And the beat goes on...

It's a train wreck and I'll be glad when tomorrow comes and goes and Bristol takes that ugly trophy back to Wasilla. In case no one believed that Bristol Palin's votes are politically motivated, take a look. These are the closing paragraphs from an op-ed piece on LifeNews.com:

"Again, a line was drawn in the sand. And now, every time Bristol graces the floor on Dancing with the Stars, liberal women cross that line and heap handfuls of sand at the struggling young mom, who has done nothing to deserve their scorn.

Well, that’s why I intend to suffer through Dancing with the Stars this Monday, and why I will vote for Bristol Palin as much as I can on every phone line in the house. And because we, too, have chosen life, with a bunch of kids in our house, including foster children, I have a bunch of phones. Ah, the progressive embrace of abortion is a demographic loser. A vote for Bristol Palin on Monday is a vote against the Death Culture, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, National Organization for Women, MSNBC, the New York Times, Nancy Pelosi, the gals at The View, and everything ugly bubbling and boiling inside the livid left. Tonight, I intend to register my response."

Okay, I held my nose and watched her dance tonight. She's slower than the other finalists, more deliberate. She's never heard of the Broadway show "Chicago" nor has she heard of the movie. So she did her freestyle to the "Cellblock Tango" from said show. Watch her face. She takes no joy in what she's doing. She's dancing like I paint...by numbers.

She's there because her mother needs to get her face and her agenda up front again. I guess the target audience on Fox isn't feeding her ego as much as need be. Because there was Sarah tonight, front and center, goofy grin and big hair. BTW...why is it "Sarah Palin's Alaska"? I mean, isn't it just Alaska? What's so different about Sarah Palin's Alaska? Just wondering...

Here's what's really pissing me off though.

I turn on my television to be entertained. Now, agreed, I also turn it on for news, sports and weather. I turn ON the news, I turn ON the Army-Notre Dame game, I turn ON the Weather Channel. When I turn on The Learning Channel I expect to see brides, bakers, people with abnormally large families and people who aren't, how should I put it, people who don't fall into the standard charts labeled "average". I do NOT want to see Sarah Palin's empty headed looking grin staring back at me. Mortimer Snerd had more going on behind his eyes than she does.

See, not that I'm any expert, but if Sarah Palin wanted me to see Alaska, she wouldn't be IN it. I would be looking at the Mendenhall Glacier, not listening to the former Governor bray at her kids and certainly not watching her, barefoot and in shorts, yelling "Willow, no boys allowed upstairs!" Although, I give the devil his due, apparently she learned about not letting the girls cavort alone with the Levi Johnson clan. The hard way.

Mostly I watch movies. BTW, the Tim Burton "Alice In Wonderland" was surprisingly good, I did NOT expect to like it and I did. I watch movies and re-runs and Conan several nights a week. I watch "Castle" and "The Middle" and "Big Bang Theory". I think there's a pattern emerging. I watch things that entertain me. Because I'm finished with the news, at least until 11 or an earthquake interrupts the program currently in progress. Okay, if you've even been in an earthquake, you know it interrupts the program because the power goes out right before all phone service crashes, but I digress.

So I turn on DWTS to take a good, hard look at what's going on, I've read it and I've heard it and I want to see it for myself. I also want to be entertained. I have a job and a family and an unemployed spouse and two kids at home and I just want to have a little FUN. I hang on to my cable for this. And what's going on is a great big political endorsement. And now, I hear, she's trying to make herself the new DWTS casting director too. It's come out that Sarah is pushing her pal and ours, Christine "I'm not a witch, I'm you" O'Donnell for next season. I guess that makes it okay, because it's not just her family she's using, it's her friends, acquaintances and/or political allies too. I can see it now "Sarah Palin's 'Dancing With My Friends.'" Followed by "Sarah Palin: 'Dancing With Myself.'"

Now, part of me feels sorry for Bristol. Who among us hasn't done something we abhorred because our mother pushed us into it. It's right up there with that "no, you can't have bangs, why would you want to hide your pretty face?" crap they used to shove down our throats. And I think "that poor girl." She's NOT a teen activist, she's a stiff, shy girl who jumped into the sack with the first guy who looked twice at her, got knocked up and is now being paraded from one coast to the other by a domineering, overly ambitious mother who is using her as a virtual campaign poster. Look closely, you can see the picket up her butt.

Do the kid a favor. Vote for someone else. Vote even if you didn't see the show. Hell, her supporters aren't watching, why should we? Frankly I think you'll be doing Bristol a great kindness. Maybe if she loses her mother will leave her alone for awhile.

