CitizenB

Happy 40th Janette!

2009-05-20T09:03:00.007-05:00

Dear Citizens,

Today is a special day. My baby sister Janette turns 40. As she was just 10 years old at our wedding, she will always be 10 years old to Andy. A recent conversation:

CitizenB (on the telephone to Mom): Janette's 40th is Wednesday.
Andy (eavesdropping): Janette, the kid who spilled grape juice on the carpet, is 40?
CitizenB: No, Janette, the kid who spilled milk at the dinner table every night of her childhood, is 40.
Andy: You're sure it wasn't grape juice?
CitizenB: Yes. It was milk. Plus if she sat still long enough her eyes would roll back and she would fall asleep in her plate of mashed potatoes.

Janette was full of surprises. First, she was born prematurely and out of state. The family had moved temporarily from Texas to Kansas and from my memory, our dog, Spot, a white fur ball with one spot (possibly his black nose or a smudge of dirt), ran through our mother's legs as she descended the stairs causing the first spill of many to come - her water broke and she was whisked away to hospital at 7 1/2 months.

While Janette was making her early entrance, tornadoes were dropping in and out of clouds (it was May in Kansas) and our not-sold-on-the-whole-idea housekeeper/babysitter Ruby, always wide-eyed looking out the kitchen window, forced us, the existing children ages 8, 6, 4 and 2, to duck and cover in the basement for what seemed like an eternity. Within a few days, we piled into the car and drove to the hospital where we waited for the newest addition to take her place in the back seat.

Back at home, the little bundle was placed on the enormous and hideously itchy Early American sofa for her first official photo - expertly taken with a Polaroid camera from about 40 feet away. She looked like, well, a blanket.

A few highlights:

Except for the relentless spitting up of foul-smelling formula, Janette was an easy baby. I considered myself a miniature junior mother and lugged her around. Hey, I already had Campfire girl and Brownie under my belt at that point and knew how to sew a "sit-upon."

As a toddler, she called every man we encountered in public "Daddy." For a few years, men of all ages, shapes, sizes and ethnicities would flee from us.

Unlike her sister Kellie, she would do anything I asked her to do - like walk to the apartment rental office to retrieve a Mr. Pibb from the vending machine while I watched reruns of "Leave it to Beaver." I like to think I never put her in harm's way and certainly never convinced her that a tadpole from the creek was candy. Kellie fell for that one.

Once she wandered away from our group at the Fort Worth Science and History Museum. At some point between the replica pioneer days classroom and 1800's doctor's office exhibit we lost her. Fortunately, an announcement was made that a little girl "Nona Net Jinkees" - her version of her full name at age 4 - was looking for her family. There was a dramatic reunion at the front desk and then we got to go for ice cream to celebrate not leaving our sister behind with fossils.

As she grew up, it became quite obvious that she was uber-hyperactive. There was a lot of spinning, kicking, standing on her head, dancing, twirling, leg splits, cartwheels, awkward roller skating etc. Not much has changed and this explains why at age 40 she can still fall asleep with her head in a plate. Such skill.

Happy Birthday Janette!

CitizenB

My Dinner With Geronimo

2009-04-23T08:38:00.015-05:00

Dear Citizens:

As a business traveler, it's not uncommon for cities, airports, hotels, conference rooms, and restaurants to blur together. Not Miami. It's multi-cultural, flavorful, and unexpected no matter how generic you try to make it.

For me, it all starts while boarding a 767 and not the usual DC-10 at DFW airport. There are no self-obsessed men in suits. Not a blackberry in sight. Instead there are vacationers clutching Group 4 boarding passes attempting to board with First Class and Executive Platinum. In my best flight attendant persona, I attempt to assist confused elderly passengers dressed tragically head-to-toe in pastel polyester and struggling with unsuitable carry-on baggage. There's a language barrier. They don't speak Texan even though I assumed "y'all" was universal. Smiling and hand gestures help.

We manage to get on the airplane. I am seated in an emergency exit aisle located next to an off-duty junior pilot. He reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio in "Catch Me If You Can" and I begin to wonder if like Leo, he's a fraud pretending to be a pilot and whether he can really open the exit door in the event of an emergency.

At some point in the flight I remember to mind my own business and we land in Miami. I'm there to mediate a negligent security case. I immediately notice that the Miami airport has "negligent security" written all over it. Airport employees are few and it takes 55 minutes for the conveyor to shoot out the checked luggage. Not expecting to see my Samsonite ever again I had already said good-bye to my favorite pajamas and broken up with my dressy sandals.

Of course, the glorious weather totally makes up for it. Also I know of no other airport where you can get a Cuban sandwich to go with your cafecito at 8:00 a.m.

I usually stay downtown but mediation takes me south and I stay at the Hotel Indigo in Dadeland. The cab driver, originally from Haiti knows exactly where to go. He drops me at the hotel near a tree chocked full of wild parrots. I count at least 30 and they create a noisy ruckus knocking seed pods, leaves and small limbs from the tree. Several parrots are lined up on the hotel's roof as if on security patrol.

Hotel Indigo, a boutique-y Holiday Inn, promotes itself with Haiku. The Haiku at the front desk states:

"Colorful locales
Refreshingly different
Adventures Await"

There are haiku posted in the room that speak to bathing, the environment, and room service.

Inspired, I decide to compose a haiku about the wild parrots:

The Hotel Parrot
Wild Nesting and Foraging
Complimentary

I have dinner at Fleming Restaurant - A Taste of Denmark. I consider a Danish dish - the Frikadeller Dinner - A Danish meat patty served with sweet and sour red cabbage and a side of champagne cream sauce. I decide to forgo the meat patty and order Japanese-inspired sesame seared tuna. Because it is included in the Sunset menu, I have tiramisu for dessert. This is Miami. You never know what to expect.

The next day proves to be very good for mediation. Passover Seder and impending sundown motivates the mediator and 7 of 8 attorneys to settle the negligent security case in a timely fashion. I assure you that without Seder we would still be there arguing every inconceivable issue. The lone attorney passing Seder invites me for dinner at an outdoor bistro with his wife and their (his) dog, Geronimo.

It turns out that Geronimo is a well-trained German Shepherd. Geronimo is his American name. His German name sounds something like "Gesundheit" We meet. He is a bit aloof but sniffs and licks my hand. A good sign for such a serious dog. One sniff of Geronimo reminds me of my grandfather's garage and hunting dogs. I realize my eyes are closed and I'm 8 years old again. It smells just like Geronimo plus grease and oil.

At the "French Bistro" and still going with "anything goes", I order churrasco - as recommended by the Portuguese waiter and my dinner companions. It is served with all-American peas and carrots. Geronimo keeps a lookout from our table and drinks iced water from a high-tech, portable, fold-out water dish. He also shares the churrasco - without the cilantro-infused olive oil on the side. Geronimo dislikes sauces. I learn my companions' daughter, a Harvard-educated physician, also shuns all condiments. She doesn't eat salad dressing, mustard, jelly, or champagne cream sauce. She prefers basic food - even in salsa-spicy Miami. Go figure.

Geronimo consumes roughly one-half of the table's churrasco and drinks from the portable dish. A strong, silent type, he is as relaxed as possible. He skips dessert of fruit, ice cream, and pigeons. He is trained not to eat pigeons except on command. Impressive.

I head back to my poem-inspired, parrot-squatting hotel and try to sleep despite the wall-size seascape mural in my room. I want to phone the front desk and report that Jellyfish, other blobby sea creatures, and Haiku can cause nightmares. I don't.

The next morning I leave Miami. My work is done.

CitizenB

Candlestick Salad

2009-04-01T17:31:00.022-05:00

Today is April Fool's Day and this could explain why a few of my family members got a little silly late this afternoon with e-mail. Much of it started with comments about Mother being a "Tomahawk" from the prior post. This led to a story from my cousin and sister about the time as children they escaped raging flood waters only to be punished by Tomahawk and her evil sister, Aunt Nan (we're still thinking of a nickname...for now, I'll go with "Arrowhead"). They were forced to stay indoors and make an inedible cake from Bisquick. Even the dumbest dog on earth at the time, Bo Bo, wouldn't eat it.

All of this led to the question of whether it was possible to make a cake (not a pancake) from Bisquick and somehow that reminded Aunt Arrowhead about the time she made Candlestick Salad in Home Economics class in the mid-1960s. Here's how it went:

CitizenB: You can make a cake with Bisquick?

Aunt Arrowhead: Sure you can make a cake out of Bisquick. You can make one out of mud too. Tastes about the same. When I was in school I made donuts out of biscuits. I also made a candlestick salad. Take a plate, put a lettuce leaf on it, then a slice of pineapple, stick a banana in the center of the pineapple, whip cream on top of the banana with a cherry on top. Lake Worth High School home economics in action. Sorry, I got carried away with all my cooking expertise.

CitizenB: Curious…was the banana supposed to represent the candlestick?

Aunt Arrowhead: Of course it represented the candlestick. What else?

CItizenB: I don’t know…? I was just trying to get the salad construction and name to match….never heard of a candlestick salad until now. Very good to know. I think I could make it.

Aunt Arrowhead: ... We were only in high school and never thought about things like that. I'm pleased I could teach you something you never knew before. Yes, YOU CAN DO IT.

CitizenB: I guess I was mixing a little World History in with Home Ec. I was visualizing the banana as an ancient Egyptian obelisk (for some reason) and not a candlestick... Thank you for your confidence in me. Let’s pray I can keep the banana erect.

Aunt Arrowhead forwarded a recipe to me but there was no photo. After work, I researched and found the below depiction of Candlestick Salad in all it's glory. Of note, the whipped cream is supposed to represent the melting wax and the cherry the flame. Sigh. I'm sorry but it cracked me up to think about a bunch of 1960's high schoolers trying to make bananas stand up on pineapple rings. Thankfully by the time I hit Home Ec. in the late 1970's, Candlestick Salad had been replaced by a basic Waldorf Salad. Mayonnaise on apples was risque enough for me.

All of this got me wondering about the 1960's and why housewives were obsessed garnishing everything with pineapple and shaping food into weird objects..like candlesticks.

For the five minutes I've been thinking about it, my opinion is that housewives were bored silly, and canned goods and advanced packaged foods opened up new culinary doors and excitement. I decided to take a quick look into my very cool 1967 Better Homes and Gardens "Jiffy Cooking" to see what I could discover. From the book, it's clear housewives were obsessed with the color orange, molded gelatin, glazes, and all things elegant with "an Oriental flair."

Here's a sample of words used to describe various recipes:

Saucy, frosty, royal, zippy, peppy, spiced, lazy day, easy-do, meal-in-a-bowl, instant, hurry, jiffy, easy perfection, creamy, minted, velvet, quicky, time-saving, fruit-glazed, "a la", party, tropical, Hong Kong, fizz and sparkle.

