Goddess Help Me

Bleh.
Someone come over here and turn my face to the sunshine, willya?

Sick and tired of being poor.  Not that we were ever rich, but money was NEVER this tight.  Just spent $60 filling the gas tank.  There goes about 1/2 of my paycheck from job #2.  The hardest part is telling my kids "no" for even reasonable requests.  And watching my friends enjoying their still-solid incomes.  OK, I admit it, I'm jealous. 

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "But darling that means you HAVE jobs!  And you HAVE healthy kids who need things.  And you have friends!)

Looked at the calendar today.  Between jobs #2 and #3 I can't go visit my family until sometime in June.  And I need my peeps know what I mean?  By the time I CAN go gas will probably be $5 a gallon.

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "Sweetie again that means you have employment.  And you have an extended family you love.  And you have a car!" ) 

Lately a friend has been rather rude to me, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.  I've wracked my brain and just can't figure out what's gotten into their britches.

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "Honey, you know in you're heart that it's their issue.  Like you said, you haven't done anything mean or with evil intentions.  You can't control their perspective" ) 

This weather - AAARRRGGGHHH!  Will the sun ever come back?  Will it be warm enough to lounge in the grass?  Will I ever find a free afternoon that actually does not contain rain or snow so I can plant my garden?

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "Love - remember the serenity prayer.  Or move" ) 

This kitchen!  I had apartments in college with bigger kitchens.  Together the kitchen and dining space are about 10' x 10'.  This has seriously cut into my cooking enjoyment and my ability to have friends over.

(Goddess-of-my-better-nature says "But you DO have a kitchen in a cute little house.  It's warm and cozy and clean.  Good friends will still want to come over and sit cheek-to-cheek" ) 

 

Ten Commandments LIVE!

Last year I said I'd live blog the Ten Commandments.  I got home after it started, so let's get right to work!

7:15pm I always thought Memnet could have totally taken Nefertiri if she'd tried.

7:32pm See those slaves?  Get used to it if the Republicans have their way.  "the never ending pit of toil and agony, and everywhere the lash of the taskmasters"

7:36pm Enter Vincent Price as John Boehner

7:30 "fellow straw stampers, it's time to talk Union!"

7:41  You're not my princess Nefertiri.  We're an anarcho-communist commune!

7:49  Listen to the cry of slaves?  I don't have to care!  I'm rich!

7:52  And Edward G. Robinson as Joe Leiberman

7:54 Yul Brynner looks super cute in that pleated brown skirt.

8:08  I want giant drum rolls after every proclamation I make at home.

8:19  I swear I've never seen so many men stand with their feet so far apart.

8:22  I know it's Cecil B. DeMille and all, but couldn't they have edited out his denture's whistling?

8:23 I can only imagine that after making this movie, Charlton Heston immediately began his journey to insufferable ass.

8:24  Only a male writer imagines that when groups of women get together, they obsess about men.

8:26  Mrs. Munster was quite the looker!

8:36  New drinking game.  Have a shot every time someone says "bondage"

8:52  Of course she can see the strange man in the rocks.  She's the MOM!   Husbands and kids can't find the butter in the frig unless it falls into their hands.

8:57  "Oh stop that groveling!  If there's anything I can't stand it's groveling.  It's like those miserable psalms, they're SO depressing"

9:07  He said "the kingdom of the most high"  snicker snicker

9:08  Yul Brynner must have experienced some major chafing from his costumes

9:14  I gotta imagine there were quite a few guys in the cast who really enjoyed the leather-on-bare-chest look, the high heeled gold sandals, and the eyeliner.

9:26 "when darkness covers Egypt for 3 days, you'll listen to God, OR you'll remember you're in Minnesota"

9:43  When we were kids we simultaneously loved and feared that green hand of death.

9:49 That creepy kid with Moses on the night of passover.  Isn't that the teen of  Star Trek's "bonk-bonk on the head" fame?

9:58  Yeah sure they got everyone packed and ready to go the very next morning.  Even had trumpeters lined up.  It takes weeks to get my family organized for a day-long trip in the minivan.

