Some Things Friday for October 15, 2010

Yesterday was Tom's birthday....his Medicare birthday...he turned 65. I wanted to scan a photo of him (at about 2-years old) that his sister sent with his birthday card, but my scanner is not working and I don't have the patience right now to even begin to tackle the issue.

I think I'll just get to some of the things I've been thinking about this week:

1. Did you watch any of the Chilean miners rescue? Everyone in the U.S. media is calling it a miracle. Canadian media refers to it as an example of human resilience and remarkable engineering. I think I prefer giving credit to the miners and the hundreds of people who worked together to reach them safely and rescue them two months earlier than first thought.

2. I am missing my aunt's 80th birthday party this weekend. It makes me sad and it makes me mad.

3. You know, I just don't get how these tea party types cannot see their own hypocrisy. A lot of them receive government disability or social security or medicare, but want to do away with it because other people (not them, of course) abuse it. Some of them have government jobs with pretty nice benefits, but they rail against big government. Others work for companies that contract with the federal government, but also rail against big government. They want the government to deregulate everything and get out of their lives, but want the government to define and control what it deems to be "normal" and restrict what we do with our bodies and what we do in our bedrooms. That, my friends, is the definition of hypocrisy.

4. Sharron Angle, running for the senate in Nevada, raked in $14M over the last month. Have you heard her speak? It's like listening to that wacky hermit-type neighbor who everyone on the block avoids and little kids take a big detour around her house on the way to school because they just KNOW she has a big gun in that house somewhere and she kills little kids and animals for fun. Who, in their right mind, would give this woman a dime?

5. Okay...and Justin Bieber just released his memoirs. He's sixteen. What the hell do you have to say about your life after living only 16 years? What...I was potty trained at age 3, I sucked at soccer, I loved my 4th grade teacher best and I'm hoping my voice will change soon? Please. In addition, JB is now marketing his own line of fingernail polish. Huh?? Maybe hair products, socks, t-shirts, hats, shoes....I could even understand a line of man/boy fragrances....but fingernail polish? Who is this kid's business manager and why is he still working for him?

6. My youngest son and his family have moved to the Florida gulf coast. They love it there. When I told my mother-in-law where they moved, she got really excited because one of Tom's cousins live there, too. So, a couple of weeks ago my mother-in-law asked if we had any recent photos of Chris' family because she wanted to send one to Tom's cousin. She had already sent a photo of the cousin's family to Chris. I printed off a photo from late last year and my mother-in-law sent it to the cousin. Shortly afterward, my grandson Jacob was a football game with some friends and noticed a woman staring at him. Since Jacob has a very personal style, he used to people looking at him, but got a little nervous when the woman started coming toward him. "Are you a Powers?" she asked. "Uh, yeah," he replied. It was Tom's cousin's wife. She had recognized Jacob from the photo that my mother-in-law sent. Who would've thought...

This weekend I have to start working on Hagan's quilt in earnest. I have some of the squares cut out, but not nearly enough...and her birthday is in November.

Tom has ripped out all of the spent plants in the garden. He did that over a month ago. We are going to prepare the entire garden area for a pots-only garden for next year. We'll put down ground fabric and cover it with gravel to match the area around the pond. Then next year we'll plant everything in pots and set them on the gravel. It will be nice to be able to work outside for a change.

And, finally, the Dude needs a bath. I bought some whitening shampoo and conditioner and a bottle of spray on de-tangler. I clipped the hair around his eyes this afternoon so he no longer looks like he looking at us through his bangs. I used Tom's mustache clippers this time and they worked like a charm and they aren't as noisy as my hair clippers. It didn't matter. The Dude shook almost the entire time. He'd like us all to believe he's a tough guy, but underneath he's really just a little wimp.