The Elephant in the Room

Or, in this case, the dance floor.

May I just say...Told you so!

What amuses the hell out of me is that it's taken so many people so long to twig to this. Gee...maybe A whole bunch of people are voting for the potty-mouthed homophobic Bristol Palin because they're getting tweets from Sarahpac or the Tea Party Gazette or something.

Oh wait. I apologize. It's her SISTER that's the potty-mouthed homophobic.

Bristol is just a deer in the headlights campaign poster. Of course she's both supported AND apologized for the potty mouthed Willow but that's what a good little "teen activist" does.

Oh yeah. Teen Activist? I went to school with a teen activist. Except back then, we called her unwed and unemployed. I guess idioms evolve. Or is it idiots, I never remember.

Anyway, it's come out that ABC apparently doesn't verify e-mail addresses when one signs up to vote for the talented Ms. Palin at ABC.com. Conceivably, a motivated "fan" could spend an hour signing up with an email address like greygoose@redsquare.com, vote, log off and sign in again with, oh, JohnnyWalker@boozehound.com and well, before you know it, Bristol's got another 1500 votes.

THIS has just dawned on everyone. Now that's funny. What is it, nine, ten weeks in and the "dancer" who has never been out of the bottom two is now in the finals and this is JUST dawning on people?

Wow. Can't put anything over on reality fans, can you?

So...here's the plan. SAVE REALITY TELEVISION!

Next Monday, plunk your fanny down in front of your Mac and start registering every freaking phony e-mail address you can pull out of your butt. And mount a write in campaign.

Lisa Murkowski. Make sure you spell it right or it won't count. Okay, there's no write in option. Anyway, maybe we should all just overwhelm America's teen sweetheart with a boatload of votes for Jennifer Grey.

On the other hand, maybe we should just sit back and let her win.

I can't wait to see the Tea Party convention in 2012, with that great, big mirror ball trophy prominently displayed on the podium. Classic misdirection...it should be fun. "And here's my daughter Bristol, the too old to be a teen activist. She's promoting abstinence by practicing an alternate hobby. In her case, she won this beautiful trophy for her skill doing the horizontal mambo."

Mama Grizzlies approve.

ADDENDUM of no small importance. Or maybe it is...

What I said stands, but...

This is NOT a blanket condemnation of everyone. I would have re-written it, but some of you have already read it and I would assume you're not going to spend your Sunday on an hourly check in to see if I've gone in, re-worded, and picked up my typos. Yes, there's one, I saw it so back off...

FIRST: My penultimate blog was NOT about everyone under the age of 75. I sat bolt upright and realized that there are at least two people who might think I was including them...I was NOT. I'm on an internet rampage here, NOT a personal one. To the lovely ladies who are mothers to those endearing pre-school boys...cliche though it may be, don't take it personally. I've become fed up with internet members who will say, in response to a heartfelt post such as "I'm devastated, my grandmother died suddenly last night" "I had a terrible morning, I burned the waffles".

However, in the last few months, this blog has gone WAY off course. It's turned into something vendetta like and I'm increasingly uncomfortable with it. Not that the people I've been targeting don't DESERVE to be on the receiving end of someone's vendetta, they do. But I'm getting kind of tired of it.

SECOND: If you can't come up with something better than "Well, you suck and I'm NOT going to read your blog anymore, I don't like you now. So NOW what do you think? HUH? HUH?" I am probably going to type something along the lines of "So who the hell asked ya?" and then suggest you re-enroll in third grade because it sounds as if you flunked it the first time. JEEZ, grow UP! "I'm not going to read you anymore!" You forgot to stick your tongue out and say "nah, nah, hey hey, good-bye." I stopped reading F.Scott Fitzgerald when I hit 17, I never saw the need to announce that fact until now and it never seemed to bother HIM any either. Yeah, yeah, okay, he was dead. The point is still valid. If he hadn't been dead I doubt he would have cared.

The funny thing was, the person who did that thought I was talking about her. I wasn't. I still don't know if it's paranoia or a guilty conscience but hey, if she's comfortable in it. People tend to think you're talking specifically about them when they know they've crossed the line but refuse to admit it. Been there, done that.

I AM taking a break though. I notice my tongue is no longer clamped in my cheek and I'm not comfortable in that persona.

I will most definitely be back before Thanksgiving. I have yet to decide if I will revive this, or re-open under a new name. We all reach a point where we just need to clear the cobwebs and get the train back on track. An internet closet cleaning as it were.

So I'm goin' fishing for a few weeks. Save my seat?

ON HIATUS

PERHAPS INDEFINITELY.

