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February 28 Wheeee . . .Leap day!
Tomorrow sounds like it should be a lot of fun. But I think it might be a normal Friday. It does give everyone one more day to campaign before March 4 though.
Somehow that doesn't sound that fun. February 21 Watch out for landslides!I am starting to be a believer.
Before? I was a hoper, but now that the crucial state (that's Wisconsin, if you didn't realize) has been added to Barack's win column I am willing to go on record with a somewhat outrageous prediction. I have been confiding in my family and a few close friends, but now I am going public:
John McCain vs. Barack Obama will be the contest in November. And it will not be close. In fact, I am predicting here and now that McCain will lose in the largest landslide in our nation's history. He may not win a single state. Not even Arizona. All fifty states are going to go for Obama, even traditionally Republican strongholds.
Why? Three main reasons. First, Barack is bringing so many more voters into the process that the old generalizations about which states are red states and which states are blue states will be out the window. I am not saying that everyone new is going to vote Democratic straight down the line, just that the process will be fundamentally different in November, and the pundits that usually call the races will be on very shaky ground.
Second reason is that McCain is going to come to represent THE PAST in a way that hasn't really started to emerge yet. He is 72 years old, Viet Nam vet, wants to keep troops in Iraq, etc. I actually like John McCain, and I have a lot of respect for his courage and his service to his country. I just don't think very many people will want him to be President in 2009.
Third reason is that the Republicans just won't be able to summon the energy to campaign effectively for McCain. He does not represent the fervent wing of their party, and he is not going to energize them to the level that they are going to need to compete with the Barack rockstar effect. He certainly will not energize the Republicans the way that a Hillary nomination would do.
Won't McCain even win Arizona? Not necessarily. Apparently they don't all like him down there. And if he doesn't have a chance of winning, then how many McCain supporters are really going to drag themselves to their polling places late on Election Day when, on the east coast, polls are already closing and the exit numbers spell doom?
So I am a believer. Now, whether Barack can actually live up to the hype that is being generated by his supporters is another question.
Just to keep things interesting, I will try to come up with a prediction on that for next time. February 19 That Snow Moon . . .That's an eclipse.
Tomorrow night everyone PLEEEASE look up. I am hoping for clear weather and an excellent view of a total lunar eclipse. It should start about 9 p.m. where I live (CST) in USA. The period of totality (that sounds really scientific, doesn't it?) lasts for over an hour, and it takes about an hour to reach totality and another hour to go back to normal. So it kind of creeps along. You should have enough time to run back in the house and warm up in between viewings.
February's full moon is known as the Snow Moon, for obvious reasons. Very appropriate this year, too. February 17 Me 'n snowIn my family I am still famous for correcting my young sons when they used to say, "Me and (fill in the blank with a friend's name) are going to (fill in this blank with a nefarious activity worded in a colorful yet innocent sounding way, so that only a deranged individual or an experienced parent (which when you think about it are pretty much the same thing, right?) can decipher what they actually have in mind)."
Example: "Me 'n Dan are going to go over to his house." Translated, that really meant: "Dan and I are going to leave here and go somewhere else which you can assume in your parental mind involves supervision by HIS parents, but which actually allows us TOTAL FREEDOM because his parents will think that we are still over here."
Of course, I would see through this miscommunication in a second, and respond, "Mean Dan? Who's Mean Dan?"
"What?" they would respond in bewildered fashion, pretending not to know what I am talking about.
"You said, 'Mean Dan.' Who is 'Mean Dan?"
"Ohhh." *Roll of eyes.* "Dan and I."
"Ohhh," I would then respond parentally, "Dan and you. I thought that you said, 'Mean Dan!' Because I've known Dan for a while, and he isn't really that mean."
"OK, DAN AND I, are going over to his house."
"OK, Great," I would then respond, knowing that they would be safely supervised by Dan's parents over at his house.
Of course once over at Dan's house they would begin wrestling in the front yard resulting in a weird fall onto the grass, resulting in an off-angle hand-in-the-grass-catching-my-fall maneuver, resulting in a wrenched elbow, resulting in a phone call home, resulting in a trip to the emergency room (which BTW has since been named for my family the way you sometimes see hospital wings named for the lucrative patron that allowed it to be built), resulting in a colorful cast on the lower arm.
"Me 'n Dan were just messing around," he would say on the way home from the orthopedic clinic.