And a list of Menus:

"A Robust Meal for Crisp Evenings" (Skillet Potato Salad with a 14 ounce bologna ring)
"Fit for the King of the Household" (Canadian Bacon Stack-Ups with canned sweet potatoes)
"Treat Your Guests Elegantly" (Pampered Beef Fillets with Royal Mushroom Sauce)
"An Informal Teen-age Record Party" (Tamale Hero Sandwiches and Pickle-Sickles)
"A Light Brunch for the Ladies" (Orange-nut Ring and Berry Parfaits)
"A Main Dish Inspired By Old Mexico" (Taco Salad with Crusty Hard Rolls)
"Be Creative With Convenience Foods" (Yam and Sausage Skillet)
"Three Open-face Salad Sandwiches" (Tuna Tugs, Corned Beef Captains & Chef's Salad in a Roll)

Gosh, I miss the good old days when the only fish we ate was canned tuna (in oil), and we consumed hundreds of 14 ounce bologna rings, saucy sausage links, tins of luncheon meat, and cans of high-sodium Veg-All and Pork-n-Beans. Much like the Candlestick Salad, it was all so elegant!

CitizenB

Adventures in a Small Town

2009-03-30T08:20:00.028-05:00

Dear Citizens,

A couple weeks ago my sister and I set off for the small town where our grandmother, 91, now resides in a rest home. From Granny's point of view, she came to live in the rest home under the guise of "28 day rehab" when she was discharged from the hospital after the last of many trip and falls and heart episodes. She was coaxed into going to rehab by the nice-looking young doctor at the clinic. Granny has always been a sucker for handsomeness or men in general. Once in preparation for minor surgery a few years ago and with a dreamy look in her eyes she whispered to me "Doesn't Dr. Cotton look just like Dan Rather?" She has many crushes, including George Strait, Pat Sajak, and John at the Dairy Queen. There's also John's friend, Milton. Granny's conflicted over Milton because "the man's ugly as sin" yet "has the best personality."

You know you've arrived in town, pop. 3000, once you pass the summer sausage-smoked cheese-brittles-fudge shop on the left and the veterinary clinic with the sign "Rattlesnake Vaccine Now Available" on the right. Before you arrive at the town square, you pass the Chicken/Taco Express (75 cents for a large iced tea, and yes, you can order it unsweetened) and The Donut Shop situated in an old gas station with the sign "Long Johns on Special."

You know you've arrived in town when your father (he lives up the hill from The Donut Shop) hits you up for a $30 loan until he can recall the P.I.N. for his new debit card, and presumably to get his fix of iced tea and long johns for the weekend. You also know you've arrived when your uncle (he also lives up the hill and next door to your father) calls your cell phone repeatedly. Anticipating visitors is big in a small town.

At the town square, there's a grocery store, cafe, florist, gift shop, hardware store, gun shop, and dueling pharmacies - on opposite sides of the square. I imagine a real drug war going on there. I've explored a couple of shops and can report that the grocery store smells like bologna and 50% of the produce section is frozen iceberg lettuce the size of bowling balls. The linoleum floor is uneven and crackles. I like that. As for the flower shop it's overflowing with black and red ribbon and silk mums to support the high school. Go Bulldogs. Fortunately, red is my grandmother's favorite color.

After a left turn at the square and out on the highway, there's a local hamburger joint ("sources" report the iced tea costs $1 - a rip off) and an ALCO general merchandise store. I've made many trips to Granny's new home in the past 6 months and have found an abundance of useful things at ALCO: her favorite jelly beans (I'm sure Granny had a crush on Ronald Reagan), Lubriderm, sleeping cap, socks, pillows, Christmas decorations, sweatsuits (the rest home's official uniform) and for me, a current women's magazine. Beware. The magazines at the store on the square are dusty with camouflaged men on the cover.

Now to the rest home. There's good and bad and much resting.

The good:

1. Granny
2. The patio and outdoor area.
3. The large window in her room with a nice view.
4. The Texas-sized lobby and decor.

The bad:

1. The incessant buzzing and beeping noises.
2. An odor in a couple of spots along the corridor.
3. The temperature - it's insanely warm. Tropical without the paradise.
4. The resident who insists on wheeling himself to the lobby in his shower chair.

You must know this is not a retirement center or senior citizen center. It's not that vibrant. No dominoes clicking on the tables. The residents are mostly confined to wheelchairs and need full-time care. In advanced age, they have difficulty communicating with each other. Granny is one of the more spry and social residents but reports she can't see to play bingo. She does engage in wheelchair exercise class and never misses a meal in the dining hall. She's gained a much needed 11 pounds since she arrived.

There's an issue with her vision. We're not sure what she can and cannot see. Example:

Granny: CitizenB, your face is just a blur to me.
CitizenB: Okay, let me try something. Look at me. What am I doing now?
Granny: You're sticking out your tongue at me!
CitizenB: Bingo!

While we're there, I'm compelled to talk to every resident I encounter, including the man in the shower chair. For the record, he's "Becky's Daddy" and loves chicken. And there's the lady with powdered eyeglasses, bless her heart. I also attempt conversation with Granny's roommate Dorothy - not to be confused with Granny's friend from the dining hall Dorothy a/k/a Floozy Dot. Of course, Granny would make friends with the woman in love with a married man and not the woman she argues with over closet space. I don't blame her. There's more mystery with Floozy Dot. Roommate Dorothy has a high pitched, squeaky voice and it's almost as bad as the buzzing and beeping noises. As for the married man, yes, he and his wife live at the center, and as far as Granny knows Floozy Dot's love for him is a secret. She says: "We don't talk about it." I'm sure.

Granny has two sons. As mentioned, both live in town and are single. No sane woman would have them. Granny's not entirely happy because one, my uncle, visits too much, and two, my dad, visits too little. She doesn't want to complain about too many visits, but she lets on that #1 son can get on her nerves. As for #2 son, my dad, she reports that she doesn't know what's wrong with him and if "I had not been there during his birth I wouldn't believe he's mine." Ouch.

#1 son is very social and enjoys chatting up the nursing home aides and women at the Dollar Store. #2 son is anti-social and enjoys dreaming up new craft projects involving feathers, beads, leather, wood and old car parts. #1 son has a beloved cat. #2 son has three dogs - make that two dogs and a wolf-dog. Yes, my father lives with wolves. Before becoming a wolf-owner, he preferred to date women he met at Pow-Wows. One conversation went like this:

Daddy: I'm seeing an ol' girl. (Yes, this is how he communicates.)
CitizenB: What's her name?
Daddy: Feather.
CitizenB: Heather?
Daddy: No, Feather.
CitizenB: What's her real name?
Daddy, chuckling: Brenda (you see, my mom/his first wife's name is Brenda and she has been justly and majorly upset with him for 45 years and will be for all eternity.)
CitizenB: Interesting. I guess in comparison, this would make Mom's native name "Tomahawk."

Getting back to Granny...during our last visit and out of the blue, Granny announced that three nights before she had witnessed a possum in her room. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she pointed to where she saw the little critter before he hid behind the dresser.

CitizenB: Granny, are you sure you saw a possum?
Granny: Yep.
CitizenB: Could it have been a mouse or worse, a rat?
Granny: No, it was a possum.
CitizenB: What did you do?
Granny: Well, I lifted my feet off the floor.
CitizenB: Did you tell someone?
Granny: No. They wouldn't believe me.

A few minutes later, a nurse's aide came into the room and my sister reported the possum sighting. The aide stood silently for a minute and then announced, "Well, let's hope it stays behind the dresser." As a trained investigator and while in search for the vending machine late in the afternoon, I noticed a large door off the dining hall slightly ajar. It led to a patio for employees only providing them a place to cool off and prevent dying of heat stroke. In this rural setting, I suppose it's not impossible for a hungry or confused possum to find his way inside. Also for the record, there's one thing we cannot dispute, blind or not, my country grandmother knows her vermin.

After a full day, my sister and I head back to a different civilization. We try to comprehend everything we heard and witnessed, including the resident who carried on a loud conversation with herself about an event occurring most likely around 1928. We were unaware women cursed so much in 1928.

As we leave town, there's a large cat sitting near the square waving us goodbye. He's a rather strange cat with a solid white body and a black head and neck. Somehow he was assigned the wrong cat's body. Otherwise, he appears to be wearing a ski mask so he could be a bank robber cat. It's too bad Granny wasn't there to make a positive identification. For all we know he could have been a possum.

CitizenB

Anger Management

2009-03-21T10:09:00.012-05:00

Dear Citizens,

For once, we're united - in anger. Shock, dismay, disbelief, outrage, irritation to the nth degree - just to name a few reactions to the financial crisis. Let's face it - our financial institutions have failed us, excuse me - robbed us. Bailouts, bonuses, derivatives, double-dipping trading partners, falling stocks, foreclosures, securities fraud, unemployment, etc. The list goes on and on. At a minimum, the big cheeses have committed gross negligence. So much for Sarbanes-Oxley and other lessons not learned from Enron.

No man, woman or child is escaping this meltdown. Therefore, anger - large scale anger (the scary kind) - is the only logical conclusion.

The outrage has lead to armed guards stationed in upscale Connecticut neighborhoods where AIG executives live and play golf. It has led to Congress going all atwitter and absolutely nuts - more nuts than usual. If they only had real balls and could ever see the big picture. It has led to John Stewart blasting Jim Cramer and CNBC for playing along with the hedge fund game. Even our comic relief has been invaded by anger.

What to do? I don't believe there are enough anger management books in current publication to go around. Don't you know that Dr. Phil and other Dr. Phil wannabes are going to take full advantage of our misery and publish a few new books in the next 30 days? Just the thought of Dr. Phil pisses me off so I don't see his so-called self-help shtick helping.

Here are a few anger management suggestions:

1. Admit we are angry. Hint, hint President Obama.

2. Take the top 100 financial evil-doers , foreclose on all of their mortgages/sell their houses in The Hamptons and force them to live in public housing for 18 years - in Detroit.

3. Scratch the planned $300M George W. Bush Presidential Center and "Freedom" Institute. Take the tax-deductible donations and build an Early Education Center on 25 acres of SMU land. Enlist Cheney as janitor and George W. as groundskeeper. Cheney deserves to scrub toilets, and we all know how well George W. clears brush. They could learn something from the four-year-olds about how to play well with others and to obey rules.

As for small things you can do to alleviate anger and regain control, try these:

1. Throw darts at photos of geeky insurance executives.
2. Burn tax returns and records (older than 7 years) - yes, I am a rebel.
3. Engage the entire family in meditation including teaching your cat the lotus position.
4. Pretend to be Survivor Man.
5. If all else fails, slam kitchen cabinet doors - it has always worked for my Mother.

