State of Grace

An apology, rabbits and another attempt at NaBloPoMo.

  Spring, thank God. 
   

Behold, the buds and blossoms of early Spring in Santa Cruz, California.  I present these to you, dear and ever-dollin Reader, on bended knee and muttering apologies for slamming Hillary Clinton.  I was impudent and bitchy in that entry  - carelessly lumping the Senator in with the Clinton Administration (though, to be fair to myself, HC does cite her First Ladyhood as 'Professional Experience' on her Monster.com profile and Facebook page), not giving her a break for taking a shot at fixing health care some 15 years ago, and mocking her performance in last week's debate. 

Bad blogger.  I was, in a word, notnice.  For all of this bad juju, I take personal responsibility, but blame can also be placed on the scourge that is menopause, the Bush Administration and, what Steve Martin used to say - that the moon was in Feces.

I won't take down the post.  It will remain because it's a blogging ethic not to pull an entry just because one made an ass of oneself.  Also, there's valuable cultural information about Stoner TV in that entry. 

Before I move on, I thank you in advance for forgiving me, not only for throwing negative vibes into the universe, but also for flashing signs of Spring to those Dollin Readers in colder climes.  That flagrant display of blossoms may be more harmful to readers than the Hillary slam.

Indeed, moving on.  On to March! (Where did February go? Flash in the pan even with the extra day.)  Don't forget to say "white rabbit" immediately upon waking tomorrow morning.  Why? I asked Google who came up with this from the Brits:

"On the first day of the month when you wake up in the morning shout 'White Rabbit' and when you go to bed at night shout 'Black Rabbit' and you will have good luck."

Liking that "Black Rabbit" twist.  It feels sort of Beatrix Potter-esque.

With the beginning of the month comes an excellent challenge to get my ass up and blogging regularly.  I will do Mrs. Kennedy's NaBloPoMo which has gone monthly.  Go, Mrs. K! And, go me!  I'll do a blog post every day for March and I will do it right.  I will do it!  Yes we can! 

How can I not? The theme for March is "lists".  All the hip people love lists.  It's well established that though I am not hip, I'm all about itemizing and bulleting must-dos and must-buys or who's hot and who's not.  And, I will go beyond my Costco and celebrity lists (though I believe you can never go wrong on a blog with a roster of George Clooney's many virtues).  I'm thinking along the lines of:

A-ha moments.

Ghetto features of my house.

The order of products utilized in my shower/beauty routine.  Rationale for use of each product to be described.

Reasons to love (fill in the blank with anything - Mexican flan, the flashlight, Ferragamo shoes, Las Vegas, Sharpie pens, George Clooney)

Trends I have followed like a pathetic lemming.

Great ex-boyfriends who I will not trash, even the ones who left me.

Why I am awesome (may be short or long list depending on the day's self-esteem index level)

Foods that will never cross my lips.

Racist things said by the Duke of Edinburgh, and he's said plenty.  Example.

What I believe you must do in (places I have been on the planet).

I'm having fun already, making a list of my lists.

Tomorrow I will begin with the classic blog meme,  five things about me.  I think I've done this list before,  but I'll do it again because I will be rewarded with brownies.   Really.  That's what gwendomama said and I'm holding that dollin to it.

All righty.  Don't forget - WHITE RABBIT!  Then, BLACK RABBIT!  And, all will be well for the new month.

Today's Take Home Message from This Here Blog

  Instead of a mirror above the sink in the Ugly Mug Cafe potty. 
  Originally uploaded by GraceD

Stoner TV, Hillary and all those Feeeelings

  Watching the debate in Stoner TV mode
 

While Molly was getting a left brain work-out at her SAT math prep course last Thursday, I waited for her at this perfectly charming strip mall cafe where I sucked down a double latte and watched the Demo debate Stoner TV style.

What, you don't know Stoner TV?  Then, congratulations - you have lived a healthy, productive life.  On behalf of all former slackers, I can duly inform you that Stoner TV requires three interconnected, critical elements:

1.  One must smoke a bowl.
2.  One must have an epic album on the turntable.  Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' comes immediately to mind.
3.  One must be viewing an episode of 'Matlock' or 'Cannon' on the TV.  One must mute the volume - it's poetry in motion when Andy Griffith and William Conrad are battling crime with 'Time' or 'Money' as the background track.  Really, other than syncing up 'Dark Side...' with 'The Wizard of Oz', there's nothing cooler.

Even without the bowl, I was pleasantly buzzed with the Stoner TV effect on the debate.   Classic R&B was on the cafe's speaker - like the O'Jays serving up the soundtrack for what appeared to be a civil encounter between Barack and Hillary sitting a little too tight in their anchoring-the-evening-news format.  (Why are they seated so close together?  Why don't they have their own podiums, 10 feet apart? What are we trying to tell the Republicans with this? Hell, what are we Democrats trying to tell ourselves about this?  That it's an Obama/Clinton - Clinton/Obama ticket? Or, that this is their future, two pundits side-by-side on CNN? I can't answer any of these questions, can you?)