Now I told you that story, so I could tell you this story. (Sorry. That sentence is a blatant ripoff of Bill Cosby. Me and Bill are pretty close.)
Me and snow are getting to be good friends this winter. He has been hanging around a lot more than the past few years. I've always liked snow. I like the innocence of a pure, white snowfield before anyone walks across it. I like the quiet loveliness of a gentle snowfall. I even like the way it grabs ordinary life and shakes it a little bit, reminding us all that, No, people don't control the weather or the climate or the planet, thank you very much. We are still just tiny awestruck observers at the big worldwide show. I actually think being reminded of that is a good thing.
So me 'n snow are pretty good buddies. Out in Colorado this year I saw quite a bit of him, too. He hangs out there a lot. Up in the mountains. He actually takes the time to decorate individual tree branches. I was up on a trail doing some nordic skiing (those are the skinny ones) (so skinny that when teen-age girls saw them leaning against the wall at our lodge, they would point and laugh and say, 'Are those skis??') and recuperating with a bottle of red Powerade in hand, dumping in a handful of clean snow to cool it down and dilute the sweetness a bit. I would look around marvelling at how white that world up there is. So I like snow.
This winter I have had more shovelling than normal. My house has a driveway that leads from our street to our garage door. And a short sidewalk from our front door out to the driveway. That is pretty much all the shovelling I have to do. It usually only takes ten to fifteen minutes, and I enjoy it. This winter we have had more snow and heavier snow. It's been taking closer to a half hour, and I have been out there several days in a row as new snowfalls pile onto old.
My neighbor across the street has helped out with her snowblower. She must know that I enjoy shovelling, because she has adjusted their blower just perfectly to arc her driveway's snow across our entire street to land it on the bottom of my own drive, where it gets added to the mini-avalanche left by the city snowplow when it clears the street. One Saturday in January I was upstairs looking out my window watching the beauty of the crystalline whiteness cascade from her driveway onto mine, and I gave a silent wave of thanks out my window. I don't think she was looking.
When I finally got outside that morning I also had to clear about nine inches of beauty off of my car. I was using a flexible plastic shovel to gently clear down to about an inch of bare metal, so I wouldn't scrape the paint. In about five minutes the windshield and hood were clear enough that I could see to drive. Unfortunately my hood ornament was also cleared, which I didn't feel at all, but I must have clipped it off and hurled it over my shoulder into the yard. I am hoping I might find it today, as we are having a bit of a rainy melt.
Yep. Me 'n snow. We're pretty good buddies. February 10 Mr. LincolnTuesday is Mr. Lincoln's birthday. "Mr. Lincoln" is what people called him, including, oddly, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln herself. (He generally called her, "Mother.")
He was born in 1809, so this is the 199th anniversary. Next February will be the big 200. People are wondering how to celebrate it in an appropriate way. And I think I might have the best idea of all: elect Mr. Obama. If Mr. Obama were elected President he would take office about a month before the 200th birthday itself. He is well-known to be a Lincoln fan himself and announced his candidacy for the office while standing outdoors on the Capitol steps in Springfield, Illinois, right in front of Lincoln's statue that stands there. Now I am not advocating that we elect Mr. Obama simply because it would be a tribute to the greatest American that we as a nation, have been able to embrace our full cultural heritage both black and white. We should elect Mr. Obama, because he is the best American for the job. February 09 Headscarf rebellion?Here is a real news item from this morning's Yahoo headlines:
"Turkey's parliament lifted a ban on Saturday on female students wearing the Muslim headscarf at university, a landmark decision that some Turks fear will undermine the foundations of their secular state. "
This is reasonably hard to comprehend. For me, it stands right up there with the story last year that the Chinese are practicing (but only one day each week) for the Olympics. No, not the athletes! They have to practice like crazy!
The regular Chinese citizenry of Beijing are practicing. One day a week they have to line up. For everything. Well, for everything that we (in the Western world)(don't you always picture us all riding horseback when we are referred to as the Western world? I do)(but I digress). They are practicing lining up instead of just crowding in like so many unschooled kindergartners at milk time.
Actually, kindergartners don't have milk time anymore (now there is a change that might rock the Western world!) but at other times are a model of liningupness, my spouse informs me. OK, like Packers fans at a Favre convention. Everybody just pushing forward. That, I surmise, is the Chinese way. For a civilization built on a foundation of Confucianism, that is hard for me to believe, but apparently if all Beijingers don't practice lining up once a week the Olympic venues will be a disaster of . . . Olympic proprtions, I suppose.