Seriously, let's focus on turning a negative into a positive. For starters, we can convert our anger into wind energy or another clean fuel technology. I don't know about you, but when I'm mad, there's a lot of whirling and twirling. This leads me to believe there's a way to channel our adrenaline and eliminate the need for Middle East oil. One crisis fixes another! It's the American Way.

CitizenB

I Swallowed A Lightning Bug

2009-03-07T07:16:00.015-06:00

Citizens:

If there is one thing I'm really good at it's crying. I'm a Level 4 expert - and in a perpetual state of dehydration.

At Level 1 the tears flow freely at the usual events: giving birth, attending weddings, funerals, graduations, and really good or bad movies; and when your 18-year-old beagle dies.

Level 2 involves crying at hellos and goodbyes, Olympic medal ceremonies; when other people cry even when you're not sure why, when you're delirious and have a fever of 102, you're really pissed off, and of course, crying while simultaneously laughing in a fetal position (we've all done it).

The more complex Level 3 consists of crying before and after you back your car into a fixed object, wishing you could help someone who is really screwed up when you know you can't, upon hearing your mom's voice when you've had a bad day (yes, even when you're 40), and when your husband buys a mid-life crisis motorcycle. Note: My plan for revenge is to save my tears in a Tupperware container until enough to make a cocktail - and then serve them to Steve McQueen in a martini glass - straight up.

Level 4 goes beyond the norm and consists of crying after 9/11 at the joy of seeing a rat - yes, a filthy rodent - scurrying in the bushes outside your office (an affirmation that life goes on), and crying in 2nd grade while explaining to your teacher that the reason was because you're going to die from accidentally swallowing a lighting bug (firefly) you had trapped in a coke bottle the night before when the real reason was your parents were getting a divorce.

I've cried in every place imaginable - airports, sidewalks, Chinese restaurants, the mall (have you seen the shoe department at Nordstrom?), flower gardens, parking lots, The Louvre, on a swing set, and yes, even at work. Anyone who says there's no crying in Insurance Claims - they lie. Bathroom stalls obviously have more than one purpose and toilet paper is good for trapping the tears, snot and spit that form like a spiderweb over your face - the unfortunate physical side effects of an honest to goodness cry. The one highlight is your eyes appear greener when the swelling goes away.

Before you go off thinking I'm unstable, please know the crying at work thing happens only 1.5 times per year - totally in line with the national average for women crying in the workplace. It's sad but I'm fairly normal.

As an expert, I also have the ability to make grown men cry. I wish I could say it's my voluptuous figure that kills them; it just happens during regular conversation. Just this week I made two men cry.

The first was an encounter with an ex-coworker.

CitizenB: Gosh, I remember when you adopted the stray dog who took up residence in our parking lot - the unofficial office mascot. How is he?

Co-worker: Tearing up. Gulp. He died.

CitizenB: Oh, no. I'm sorry.

Co-worker: Yes, he had an undetected tumor and it erupted causing massive internal bleeding. He couldn't be saved. Now I'm left with my other two dogs and I really don't like them that much.

CitizenB: Yikes. It was nice seeing you.

The second encounter was with a Philadelphia attorney in mediation. I'll spare you the details but yes, I managed to evoke emotion and a tear in the eye of a hardened and burned out insurance defense attorney.

And now to the latest episode of CitizenB weeping:

Last night was a perfect storm for tears. What can I say, it was a typical Friday night.

First, it was the book I've been reading forever A Fraction of the Whole. Here's the excerpt (page 531) that made me cry:

"Dad, I forgive you."
"What for?"
"For everything."
"What everything? What did I ever do to you?"
Who is this irritating man? "It doesn't matter."
"OK."
"Dad, I love you."
"I love you too."
There. We said it. Good.

Or not so good - strangely unsatisfying. We'd just said "I love you." Father and son, at the deathbed of the former, saying we love each other. Why didn't that feel good? This is why: because I knew something that nobody knew or would ever know-what a strange and wonderful man he was. And that's what I really wanted to say.

Tears are spurting and I'm backhanding them out and away so I can see to read and continue to torture myself. After more dying, son throws father's body overboard from the people-smuggling vessel (you have to read the book) and into the sea where he bobs up and down a little like "a carrot thrown whole into a boiling stew." Sniff. Sniff.

Second, it was the book (again). I'm exhausted. And nauseous. But it's finally over. I'm finished. The book is closed but the story is still shooting from the pages - much like hairs sprouting from my husband's nose. Okay, so I can see up his nose as he sleeps next to me. It's a distraction. The book is actually vibrating from so many freaking words (247,962 - my estimate- using the same method as counting jelly beans in a jar to win a door prize) so I threw it across the bed and dried my tears.

Next I decided to watch "Friday Night Lights" on the DVR. I should have known better since I cried during last week's episode when former QB1/current paraplegic Jason Street's girlfriend buckled under the pressure of young motherhood, bundled their baby, packed up the U-Haul and moved to New Jersey to live with her parents leaving Street in his wheelchair behind in the street.

This week Street and current tailback Tim Riggins (the Jordan Catalano of Dillon Football) take a trip to New York City where Street manages to gain a job at a sports agency and an opportunity to be with his son.

Here's the scene when they make it to New Jersey:

Riggins stands by the cab while Street wheels up the walk and stops at the steps to the front door. This is as far as he can go. Fortunately, the girlfriend and baby come out and he doesn't have to yell "Stella!" Street holds his son and through tears gives the most heartbreaking plea ever on a network television drama. There's no way the girlfriend can say no and she doesn't. Cue to Riggins with tears in his eyes - his best friend finally has a shot at real happiness. He'll miss him, heck, the whole state of Texas will miss him.

Okay, I'm wiping returning tears into my ears and squelching weird primal noises coming from within all in an effort not to wake up the sleeping nose. Even Level 4 experts try to hide their tears.

Between the book, TV show, and real life, the father and son drama forced open the flood gates. What a rush.

CitizenB

Text Messaging - The Old Fashioned Way

2009-03-02T22:26:00.012-06:00

Dear Citizens:

I'm very lucky to have 15 terrific nieces and nephews. They're growing up quickly or in some cases already adults. We do our best to stay in touch. This sometimes requires technology beyond my abilities.

A couple of days ago I received a text message from my beautiful, big-hearted, and soulful 18-year-old niece Melissa. She lives outside Atlanta and texted an "I Love You" surrounded by a heart. Aw.

Short and sweet with a fun graphic - totally within current texting rules and etiquette. (Of course, I don't know how to replicate it for demonstration purposes.) However, she has a wacky e-mail address with a bunch of underscores and "yo's" and I can never make it work. We've talked about this in the past.

I responded or attempted to respond (see below) and after our exchange, I realized I'm a terrible text messenger or whatever the term is. I don't like code words and trying to hit tiny characters. The real issue is I choose not to abbreviate and cannot under any circumstance be brief. It's not in my nature (and why my Indian Ya Ya name is "Babbling Brook.") Go ahead. You try to text something meaningful in less than 160 characters! Plus the only "graphics" I know are periods and question marks.

Anyway, I've decided to revise my text response to Melissa to meet current text language standards (for persons under 40).

Old Text: "You, too sweetheart. I still get delivery failure when I e-mail you. When you have a chance e-mail me at citizenb and I'll save your address. Sorry I'm a corky aunt."

(Then I noticed my iPhone SMS took it upon itself to change my intended word "dorky" to "corky." )

"Make that corky." (It did it again!)

"D O R K Y" (I finally outsmarted it.)

Melissa: "Lol i love you and yep i will email you when I get home =)"

Revised Text: "U2 sweet<3. I stil gt mail-Dubya wen I emsg u. Wen UV a chnc emsg me @citizenb n Il save yr ADD. Sry I'm a corkus aunt."

"Mk tht corkus"

"D O R K U S" (definition below)

Now you know why I will never be employed as a Native American code talker. This career is obviously not my colored parachute and will be marked off my list along with underwater pipe-fitter and millionaire match-maker.

Anyway, I guess text messaging is here to stay at least until a new mobile technology takes over. At some point we will never need to speak to or touch another living being again. We can marry our handheld devices and be artificially inseminated with turkey basters. There will be no need for deodorant or breath mints.

Until then we must be aware of the reported dangers of text messaging: texting while driving, textwalking, broken thumb syndrome, drunk texting (TUI), text addiction and withdrawal, and underage sexting. What about losing IQ points, forgetting (or never learning) formal English, not to mention turning 12-year-olds into promiscuous bullies and brats?

Blame Japan where it all started - or Canada.

As an iPhone user and loving CitizenAunt of many, yes, I'll continue to text - the old fashioned & d o r k u s way. And now with interoffice instant messaging a daily requirement, I'll have to work on that skill.

Question? Is it okay to agree on a subject with a co-worker by responding "Cool Beans! + :@)"?

Too enthusiastic? Thought so.

CitizenB

Definition of Dorkus: "Someone who is dorky but just doesn't care that he/she is a dork, thus making them very cool in the eyes of other dorkii."

Zen-less Widgets and Other Tech Stuff

2009-02-28T09:47:00.016-06:00

Citizens:

I must say this blogging thing has opened many doors - tech wise. Already hyperactive, I've now gone interactive and possibly radioactive from too much face time with the world wide web. I've peeked behind the tech door and now you're looking (virtually) at a person who has a gmail account (iamcitizenb@gmail.com) and an iGoogle home page with a highly functional layout.

My personalized page displays the usual suspects of date & time, calendar, local news, weather (including an impressive Doppler radar), local links, movies, and TV guide. I added a few national news and political sites, business and market watch, and on the opposite end of the spectrum items like EW.com and People. We all know how important it is to keep up with the latest celebrity assaults, top 100 teen idols (there are more than 10?), and hits and misses on the red carpet.

I also added a Fat Loss Tip of the Day (don't eat croutons), Flower of the Day (Freesia, meaning trust & innocence), NY Times crossword, and other random stuff.

I've managed to become slightly more technical all while discouraging Marshall The Cat and his constant attempts to interfere. Once he paw-typed "zzzzzz" in place of my preset "user name" when he happened to step on my laptop at a very critical log-in moment. Fortunately, I didn't have to make the dreaded call to the Help Desk... "Yes, hello...ugh...my cat erased my user name. Okay, let me remove him from the key board."

Now to the topic of widgets; specifically Meditation Chimes. I liked the idea of something interactive (and calming) and decided to add it as a feature to iGoogle and my blog site. I truly enjoy the ding, dong, bong of the chimes. It's relaxing especially with eyes closed. The problem with closed eyes is that I end up missing the mallet and clicking on the Doppler radar on iGoogle or "The Citizen Archives" on the blog.