When I caught up with the audio of the debate, I can only conclude that Hillary should have been the one to smoke a bowl.  And, that the suitable soundtrack should have been along the lines of 70s punk songs of alienation and existential dread.  Or, death metal.  Or, politically aware rap, say some Immortal Technique ("Fuck those snake-ass bitches/Tryin to manipulate your opinion, tellin you what to think...").  Is Hillary living up to the Hunter Thompson theory that when the going gets weird, "the weird turn pro"? I'm thinking about her cheap shot about change being Xeroxed (showing her age in referring to the old school Xerox machine rather than the generic and more current 'photocopy').  Not a good way to convince the undecided to cast their vote for her, much less pull the Obamalized to her side.

Obviously, I'm a Hillary skeptic and, admittedly, always have been.  At first, I was thrilled when Clinton was elected in 92, though the words of a family member who is well placed in the Democratic party organization kept running through my mind - "I don't trust these people."  It turned out that my family member was spot on.

Don't get me wrong, with the exception of the most gracious Senior Senator of Maine, Olympia Snowe, I'm all about keeping Republicans out of any elected office.  But, I held my breath for most of the 8 years of the Clinton Administration, waiting for them to fuck up, which they did on a regular basis - Hillary's convoluted health plan, the ongoing disaster of NAFTA, sleazy shit that came out of the woodwork like Whitewater, and the utter embarrassment of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  As the hubs said, "Stupid idiot for not keeping his dick in his pants."  Anyway, didn't JFK build secret passageways around the White House for trysts with Angie Dickison?  Little closed off chambers behind bookshelves where testosterone poisoned public officials can conduct perverted acts with cigars?

I'm sounding bitter and mean, but there you go - my real feelings about the Clintons revealed.  This is good catharsis as we Demos who were thoroughly appalled by the Clinton's sloppy stuff had to keep our horror in check.  We feminists were supposed to ignore the blatant manipulation of an intern's ga-ga crush by the President of the United States and, instead, seek relief in the mantra, "At least with a Democrat in office we can hold on to our reproductive rights for now."  True, but such a price to pay, the price of our integrity.

(On a deep personal note, the Lewinsky affair was triggering to me as a child sexual abuse survivor.   The lying, the ugly rationalization that oral sex was not sex per se, the imperative to ignore the perpetrator's sins for the sake of family/party unity.  Ugh, I want to vomit right now.)

So sue me, I'm going by my feelings in not supporting Hillary Clinton.  And, I'm feeling big time good about Barack Obama for a multitude of reasons based on sheer positive intuition as well as substance in the form of  the Obama plan to end the war, revamp education and health care. Obama's approach to the issues is consistent with the party platform.  It's who will be handling and resolving the issues that matter to me, and I agree (for once) with Andrew Sullivan and Camille Paglia (who is usually such a fucking crackpot)  that Obama has the temperament to deal with our nation's many and vexing problems.

Gah, I got all worked up.  Now I need a bowl.  Of oatmeal, of course! Yes, of course.

 

 

"Obamapuncture" - you heard it first on this blog.

  Hubs Gets Needled 
  Originally uploaded by GraceD

My dears, thanks for the rousing welcome back.  It was so warm and loving, it felt like a group hug.  It also felt like I strolled into the bar after a long absence and you all pushed back chairs and stools and hooted and hollered, just as if I was Norm Peterson:

Me:  Afternoon, all!

You All:  GRACE!!!! How's life treating you?

Me:  Like I just ran over its dog.

Alas, I am no barfly.  Though I cherish the institution of the bar as community center, I am a pitiful drinker, prone to giving away money and slurring after one beer, and a lite beer at that.

Speaking of matters concerning the liver, kindly note the picture above of Jenn, an extremely pleasant and able acupuncturist, sticking a needle into my hubs' lower leg at the Grassroots Acupuncture Project clinic last Saturday afternoon.  The lovely Jenn is stirring up chi along the  hubs' liver meridian, a channel of energy that requires tuning on a regular basis, most especially when times are tough.  Between the hubs' manic business traveling and my lousy health, we're ideal candidates for a good liver tune-up and  chi adjustments in the other organs, as well.  This is why we have returned to having weekly acupuncture treatments and Molly gets her share of chi tweaking, too. 

Acupuncture creeps out most folks and justifiably so - they stick you with needles! That's got to hurt!  But, surprisingly, you don't feel the needle jab.  If anything, there's slight pressure and maybe a tug, but nothing like having blood drawn or getting a flu shot.  In my book, eyebrow waxing and plucking is far more painful and annoying than acupuncture.  I won't even begin to compare acupuncture with the ugly shock of a bikini wax.