But how 'bout them headscarves? Is it really true? Will the Turks fall to Muslim fundamental domination, will America lose a key ally, will we close our naval bases and run our US naval maneuvers in the Meditterrannean from Cyprus or Greece? All because coeds are donning some Muslim headgear?
I don't think the world will change based on the Turkish college girls. In fact I have a feeling that the typical Turkish coed might wear the head scarf around when she feels like it, and not wear it when she doesn't feel like it.
If the purpose of the headscarf (which I have read is cultural and not religious anyway) is to cover up modestly instead of letting the locks blow freely in the breeze, wouldn't that be sort of like encouraging American college girls to leave the clubwear in the closet when attending class?
I predict that "Western" civilization will survive, even in Turkey.
Now if someone could just get American college students to stop wearing hoodies, the fashion world would rejoice. February 05 Barack around the clockWell, this could be it. Tonight. By the time the wee hours have rolled by there could be a big, insurmountable pile of momentum over there in the land of Hill. I don't disagree with her stands on the issues (and there really isn't much difference between her stands and Barack's on most of the issues anyway) but I admire Barack's leadership style and what he is trying to stand for. I also believe that she is beatable by a McCain nomination on the Republican side, whereas I don't think the Republicans have anyone that could beat Barack in the general election come November. But this could be it tonight. Or things could go on right up to the convention, with a reasonable chance that the nomination could be actually decided on the convention floor like in the old days.
Maybe I'll make some coffee and stay up all night. And if you haven't seen this: Here is the four minute clip "Yes We Can" produced by Will i. am and other entertainers to support Barack in California. It's worth a listen. http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/yeswecanvideo
February 03 Not so empty . . .As in nest.
We have one. It just sits here all day. Being empty. After twenty-some years of nonemptiness the current hollowness tends to reverberate at times. One thing you notice right away is that you have the run of the house. Because when we had teenagers at home they tended to take up some space. Which is now available. Take the living room for example. Like most families, people had their spots. My boys actually "called" them. (As in "I call this chair.") (Which in their vernacular eventually morphed into: "I shotgun the chair." Shotgun being the passenger side of a vehicle when a buddy is at the wheel. Because we do not literally own a shotgun. And even if we did, their mother would never have allowed them to use it on the living room furniture.) I would usually "shotgun" a spot on our sofa where I could read, answering their objections ("Dad, I called that spot") with my typically witty rejoinder "I called this spot when I bought the couch." Which you can probably imagine usually met with a warm chuckle and a fond smile. But the system had its advantages. Because that's where the stuff would be that had fallen out of my pockets and slipped into the furniture cushions. Now? I don't know where the heck to begin looking. I've been sitting all over the place. Where could my reading glasses be? THEY COULD BE ANYWHERE. In the entire house. Even in the empty bedrooms which formerly were restricted turf. One of those is actually my "office" now. If by "ofice" you mean an empty room with a card table in the corner piled with a few stacks of work-related documents waiting to be "filed." I'm not that good at filing. And the dining room? We have a dining table where everybody used to have their spot at dinner time. When the boys were home we would eat supper in the dining room every night, and they had chores of setting and clearing the table, and loading the dishwasher, etc. Now? The dining room tends to be beautiful spouse's stacking place for work-related paraphanalia. Except for one corner of the table. The corner, of course, that used to be my spot when we were dining. I still have dibs there. Of course this whole new routine quickly breaks down when people come over. Then we have to clear the table. Who knows where the stuff is then? It might even be in the "office." Speaking of "people" coming over? This weekend we had overnight guests. My niece and nephew. Niece is eight, nephew ten. He is studious, calm, and interested in sports-trivia and stats. He wears glasses and speaks in a sort of squeaky voice. His sister is auditioning for operatic roles, drama swirling around her at every step. She has long blond hair and the sort of blue eyes which will allow her, eventually, to get away with anything. But not yet. When they arrived in their Mom's van I hadn't quite got home yet on Friday afternoon, so they were parked in the street right outside our house. They had been there maybe four or five minutes, but of course in kid terms they had been waiting all day to get out of the van. Because of snow it was not easy to exit the vehicle on the