Remember the satisfaction of banging on a xylophone as a kid? This will not happen with the widget Meditation Chimes. The fundamental flaw with Meditation Chimes is that you can only bong one chime at a time. There is no jazzing it up by hitting multiple chimes and there is absolutely no grand maestro finale with a dramatic sweep of the mallet across the length of chimes.

While I'm happy with my newly found tech savvy, I'm reminded that the wildest widgets in the world can't replace the experience of the real thing...and I'm more likely to find my Zen chomping croutons.

Ding, dong, bong,

CitizenB

If You Can't Beat'em, Join'em

2009-02-25T08:44:00.008-06:00

Dear Citizens,

Last night the Republicans rolled out their best version of Obama, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Young, ethnic and highly educated. That's where the comparison ends. In his address, Obama spoke to us as adults. Jindal seemed to be speaking to a group of third-graders. I admit it was difficult to take him seriously because he reminded me of an Indian-American version of Kenneth - The Page on "30 Rock." If I remember correctly, there was an episode where Kenneth reminisced about his Daddy taking him to the store. (Okay, I made that up.)

I'm sure Jindal has lots of potential as a Republican politician but last night he didn't say much. What could he say? He was a little sideways in stating the stimulus bill was "irresponsible" considering he accepted $3.7B of the $3.8B offered to LA. (I suppose only $100M was irresponsible.) He also didn't mention the billions the evil government paid to rebuild after Katrina.

IMO, we are the government and we gotta do what we gotta do. Yes, the current state of affairs and resulting stimulus plan is painful and unfair in many respects; especially for fiscally responsible American citizens. As one of those citizens, I don't like it... but I'm willing to look at the big picture and what's at stake for all of us.

Okay, so we must act quickly in this crisis and there's a lot of ground to cover. I'm all for getting the heart beating again ("clear!") while simultaneously making things happen like health care reform. Because we, the government, are historically slow to act, I'm hesitant to say let's be careful about acting all at once. We don't want a mind-boggling amount of money to be squandered. There must be change at the core or money won't fix anything. Obama recognizes this.

Lastly, the atmosphere in the house chamber was so incredibly different from the last - well, forever. Where has our leadership been for all these years?

Obama gave a brave and highly ambitious speech. And, yes, we need his kind of leadership.

CitizenB

Haiku Sunday

2009-02-22T10:33:00.001-06:00

on the smooth stone step
a yellow bird waits, alone
not to become prey

Emily, Our Newest and Littlest Citizen

2009-02-19T08:04:00.000-06:00

Dear Citizens,

Please allow me to introduce the newest addition to the family, Emily Maribel.

Emily was born Tuesday, February 17 at 7:49 a.m. and weighed in at 7 lb. 7 oz. She's a petite 18" long.

She's adorable and totally Zen even when she spits up a little. Her beautiful black hair forms in to a perfect faux-mohawk* and her big blue-brown eyes will melt your heart.

Mom Whitney is doing well. She is such a patient, loving mother. Like most fathers, Dad Jose, smiling brightly, is probably a little stunned by the whole birthing experience. It is quite stunning.

Big brother Gabriel, 2 1/2, is getting with the program and the idea of sharing his mom with "Emme". I learned last night that you should always carry a spare hot wheel race car, preferably black, in your purse. If not, be prepared to allow a 2 year old to play with your I Phone.

Here's to Emily. I can't wait to watch you grow up.

Aunt Citizen B

*Note: Her mother does not approve of the faux-mohawk; at least not yet.

Honoring Our Presidents - The Good, the Bad, and the Forgotten

2009-02-16T13:36:00.000-06:00

As a citizen, I'm compelled to comment on yet another holiday. I'm still in disbelief I actually blogged about Valentine's Day.

Today is Presidents Day and to most Americans this means banks and government offices are closed. No mail delivery today. That's about it. At least it's one less day for banks and the government to make a total mess of our lives.

There's no birthday cake for George Washington with 277 candles nor Abe Lincoln with 200 (that I know of) and someone in charge needs to make cake a priority on Presidents Day (Hillary, will you fit this in before your inaugural Asia trip?) We all know birthday cake calories don't count and with a cake large enough to hold a combined 477 candles, we could eat a lot of guiltless cake. Who needs another parade or red, white, and blue bunting?

I suppose the purpose of Presidents Day is to allow schools to focus on educating our children about presidents and government. (Oh, and to promote patriotism.) I hope our future generation is learning something stimulating about presidential history and that it involves information not on a standardized test. When will we figure out that our kids need creative ways of learning without concentrating solely on which circle to fill in with a #2 pencil?

I'm not suggesting that the assassinations of Lincoln and JFK or Washington's siege of Boston be reenacted in the classroom. Although most kids see much worse on TV and video games. We certainly don't want Monica Lewinsky to be portrayed in any manner or George W.'s spelling to be showcased.

I've been out of public school for longer than I care to mention. Today, I had to think back on what I learned about Presidents Day. Most of it had to due with memorization. So I put my memory to the test and beginning with Washington I made it to president #7. For some reason I hit a mental block after Andrew Jackson. I fared a little better starting with Obama and working in reverse. I actually made it to Warren G. Harding or 16 back. At least I remembered the 11 presidents in office during my lifetime. I admit to almost forgetting Ford.

Why is it so difficult to recall all the guys in the middle? I remembered Lincoln, Johnson, Buchanan, Teddy Roosevelt, Polk, and Taylor, and except for Lincoln at #16, I don't know their numbers. I also remembered Grover Cleveland because once we visited an historic house in Nashville where a special bath had been designed to accommodate his large size. Also, the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Cleveland's daughter. Considering my love of sugar, this wasn't hard to remember along with the snack cakes named for Dolley Madison.

The in-between president names remind of those one would find in an elite country club registry - Harrison, Tyler, Pierce, Hayes, Arthur, McKinley, Van Buren. Maybe this is why I've blocked them from my memory.

During this exercise in futility, I actually remembered an excellent learning experience. I was one of several 7th and 8th grade Speech students presenting an after-school program highlighting excerpts from famous FDR speeches. We were dressed in red, white, and blue. I wore a white cotton dress with navy blue trim that Mom sewed just for the occasion. Each student stood on a designated "X" on the dark stage in the school auditorium and when a beam from a red, white or blue spotlight blinded us one by one, we were cued to give our our speech.

I remember arriving and my teacher advising one of the student speakers had strep throat (instead of failing to memorize FDR) and I was to take his part in addition to mine. No pressure! I remember my bit was an excerpt from the famous inaugural speech "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself..."

This 1933 speech speaks eerily to the current state of the union. In that life is cyclical, does this mean Coolidge and Hoover preceding FDR were as lame as George W.? Most likely.

CitizenB

A Valentine's Day Bonanza

2009-02-14T09:25:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day, Citizens.

Today is all about matters of the heart. Love is mysterious - how do we chose the ones we love and vice versa? Romantic love is one of those things - you just know it when you feel it. It's more than a fleeting crush. It's all about admiration, respect, understanding, patience, acceptance, support and giving fully of yourself without asking for anything in return. It's a wonderful thing when it happens and endures.

Valentine's Day is the time to demonstrate "the love". In our commercialized society, this means purchases: chocolates, flowers, cards, balloons, jewelry, stuffed animals, romantic dinners, and lingerie. Along with using money allocated for this month's car insurance, this takes a lot of preparation and forethought.

Some thoughts:

I always feel for men - husbands and boyfriends - on Valentine's Day. Not the best at forethought and preparation (with a few exceptions), you see them in the grocery store floral department on the day in question looking like lost children. They move on to the greeting card aisle and look painfully through the left-overs. There's so much pressure; women, in general, are very picky. They don't like receiving Valentines entitled "For My Mother" or worse, a get well card. They like their name to be spelled correctly. Most don't enjoy sharing a half off appetizer at T.G.I. Fridays.

Maybe there's too much pressure - unless you're a metrosexual or one of the Queer Eye guys. It's really all about being thoughtful. Why not vacuum the entire house for your loved one, replace the burned out light bulb in the bathroom, and make homemade sushi? (My gift from Andy this year.) How about giving your loved one a rock (not the kind of rock you may be thinking of; an actual rock rock, you know, from the yard), a book or just saying "I love you" accompanied by a bunch of kisses.

My favorite Valentine's gift was "I love you" and an arrow-pierced heart marked with a sharpie on a paper towel accompanied by a segmented orange in a Ziploc baggy - left on the kitchen counter before work. Perfecto! Yes, as you can see, I have very low expectations in this category.

Valentine's 1960-1970's Style:

I loved Valentine's Day as a kid and the big event of decorating a shoe box with doilies, pipe cleaners, and cut-outs of cupids and hearts from red and pink construction paper and tissue. This was way before glitter, glue sticks, and Michael's MJ Designs. We managed.

It was also a thrill to choose a box of Valentine cards and write one for each member of your class - including the boys - and even for the boy that blew spit balls through a straw into your hair. Of course, he was the one who loved you the most and/or voted most likely to end up in prison. There was always a special valentine for your teacher ( "Teacher, You're A+") and this was before helicopter mothers sent gifts for the teacher like heart -shaped paperweights, pink mugs, and spa gift certificates.

At the class party, it was so much fun to read each valentine - always corny - with cute animals and sayings like "I'm Just Wild About You, Valentine" and "Quit Horsing Around and Be Mine." Many valentines featured fruit with cute faces and sayings like "You're a Peach", "I'm Going Bananas for You", and "You're Plum Cute." This was before Pokemon and Hannah Montana. We were very sheltered and thought animals and fruit could talk.

Once as a senior in high school and after 3 years of French, I became an aide to the French teacher (the perks included getting to grade my younger sister's tests). I was Ms. Tharp's aide during a class period when she taught Special Ed (that's what it was called at the time). It was not a Special Ed French class; Ms. Tharp taught more than one subject. Anyway, there were several boys in the class (most looked like Landry on "Friday Night Lights" and unfortunately not like Tim Riggins) and that particular Valentine's Day, I received an excessive amount of valentines - some scrolls of paper tied with red ribbons and others handmade red hearts. It was very touching. With some stroke of luck, my boyfriend also sent 3 red roses with baby's breath in a vase to the school. I carried it around all day - which was awkward because all the desks were slanted. I wouldn't have dreamed of leaving those roses in my locker or car. I had my special day and have been happy with oranges ever since.

Also, a shout out to Jamie & Leon. Happy Anniversary. And Mom, Happy Anniversary. I love you and I'm glad you had many happy years with Jan.

Love you bunches,

Citizen B

P.S. If you didn't get a chance to see 30 Rock's Valentine's episode, you must check in out on NBC.com or Hulu. Liz's first date with Don Draper (Jon Hamm) lands on Valentine's Day and she's freaked out by his handsomeness, Kenneth falls in love with a blind intern who disses him after feeling his dorky face - Tracy couldn't save him with the charade, and Jack ends up in confession, totally freaks out a priest and ends up at McDonald's with Salma Hayek.