10:17  I'm getting tired.  We all know how it ends.  With Yul Brynner demonstrating another dramatic gesture of defeat.  And of course the Jews wandering the desert for 40 years without asking for directions.  And Charlton dying his hair several shades whiter.    Have a great Easter Sunday!

PS - wouldn't you love to get a hold of the blooper reel?

Another Theory

Imagine this:

We have "the talk" and left vs right agrees to a national divorce.
We split the country into red or blue.

Blue states will include:
A high tax rate
Fully funded schools and higher education financial aid programs.
Universal Healthcare
A totally secular government
The right to unionize
Unemployment benefits
Social Security
Gay marriage
Reproductive rights

Red states will include:
A low tax rate
Vouchers for schools
Christianity as the sanctioned religion
Healthcare?  Yer on yer own
Unions will be illegal
No unemployment benefits
Any Social Security funds will be privatized
No gay marriage
No reproductive rights

But mark my words - if this were to actually happen, people would be crawling all over each other to make sure they could live in a blue state.  The red states would be populated by the KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church.

So why so folks VOTE that way?

Songs to hate me by #5 (I think!)

Should have known me back in the early 80's.  Cute little thing with a sassy Pat-Benatar-esque short hair cut. I could sing some mean harmony with this song.  Probably made my roomies crazy I played it so much.  Give me a whiff of White Shoulders and I'm there.

My theory

I have this theory.

So we all agree that the uber rich ruling class and their political toys are hoarding cash, energy resources, land, etc as fast as their grubby little hands can manage.  Do you suppose it's because they realize, better than the working and middle class, that oil production and therefore fossil fuels will soon dwindle and we'll be thrown into an economic tsunami that will make The Great Depression look like a parlor game?

I come to the garden alone . .

I love that old hymn: "I come to the garden alone, when the dew is still on the roses . . "

Planting season is short and sweet in Minnesota.  So it feels like a 3-day window to get a decent garden started.  Johnny C built amazing raised beds last Spring and I'm itching to get them planted for season #2. 

But each weekend fills up like a rain gauge in a monsoon, leaving me precious little time for gardening.  The garden sits there begging me to put on the grubbies and dig.  The weather is supposed to be COLD and yes SNOWY this Saturday.  And it's prom, which means the whole family will be deeply involved in the twins expensive dress-up day.

Every year I dream of a large lot filled with raised beds, pots, trellises, etc like the one below.  But we do pretty well in our small rented yard.  This year I'm trying some succession planting, and one bed is dedicated to "the 3 Sisters" - putting corn, beans, and squash in the same hole and letting them grow together.

I've been intrigued by hay-bale planting, where you partially dig out the cut-end sides of a hay bale and plant in there.  I may just add to my garden space with them. 

The next big hurdle will be the mosquitoes - those buggers are determined to swarm and kill every human outside June - August.  Up here we grow them big and aggressive.  Too bad I can't teach them how to hoe and water.





Say You'll Come

 

Someday soon, I plan to have a large wonderful vacation home someplace warm, and I'm going to fill the backyard with plenty of remodeled vintage campers, each with it's own little theme.  And when you come to visit, you can have your pick.

Free Speech

I've been musing on this Koran burning incident, and here are my two cents.

Free Speech is a cornerstone of our democracy.  But free speech is often offensive, ugly, and seriously unpopular.  It flares emotions and opens old wounds.  It breaks hearts and starts riots.  It divides families and enrages neighbors.  But it must remain.

So this complete nut-job in Bumfuck Florida somehow gets himself a copy of the Muslim holy book.  In what I can only describe as a mentally challenged tantrum for attention, he burns it on his property.  The behavior is foul and disgusting, creepy and manipulative, dangerous and ignorant.  But it must be protected.  There I said it.

Based on the nut-job's tantrum, some equally unstable religious extremists go on a rampage and kill innocent people, lots of them.  These zealots seem to me a great deal more dangerous than the Florida crackpot. Those folks chose that reaction. 

Free speech does not mean the right to agree with each other.  It means to right to voice your opinion, no matter how despicable others might find it.  Don't we defend the right to burn the American flag?  Don't we defend the right to give our leaders the finger?  Remember the "free speech zones" established by the W Administration during his every public appearance? 

We must defend free speech, even words we find vile and offensive.  The rights we protect may be our own.