I've never denied blowing off steam here. I'm NOT a kid and as I've grown into my ever expanding middle age I find I don't want to be. I don't relate to them. I'm at a pathetic point in life where, having lost damn near everything, I look to my peers for support. Barring that, I take refuge in a blog that is read by few as a means to pretty much bitch about life in general, and my ever changing life in specific.

It's not meant to stroke any egos except my own.

I make nothing from it. I've pretty much let you few into my own, private, self-therapy sessions. You didn't HAVE to read it. I appreciate those of you who understood what it was. Several readers decided to use it as a weapon. I've been hurt by it and frankly, I'm just too fucking OLD to deal with that anymore.

What's it done now is make me an intensely private person, and likely to stay that way. I was an open book. Them days are OVER, sistahs.

You guys over at MousePlanet? Your hatred and hostility towards yourselves and pretty much everyone else has served no one. Judgmental, hateful and controlling, you poison everything you touch. You're despicable and the damage you've caused it far reaching, and irreversible. You took what had been a safe harbor for me when I desperately needed one and viciously attacked people who had the audacity to offer me comfort. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You aren't, but you should be.

To you two or three who looked for a laugh here, well, things just aren't very funny anymore. I opened up in places I should not have.

My life, my weight, my autistic kid complete with the occasional and still terrifying seizures, my crumbling marriage and my non-existent self esteem are going back into the box I took them out of.

See...this wasn't all about YOU.

It was about me.
It's been, in it's way, about what it's like to hand my wedding rings and my mother's weddings rings and the beautiful gold necklace my father gave for Christmas five years ago and the topaz ring I bought in St. Thomas 30 years ago over to a pawn broker. It's about what it's like to wake up at 2am to the sound of someone pounding your door down, screaming you're going to be arrested because you can't give him the car you don't have because you can't drive it and you left it in the locked office parking lot and you can't get it at 2am and it's about having to call your company's emergency security to meet you there at 2:15 and get it out for you. It's been about the insecurities of being evicted from your own home because the bank sold it and didn't have the common decency to tell you - or work with you for that matter. It's about night terrors and pounding stress headaches and worry and constant, pervasive fear. It's wondering how long your heart can pound in your chest like that every time you hear footsteps on the staircase before it actually explodes.

And if I get pissy because someone paid absolutely NO attention to any of this and used my obvious weaknesses to bolster their own ego by attacking, well, I actually have nothing to say. It's low, it's lame, and it's simple meanness.

As the hubster says..."your hangnail is always worse than my broken arm." We're together, in a way, we're healthy, which is a damn good thing since we have no health insurance. But we'll never, ever be the same. So much has been destroyed, things that aren't visible. Bonds have been broken. I'm broken, and I admit that.

And it's over.

Some of it's been grand. But it's increasingly become a burden. I wasn't amusing you as much as I was writing on your side...making veiled references to things that you all enjoyed, understood, and supported. But I'm tired.

It was a wise man who said "you have to pick your fights." And yes, I originally picked this one.

Maybe later I'll be back. As of now there's way too much emotional pain to worry about what other people think I really meant and decided to act upon.

I stand by my mis-trust of rude people. I stand by my frustration of pushy people. I stand by my distaste for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit District too, I spent a LOT of time on buses today. It was quite an experience.

But, for the last time, I digress.

Hats, gloves and a real Hot Patootie...

I have decided to become a Red Hat.

I more than qualify, the extremely cool thing is that people don't think I do. This is, most likely, why I tend to feel smug about my age and broadcast it to all and sundry. Frankly, I think it's the rather zoftig nature of my build. Excess weight, as I have said before, is Mother Nature's Botox. Eat pasta, get fat. This pushes the burgeoning wrinkles out from the back. Something along the idea of a water balloon. Balloons are small, wrinkly things when they're new in the bag. Fill them up with either water or hot air, and they become large and smooth, and something people like to play with. This is how I see myself.

Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that I like to hang out with other 50 year olds and this brings me to the Red Hat. I've been on their mailing list for ages, but have rather Scottishly hung on to the 15 bucks a year which would actually give me the wherewithal to meet REAL people.

Real people who remember where they were when Kennedy was assassinated. Here's the thing - if you say "which one?" well, yeah, you're unclear on the concept. If you say "who?" the entire story will be wasted on you. If you ask "what's that mean?" well, you won't find out from me because I will have been struck speechless and will probably just wander off somewhere.