OMG! - 25 Random Things About CitizenB

2009-02-12T15:45:00.001-06:00

When I started this blog a few months ago I had no idea how popular blogging had become and of the millions of citizens who share great and not so great ideas and/or random, useless information (guilty). Yes, I knew about MySpace but never considered it because it seems best suited for the 15-30 age bracket or the group known as "Generation Y" or "Guppies". (I just made up those tags but they could very well exist.)

Anyway, Slate recently headlined a story about Facebook's "25 Random Things About Me" with detailed research on the craze including opinions from Ph.Ds, and charts and graphs to demonstrate its evolution and how people react and respond. Per Wikipedia (how did we ever get by without all this information available at our fingertips?): "Facebook Notes was introduced on August 22, 2006, a blogging feature that allowed tags and embeddable images. Users were later able to import blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services. A recent use of Notes includes the Internet meme - "25 Random Things About Me" which involves writing 25 things about the user that their friends don't already know about them and using the tag function to ask 25 friends to also do so. Nearly 5 million "25 Random Things" notes were written on Facebook profiles in the first week of February 2009." 5 million last week? Wow. We are in dire straits - and obviously not out dancing in the streets.

My closest experience with "25 Random Things" is receiving e-mail questionnaires as shared by friends and family asking questions like "what's your favorite color?", "TV show?", "Food?"etc. I admit that I made up a lot of my answers to make it more interesting because who really cares that the answers are "green", "The Office" and "Italian"? As a side note and warning, never answer "What is your mother's maiden name?" and "The last 4 digits of your SSN?"

I considered not going down the "25" road, but hey, I might learn something about myself that will lead me to become a better person/citizen. Not really. I'm doing it for "fun" and because I'm bored and have no control over any other aspect of my life - typical of the 5 million others just like me. Because of the randomness, I hope to be able to tell the truth - or a kernel of the truth , if you can handle it.

"25 Random Things About CitizenB"

1. The story is that as newborn, I was left on the doorstep by desperate gypsies - I was a screamer - and had weird hair growing off my ears.

2. Due to the screaming and general unhappiness for no apparent reason (maybe the hairy ears?), I was drugged (legally) as a baby and by age 18 months a full-blown Paragoric addict. I weaned from my addiction by age 3, and no, I do not blame my parents or the gypsies. It was standard procedure in the 60's and too bad infants can't be drugged with something more effective and less harmful than grape-flavored Dimetapp or whatever is prescribed these days. Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about.

3. As a young child, I specifically asked to be the "onlyest one" and in response my Mom became pregnant for an entire decade, producing 4 younger siblings - girl, boy, girl, girl. We also had dogs.

4. As a 6 year old, I stood on an overturned crate in the front yard and sang "It's The End of The World" into the garden hose. That was a highlight - and the beginning and end of my singing career.

5. As a 12 year old, I wrote poetry and placed anonymous samples in random mailboxes in the apartment complex where we lived. I really hope I cheered up grouchy Mrs. Pritchett in Apt. 121-A. If she smiled, her pancake make-up probably cracked and fell off.

6. I still like reading the dictionary, finding a "word for the day" and also spinning the globe to point to the destination of my next vacation. For some reason, I always land on Mongolia - if in fact my globe is current and Mongolia hasn't been renamed or had its borders redrawn due to Civil War.

7. I speak limited French with a Texas twang.

8. I'm tragically un-hip and love the corniest of corny jokes. I'm known to snort and cackle.

9. I like to sketch and my favorite subjects are nudes wearing large hats adorned with flowers and feathers. It's not as weird as it sounds.

10. I'm OCD with laundry and actually count (in Spanish - for some reason) the articles of clothing as they go into the washing machine. I still come up with missing socks.

11. If my hands are tied down I cannot speak.

12. I own one diamond - an anniversary ring - and I'm still bothered a little about how I came to own it after reading "King Leopold's Ghost." In denial, I manage to dismiss the horrors of diamond mining (and other atrocious acts like rubber harvesting) in the Congo by convincing myself that my diamond was excavated from a nice, safe underground diamond mine below Zales' TX headquarters. Also, I figure we all use rubber products - can't drive without tires - so how could one diamond ring be so horrible? Enough of the justification.

13. I like to listen to Pearl Jam in my car before important meetings and my daily mantra consists of two curse words - even though I'm not a negative person. I don't find the necessary strength for presentations in Barry Manilow and words like "love" and "hope".

14. I can't do step aerobics without falling over. I can't exercise without laughing and falling over. I fall over easily.

15. More and more, I find myself repeating sentences when talking. I find myself repeating sentences when talking. If only I could reboot.

16. The movie generally sucked, but I loved the character of Esqueleto in "Nacho Libre" and his line "I am Hid-E-Ous."

17. I have fat lobes and didn't have my ears professionally pierced until age 28.

18. I went to 12 different public schools - not because I was a juvenile or gifted. We just moved a lot.

19. I love babies and really old people. You can learn a lot from a 90 year old. Most newborns resemble Winston Churchill (or 90 year olds) but they usually cute'n-up in a couple of weeks.

20. I would like to own a book store and live in Paris, near Hampstead Heath, or in Austin, TX - with dogs lounging on Persian rugs and cats sleeping on window sills.

21. I was always terrified of even the idea of cats until the Halloween night when a black kitten appeared on the doorstep, invited himself in and became a member of the family. Ironically, the arrival of "Boo" didn't scare me at all.

22. While 8 months pregnant, I slept in the back of a pick up truck in the middle of a cow pasture. It's what we call "camping" and what you do for "entertainment" when you are young, dumb, and want to be with your husband in West Texas.

23. I don't know how to gamble. Thank goodness.

24. I cried (bawled) when Carter lost to Reagan in 1980 - my first election and vote. A miserable milestone. I've had a few disappointments - politically - over the years. You learn to get over it and on with it - but not when you're 19 and naive about the real world.

25. I'm brave when I travel alone - it's all about cool sunglasses and driving rental cars like a pro - including lots of exciting U-turns.

The end. 25 random things takes a lot of brain-storming and is a bit numbing. I invite you to try it. If not, I will concoct 25 random things about you - my family and friends. It could get embarrassing!

Oh, did I mention I love green?

Signing off,

CitizenB

10 Tips To Improve Your Mood During An Economic Crisis

2009-02-09T12:22:00.000-06:00

Dear Citizen,

I don't know about you but I'm having a tough time keeping my chin up in these trying times. Of course, I don't have much of a chin, but you get my drift. Despite a few highlights, the ever-present news is mostly depressing - clueless and faithless congressmen, crooks and liars, tax dodgers, jobless claims, foreclosures, struggling stocks, disappearing 401Ks, Australian wildfires, contaminated peanut butter, irresponsible multiple embryo transplants, pot-smoking and steroid-using athletes/"role models", the horrors of celebrity weight gain, and too much analysis of fake Reality TV. No matter how optimistic you are (and should be for the greater good), for many of us, it's hard to feel "the love" right now.

10 tips to improve your mood:

1. Enjoy a piece of toast (whole grain with Brummel & Brown natural yogurt/butter spread, of course.) You'll be surprised how a simple piece of toast (no, it doesn't have to be a bagel) will magically lift your spirits.

2. Take stock in what you have. Revisit your book, music, DVD or other collection. This will make you happy - or make you pause - in the event you realize you had (have?) terrible taste in music (especially during the 80's) and own too many movie soundtracks that don't include that one song you were looking for. (I actually own the soundtracks from "Last of The Mohicans" and "Dawson's Creek - Season 3"). This will allow you to make fun of yourself and decide which items to select for next Christmas's inevitable re-gifting. Hmmm, I wonder if my nephew Ryan is a Joey & Pacey fan?

3. Smile. Do it by force or even if it feels creepy. After a few moments, it will occur naturally and be less painful. Your mood will improve over time and/or if the smile becomes stuck for more than 4 hours, someone will suggest psychiatric help.

4. Talk. To a friend, stranger, yourself, an object, plant (preferably an ivy) or pet. If necessary, join a support group of any kind. Recently, I read about a group of women - wives and girlfriends of investment bankers - meeting (in a bar) to bemoan topics like "This is not what I signed on for!", "I'm not sure I love him if he's not rich.", "But I deserve a McMansion and luxury SUV!" etc. Okay, in that case, just get over it.

5. Value experiences, not possessions. What really makes you happy? Okay, I admit I hugged a new magazine rack once and also kissed a new pair of shoes. Minor detail.

6. Get excited about the little things; i.e., fake-buttered toast.

7. Tell your significant other that you love, love, love him/her at least 3 times per day - even if you are mad at him/her for:
a) turning off the electricity without warning causing you to lose valuable, unsaved diary entries,
b) buying the world's cheapest detergent that inflames your sensitive skin when you specifically requested "Cheer - Free & Gentle" with a coupon no less, and
c) calling your cell phone repeatedly from the bedroom so that you can drop what you're doing in the kitchen and locate the remote sitting on the bedside table.

8. Play outside with your niece's adorable 2 1/2 year old (as long as he's had his nap and has dry pants). Observe the joy on his face as he smears mud on his clean shirt, crashes his matchbox cars into the curb, insists on pushing you on the porch swing, points out airplanes, birds and stars, and sneaks forbidden drinks of your diet coke when his mother isn't watching. This will please you.

9. Find a cheap hobby. I read that yarn is flying off the shelf and knitting while eating spam and saltines by candle light has replaced dining out at Chili's (same sodium content). If you're my mom, borrow our staple gun and fire away at fabric on those hand-crafted cornice boards. It's good physical therapy and will help you regain your strength. You also may sew. There's enough fabric in Mom's house to clothe the octuplets for life.

10. Clean your bathroom. It will remind you of how nice it is to have running water and to be thankful you don't have to use a latrine in the woods where there are raccoons.

It's all relative.

CitizenB

Movies Movies Movies - My 115

2009-02-04T15:50:00.000-06:00

I love film; maybe not as much as Roger Ebert, bless his heart, but as an ordinary citizen, I really love the movies. Yes, more than pie.

Recently, I attempted to whittle down 15+ years of lists to produce a new list of 100 films to include a wide range of genres. These are movies that I love (or really like) whether blockbusters (not many) or straight to video (a few). In their own way, they made an impression, and if we had all the time in the world I could tell you at least one minor but interesting detail that I remember from them all. It's about the little things.

I labored to get the number to 100 but when the tally came to 115 I decided "close enough!" You will find them listed alphabetically to the lower right. Ever the analyst, I decided to consider the titles and see if I could learn something about my obsession.

