that girl

more republican pandering and offense.

palin is supposed to attract the disgruntled hilary supporters? other than common plumbing, what have these 2 women in common? can the media truly be THAT disingenuous??

we'll skip all the crap about her flip-flop on the "bridge to nowhere" and her effortless from-where-the-hell victory over hated and notoriously corrupt old hacks in her into-the-wild home-state. for now, we'll take a pass on the ethics scandal involving her pointy elbows and sharp pencils trying to get her ex-brother-in-law state-trooper canned. her youth, her visual appeal, her *feistiness* (um, gidget as 2nd in command?) her *first-dude* of a husband who is also a champion snow-mobiler. is there another female governor that can gut a fish in a trice? hell, this one can probably flay a bear in minutes just to bolster her anti-protection stance.

isn't the dirty lil secret that she is supposed to secure the ultra-cons who were not pledging to mccain and the evangelical bloc? she's in bed with big oil and gas, anti-gay, pro-gun, anti-conservation and favors creationism in the public school curriculum. she is anti-abortion.

james dobson of "focus on the family" announced earlier this year that he wouldn't and couldn't vote for McCain. today he pronounced himself converted, thanks to a ticket that now includes someone for whom "the sanctity of life" isn't just a political position.

palin has a 5-month old son with down syndrome. as an older mother, she took the test and decided to continue the pregnancy and have her son. "a blessing..." blah, blah, blah.

amazing that my head remained attached to my neck when i found this in a response thread in a ny times blog: (proves how dubious science is, i guess...)

"I’m a pro-choice Democrat, and it appalls me that 90+% of women who receive the diagnosis of Trisomy 21 “choose” to abort. This means that either (a) only liberal democratic women get pregnant with fetuses with Down syndrome, or (b) there are an awful lot of hypocritical Republican women out there."

please don't get me wrong, i laud palin for staying true to her core belief here. i do remain disgusted that such a private decision should be made part of her public and political persona. further, she was allowed to make a choice, something she wants to deny all other women, many of whom clearly share most of her politics. perhaps they don't have her access to nannies and such? her husband has 2 jobs plus a demanding hobby. she is a governor who will be stumping hard the next 2 months to win the white house. they have 5 children. who's tending the baby?

a "heartbeat away from the presidency" holds brand new meaning here with a very old dude whose ticker and health are so much in doubt. he's got almost 30 years on this lady! if mccain drops during an inaugural ball dance, how's palin gonna respond 6 months later to putin going all kruschev and pounding his shoe about ossetia? the cons have been trying to paint obama as inexperienced. what the hell does that make palin?

on some nattering head show, pat robertson (why is that loathsome reptile still sliming around with any say-so?) referred to palin more than once as "that gal". rush limbaugh (that big fat idiot) called her a "babe". are you for real? after the months of misogynistic horse-whipping of hilary, these guys turn the condescension onto one of their own? gaaah.i hope she can take dictation and type. maybe she can help mccain "make a google", as he still puts it.

lastly, ya gotta wonder: is hillary laughing so hard she wets herself, or beating some illegal maid with wire hangers right about now?

quotable

"she's got gaps, i got gaps, together -- we fill gaps."

~~rocky balboa on love

more of the same

"perhaps it was god who put these two great resources right next to each other. just to see what people would do with them." ~~ JOHN T. SHIVELY, chief executive of a consortium seeking to mine copper and gold near alaskan rivers that also nurture salmon.

yes. i'm sure that's exactly it. and if you listen carefully, god will tell you exactly what is the right thing to do.

a mineral deposit of staggering value, but of a finite amount, vs. the world's largest salmon run which produces an amazing amount of wealth each year and has renewed itself for millenia. mining of the gold and copper will release toxins into the river that will likely destroy it and kill off the fish forever.

what would jesus do?

conserve this

in a letter to his campaign manager, dated Oct. 26, 1904, teddy roosevelt wrote: “i must ask you to direct that the money be returned to them forthwith.” as roosevelt saw it: “we cannot under any circumstances afford to take a contribution which can be even improperly construed as putting us under an improper obligation.”

he was running for his first full term as president and had discovered a $100,000 contribution from standard oil.

if anybody else's head besides mine explodes trying to imagine this from any modern candidate let's just collect our spattered brain matter and move forward, ok? (i'm vaguely recalling a last-minute scramble to distance from that filth-monger abramoff, but that's an unnecessary digression here.)

after mccain flip-flopped on off-shore drilling, he pocketed $1.1 million from big oil and big gas in TWO WEEKS. no pretending here that obama's hands haven't dipped into the pool of texas crude because they have, however his "tax the hell out of the oil companies" stance hasn't exactly opened the hearts and minds in exxon's boardrooms -- most were small checks from employees.