curbside, so my nephew began his visit by asking his Mom. "What do you expect me to do, climb over the top?" at which point he stood in the open side door of the minivan, reached up to grasp the bar of the roofrack and started to hoist himself onto the roof of the vehicle so he could crawl Indiana-Jones-fashion over to the street side where the pavement was clear. His Mom reminded him he could just step through the van's interior and get out the normal way. We all went in the house. It was 4:45, and they wanted to go sledding, an activity that had been advertised as one of the features of a weekend at my house. Because we have sleds. Somewhere. One of the other things about being empty-nesters is that all of the stuff that you never used to have to know about ("Where are the sleds? How would I know. Ask so-and-so, he used them last.") has now slowly moved into your own sphere of responsibilty. I know we have sleds. Or at least we used to have sleds. And I know they are not in any reasonably accessible location because I don't remember seeing them or tripping over them over the past couple of winters. And I know if spouse advertised sledding as an activity on the weekend schedule, there must be sleds somewhere. Stalling is a good option. I offered root beers, and explained that beautiful spouse would be home in about ten minutes. Then we could get the sleds out. By 5:15 p.m. the outdoors were beginning to get dark. And the mood indoors darker. But then something lucky happened. My brother ("Daddy!!") arrived. He was meeting his wife (their Mom) at our house and they were planning to leave one car and go to a concert. The concert that we had given them tickets to as a Christmas present. Along with babysitting services for the evening. Which, in a way that you eventually get used to when both you and your brother have spouses that are women, had somehow become an overnight sleepover. And which I had somehow become entangled in. Because originally I wasn't even supposed to be home this Friday. I had a work-related trip that would be taking me out of town overnight. In fact, that was why we weren't going to the concert with them (Matchbox Twenty + Alannis Morisette, if my readerboat is curious) in the first place. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE OUT OF TOWN! But it snowed ten inches and meetings got cancelled. More sledless time ticked by. By now it was time for Mommy and Daddy to be leaving for the concert. They had a hotel to check into, a dinner to eat, and tickets (which I had cleverly wrapped in a real matchbox when it was Christmas-time; clever, no?) to make use of. Spouse had obviously been delayed, and since I could see her cell phone sitting right on her card table covered with a jigsaw puzzle (Hey! That's the card table from my "office!!") there was no use trying to get hold of her. Panic had set in. My nephew was sitting on the living room floor reading the Guiness Book of World Records which he had found in a nearby bookcase, while his sister, still dressed in her boots and coat for sledding, was crying in the downstairs bathroom. So we could hear her. Then she realized that Mommy and Daddy were departing. She had her cell phone ("It doesn't really call anybody, but I can push all the buttons.") and her snapshot of them (from their wedding, fourteen years ago, but still recognizable) (except for the haircuts) with which to conjure their presence. But these were not enough. Screams filled the house. Sitting on the sofa (hey, I called it) I tried not to wince. Her brother calmly flipped to another page. Mommy reentered the house in a bid to calm things down. Tearful kisses were exchanged. Blond hair was flounced. The front door closed again. The bathroom door slammed again. More wailing. She had already nailed the part of the war-widow who has just been informed that her only son had escaped battle unscathed only to head home, but drive his horse-and-carriage over the cliff into the sea. But she still had a shot at the lead. Her brother had just turned to the page about "Most Drama Enacted On An Overnight Sleepover" when the front door opened one more time. Beautiful spouse. He looks up from the book. "Finally!" Tiny operatic star emerges from bathroom. Smiling. February 01 Feb 1 . . . woo hoo!Why I like February:
1. January is over 2. Longer days are on their way 3. Fewer hours of unrelenting darkness 4. Which kind of depresses my mood at times 5. The times being: during my waking hours 6. So now I start to feel more like my regular self 7. Which can be kind of good or bad 8. Depending on how you feel about my regular self 9. Groundhog Day 10. Good movie 11. (Bill Murray, a fav of mine) 12. And we watch it every year 13. Feb. 2 is also a certain celebrity birthday 14. But I won't mention who 15. But you can feel free to scroll down below if you are really really so curious 16. That you just can't stand it 17. Snow 18. Yes, i am a fan of snow 19. It's fun 20 As long as you don't overdo the shoveling 21. Right now my house is rather socked in: about 11 inches last night 22. We are going to get out the XC skis later this afternoon 23. Woo hoo! 24. February is here! |
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