Here are the statistics (very unscientific) with some films falling into multiple categories:

The majority (48) qualify as dramas,
35 meet the romantic category (not necessarily chick flicks but, hey, I am a girl),
At least 34 are indies,
26 are comedies or try to be,
18 are classics (tough to pare down all the "greats"),
Films about social issues: 18,
17 are period pieces (not just one period!),
There are 13 foreign films and 13 thrillers,
At least 12 films center around strong but imperfect women (including a few total bad asses),
11 involve dark humor,
10 have a crime story and 10 are heart breakers,
9 are coming of age stories and 9 are political,
Action & Adventure films: 8,
7 are considered suspenseful,
6 are cult films and 6 westerns (with horses),
5 are low budget films. 5 are considered epics. There are 5 documentaries and 5 road trips or journeys,
4 were "Best Pictures", 4 are about war. 4 are musicals and 4 showcase food,
There are 3 spoofs and 3 films about aging,
2 were first films for the directors and at least 2 can be considered "film noir",
Horror: 1!

48 are from the 00s, 34 from the 90's, 12 from the 80's, 5 - 70's, 8 - 60's, 2 - 50's, 4 - 40's and 2 from the 30's.

A few directors pop up more than once including Ang Lee, Woody Allen, Lasse Hallstrom, Alejandro Inarrtu, Whit Stillman, Joel Cohen, Wes Anderson, Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino and Curtis Hansen.

The actors range from the total unknown to Laurence Olivier. Wasn't he knighted as a film god? If I remember correctly he actually played Zeus in "Clash of the Titans." One of my faves, Russell Crowe (soooo intense), appears in at least 3. Billy Bob Thornton manages to pop up as an actor and a director. Al Gore achieves rock star status from An Inconvenient Truth. I was surprised that I liked a film with John Goodman and one with the guy from Kung Fu. But I did and do.

You really can't go wrong watching Annette Bening (she must be a great actress to be married to Warren Beatty), Juliette Binoche, Frances McDormand, Judi Dench, Toni Collette, Judy Davis, Cate Blanchett (she makes Brad Pitt look better) and Laura Linney - to name a few.

So what did I learn?

I like variety and movies that are intense, intelligent, unexpected, emotional, artistic, visually stunning, inspiring (without trying or preaching) and passionate; with broken characters. Throw in some quirkiness with the occasional cheese and insanity and I'm a happy viewer.

I'm tolerant but there are a few movies that come to mind that I severely disliked.

"Next" with Nicolas Cage was preposterous (I did like him in "Valley Girl").

"Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind" gave me a headache. Jim Carrey should never be allowed to act with Kate Winslet.

I hated, hated, hated "Swordfish". Halle Berry removing her shirt could not save that disaster of a movie.

I'm not a Tom Cruise fan and with obviously limited sexual experience, I didn't understand "Eyes Wide Shut". Besides, TC and sex? Ew. I did like "Minority Report" but more for the pre-mug shot Colin Farrell than T.C.

Johnny Depp must have been paid a huge pile of money to do 3 "Pirates" movies. Ugh. (Sorry, kids.) I did like "Sweeney Todd", for some reason.

Lastly, I was disappointed with "Leatherheads". George Clooney bombed with that one. Oh well, he made up for it with "Michael Clayton". That film made my "115" more for the actor Tom Wilkinson and the bizzaro actress - Tilda Swinton.

Oh, so many movies and so little time. Next I'll work on my Reading list.

That's a wrap,

CitizenB

Meat!

2009-01-31T08:11:00.000-06:00

Just for fun and a few years ago, we had a contest in our house to make up our own word for "cool" and all the crazy expressions that have evolved over the years.

It seems we were tired of the usual exclamations of approval including "right on", "cool", "too cool", "way cool", "the coolest", "sweet", "nice", "excellent" and considering the times, an occasional "rad", "bad", "bad-ass", "I hear that", "word" etc.

Not being skaters, surfers, or Valley people, we never used a lot of radical expressions including "gnarly", "bitchin'", "fer sure", and "tubular."

I'll occasionally slip with a "far out!" and "neat-o!" Andy and Aaron use "off the hook", "dabomb" and "sooooo freakin' good" to describe their cooking. They get really, really excited stirring stuff on the stove. I've seen near seizure-like activity in our kitchen. Confidence is good, but don't fall face first into your paella.

Also, I'm lost on today's expressions but imagine most start with a "ph" like "phat", "phabulous" and "phantastic."

Back to the contest... the winning entry (mine) was - drum roll, please - "MEAT!" I don't recall the other entries but I'm fairly sure Aaron's entry was "This is a bunch of b-s."

The new sensation "Meat!" pops up during conversation; mainly when we are sitting down to a large platter of ribs. Now that's "Meat!"

There have been a number of "Meat!" worthy events lately. Amanda graduated with honors from UTA. MEAT! Andy survived his solo motorcycle journey to the far reaches of Eastern Oklahoma. Meat! Aaron is on month two of his vegetarian diet. Meat-o! Rush Limbaugh continues to prove he's the ultimate dolt. Double Meat with Gravy!

Remember. Always praise with "MEAT!"

Marshall's Quasi-Proust Questionnaire

2009-01-23T21:37:00.000-06:00

Marshall is a perfect specimen of a tabby cat at age 7 - physically striking, mature but youthful, loving though aloof, simple yet complex. Here's what he had to say to Proustian and other important questions (note the questions were asked in random order to allow for the most spontaneous response):

What is your favorite music? Blues

What is your favorite cocktail? Blueberry Martini

What do you like most about your appearance? My spectacular stripes

What do you dislike most about your body? I am not ashamed to say... my shriveled testicles

What languages do you speak? English, Russian, Bahasa Indonesian, Sign, and Cat Slang including purring, hissing and yowling at different pitches and beats, Yo!

What is your favorite entertainment? Pouncing to Zydeco at Poor David's Pub and watching Animal Planet

What is your motto? One Life At A Time

Where would you like to live? Taj Mahal or a temperature controlled barn in Iowa

What is your most treasured possession? My prowess and ability to dart up a tree at record speed and give the Bronx cheer to salivating German Shepherds

What do you value in your owners? Loyalty, plus they open doors for me at any hour

Which actress would you most like to meet? Nastassja Kinski

What subject did you enjoy most in school? Biology; specifically dissecting frogs.

Which historical figure do you most identify with? Sigmund Freud

What is your favorite movie? Breakfast at Tiffany's

Which talent would you most like to have? Ability to woo Nastassja Kinski as a panther

What it the quality you most like in a mate? A good listener

What is your greatest regret? I didn't escape prepubertal castration

Who are your favorite writers? Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss

What can be found in your refrigerator? Mouse on ice, butter, olives and Rock Star

What is your current state of mind? Bored and not at all amused with these questions

What instrument would you like to play? Accordion or double bass

What is your favorite game? Ping Pong

Do you have political aspirations? Yes. Find a way to quash oppressive city ordinances and join in the fight to "remake" America

Which words or phrases do you most overuse? "Feed me" in four different languages

Who is your favorite musician? Brian Setzer

What is your greatest fear? There is nothing to fear but fear itself or maybe an open dryer door

What is your favorite occupation? Day dreaming and writing love letters

What is your favorite flower? One that I can eat and regurgitate without being poisoned

Which magazine do you enjoy? Vogue Knitting. Sorry, Vanity Fair, but yarn fascinates me

End

The Moon, Venus & Jupiter!

2008-12-01T20:47:00.000-06:00

Tonight I was able to view a beautiful crescent moon accompanied by a very bright Venus and Jupiter.

An excerpt from Earth & Sky:

"Celestial trio in December 1 twilight
Tonight is Monday, Dec 01 2008

Yesterday, the blazing planets Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction at dusk and early evening. Yet, this evening’s sky show will probably supersede yesterday’s attraction. What is it about these gatherings of objects in the night sky that’s so alluring? Hard to know, but I’ll tell you that Venus and Jupiter will be almost as close together this evening as they were last night. What’s more, this evening, the waxing crescent moon will join the show in earnest, appearing very near the two brightest planets.

The view will be spectacular with the eye alone, although (it must be said) these objects are fairly low in the twilight sky as seen from the northern hemisphere. Oh, to be in the southern hemisphere now, where the trio stands high in the sky after sunset! No matter. People around the world will look up to see and be amazed by these worlds.

As seen from most of North America, the heavenly threesome will fit within a single binocular field of view. If you live in Europe, however, you might not see Venus for a portion of the evening tonight, because the moon will occult – pass in front of – Venus, blocking this world from view. Information on this occultation is available at the International Occultation Timing Association.

Look closely at the moon through binoculars and you might see the soft glow of earthshine on the dark side of the moon. The waxing crescent moon is about 16% lit up in sunlight and 84% in darkness. But as seen from the moon, the phase of the Earth is exactly the opposite, with the waning gibbous Earth about 84% illuminated in sunshine and 16% in darkness.

By the way, if you were standing on the night side of the moon tonight, you would see an almost full Earth lighting up your lunar landscape!

Written by BRUCE MCCLURE , 1 December 08"

Turkey v. Stinky Cheese

2008-11-27T00:25:00.000-06:00

Fellow Citizens:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Early this morning, my home-home page (Slate) popped up with a "Turkey Wars" headline and an article "Don't Wet-Brine Your Turkey. Do Stir-Fry Your Sweet Potatoes."

Here's an excerpt:

"The biggest turkey trend this year is a push-back against wet brining, which the gastronomic press corps has promoted enthusiastically for the past decade or so. (Food Network star Alton Brown, for example, is a big fan.) Brining is the process of soaking the raw bird in a bath of salty—and sometimes spicy and/or sweetened—water in order to keep the breast meat moist and counteract the turkey's fundamental engineering flaw: The breast is done cooking long before the legs are. But this method isn't hassle-free. It's hard to find room in an overcrowded refrigerator for a bucketful of brine and bird. More important, as food-science maven Harold McGee pointed out in the New York Times this month, the extra salt in the turkey can botch the gravy. McGee is joined by other brine-resisters, like Thanksgiving guru Rick Rodgers, who, in Bon Appétit, recommends dry-salting the turkey 18-24 hours before cooking (which probably won't affect the gravy quite so much). Inspired by legendary chef and pre-salter Judy Rogers, the Los Angeles Times kvells over a similar technique. Saveur boasts a recipe from New Orleans chef Leah Chase in which the turkey is mostly cooked inside an aluminum foil packet, essentially steaming it en papillote. Others, like the gang at Cook's Illustrated, advise ditching the idea of a whole roast turkey. They advocate cooking it in parts instead. So does Mark Bittman of the New York Times, but he further thumbs his nose at tradition by rejecting the roasting custom altogether and recommending a braise."

The topic "to brine or not to brine" made me think about my encounter with Rachael Ray's TV production team at the Food Hall in Grand Central a while back, and the stupid question I was assigned to look into the camera and ask "Hi, Rachael. I'm B... from Texas and I was wondering how long do you brine a turkey to make it most flavorful?"