in yet another flight of fantasy, mccain this week described himself as a "roosevelt republican." either he is completely ignorant of roosevelt's accomplishments and philosophies, or blithely assumes the same of the american public. (very sadly, either holds equal weight, i guess, huh?) so let's take a quick trip in the way-back machine to compare and contrast the republican party of 100 years ago and today, and we'll use mccain's new-found hero as the vintage model.

the rough rider has long been admired (or hated) as a trust-buster, for regulating industry and curbing the excesses of giant corporations. he favored the imposition of an inheritance tax and though a man of means, fought his party’s coddling of the very wealthy. he pushed for fair and equitable railroad transport rates and safer food and drugs. he was the first president to call for universal health care and national health insurance (!!!)

what really makes my forehead vein throb from mccain's bald-faced lie is the modern republican attitude towards the environment and roosevelt's crusades for conservation. if polar bears or peregrine falcons were found to contain oil, no doubt mccain would happily and personally wring every single one dry. (roosevelt's coinage of "good to the last drop" holds some serious irony here, lol.) when roosevelt became aware of the slaughter of birds for ladies' feathered hats, (5 million noble birds per year, like egrets and herons -- many mowed down by semi-automatic weapons) he decreed pelican island a sanctuary, the first piece of the national wildlife refuge system. his understanding that the iconic buffalo was nearly gone led to the establishment of 5 game preserves. he doubled the number of national parks, created 150 national forests, and was ultimately responsible for the guardianship of some 230,000,000 acres.

he was one of harvard's first naturalists, an avid bird watcher and wrote eloquently and lyrically about the natural world. he was friend to both muir and burroughs and wrote 35 books. republicans today attack anyone well-spoken or whom offers intelligent discourse as "elitist". (where's that damn eye-rolling icon?)

from a 1907 speech:

"in utilizing and conserving the natural resources of the nation, the one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight... the conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life."

i've blogged previously about bush's disregard for the consequences of his recklessness because of his whole infuriating and ignorant armageddon thing. yet the cons are putting on another con-job for the american public with this damnable off-shore drilling hoax. best guesstimates put recoverable oil around 20-30 billion barrels. much of it is off california, which has stated in no uncertain terms there will be no drilling off its shores. subtract those barrels from the pool and that leaves possibly as little as 7-8 billion. if we start drilling this minute, none of it will see the light of day for another generation and that is what the world currently consumes in about 3 months. yeah, a 90 day-supply. how's that for long-range thinking with the bonus potential to devastate and despoil our beaches, gulf and oceans?

teddy was no white knight. he was a jingoist and a racist, a social darwinist. (that part certainly fits many neo-cons, though.)

somebody please explain to me when conservatism, the act of conserving, a committment to responsible stewardship, entered the upside-down universe of the heedless exploitation of our people and our lands?

anybody?

it's a small world

the owner introduced me the other night to a new acquaintance. she was friendly and pleasant, although i was highly distracted by her patchouli and choice of shorts.

(her parade of fatty snacks after confessing a gastric band op deserves a whole other post, but i digress...)

i was subject to an agenda, so i wasn't making waves, just nice.

she is one of those people who never leaves their circle of safety. she lives with her sons, near her mother, in what is basically a *neighborhood* of lowell. she works in lowell. she grew up in the community. one of the ticket takers at our show was her cousin.

yet she'd never been to the lowell folk music festival, now running nearly 30 years. she was completely unaware of the series to which the owner holds a pass for summer music in the park. she'd been to 2 concerts in her life the night we brought her to her 3rd. and THOSE had been over 20 years ago. she'd never heard of the guy we were seeing. she never goes out for a drink or dinner. the thought of salmon and asparagus (the owner's entree before we met up) made her squicked. she never goes to a movie.

she asked me what i did, i paused and said "sommelier". blank stare.

that i live in boston was amazing to her -- she'd be lost and afraid.

this woman served in the navy with her husband and proved to be amenable to our designs, so i'm not saying she was laura ingalls in a hoodie. but... but... but?

a recent study by a cell phone company in japan tracked users by the gps in their phones. (yo, they don't have the same privacy laws we're so blithely surrendering without a whimper, k?) something like 80% never traveled or called more than 2 miles from their home.

a recent article in the atlantic got lots of buzz: "is google making us stupid?" my dearest friends and i use it as that long tail of culture and economics. we lose too much time in links to new ideas, writers and video and music. stuff we never would have found at the multiplex or the mall, even if we went to either. but the rest? they don't get stoopid, they just stay that way.

sorry but i don't have a link to a lulz kitty video here. i suck.

proof i remain an idealist: i like to think just maybe that woman will youtube bruce hornsby or remember the wine i knew she drank and have a day with a new difference.

it can happen.

censors, creationists, racists, evangelicals, neo-conservatives... all wanna make the world smaller. knowledge is dangerous. scope is treacherous.