We are very lucky to have a clinic in Santa Cruz dedicated to community acupuncture, a great, egalitarian concept taken on by practitioners around the country with the goal of providing traditional Chinese medicine on a low cost/sliding scale ($15 to 35 a session) basis.  The catch is that the treatments take place in a group room, as it is apparently done in Asia.  The Grassroots Acupuncture Project is tucked away in an office building, between a bank and a temp agency, certainly an incongruent setting for the clinic and its cozy group room furnished with soft carpeting, low lights, verdant plants, some cabinets and tables and seven giant La-Z-Boy recliners padded with blankets and pillows.  You're hit with instant mellow as soon as you walk into this serene scene.  You can also be hit with the sound of snoring from clients fully reclined in their La-Z-Boys, snuggled in fluffy blankets and close to comatose in a deep acupuncture induced slumber.   (For the record, I find the snoring comforting.  Hubs hates it and wants to smother the snorer.  Hubs won't like me telling you this, but when he's passed out in his own deep acupuncture induced slumber, he snores.  Loudly.  Sorry, honey, it's true.)

I may not snore during my own treatments, but I have always been receptive to the subtle power that is Chinese medicine.  If I'm getting needled once a week, I am less prone to colds, allergies and asthma attacks.  I sleep better.  I am compelled to eat fewer carbs and sweets.  I'm more energized without being wired.  And, dare I say it, I feel a little bit happier.  Even optimistic.  (Or could that be the Obama effect that has taken over the household?)

Whatever - Obamapuncture, snoring, La-Z-Boys - I'll take it all.  God knows I need it. 

Hey, put on your hoodie and let's take Malcolm for a walk.  This is also part of the health regimen - fresh air! And, a little lawbreaking which is always beneficial for the temperament.  We're off to Lighthouse Field where since November, we're supposed to be leashing up our dogs by law, but nobody does:

Civil disobedience at its finest, dogs playing and running free.

Where have I been? Not rehab. No, no, no.

  New Do for 02 (02 = Feb) 
  Originally uploaded by GraceD

Well, hello.  I have returned.  It's good to be back. 

I hope you didn't take it personally that I've been ignoring you, dearest Internet, Dollin Readers.  But, it's just as well that I have uncharacteristically shutted-the-fuck-up during these past weeks. Any post written during my January of Discontent would have been one long whine on maladies and medicines.  A never ending, icky bitch session sparing no gory detail. Nothing would have been TMI/too much information, the words would have dripped with bodily fluids.  For that alone, do be grateful that I kept mum.

However, for the sake of continuity, I present the bullet point version to answer any inquiries of where-the-hell-have-I-been:

• Mid January - Urinary Tract Infection that I stupidly ignored until it got too close to my kidneys. Oh, I'll just drink lots of cranberry juice, she stupidly said.  Stupid, indeed! When I showed up at the doc's, he rolled his eyes, wagged a finger at me and scribbled out a script of Cipro.  Along with the Cipro came gastrointestinal distress so savage that it became necessary to save my husband from deadly gas expulsions by sleeping on the couch.  I swore on those farts that I will never neglect a UTI again.

• Later January - I went to Big Island/Hawaii, still farting.  My GI distress generated some blips on the Richter scale, but thankfully not enough to induce volcanic activity.

• Late, late January - Returned home only to have an asthma attack so vicious that I had to be rushed to the ER.  Let me tell you, dollins - I heart breathing.  An asthma attack will remind you of that love.

• Early February - Post asthma attack I was on a week's worth of Prednisone.  Side effects include - vertigo, mood swings, flushing of face or cheeks, increased sweating, abdominal pains.  I spent five days on my back with the spins, pouring with sweat, clutching my stomach while weeping for no apparent reason other than I was on steroids.  Not a fun time.  Plus, now I have to testify to the congressional committee that's currently after Roger Clemens' lying ass.  There goes my shot at the Hall of Fame.

• More recent February - I was slammed with a full fledged, estrogen intensive menstrual period after I thought I had achieved post menopausal nirvana.  At least I didn't get a zit.

Oh dear, you got the TMI anyway. And, some dreaded bodily fluids.  Still, you got the short take of why I've been quiet.  Such is the love I have for you, Dollin Readers.

Finally, kindly note that I cut my hair.  I am enjoying the new do more than any other short haircut in my life, certainly more than those damn pixies of my sad youth.  I now understand why women cut their hair when they hit hot flashing middle age - short hair is cooling. 

Not to mention that I'm free at last! free at last! thank God I am free at last! from floppy locks and limp ponytails.  And, I get to save the earth - our household will use fewer megawatts now that I won't be firing up the hairdryer as much, unless, of course I want a nifty side wing like that talented but prissy Project Runway contestant, Christian.  I did buy some hair product, a tub of goo that does a nice job of  texturizing and pumping up the layers.  What we save on the electricity bill I will spend on fancy hair products.

Now that I'm not so cranky and minimally prone to infection, I will be less of a stranger round these parts.  In the meantime, what do you think - Clinton or Obama?  Long hair or short hair?  Death by farts or by drowning?

Love you too, Dollin Readers.  Love you lots.