You see I knew it was a bad question and tried to convince the producer to allow me to ask a question about cheese, specifically stinky cheese.

This is how it all started.

I was in NYC to provide deposition testimony in an insurance coverage dispute/lawsuit. After the deposition, I was feeling pretty good (I thrive on answering questions + I knew our side was right and justice would be served) and decided to get off the uptown subway at Grand Central Terminal to check out the Food Hall, specifically Murray's Cheese Shop. I was in search of cheese, specifically stinky cheese as a present/souvenir for Andy. I'm good like that.

In the fairly crowded stalls, I found Murray's and the most knowledgeable cheese people on earth. I explained I was looking for a stinky, hard cheese. Of all the cheeses in the universe, the experts told me it was very rare to find a stinky cheese that was also hard. Most cheeses with a high level of smell are soft or blue. Of course, Andy prefers hard cheese that burns the nose. I, too, preferred a hard cheese for transportation purposes although I hadn't really thought about how much it would smell on the airplane home. I spent some time sampling hard, semi-stinky cheeses. My #1 choice cost an outrageous amount (like $40 a pound), so I settled on #2, a pungent mature mountain cheese with a kick ($9.99).

I was then approached by a well-dressed woman (a scout). She asked: "Do you know Rachael Ray of the Food Network?"
Me: "Of course, Ray-Ray and I go way back. I love her. Yummo!" (Okay I made that up.)
Scout: "Would you like to be on TV? We are filming the 'question of the day' for Rachael's show.
Me: "Can I ask about cheese, specifically stinky cheese?"
Scout: "Let's ask the producer. I think your outfit and dark hair will look good on TV." (white jacket, teal top and I was actually wearing a necklace that day!)

We walked toward a group of people, most standing around holding clipboards trying to look busy. There was a cameraman and a boom operator. I was introduced to the producer, his assistant and her assistant. The assistant's assistant asked me to sign a waiver. I asked the first assistant if I could ask a cheese-related question and explained that considering Rachael Ray is all about simple "30 minute meals" it would be great to get her feedback on a cheese plate as a meal. She smiled and said "Oh, that's a great idea, but let's chose something off the list."

The first assistant handed me a list of questions involving various cooking questions. I studied them and there was nothing remotely cheesy. Not being a real actor I said "I really can't relate to any of these because I don't cook." (I have to admit that once the cheese question was quashed my heart wasn't really in it.) She then pointed to the list and said "How about this one? How long do you brine a turkey to make it the most flavorful?"
Me: "Okay, I can do that one if I can substitute 'chicken' for 'turkey'. I have experience with brining chicken (once)."
We looked at the producer and he nodded with a go ahead. If the assistant producer wanted to kill me, she did so with a smile.

There were four takes and the very best one was botched because the boom operator was too short and the microphone dropped in to camera view. We had to go with #2 (just like my cheese selection).

I hung around for the next question. It came from a handsomish Italian guy working behind the counter at the fish market. He resembled Joey from "Friends" and he was very gregarious with his question and a natural in front of the camera. I said "You should be an actor" and he replied "Oh, I am an actor. I just work here to pay the rent." (Maybe he was Joey from Friends.) And no wonder he was so good, he was an actor that knew something about food. He also had a big fish for a prop. I had no idea what to do with my hands except clutch my cheese.

I'm not sure my question ever aired and I really don't care. It was a fun experience and better than the time I spotted Mario Batali (in goofy shorts and orange clogs) at La Guardia. Of course, like all "celebrities" he's much shorter in person.

CitizenB

A Visit to the DMV & the Neighbor Connection

2008-11-23T12:41:00.000-06:00

Fellow Citizens:

Good morning! I hope you’ve had your Wheaties, as this one requires some energy to read. Have a great Thanksgiving, and to make things interesting consider inviting a neighbor or someone from the DMV over for dinner.

While waiting for our table this morning at breakfast, I happened to read my horoscope or Today's Birthday: "Get involved with your community this year; it can use your help. Be more directive than usual." In general, I find horoscopes to be a bunch of hooey, but found this very fitting considering the blog from yesterday. It seems that I was already thinking in this direction...

A Visit to the DMV & the Neighbor Connection

Since the "Gynecology and Yard of the Month" story, I've been thinking about neighbors; and thankfully, not much about the other topic. I'm fairly in denial in that area, and as evidenced yesterday at the DMV, I'm not very in touch with my physical self. My driver's license was set to expire this weekend on my 48th birthday, so I marched in to the DMV to renew it. I was so obsessed with covering up the gray hair for the photo that you have to live with forever (or at least 8 years) that I totally forgot about the vision test and the fact that I my eyes may have grayed as well. I was still in denial when I was instructed to look through the view finder. On line 5, I saw three columns with a series of numbers in the second and third column. The first column was blank - or so I thought.
The clerk, a mix of reggae and gangsta (she was wearing a knitted beret over dreadlocks and a huge gold pinky ring): "Read from all three columns."
Me, confused: "But there are no numbers in the first column."
Reggae Clerk: "Do you wear glasses?"
Me, pondering the question: "Oh, come to think of it, I have glasses, but I never wear them."
Reggae Clerk: "Well maybe you should. Where are they?"
Me, babbling: "At home. Do I have to go and get them? Oh, I really like your giant ring! Please let me try again."

This time Reggae Clerk was gracious enough to close the lens on the left eye and allow my strong and dominate right eye to do all the work. I practically willed fuzzy numbers to appear in the first column. I then read off numbers that could have been 6s or 8s. I pulled it off, somehow.

Me: "Gosh, I didn't know my left eye wasn't pulling its weight. Fortunately I haven't had any accidents. Knock on wood."

And then I realized this was a total LIE when suddenly remembering that I backed into a fire hydrant earlier this year. Of course, that was attributed to hysterical blindness, not real blindness. I wanted to confess to Reggae Clerk, but managed to refrain. Under the circumstances, it wouldn't have been helpful and I really hoped when I drove away she wouldn't notice the imprint of the fire hydrant that still exists in my bumper. Anyway, I promised Reggae Clerk that I would be a good and lawful citizen and wear my eyeglasses while driving... if only I could see to find them.

Beyond that, there was a slight confusion over my eye color.

Reggae Clerk: Are they green, grey, blue, hazel? She actually handed me a mirror decorated with fake jewels.
Me: "Green, most of the time.”

I totally knew that, but after not seeing numbers in the first column and then being forced on the spot to blurt out a current weight (okay, I lied a little there too – what’s wrong with me?), I wasn't feeling too sure about anything.

Moving on to the topic of neighbors and the purpose of this blog. I've been thinking that maybe I should make an effort and connect/re-connect with my neighbors... for the sake of community and all that jazz. You know, to honor the themes "Love Thy Neighbor", "Like a Good Neighbor", "It Takes a Village" etc. I’ll throw out the occasional wave and smile, but not much more.

Actually, our neighbors Mr. and Mrs. N connected with me when they knocked on the door a few days ago, and handed over a note (not an invite) about a reunion at their house directly behind ours and the possibility of loud noise from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. It included Mr. N's cell number in case of a problem. Always a good move to be proactive.

Me: "No worries. Have a great time. How's Edward?"

It seems that their son keeps Edward, a large bulldog, on a part-time basis. (I want to find out more about how to keep a dog part-time...maybe I can use this in selling Andy on getting one.) The Ns smiled when I mentioned Edward and the fact that no amount of persuasion (or Cesar Millan) can move that dog when he decides to sit in the middle of a walk. I refrained from mentioning their gray tomcat. You see, as part of my loving thy neighbor, I wanted to focus on the nice and not the bad. I'm not even sure that diabolical gray cat belongs to the Ns. He happens to sit on their deck while keeping an intimidating watch on our backyard. It's obvious that he's carefully plotting ways to seize Marshall's territory. I don't know his name, but I call him "Go away, you horrible, mean, yellow-eyed, bully of a cat" and "Don't you dare pin Marshall and chew on his ears, you horrible, mean, yellow-eyed, trespassing bully of a cat." He's a tough cat to love.

I've made efforts to get to know my neighbors over the years. There was my connection with Mr. and Mrs. American Airlines. They lived next door to the right and I remember their home was fully accessorized from the Sky Mall catalogue, including a 4' high resin sommelier statue welcoming you with a bottle of wine. That actually impressed me at the time, but fortunately I never got around to shopping for home decor on airplanes. When they moved away (or flew off to a better destination) Olaf and Gerda moved in. They were European physicians and their decor was the opposite of Sky Mall. They were minimalists and with the exception of the wooden shoe door-knocker, there was little decoration. They had a small boy, Flor, and then Gerda, ever the minimalist, popped out a girl when I didn't even know she was pregnant. At some point, they decided education for their children in the Netherlands would be better than in Dallas, TX where the kids at day care made fun of Flor's name and his clogs. Of course, that was before crocs were invented and celebrities named their kids "Bronx" and the like.

There was also Leonard and Marie, the elderly couple next door to the left. Their large house was too much for them and really falling apart. Leonard fixed that by burning it down. Not intentionally. He fell asleep and/or passed out while cooking chicken. His pug kicked into Lassie mode and woke him by wildly licking his face because he was too deaf to hear the smoke alarm. I always thought that Marie would have been the one to burn it down (or blow it up). At night, I could see her sneaking a cigarette in the garage - even though she had a bad case of emphysema (as did the pug from second hand smoke) and lugged around a portable oxygen tank. Alas, she was at the beauty shop when the fire occurred and off the hook. After the fire, L & M and the pug moved into a more manageable apartment, but that didn't keep Leonard from meeting me in the driveway everyday after work for months with insurance questions. He was convinced the "Like a Good Neighbor" company was ripping him off. After they moved away and the house was being rebuilt, we clipped a piece of their rose bush and planted it next to our oak tree. We call it the "Marie" rose and it’s very thorny. We really liked them even though they frequently told us that we were too young and really didn't know anything about anything.

We've had a couple of bad experiences, including an ongoing one with the neighbor who insists on doing yard work in the dark and/or specifically during our only window of opportunity for relaxation - usually around 6:00 p.m. on Sundays. Just as we are settling in for a nice evening, his monster lawn equipment belts out at least 200 decibels. Why? I think it's a macho thing. He likes to take out his aggression on tiny, innocent blades of grass. Plus his wife is probably sick of him by then and kicks him out of the house. We all know that Sunday afternoons can be trying. Too much togetherness can make you do crazy things. In addition to noise pollution and the other environmental destruction issues presented, night time weed-whacking and leaf-blowing should be considered an ultra-hazardous activity (like logging). While I worry about injury to our neighbor (for some reason) and others, Andy fumes over the relentless, obsessive compulsive trimming of anything green over 1". He actually tried to solve the problem with a man-to-extreme garden tool talk. Mr. Whacker was highly defensive, as expected. Fortunately, there was no wrestling for the leaf blower.