one of the best parts of my life is knowing people who know the world is big. and THAT'S why it's scary.

hunters, gatherers and fiddle-faddle

the galapagos finch is an icon of darwin's theory of natural selection and remains a favorite to study. every year since 1973, members of that bird population, both parents and chicks, on the island of daphne major, have been weighed, measured and marked. their survival depends largely on their ability to open pods for seeds. in years of abundance, all birds thrive, but if the season is scarce, smaller beaked-birds die in droves, taking their puny genes with them.

over the course of 3 decades, annual measurement of finches shows that both body size and beak size evolved significantly, but they didn’t do so in a smooth, consistent fashion. instead, natural selection jittered about, often changing direction from one season to the next. as the abundance of different seeds fluctuated, so too did the beak sizes. however, if the measurements had been taken once every 10 years, or only then and now, the changes in beak size would have been wildly underestimated.

as part of my recent quest for better health, i keep stumbling upon the paleo-diet. in a nutshell, you eat what oog the caveman did. (stop snorting with laughter, please.) i appreciate the intent, but struggle both with the execution and the "i drank the kool-aid (or antelope marrow)" mania. the theory is to consume only what would have been available to our bipedal ancestors before farming and animal husbandry changed the menu. they bolster their argument with studies of modern hunter/gatherer tribes, the older members of which show no evidence of heart disease, osteoporosis, hypertension, tooth decay and general western-type age-related maladies. supposedly accidents and infections killed off most of them, while the less clumsy spent their dotage eating berries and sleeping alot.

day in the life: slow amble through latest leafy glade, bending or stretching to gather roots, fruits, seeds, leaves, etc. piling that all up in a basket of some sort, then hauling that load back to base. maybe a stroll with some pointy sticks to a nearby stream bed or shoreline for trout or pike. the occasional big romp to take down a beast. (the raw foodists tend to diverge off the path prior to the campfire/meat part, but i digress.)

i read "clan of the cave bear", too, ok? lots of all that sounds pretty groovy and peaceable, and supposedly a good amount of time was spent together in your little gang, relaxing and bonding, living your day with the cycle of the sun. naps were big, too, lol.

estimates are that these early folks accessed about 400-500 different edibles over the course of 4 seasons. we evolved with a simple gut that allows us to be omnivores. it was necessary for survival, ne c'est pas? contrast this with modern man? while our supermarket aisles groan with bags and boxes (10,000 new processed food products are introduced every year in the u.s.!!!) average joe eats a only a handful of foods, mostly grain, lots of fat and stuff nobody can pronounce.

what about the finches you ask? lol. what flies in the face of the paleo-proponents is the presumption that our bodies haven't changed in all this time. that smacks of stoopidly ignoring science. finches evolve flibbity-jibbity in a generation, but man hasn't shifted a midge in millions of years? we have been farming and herding for 10,000 years, but cooked lentils and cheese are toxic?

i'm not prepared to completely toss the genetic baby out with the bean cooking water. only 3 generations ago, my people were from places too poor to keep cows. sheep's milk wasn't really a *thing*, and hard cheese became a condiment, rather than a staple. nobody in my family drinks milk, we all hate it. even the feel of it on my tongue grosses me out. babies and small children have a digestive enzyme for milk proteins. unless kept active, that enzyme goes the way of baby teeth. on a date many years ago, he insisted we have ice cream. "sure, i haven't had it in ages." within hours, it was like food poisoning. i was in a fetal position in the back of the car and spent 12 hours wanting to die.

the other genetic contradiction here is the presumption that the plants and animals of long ago are the same as what we today buy shrink-wrapped and plu-stickered. even if i kept my own garden, my fruits and tubers would be very different than what those folks picked and scratched.

"eat food. not too much. mostly plants." ~~ michael pollan, "the omnivore's dilemma"

it's laugh out loud easy, isn't it?

i'm trying. here -- have some parsley salad. :)

mikey likes it

yeah, but he died eating pop-rocks and coke ;)

this is a small detail of much recent rumination about my changing/aging body and all that implies. (add the owner's distaste for what he sees and yeah, i've been getting busy... but i digress...)

all my life breakfast has been a trial. my parents would have half a slice of toast and a cup of coffee, but felt i should have *more*. school days, that meant cereal, right? i hated milk, so would crunch on the quisp/lucky charms/cheerios and sneak the remaining moo-goo to the dog, under the table, her tail-wagging (hello, pavlov.) one freezing kindergarten morning, my dad was who knows where, and my mother was late for work, she decided to make oatmeal for me. it was so gross in my mouth i cried in the dark beginning of day. not to sound tragic, but my mom knew she'd lost the battle. yuk. (shut up, dr. freud, about associations, k?)

