“You know. For grown-ups!”
Only in America and probably only then from the greater Philadelphia area. It’s nice to see New Jersey in the news for something other than a political corruption scandal.
Car Wreck Saves Choking Driver’s Life
It even made the local broadcast news…
Car crash Saves Man from Choking on Onion Ring
Gotta love it.
You know those lucky 5,700 troops stationed in Iraq who are going to win the George W. Bush Christmas Lottery 2007? What I’d really like is for them to rise up, en masse, and tell Bush to shove it up his lying, hypocritical ass. I wish those soldiers would refuse to leave the country prior to the end of the full term of their deployment unless all members of Bush’s “surge” are allowed to return to their lives and families in December. That’s what I really want.
“I was a fortunate and happy man,” Pavarotti told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published about a month after the surgery. “After that, this blow arrived.”
“And now I am paying the penalty for this fortune and happiness,” he told the newspaper.
(Quote from AP article courtesy of AOL News. I know, I know, but they’re an old friend. A free old friend now.)
Ta ta. Off to find fortune and happiness…
I make no promises that I will be posting much more often. I seem to have needed a break. (I also pretty much entirely missed my “blogoversary” in June…how do you spell that, anyway? Oh, well.)
I wish I could say I’ve been tied up with (or by) a new lover, though surprising prospects are on the horizon, I suspect…we’ll see. More may be to follow on that; maybe not. I’ve been doing pretty much what I’ve been doing for the past year or so…family, occasional travel, work, gardening (which is amazing this summer…I love late summer!) These are heady days, indeed!
I spent an scrumptious 9 days in the Bahamas last month.
I don’t think I’ll disclose the location of my private beach because I’d like to keep it that way, in case I want to return some day. If I mentioned the island before, you go dig it up; but the name of my beach will go with me to the crematorium! Now I’ve got my eye on Belize…and another Caribbean beach. Another cottage. I’m even wondering if I might be able to afford it in October of this year and still hit Memphis in November…
I’ve spent some wonderful days with my grandboy, who is an amazing little person. He’s very calm and peaceful and such a joy to play with. Toddlers have to be one of the greatest creations of all time. Can I bottle him up just like his little 16 month-old self is now and keep him that sugary forever? Don’t I wish! Though it might make it a little hard to take him to Europe when he’s a teenager.
I’ve been doing some journaling in an undisclosed location and have done a lot of work in therapy, though I’ve only had a couple of sessions with my therapist in recent months. I mentioned this to her the other day and suggested maybe I should cut back and do some work on my own for a bit. She responded that she’d see me in two weeks.
I’m working on a journal post about things that I am passionate about. It will be a long list. I have a lot to go around.
The post itself is about Miss USA. I know it’s old news but, while I was tooling around YouTube today, I saw the video clip of the tumble Miss USA, Rachel Smith, took in June at the Miss Universe pagent in Mexico. Watch the MSNBC interview, as well. It’s worth it.
This is a woman with amazing grace and composure and I am proud to have her represent my country without reservation. The thing that made the greatest impression on me as I watched the video clip of her fall was that she immediately regained her composure and continued on with hardly a flicker. Look at her face 1.5 seconds after her butt hits the floor. She looks as if nothing ever happened. That is the spirit I’d like to see fostered in American women. Hell, in all women across the globe!
So what.
Fuck that.
I’m wonderful anyway.
Yeah!
P. S. Either world’s loudest orgasm woman moved away or is having a very ‘dry’ summer. I’m rooting for the former.
There is a woman who lives within earshot of my apartment who has THE LOUDEST ORGASMS ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET, outside of porn, and we all know those are fake!
Just thought you’d like to know.
WALTER REED AND BEYOND: The War Inside
A great article, courtesy of the WaPo, which means it will soon fade away into that pay archive black hole. So here it is on the Free Internet Press. Just watch you don’t get squished by that pop-up!
I’m not in the least surprised that this administration, via the Defense department, is seeking to deny mental health services to returning soldiers by claiming they had a pre-existing condition. That’s the thanks our military can expect to receive. Kind of like Vietnam in reverse. The people are warm and welcoming. This time it’s the government spitting on them. Either way, seems like a good reason to burn a flag, now, doesn’t it?
(Yes, I do advocate the burning of the American flag as a form of free expression. It is not something I have ever done and I doubt I ever will. But, by God, we deserve the right to do it if we choose! Go ahead and blast me on that one, too. I also happen to believe it’s perfectly reasonable to declare that English is the official language of the United States. So there.)
