State of Grace

My Hips Don't Lie

All righty then, I'm over my snit about the Haters and Doubters.  That doesn't imply that this blog is now open season for neocon trolls, it simply means that I have stopped frothing at the mouth whenever I get an email or comment with information such trolls urgently want to share like - Obama's going to raise your taxes/Obama is a terrorist/Obama is the anti-Christ/Obama hates your dog/Obama's doing your mama.

Bah! Bogus and childish stuff, most especially the indelicate notion about my 75 year old mother.  She's an elderly Filipina lady who would just as soon whack anyone's face with her adobo stirring spoon, much less allow herself to be "done".  Certainly, the dignified Senator Obama would never "do" her or anyone's mama, but, as a Hawaiian guy, he would be happy to do a plate of Mom's adobo.   The bottom line -  Obama will be cutting taxes for the vast majority of Americans, so he's not going to "do" anybody, even the wealthy, as the data indicates everybody fares better economically when a Democrat is in the White House.

What Barack Obama can do is a few perfect pull-ups right before a speech.

This is a perfect segue to discuss something that I did and I don't know how ah dunnit:

I sustained a fracture at the top of my right thigh bone, a 2.0ish cm crack across the greater trochanter blatantly visible on xray and painfully evident in my gait. 

I started hurting and limping three weeks ago.  At first I thought it was arthritis, being a junior elderly Filipina lady and all.  Never wanting to be a wuss, I carried on with my activities including taking a mini vacation to Maui, power-gardening, professional Jack Russell Terrier wrangling and associating with the house hooligans, Molly and her boyfriend Jordy.  But, my body hollered "BULLSHIT!" with this delusional behavior - every time I pulled myself up from the poolside lounger at the Maui resort, emerge from a car, or rise from the spot of dirt where I've been planting, I have to lean on anything in the vicinity that would lend support - a husband or a garden rake would do - and avoid bearing weight on my right leg.  Then, I have to gird my loins and try to put one foot in front of the other, cussing every time my right foot touches the ground.  After a minute or so of hobbling and muttering the eff word, I find my pace and limp to the nearest bottle of ibuprofen or rum.  Or both.

Last week I thought it may be a good idea to get this painful business evaluated.  Our beloved family doctor (a real family practitioner who tends to everyone around me - Molly, Hubs and my ex/Moll's dad) tested my range of motion on the exam table and I actually cried. That pissed me off as I have a longstanding record for stoicism at the doctor's.  I am a macho chick who delivered her daughter without drugs, survived a needle biopsy that went deep into my left boob, had a skin tag adjacent to my eye clipped with a sharp little scissors and more.  I deserved stickers, if not major lollipop action for each and every one of my acts of courage.  But this time, I whimpered with tears streaming down my cheeks.  No sticker for you, crybaby.

As mentioned, x-rays were done.  The tech gave me a yet-unread copy for my orthopedic appointment on Monday.  This was a serious error on her part as I know enough medicine to get myself in trouble. I spend at least an hour a day holding the films up to a window, obsessing over the crack line at the top of  my thigh bone and observing with horror that my left leg rides higher up on my pelvis than my right.  When I get to the ortho doc's on Monday, I'll take a pic of the x-rays against a proper light box for you.  In the meantime, this is what I've been looking at -

 

My right leg is to the left. The greater trochanter is the outward bulge at the top of the femur opposite the femoral head (the ball in the hip socket).  I don't have Photoshop on my MacBook, but I provide some notes on the flickr version of this trainwreck.

Okay, who wants a MaiTai with an Advil back?  Pouring and dosing now, dollins.  Get in line.  I'm first.

Scary White Folks for McCain!

Danger! Warning! Scary white people in these videos, just in time for Halloween.  I mean, who needs goblins and ghosts when you have these zombies?

Scary sound bite:
1:00 Is Obama a terrorist?
"He's got the bloodlines...think about it, look at the name."

More scary white people!  Boooo!

And, more scary sound bites -

:039 "Obama's a terrorist, he's a Muslim himself."

:054 "Commie faggot!"

:058 "Commie faaaggots!"

2:11 Pro-Obama counter-protester remark "Palin voted to have women pay for their own rape kits.  My friends shouldn't have to pay for their own rape kits.  How would you feel about that?"