cut to grown-up noodle.

i'm not inclined to eat unhealthfully, but my career and schedule make my day and fueling needs strange and erratic. every so often, i decide my diet needs re-tooling.

this happened a few months ago. so, um, duh! have breakfast! have a whole-grain breakfast!! i bought the colon-blow organic cereal, the plain yogurt to replace the milk and the fruit to make it less like pile-shavings. it really was tasty. and i was quite regular. (never really a problem, anyhow, but i do have a thing about that.) but 2 or 3 hours later? i was starving, and i'd already consumed more than 25% of my daily calories, with 16 or 17 hours waking hours ahead. disaster walking.

i felt bloated and puffy and hungry and out of whack.

ok, the cereal- for-breakfast thing is a conspiracy from big-moo and big-ag. way back when, kellogg was considered a nutso.

am i finally ready to start listening to my own internal self ?

i know lots of skinny healthy folks who have a big bowl of crunchy kansas goodness every morning, but finally i know it will never work for me. i don't doubt there are genetic variances in what may be best for different peeps, but i'm not prepared to lay it all down to heritage -- too many of us in the states are too much the mutt. if i did, i should have a guiness for breakfast and lunch (sandwich in every glass) and some green veggies cooked with a hint of pork (plus wine :) for dinner. actually that doesn't sound so bad, lol.

i'll stick with my fruit or toast to start, my big meal late day and then something light later. it's the only way to keep myself fueled while going til 2:00 am or later, ya know? that guy who said you shouldn't eat anything after 6:00 pm? you know he went to bed at 10:00.

there's more, but this is enough for now, lol.

carrying on

why do i even read it, when i know it will just piss me off?

karl rove, describing obama: "the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

gaaaahhhhh.

if i envision anybody skulking against the wall at a posh private club, making snarky remarks, it's rove. prior to his political ascent, what club would have let obama through the whitey-white doors? some mixed-race dude, who sounds muslim, with no pedigree or legacy reference? yet guys like rove can paint willy-nilly with that sloppy old brush and have it stick.

bush the elder, who infamously had never seen a supermarket plu scanner, managed to slant dukakis, a 1st generation son of greek immigrants, as a hoity-toity pinhead. (granted, he's a bit wonky, but far from out-of-touch like the blue blood tossing the muck.)

obama's father ditched when he was 2, he and his mom bounced around, she eventually remarried and farmed him out to various relatives. without alumnae letters or legacy leeway, he got himself into some of our country's most prestigious schools. (did you know he declined to indicate race on his harvard admissions app?) his first major job was as a community organizer on some of chicago's grittiest streets. can we say, "bootstraps", everybody?

last night on my pointy-headed npr, a reporter was interviewing some little kids in texas. they heard obama belonged to al qaeda. that he built bombs. that he was a known terrorist. they are not reading this shit on cereal boxes, now are they?

admittedly, part of the problem for dukakis, gore and kerry is they just couldn't/wouldn't play as dirty as their republican adversary. we are in the doldrums of august, so the drumbeats have yet to really begin. i know i'll be sickened on a regular basis before that november tuesday. go ahead, ask me why i don't watch tv news.

recently, i saw this on a print. it was a quote i'd never seen, but will stick with me:

"Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionaries."
~~fdr

they built this country. it's not a matter for shame.

these neo-cons excel at painting "the other" as dangerous. the only danger i see obama presenting is to the sickening status quo that has brought this country to its fiscal and moral knees.

at last...

finally getting a little hot under the collar, and in respsonse to the ridiculous gauge-gate that's got all the flaks flapping, obama shot one off to a standing ovation yesterday:

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant," he told a crowd in Ohio, then delivered the kicker. "Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference."

like little katie connick said the other night: "obama, baby!"

thank you.

carry on. :)

obama-rama

he saw me, walked right over, winking as he said hello with a hollywood smile. he stretched out his hand, shook mine and said, "very nice to meet you, thank you for having me." so yeah, add another mega-celebrity to my ridiculous list.

another zelig moment, i was again elbow-to-elbow with incredibly powerful, intelligent and famous people. up close and personal, i got to hear obama speak casually to a well-heeled group of the faithful. (lol, the woman next me kept slipping off her manolos. they weren't even that high or pointy!)

first deval patrick spoke, then senator kerry, and his anger was palpable. that mccain has ridden the war hero wagon to political success while he was swift-boated to defeat as a traitor must cause unfathomable pain. he went so far as to proclaim mccain a danger to the country.

it was a birthday party, so both he and the governor were serious yet light-hearted, and obama took the stage to thunderous applause. yeah, he's got it. that can't quite be defined, but you know it when you see it -- charisma. he spoke over twice as long as scheduled and even this old cynic found herself welling up. his idealism, his sincerity, his fierce desire to bring america back to greatness through good works and a rectitude that our founders would admire, spoke to the young noodle still inside me who believes people are good and want to make the world a better place.