Anyway, back to the point. The young man who spearheaded the rape of a fourteen year-old girl and murder of her and her family? Yeah, that is a personality disorder. The young men and women who cannot sleep without waking in terror following their deployment? That’s PTSD. Come on. This one’s a no-brainer.
But, there’s hope on the horizon in the person of our Defense Secretary, Robert Gates. Oh, wait. He’s the one in charge of this, isn’t he?
More recent news…
Pentagon May Drop Mental Health Question
DoD press release on receipt of the task force’s report.
Study Finds 1.8 Million Veterans are Uninsured (Is that on top of the 46 million?)
Here’s the same article, forever free.
‘Nuff ranting for one night. Let’s get back to the good stuff…
Stax Records will be making a comeback!
I heard it today on Marketplace, a business radio show on my local NPR station. You can listen to that bit here, if you like.
Stax Records started in 1957 (a might fine vintage, if this 50 year-old must say so herself), meaning 2007 marks its 50th anniversary. Stax went bankrupt in 1976, after having provided us with some of the favorite music and musicians of my formative years…Booker T. and the MG’s, Sam and Dave, The Staple Sisters, Otis Redding, Albert King, Eddie Floyd, Johnnie Taylor, Luther Ingram and Isaac Hayes (though his devotion to Scientology is disturbing to me).
This was the place where cutting edge soul music was made through the 60’s and early 70’s. Although I was then too young to be a serious consumer at the time, and, boy, do I wish I had some of those 45’s, Stax artists were the ones I most enjoyed on the radio. Remember the time before FM radio? for me, that meant WFIL in Philadelphia.
Shortly after the early seventies I discovered pot and what was then termed “hard” or “acid” rock. The memories of those wailing saxes and driving rhythms have never left and will always hold a special place in my heart, long after I gave up on Led Zeppelin.
Welcome back, Stax. Looks like everything old is new again and ain’t that just grand?
Gotta run now. I have gardening to do, now that it’s a little cooler outside.
Enjoy!
Enjoy it while it lasts…I’ll likely remove ’em on the ‘morrow. The regrets of sleep following too much wine…
Happy HNT!
HNT. See…told you I might regret it on the ‘morrow. But you can keep the next one.
Of course, I’d take Sadie. She’d probably beat me down the stairs or trip me trying to!
My laptop would be next to go simply because it’s the only repository of all my grandboy photos. The laptop is the new photo album.
But I also couldn’t bear to part with this:
(Damn, my picture is too big to fit here.)
This little beauty has been my constant summer companion for the last few years. It’s my cover-up cover-up on the beach, my lightweight jacket, my robe when walking the dog in my jammies (in summer, tank top or skimpy tee) and loungers.
The other possession it would break my heart to leave behind is this:
I can’t even recall where I picked this pot up. In my travels, I tend to buy two things…jewelry and pottery. Earrings are a favorite souvenir. I have dozens of pairs I’ve bought on vacations…Key West, Chicago, San Fransisco, San Diego, Arizona, New Mexico. My souvenir from my Barbados trip last summer was a lovely tanzanite ring in a white gold setting. I wear it almost every day.
I also enjoy pottery, especially if it is unusual. This small pot (probably measures 5 1/2 inches from lip to base…sorry, but that is small!) is smooth as silk, made of the clearest white porcelain. The thickness is remarkably consistent, all the way to the base. And the glaze…the glaze is to die for! Good reds are hard to come up with, something with the chemicals. My favorite part of pottery in college was mixing the glazes. I was able to let the inner chemist in me play. But red was always so tough to achieve.
See, I really am a very simple person, with minimal materialistic needs, though I do like my car! I am just so damned pleased with the simplest of things.
I’m glad all the brouhaha has died down around here. You know, I will not be able to read my blog stats for a month now that I had 11,000 views in two days! I’m doing a lot of thinking about all that and hope to craft a follow-up, though that will probably wait until over the weekend, after I’ve had a little more time to mull it over.
I stand by my conviction, however, that the better choice would be to to selectively reduce the number of fetuses in a very multiple gestation pregnancy to allow a reasonable chance for long-term survival with quality of life for the survivors. To me, this is the moral, ethical, logical, smartest and “right” thing to do. I do, however, respect the right of others to have a differing opinion. I just wish it could be accompanied with a little less venom on the part of some.
(Addendum to “Things to Take in Case of Fire”: How could I forget? My vibrator. While you’re there, check out the rest of MORGASM.)
From Space.com,
Space Station and Shuttle Visible Together in Night Sky
If you live north of the 35th parallel, look up. Have fun!
Claiming my Inner Bitch 
