bag or cart and load at least 79 bras in there in an assortment of sizes.  You would think something as specific as "36C' would be standard but believe me, one 36C can be just enough for two clementines and the next one can fit one cup on your head.  And 36 can mean 25" or 43".  It really depends on the manufacturer's mood at the time.  And bra makers seem to think that all larger women, meaning anyone over a 36" chest must have Triple-Texas size cups.  A 40C is as rare as an honest politician.

So a gal takes all 79 bras to the dressing room but can only take 6 of them in with her.  This means getting completely covered to walk out to your cart to get the next 6.  Yes it would help tremendously to have an actual sales-type-person BRING you the next 6.  But large department stores have a strict policy of one salesperson to every 450 customers so good luck with that.  But somehow they are always present to make sure you take only your allotment to the dressing room - then they go on break.  And since it's a store that considers itself upscale, the shopper will probably have to heft all of them herself because they don't even have carts on the premises.

Then our girl must try on every single bra.  Why you ask?  Because 99% of them will fit horribly.  And I mean HORRIBLY.  They will cut off breathing while the extra large cups are flapping in the wind, or they will turn our chests into horizontal traffic cones.  After finding that ONE in 79 that fits OK, women then got back to the rack to get two more just like it.  But that's where the tragedy continues.  Because the lingerie dept. only carries two of each size and some lucky witch got there first.  Or all the others are the ugliest shade of puce ever conceived.

So if she's lucky, she's found one-good-bra, and crawls exhausted to the sales counter to wait another 30 minutes for the elusive sales person.  There she must dish out $56-$159 cash and a pint of blood.  She arrives home with a migraine and a buyer's remorse stomach ache only to find that the security tag is still attached.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

I need no resolutions

I'm not good at resolutions for myself, but I'm very good at them for other people.  So following the tradition I established last year, here are my 2011 resolutions for others:

For Tim Pawlenty - I will just slink away into obscurity and never expose any constituency to my incompetence again.

For John Boehner - I will step away from the spray tan.

For Elected Democrats - I will read Paul Wellstone's "Conscience of a Liberal" and remember what real populist values are, then act accordingly.

For GOP Leaders - I will spend 6 months living on minimum wage so I can get "in-touch" with real America, since I like to use that phrase so often.

For the homophobes - we will recognize that the gays are over us, and we should return the favor.

For Fate - I will quit slapping around Mnmom and her family, give them their livelihood back, and restore Mnmom's ability to cook in a decent-sized kitchen and time to get some reading done.  Large lottery winnings should do it.

For Target Corporation - I will recognize that customers are really pissed off and spending their money elsewhere.  I will apologize for all political donations and fire that cretin CEO.  I will accept my role as the corporate sacrificial lamb on this issue.


For people who actually watch reality TV - I will quit supporting a media phenomena that has dumbed us down as a nation quicker than any Sarah Palin speech.

For FOX - you really don't have to say it . . . . . . we know.