he covered a lot of ground in a concise way, was self-effacing and never once slurred mccain. taking the campaign high road worked for our current governor, but will it win the country?

obama is looking to raise nearly $500 million, so i'm guessing mccain has a similar target. (staggering. truly.) we already see where the republicans are putting their money through garbage like the britney/paris ad. obama curved elegantly around the the race card and his "funny name" as fodder and spoke forcefully about the divisiveness of that kind of propaganda. (my brain was burning with memories of shrub claiming to be a uniter, not a divider. aaaaaaahhhh!!!!) however, a recent ny times poll found that only 31% of white voters had a favorable opinion of obama, so even clumsy ignorant ads will hit an easy mark.

as i listened, i kept wondering when and why intelligence and a fine education became a detriment in politics. shrub went to yale and mccain graduated from the naval academy, yet they successfully sneer at the equivalent diplomas of men like gore, kerry and obama. (that shrub was only a legacy and barely got by within a drunken haze, is a digression that only angers me, so let's not.) public schools and libraries were founded well early in this nation, our forefathers respecting the importance of an informed populace. (ok, just white boys, but hey.) how did the neo-cons get so far in dissing liberal smarts? general ignorance helps solidify their tyranny, agreed, but how did it happen? maybe i'm crazy, but i want my president to be smarter than me, ok?

maureen dowd (she was a journalist once, right? now she just writes to incite. reading her is masochism i can endure in public, i guess...) wrote a pithy piece this week comparing obama to jane austen's mr. darcy. GAAAAAHHHH!! from where does the impression of pride or hubris in this man come? and why is she recklessly perpetuating it? she's playing the race card in a back-handed way, is she not? mocking him as an uppity darkie? it pissed me off in a way that really surprised me.

there was another op-ed piece in the times asking where is obama's landslide. but he doesn't need one, does he? shrub won in 2004 by only 2.5%, the slimmest margin of any sitting president. his handlers parlayed it into a mandate to further trample the constitution and plunder the country.

in both 2000 and 2004, i went to bed on election night thinking my guy had won. ugly wake-ups, you bet. in only 8 years our country has been made into a shameful mess.

i still have hope.

i know some of you think it's tim wakefield, but right now? obama da man.

lifestyles of the very rich, but not necessarily famous

(might be my longest blog title. where's my damn p.a. to check? oh, yeah, not an approved line-item.)

not long ago, i read an article that sales and profits at super-luxury houses like lvmh, burberry, richemont and hermes have soared in the last several quarters. partial credit may go to global brand presence, yet to me this just gives further proof of the rich getting richer everywhere. yeah, the dollar is weak, but phooey on you if your margin so slim. (g'night, bennigan's; hello dubai, you sexy thang.)

i have landed back in the stratosphere, and the irony is not lost. a few days before i started, my employer was putting on a wedding for over $600,000, while i was being helped by my kind attorney (rara avis, si) who reduced his rates to stave off my foreclosure and ruin. this morning we had a small bridal shower, for extra large women, that cost nearly $400 pp. tomorrow we are having a mad political fund-raiser, $30,000 pp for the full monty. it is completely sold-out, yet lots of folks are clamoring for seats.

3 months ago, when my wallet got stolen, i had to roll change to pay my mortgage.

the rich are indeed different than you and me.

6 ways to sunday

or: keep your knives off my vay-jay.

this is messed up in so many ways, i'll just quote it here for everyone's enjoyment and bafflement.

oh, yeah, and the procedures each cost about $10,000.

"Australian doctors have raised concerns about clinics offering vaginal cosmetic surgery, warning the trend towards so-called "designer vaginas" may be exploiting vulnerable women.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said procedures being offered included "vaginal rejuvenation, revirgination, designer vaginoplasty and G-spot amplification".

"What is involved in these procedures is often unclear since recognised clinical nomenclature is not being used," it said in a position paper released this week."

polite chit-chat

another development related to the owner's new digs, and our different status, is i'm now meeting friends and acquaintances of his. previously under tight wraps, i'd only ever met one, and that was through a business happenstance -- one to which i only agreed when the owner intervened on said friend's behalf. (that he turned out to have been best man at the wedding and eventually privy to my role in marital unraveling shamed me badly.)

he's a friendly fellow and lowell seems perfect for that. i don't know if his building is a microcosm, or some sort of hothouse, but he already knows many more of his neighbors than do i. (then again, i don't *want* to meet new people quite as much as he seems to do.) when handshakes and names are offered, i'm simply introduced as noodle. there is no, "this is my___________, noodle." what he calls me in private won't do in public, he's yet to find something that will, and also adamantly does not want to be perceived as part of couple, for the obvious disadvantages that would present to his non-monogamy. among some, there seems to be a twinkling foreknowledge of my existence, but heaven only knows who/what they think i am. (he also will never tell me how or what he discusses about me when i'm not around, only adding to my murky view, and likely clouding many women's wishful thoughts.)