I find myself, once again, in an internet jungle populated by girls with toddlers and attitudes. The toddlers do not yet have attitudes, at least attitudes inappropriate to toddlers (they don't call them the "Terrible (insert age of your pre-teen children here)s" for nothing). The attitudes belong to the mothers, who seem to feel that it's all about them. Maybe it is, and maybe I was like that when I was chasing naked little boys up the street. Yes, I had one who loved to rip off his diaper and take off on high, but I digress.

Anyway, I have taken refuge on line with several people of my basic boomerdom. I can go there and be Eeyore, which is the middle-age equivalent of "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna eat some worms" and actually get support. Because we're all in the same boat. We're working crappy jobs we don't like and our parents were eying retirement by this age and we're all going to die at our desks and we know it. We're all staring down the harsh reality that we can no longer change horses in mid stream because no one wants people our age riding their horses. We charge too much and they'll have to pay to put us out to pasture.

The fact that I can (and DO) turn Meat Loaf up to 11 (because 11 is better) and dance manically to "Hot Patootie" means nothing to anyone except me and that's because I know that my neck and ass are gonna hurt the next morning from all that motion. It doesn't stop me, I'm just more aware of it now. Dance to THAT, Richard Simmons!

At any rate, I am finding that my conversations with people in venues that are so diversely mixed in age are increasingly going something like this:

A: "I need to paint my father's trash can. I was thinking of black but I wanted some other suggestions. What do you guys think of a black trash can?"

B: "McDonald's has a red box for their chicken McNuggets, why don't you do that?"

Me: "Have you thought of painting it green? It's very popular in my town, although your town may have color restrictions. It might not work where you live."

B: "I like green but it's not appropriate, I know what trash cans are supposed to look like and they should be red. Besides, when I think of A's town I don't think of green trash cans, I think of red ones. Her town may not even ALLOW green trash cans."

ME: "Gee, sorry, I shouldn't have suggested anything, I have no idea what color is anyway. I'm WAY too old to know this know of stuff and I've spent so many years following paint colors I'm not as smart as you."

B: "Oh, I didn't mean to offend you..."

ME: "Oh, fuck off, it's not your trash can anyway, you arrogant twit." Okay, that was what my brain said. My fingers simply came off the keyboard and are staying off.

It's NOT the preference for red. It's the rudeness. It's the "Let me tell you how you're wrong" comment. It's the "maybe her town doesn't allow green" comment because B didn't bother to actually READ my answer, which address the issue.

This seems to be what young women are doing now. Maybe they're too busy to be bothered listening to, or reading all of what someone over 50 says. Maybe they discard anything that ancient as irrelevant in their worlds. Maybe I'm just a tired old lady and getting overly sensitive. Maybe a woodchuck, who knows?

I don't think there's anything deliberate or pre-meditated about it. I don't think they intend to be rude. But, I think it was Mark Twain, said something like "little boys pull the wings off butterflies in jest, but the butterflies die in earnest." It also could have been the legs off of frogs, or maybe the wings off of moths and it could have been Will Rogers. I'm old and I don't remember things. But the point is valid. Just because they don't think they're rude doesn't mean they're not.

I was brought up to not really speak like that (I was also brought up with better grammar than that last sentence). I don't just blurt out "I don't like it", especially when I'm sort of butting into someone elses conversation, but then, that's an internet thing, everyone does it and, while I don't like it, I do understand it. But I would say something like "Green can be pretty too" instead of "WTF does a McDonald's carton have to do with someone painting her FATHER'S trash can? Paint your own damn trash can red" which was pretty much what I wanted to say.

I have decided I'm in the old and crotchety bracket I guess. And I want to hang out with other old and crotchety people. I want to hang out with people who think before they speak, or type. Who say things like "that would be pretty" even when they don't mean it because, well, it takes all kinds to make a world and why make someone feel bad when there's no reason to? Why insult someone and tell them they have no idea what paint colors really are? I'm sure she didn't mean to hurt my feelings but she did. And she didn't HAVE to.

And so, I am shopping for a Red Hat.

I taught my kids to be nice. I taught them that there's no reason to say "I know that's not an appropriate paint color because I say THIS is the appropriate color". I just burst with egotistical pride every time someone says to me "you have the nicest kids and they have such good manners" because that's pretty much want I wanted to do for them. Maybe they're going to regret it, having good manners in a world full of pushy people. I hope not.

Celeste Holm tells the story of working with Bette Davis on "All About Eve." When Ms. Holm walked on the set the first day, quite enthusiastic about working with Bette Davis again (as they had worked together before and she enjoyed the experience) Ms. Davis looked up, saw her and announced "Oh shit. Here comes Miss Good Manners."

I picture that on my headstone.