McCain supporters responses:  "She should die!"  "She should pay double!"

4:04 Much needed relief  - Obama supporters including some not at all scary white folks and a coupld of sweet grandmother "commie faggots."

Flowers, summer fruit and some words of hope.

  Indian Summer Bounty
  Originally uploaded by GraceD

This image - bounty from the local farmer's market. Enjoying the white nectarines while they're still in season.

Recently  the e-mail linking Barack Obama to Islamic terrorists - the one that you probably received from freaked out relatives that rarely send you emails but forwarded this racist one -  showed up again in my inbox. In this go round, I received it from a friend I've known and loved since high school.  I was so horrified and angry that it came back into circulation, by an old friend no less,  that I pounded out a carefully worded response in a red hot rage. Of course, style and grammar errors flew off the keyboard and onto the monitor but, our old high school English teacher be damned, I didn't care. I clicked 'send' then went outside to water my tomato plants and calm down.

Some months ago, that same friend and I exchanged pleasant, chatty messages about the primary, who we may vote for, that sort of water cooler talk. When I said the Hubs and I were supporting Barack Obama, my friend replied with that alarmist email.  I wrote back to my friend saying something to the effect that this had to be a joke, this is not the pal I know from the old days, etc. But, my friend wasn't kidding, not at all.

And to confirm that this was really not a joke, my friend re-sent it again as a group message. This time I fired back with the truth, the full paragraph from Senator Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope", that exposes the lies in that email as propaganda and blatantly out of context. 

You know, I can say that my pal should have known better and ask how did such a smart, well informed person turn into a weirdo crackpot, but we're back to the culture wars of the 90s, the dark Newt Gingrich "Contract ON America" days and the rise of conservative  ditto head talk radio.  Liberals are evil.  All Muslims are out to get us. That ugly xenophobia is back again and it looks like my pal drank the right's Kool Aid. But, there is a smug, justification in holding such views and what is clearly weirdo crackpot thinking to us is a party platform for them.

Therefore,  while I called out the email's shameless inaccuracies, I have no interest in convincing my friend that Obama is a gifted and effective leader and we desperately need his wisdom to get our country back to a nation of integrity and decency. Rather, I believe that the real work now is to talk to our friends who are undecided and have the willingness to conduct a thoughtful discussion about this critical fork in the road, the 2008 presidential election.

My plan is to continue the dialog with my friends who are Hillary supporters.  They are still in pain from the primaries, but they will understand that a vote for McCain could be a vote for the end of reproductive choice (two Supreme Court Justices may be replaced with anti-Roe activists) and that they must hold on to that frightening thought as they walk into the voting booth. The Hubs speaks of his support for Senator Obama in his professional community.  His physician and scientist colleagues are Democrats (most are), but he will talk openly about his support for Obama". Certainly, our older kids talk to their friends, but theirs is an easy task - Obama has the Gen X and Y vote down.  Finally, my Molly, a well informed feminist and environmentalist, talks to her 18 year old friends with intelligence and passion of her support for Barack Obama.

I know some of you are scared.  We could be headed for another four years (if not one hundred years) of war. Republicans are not addressing rising unemployment, foreclosures and the unresolved crisis of the dysfunctional health care system.  And, if McCain wins, reproductive rights for women are in grave peril.

I'm scared too. And, as they say, if you're not scared, you're not paying attention.

This is what we must do now -  we must channel that fear into action and work hard, very hard for a Democratic victory.  We must send in whatever cash donations we can afford, stuff envelopes at the local Obama headquarters, throw a fund raising party and talk, talk, talk clearly, calmly and with conviction with our friends and associates. We must always call out the bullshit and deflect it with the truth.  I honestly believe that this is how we must proceed in the next 59 days.

Be brave in these scary times, dollins. Embrace the audacity of hope. 

Barack Obama for President

I got your elite right here - Ohio farmers painting their barns for Obama!

  DSC_0045 
  Originally uploaded by Barack Obama

Folks, this pic was not taken in brie eatin' country. The gentlemen in this picture are proudly standing in front of one of the many Barns for Obama that's cropping up in rural Ohio and Indiana.

Truly one of the best campaign photos so far.

Click the image for the full flickr set.