he's mentioned the bellydancer in passing, and that this weekend she was having various spreads to coincide with the party outside. he'd warned me she was hot for him, which i had no trouble believing, and been honest that she didn't float his boat. ok, clear enough.

we walk into a hen party. oh, dear. all were very nice, very friendly and her apartment was comfy in a very girly way. but the octaves were up there and the cross chat about kids and husbands is never my idea of fun. they encircled him like a swarm of bees, and the "look-at-me" mating behaviors would have been funny if not for -- no, ya know what? it was funny.

classic female style, they couldn't seem to get organized and out the door, til i reminded everybody the music for tonight was nearly through and let's go.

twice that night, i was asked what to most would be a simple question, "how did you two meet?" harmless enough, but one that i was taught never to ask. (along with, unless somebody is already discussing their work, never ask what they *do*, nor how much do they make.) chalk it up to my family's twisted sense of propriety and previously recorded bad behaviors, but the tawdry reality of us is not something anybody really wants to face, and will only beg more invasive questions. nerf balls, i deflected them easily. folks just want to talk about themselves anyway, so it's never hard to scooch sideways by answering a question with a question. (there also was the silent stone of why i've never met his brother, while they all had, i think more than once. that was trickier for a sec, but see above.)

after saving her life by killing a bug crawling on one hysterical woman's leg, i'd had it and marched solo to the nearby dance tent. i *was* here for music, lol. the owner seemed to reach his threshold shortly after, and truth be told, we didn't spend a whole lot of time with the harem over the course of the weekend. he made a polite appearance each day to her new fete, bringing me along, and we naturally ran into them here and there.

the tawdry table turned though when we awoke to her less-than-polite late-night drunken texts. oh, dear indeed, lol. at brunch, they all looked quite a bit worse for wear, yet she seemed not at all embarrassed when he showed her the digital evidence. she tried laughing it off as innocent, but 7 messages seems pretty determined to me, lol, even while swilly. it was endearing to see how gentle he was in his chiding, but she certainly didn't seem to take it as discouragement. (her invites later in the day confirming that theory, lol. however, she seems not to realize if he hasn't yet tried to fuck her, in all these months, her chances continue to diminish daily. why is it most women don't like to know how men's minds really work, lol?)

i've always teased the owner about him being irresistible -- that he's nectar to any bird in flight. his modesty makes him tell me it's only because the intensity of my attraction makes me project. it was charming to see him flattered by all the attentions and how *nice* he was to all those ladies. truly kind. in the *before time*, i never had the chance to see him through the eyes of others and i liked being reminded of just how great he is, ya know? (not that i forget, but i saw it writ large in those heaving horny women and heard it from a few other folks with whom we bent elbows.)

strange the turns life takes, the possibilities that arise and how much better so much is than i ever imagined possible.

lucky me. :)

as seen here

(more precisely, *there*, cuz i was still in lowell.)

older fellow carrying an aluminum lawn chair at the folk festival. taped to the front of his shirt, a piece of loose-leaf paper, with red magic marker writing:

please do not give any beer to this man.
thank you.
~~his spouse

i can only imagine her saying before he left the house, "if you come home without this sign, don't come home!"

livin' la vida lowell

within weeks of relocating, the owner became his adopted hometown's biggest booster. granted, i temper much of his enthusiasm with his fresh independence, but its sincerity is endearing and i'm thrilled he's found a place to rebuild his life on happiness, not sacrifice.

he's been generous in sharing some of this with me and we've banged heads more than once with the dropkick murphys and waxed mellow on the summer night grass with the indigo girls. we've been shined on and rained out at the spinners and tipped a few pints at local watering holes. however, this weekend is the raison d'etre for much of the town, with the annual folk festival. the streets are closed to car traffic, stages and pavilions are scattered throughout the downtown with free concerts all day and much of the night. food from all over the world and artists who paint, weave, carve, and work with quills and quilts round it all out.

we started our night friday with jeffery broussard and the creole cowboys and they just rocked. how long have i loved that zydeco fiddle sound? somehow we had to escort a social orphan (how'd we get her?) to the skatalites, but they were a little more mellow than we wanted, so we ditched, went back to the dance tent and the boys from louisiana. a beer garden, giant fans and couples two-stepping made for a perfect show. room to move and even the owner couldn't help but swing his hips!

stumbled on an alley with picnic tables and a flatbed trailer doing double duty as a stage. bunch of guys rocking, beer on tap and folks kicking up dust. perfect. laughed it up with townies, drank pbr's, watched grandmas cut loose and heard at least 3 different bands, none of whom will go on to greatness but were having a blast.