And it makes me happy.

Only in America

I'm baaaaaaaack.

This last two weeks has been hell on wheels. I have actually found something I dislike and mistrust as much as I dislike and mistrust the website called "MouseTurd." Sorry, that's "MousePlanet." I hate inaccuracy and avoid it whenever possible. I would LOVE to go there, but there aren't really enough pages and it's so easy to lose interest after paragraph six. So I won't. Let me just say that, around my house we now refer to Wells Fargo as


PROFANITY WARNING!!!!!



Wells Fucktard.


Now, on to current programming.

Meg Whitman? You will NOT be re listed. The "Buy It Now" button you installed on the State of California has been disabled and someone else won the auction anyway. If there was any doubt at ALL that you didn't know your own ass from a hole in the ground you (and Carly, but we're getting to her later) proved last night, with unequivocal certainty, that you haven't a freaking CLUE how your new chosen field works. Maybe if you had taken the remotest interest in the system before you needed a new job you might have figured it out.

Because if you had the slightest idea of what the hell you've been doing for the last 8 months you would have KNOWN that Los Angeles County and San Francisco and it's adjoining counties have more registered Democrats than the adjoining six states put together and when the election was called based on the projected vote it was OVER. You do NOT look at the 1% of actual voted ballots from San Bernardino county and claim "We're in a dead heat." Well, the dead part was right.

This is basic election night politics, my CAT knows this. I will try and explain. Let's say 10% of the ballots from Los Angeles County have been counted. And let's say 45% of the ballots in Modoc County indicate they're going to vote overwhelmingly for you, Meg. And the 10% of the ballots currently tallied in Los Angeles county indicate that they are going to vote overwhelmingly for Jerry Brown, who at least speaks Spanish, something you never bothered to learn. Anyway, you look at the actual numbers, right? 2500 votes for Whitman in Modoc. 6000 votes for Whitman in Los Angeles. Totals 8500 votes for Meg. And let's say, oh, 57 votes for Jerry Brown in Modoc and 8400 votes for Jerry in Los Angeles. A difference of what? Less that 50 votes?

However...Modoc County cast less than 3000 votes total. Los Angeles county physically cast in the neighborhood of EIGHT MILLION VOTES. Meg? Math lesson time.

60% of 8 Million is a way bigger number than 60% of 3 thousand. Just saying...

At least you conceded before midnight. I especially LOVED your optimistic statement "Tomorrow, we will ALL be Californians." Meg? I'm probably going to regret asking this, but just WHAT were we before? I've always thought I was a Californian. I've lived here since 4:20pm on June 2, 1954, at least that's what my birth certificate says. I thought that made me a Californian. Now, I'm not so sure.

I also wasn't sure Carly was going to concede at ALL. Same thing. No freaking CLUE how the political machine runs. No freaking CLUE how to call an election.

On the other hand Meg, you spent over $140 million of your own money on a campaign where you were promoting fiscal responsibility for the state. Carly, you spent a modest (by comparison) 6 million and something on a campaign platform that consisted mainly of saying "I'm not Barbara Boxer" and hammering away on the "principles of out of control spending." Although, now that I think about it, I suppose it's possible you were espousing "out of control" spending and, if you were, I've certainly sold you short, as you practice what you preach. There's a lot to be said for someone who stands behind their own rhetoric and teaches by example.

I'm actually somewhat embarrassed that these women represented the State of California and women in general...embarrassing. Seriously embarrassing.

So it's over for another two years. My father is, most likely, reverting back and calling Governor Elect Brown "Governor Elect Moonbeam." I haven't talked to him yet but, like the sun rising in the east, my father's conservatism in the extreme is a constant. As is my progressivism.

As bad as it was, at least we weren't running Christine O'Donnell. This could bring about an entire new blog. I will say I enjoyed the hell out of her concession speech last night and at least she had the common courtesy to acknowledge that she had gone down like a flaming bag of dog crap before every last vote was counted. I really liked her announcement that Delaware would never be the same. Um, hello? Delaware was represented by Democrat Joe Biden and that torch has been passed to Democrat Chris Coons. Delaware sort of IS the same. In case you hadn't noticed.

While I'm indulging in a small amount of pleasure at the lovely shade of blue the West Coast is currently showing, I'm saddened by two things. One...all you people who voted down legalized pot. Did you ever consider that kind of TAX money over the counter weed would bring in? And Colorado voted down the proposition to form an Alien Welcoming Commission. I would have applied for that commission. I can see it now, a bunch of Californians smoking legal weed waiting around to welcome aliens.

God, I love this country!