saturday started a little rough for some of us, so we missed the early shows, couldn't get near our cowboys, so wound our way to hear balla kouyate play his 800-year old balafon -- a west african ancestor of the xylophone. the sound was amazing. gourds! even more amazing when one considers the fractured family lines in so much of his ancestral region to know his has remained unbroken. (a very inconsiderate white woman, a baby slung on her back, insisted on videotaping the show from center aisle. at least 5 people tapped her shoulder and asked her to get out of the way before she finally did. my suspicions were confirmed by the lowell sun this morning -- she was kouyate's wife.)

we caught bits of puerto plata (well, i did, the owner was shopping and continuing his major support of the local economy); the broad gospel pipes of sister marie knight; skordalia, a traditional greek dance band; watched a step-dancing workshop (too painful, lol, even the teacher had to turn her back); and at last back to the skatalites. how old are those guys? they backed marley, ya know? they sounded great and riffed out classics that had everybody swaying. old hippies, babies in tie-dye and barefoot phish-kids all digging it.

visited our alley, caught a rock-a-billy band and saw our favorite rockin' granny (whom we now know is maggie and hangs out at the old court, lol). rounded out the evening with a bit of mighty sam mcclaine, who might have been more mighty 50 years ago. sounded great, but we'd both hoped for a bit more bo diddley, less luther vandross, so called it a night.

here's hopes that the weather will hold for today. friends of mine live nearby, so there are plans to connect there and neighbors here at love, american style are having a brunch. (more on THAT later, lmao.) even if it rains, i can't think of a more perfect weekend in a very long time. perfect. even i like lowell. )

demitasse, part deux

burdened with an armload of stuff last night, i treated myself to an elevator ride, fearing a crash of glass otherwise. while waiting, a very tan, big buff gay man approached the bay. with mandatory calf and biceps tattoos, he was holding a tiny white poof of a thing. (which i suspect is a smaller hairier version of what he might be in the winter, although i'm guessing he has a tanning/waxing membership someplace, lol.) it was in his arms, lolling about, apparently unable to support its own head. it looked the oxy dudes i see on the "t".

"uh, is your dog ok?"
"yeah, i just took him out for a carry."
"i'm sorry, what?"
"i carry him when he needs to go."
"well, his paws are wonderfully clean."

we stepped into the car and he gently juggled the puppet, under and over. it expressed zero distress at being held stomach exposed, head hanging.

"he lets me do whatever i want. he loves it."
"i'm glad you two have such a good understanding."

even my cat doesn't remain that forever relaxed, knowing danger may lurk invisibly in the immediate future.

ew.

some of these neighbors? i really *don't* wanna go inside their condos, ya know?

just business

nothing personal.

between officially accepting my new job and giving notice to my employer in person was an annoying few days. i watched others going through the motions of their final shifts and listened to one of the chefs talk about being one interview away from jumping ship. i kept mum.

he thought we were meeting to test more drinks. (no more recipes for you! drink nazi in high gear.) i handed him the paper and he was visibly shocked. truly. (you thought i was happy here? now that's shocking. ) he asked the 2 most perfunctory of questions and indicated they'd be cutting me loose before the 2 weeks was up -- which i figured and hoped. remains to be seen how much money he'll try screwing me out of come next payday.

i had 2 last days, one in each store. lots of hugs and well wishes. there are some people there i do like. not enough to cocktail with in the future, but nice enough, ya know. i lost track of how many came to me privately and admitted loathing the place. why on earth do you feel so stuck? why do you fear change? the money is really not good enough, not for servers, not for the bar, never mind the slave wages paid to managers. on the real last day, his wife was in our office working on a big computer project for the new location, so she was on-premise for several hours. we have always gotten on quite well and she's very much the good cop to her husband's bad. she came and left via the back door and never said "boo" to me. he did not wish me good luck, nor did any of the other partners. not one of my salespeople expressed surprise.

i have never worked in a place where rumor and conjecture, the words of petty cats (that backstabbing trailer whore) and a willingness to throw others under the bus was such corporate m.o. my sense of discretion and personal responsibility was clearly misplaced and only served to shine a bad light in the eyes of the owner. how many times did he admit leaving my ass to hang in the wind? he once told me he likes to think of everybody as a family, not a company. modeled on whom? the borgias? jeebus.

handing over my keys and walking out into the warm july twilight, i was surprised by my lack of relief. granted, that proves little more than how emotionally disengaged i've been and for how long.

over a week to myself. time with the owner and friends, and to catch up on some culture vulture stuff i've missed. not wearing rcg's about the new gig, but am looking forward very much to a return to ultra-fine dining, incentives and being busy. my commute is killer short and they already perceive me as "added value" through my sommelier skills. (the cfo's words, not mine.)

fresh start. it feels good. yeah for me.

the end is nigh

on a cable channel i didn't know existed there is now a game show called "hurl". guys sit down and gorge by the stop-clock. they then force themselves to puke. whomever expels the least wins $1000. (does a hapless somebody measure the volume, or the circumference of the splat?)

maybe it's my own close and cozy relationship with purging that has made me go 'round the bend over this. i'm only ever nauseated when july 4th brings nathan's hot dog eating barftacular to tv. i literally cannot watch kobayashi and the rest of 'em defy nature. (finding his name through google brought me to the alarming existence of the "ifoce-- international federation of competitive eating." i'm familiar with the old-timey tradition of county fair pie-eating contests, but how did this come to be regarded as a sport? it's on espn ffs. much like elvis and rv's it's something so peculiarly american.)

i know boys think any bodily function expressed is hilarious, and clearly i'm not the demographic for this, lol. but, um, yuk, ok?

be my friend

kids say this, right? a plaintive call of defense, solidarity or community. a plea to not be alone, i think when we're kids, it's mostly weighted with *other*. "cuz i'm inviting you to my b-day pony race." "cuz i'm asking you to go to bermuda with my family." "plz sleep over?"

years ago, a married friend and i discussed (bemoaned) the difference in how grown-ups make friends. mostly? they don't. it's the polar opposite of playground p.c. they make the most of convenience. but this is not that.

in the last few days, i've had several invites to be a "facebook friend". from guys. ok, i don't have a facebook account. (aren't i too old?) how can i be your *friend* if i don't exist there? i have some friends and acquaintances who have hilarious *fake* profiles on myspace. (amy had to pull down the heiress one. way toooooooo bad, and the traffic nearly derailed everything, lol.) how can i get snared somewhere i don't go? do they import/export their mailbook?

i feel like the less places i *am*, the better i can retain my privacy. i don't want links and people poking. my life was derailed once by the net. i'm good. thanks.

certifiable

if there was a seal, stamp or badge, it now would be attached to me permanently.it's been a busy stressful week of wrangling and reconnoitering. lawyers, snoops, advocates, adversaries, notaries; city, state and federal flaks. the penny bone connected to the dollar bone kinda thing.

the pile of denial has become very small, and i can say, with (mostly?) confidence, i have a handle on it all.

today was to be a big brush-clearing day. just like shrub at the ranch. (no, wait, not like him. i was really doing stuff that mattered. this was NOT a photo op.) i put this with that, files, copies, records, letters, receipts, staples, paper clips, color-coded envelopes.

even though i had a late close, i made it very early out the house, trying to make enough time to truly conquer all before work.

it was steamy hothot. i had to carry lots of stuff.

first stop: the dreaded d.o.r. (cue monster mansion music...) wait in line. metal detector goes off. yeah, yeah, my underwire. "which way to the dor, please?" "it ain't here, lady." "where is it now?" "i have no idea." all the signs en espanol for immigration help should have clued me in, but i was still hopin'. ok. leave the line to call my tax lady. "lady, whaddya doin?" "calling my tax lady, since you can't help me." "you have no business here. get out." ffs. my tax dollars clearly aren't being spent on charm lessons. my tax lady is also surprised the dor is no longer there. she sent me there, ok? closest *might* be in chelsea, but it could be a stealth op. the dor never really ever wants to actually see you face-to-face. ever. i bet if you owed a million bucks and had it in a satchel of cash, plus a posse of ho's to *pay* the interest, they wouldn't tell you where they are.

ok, next stop -- a hop-skip. city hall, tax assessor. another metal detector, not as posh. (hey, statey vs. fed.) but it still rang out a danger-warning about my bra, although this guard just laughed and waved me through. another line upstairs in the mezzanine, but i'm feeling happy, cuz it's money back! woo-hoo. my turn. window. uh, um. oh my FUCKING GOD. i left the house without ANY of the paperwork i prepared. nothing. nada. it was all sitting on my dining table organized and utterly of no use.

i am senile. kaput.

no choice but to go back home, get the sheaf and address some of it in the limited remaining time. 90% got done, but by mail rather than in person, so the lack of expedition pisses me right off. (yeah, yeah, dangle this.) granted, i did get a patsy cline mini-serenade of "your cheatin' heart" (which i just love cuz my uncles and grandfather used to sing it; we will skip ALL the irony of those voices rising up from the jameson's on THAT one.) from bobby at my local p.o. (who is learning spanish! omg, the wonder. truly. and he was so nice and asking the locals to correct him and help him, lol. awesome!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

in my travels today, i found a little bit of money on the sidewalk. maybe it's time for me to buy a metal sweeper for my long slow days of idiocy at the beach.