The other bad experience involved a German shepherd owned by a neighbor across the street. One day, as I was walking our elderly beagle (R.I.P.) and being followed by my black cat (he was under the mistaken impression that he was also a dog), "Killer" appeared out of the fence, and from the edge of the yard began to focus on us, clearly in attack mode. The beagle, Scout, with her nose to the ground, was oblivious, but the cat, Boo, looked at me like "Please don't let him eat me." I froze for a minute, but then decided to walk normally with a firm "come, children, come" and managed to get into the garage before Killer took a step off the curb. I called animal control and Killer was put back behind the fence. A few weeks later, a man knocked on the door and advised he was an investigator for a law firm. One of his clients, a neighbor out on a run, had lost a finger to Killer. The client was reportedly a surgeon and really needed that finger, and the lawyer really, really needed his contingency fee, so they were out canvassing the neighborhood in an effort to show notice of Killer's vicious propensities. On that day I officially renamed Killer "Mr. Finger-Eater".

So I was thinking, why are neighbor relationships always a bit difficult or at least uncomfortable? From my job, I know that neighbor disputes and claims are the absolute worst. John's Great Dane impregnates Mary's AKC-registered poodle. Bob's retaining wall falls into Carol's swimming pool. Ted's tree limb scrapes Alice's parked car with its custom paint job. It's the end of the freaking world! Expect protracted litigation and three or four attempts at mediation. Give me a crane falling on a stagehand's head during a ridiculous underwater music video shoot or a window washer falling nine stories any day.

I did some research and found that when it comes to neighbors, most people have complaints, not compliments. Here's a sample of how people often describe their neighbors: "annoying, creepy, weird, crazy, lazy, awful, rude, crabby, psycho nut case, flasher, two-faced, pervert, grumpy, nosey, inconsiderate, phony, dangerous, smelly, they're jerks!, and I hate them!! Surveys say common complaints are barking and howling dogs, accumulation of junk and trash, high weeds (not in my neighborhood when Mr. Whacker is on the loose!), drunks, driving too fast, constant yelling, illegal parking, loud crap music, out of control children, roosters crowing, illegal fireworks, convicted felons, and intrusion of massage parlors and liquor stores. Gosh, people, where's the love?

We've managed to get along with a variety of neighbors over the years, including the ultra-religious square dancers across the street always feuding with their elderly next door neighbor's 40 year-old alcoholic son washing his car wearing nothing but a Texas-flag Speedo (not a good look for him), and the a tow-truck company owner and his dysfunction offspring, including unemployed/unemployable daughter B and her nogoodnik "husband", S, and children C and Little S or "Bubba". Poor C, the spitting image of her mother, talked non-stop and as a result Bubba never learned to speak. He could only grunt. Except when he got excited he would grunt, point, and jump up and down. I'm sure he learned language skills once he entered kindergarten. At least I hope so. Anyway, the tow truck kids used to drive Aaron crazy. They loved Andy (probably because they thought he was a kid that got to drive a car) and therefore, called/grunted our son Aaron "Andy-Boy". Aaron would cry, "It's Aaron!" and C would reply "I know, Andy-Boy."

There were lots of interesting events with the square dancers (we politely declined their invitation to do-se-do and switch partners... they eventually divorced, and it got ugly with restraining orders, guns drawn and such...in total contradiction to their Christian views) and their poor teenaged daughter with her hideous skin disorder (no doubt an allergy to her parents). Also, having a tow truck driver as a neighbor came in handy when I backed my VW into a ditch during the City's installation of a new sewer line and when my Jeep stalled on the Woodall-Rogers overpass during morning rush hour. (Do you know how rude people are when you break down on one of Dallas's busiest freeway ramps? Excessively rude! And to the point where I was forced to yell at one awful man in a pick up truck; "What the ---- do you expect me to do?" Please know that I never cuss out loud - so that was big deal - and strangely therapeutic.) As far as neighbors, things wouldn't have been too bad with the tow truckers if only B would have divorced S, gone to community college and had an extreme makeover.

Now that I'm thinking about it, my old neighbors were much more "out there" with their personal issues. For the most part, our current neighbors keep things under wraps. I guess because a security patrol comes with the home owner association package and odd behavior is not really tolerated out in the open. We also have an e-mail system where a designated person alerts us of neighborhood goings on like coyote sightings, missing pets, magazine sales/conmen, identity thieves rummaging through the garbage, wayward ducks, and generally suspicious men having no business walking along the green belt. With that warning, I suggested to "Andy-Boy" that he stay off the green belt and always carry his ID to prove that he actually lives in the neighborhood.

I must say this exercise has made me re-think the neighbor connection. I really don't want to get to know them all that well. I'll stick with Robert Frost and his "Good fences make good neighbors." Now, if we could just build a fence.

CitizenB

I'm Relieved, How Are You?

2008-11-04T11:10:00.000-06:00

Fellow Citizens:

I’m Relieved, How Are You?

Finally! There’s hope for change. There’s hope for looking at the big picture. There’s now ‘us’, not just ‘me, me & me.” Goodbye, Joe Six-Pack and Joe the Plumber! Hello, Joe and Josephine Economist, Humanitarian, Realist. Oh, it felt so good to vote yesterday.

Last night, I was never so relieved to hear the words “Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Mexico...”

When CNN called it at 10:00, tears were welling up.

I was truly impressed with McCain’s concession speech (with the exception of “my friends”). If he had only been that independent, honest and human in his campaign, it might have been a closer race. With such a big Bush burden, he made too many mistakes (selling out, for example). Sure, they were all bummed to the max, but where was the love and support for each other? Cindy McCain was standing a mile away from her husband with a “Laura Bush smile” and “don’t touch me” look on her face, Sarah Palin looked as if she was going to throw up (at least the tear in her eye confirmed that she’s human and not all pit), and First Dude Palin looked angry! You could visibly see no love lost between McCain and Palin. Goodbye, Caribou Barbie and Redneck Woman (for now)! Thank goodness for McCain’s mother…she may have been his only comfort.

Also, how cute was Biden’s 90 year old mother? She was so overwhelmed by that crowd! I wish Toot had been there for Obama. How bittersweet for him.

Here are my favorite lines from Obama’s victory speech. It was perfect. He didn’t say “Look” once!

“But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you. It belongs to you.” (My favorite – I was spurting tears at that point)

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.”

“What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.”

“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.”

“Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.”

“For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

“This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we cant, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people.”

Yes, Texas is still solid Red; however, 3.5 million Texans voted for Obama (44% of 8 million votes) when there was no major push by the Dem party to win votes as in FL, PA and OH. I was really hoping it would have been closer to 50/50 but this is still a State in denial and on the defensive ala Bush.
Lastly, I went back and looked at my prior entries to see if I was politically naïve or maybe on to something. This is what I found:
From 10/16/08 “I’m Not President Bush”: I really don’t want to spew the negative but I believe that McCain has sold out on a lot of issues just to get elected and he certainly is not the same 2000 “maverick-y” McCain (not that I would have voted for him then – I love you, Al Gore even if you’re incredibly boring). This country needs SIGNIFICANT change and IMO, Obama clearly has what it takes - plus a lot less irritating personal traits. Considering the mess we’ve gotten into (all while Bush has been vacationing in Crawford for the last 4 years) it’s going to take a lot of energy, focus, diplomacy, intelligence, realistic solutions, sacrifice, fairness, and emphasis on education (where it all starts), health care and other basic rights and responsibilities. We’ve got to get it right at home before we go out “liberating” others. We can’t act or fail to act based on fear.
From 11/1/08 “My Obsession with Pop Culture…”: Last, but not least, and because this entry comes on the eve of a historic election, a dream that comes to mind is the ‘American Dream’ (maybe I should insert ‘my friends’ for political non-effect.) Yes, I believe that it exists. History tells me so. When we get frustrated and worried about the state of the union (all with good reason) just remember that we have freedom and opportunity or at least freedom to create some kind of opportunity. We can’t be complacent, take things for granted and expect all to be great. Now’s the time to step up, reevaluate our priorities and contribute (I may have to give up my pop culture obsession for the greater good). Giving of ourselves will get us through. Remember your vote (and dreams) count.

CitizenB

My Obsession with Pop Culture, Dreams & The Vote

2008-11-01T13:28:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

Happy Monday to all! Well, Halloween is over and we’re moving on to a really big day – November 4. I would love to see photos of your kids or grandchildren or any kid, for that matter, in costumes. We had our usual stampede of trick-or-treaters and they were all really cute and surprisingly well-mannered. Very few snotty noses and sticky hands. One boy of about 10 was carting around a black kitten dressed as a devil. He said that he found the cat abandoned in an alley covered in ants and decided to rescue him. The cat (named something like Desperado) didn’t seem to mind trick-or-treating and I really had to hold back on not bartering for the cat with a bowl full of “airheads” candy.

Here’s the latest entry from the weekend:

My Obsession with Pop Culture, Dreams & The Vote

A few weeks ago I happened to watch a new TV sitcom starring the guy who played Bob Sugar (actor Jay Mohr), Tom Cruise’s sports agent rival in ‘Jerry Maguire.’ When Tom Cruise is involved, I always root for the rival or enemy, no matter how despicable and even if it means the world will explode. Besides, Bob Sugar didn’t have the ridiculous line “You complete me” so he’s my hero.

Bob Sugar as ‘Gary, Unmarried’ is much beefier now and barely recognizable as Bob Sugar. He and the other actors on the show also have badly capped teeth. The teeth are distracting which may be a good thing. Plus the show needs a new wardrobe person. And a hair-stylist. Anyway, one line in the show caught my attention. Gary-Bob-Jay, a house painter, and his ex-wife, a clone of every other 30-something brunette actress on TV, disclose that a) he has a new, much younger and way hotter girlfriend (played by a former super model..oh, sure supermodels always date house painters – wait didn’t John Cougar Mellencamp snag one? Nevermind), and b) she is engaged to be married to none other than their former marriage counselor/therapist (Ed Begley Jr.) When Gary-Bob-Jay encounters Ed Begley Jr. he states something along the lines of “I don’t know what’s worse; you hooking up with my ex-wife or making me keep a dream journal.”

A dream journal. An Ed Begley Jr. type has never suggested that I keep one, but you guessed it, I actually keep a dream journal (surprise). I dream a lot. All the time. I’m a dreamer.

Of course, this led me to think about dreams. What do they mean? Do they serve a purpose? Do we really act on them? Why do I journal them?

I’ll first address day dreams, and in my case, a likely symptom of attention deficit disorder. My favorite day dream is where I’m a young Ava Gardner (without all the marriages, specifically to Mickey Rooney/Andy Hardy, although it’s weird because I’m married to an Andy and he is slightly taller than Mickey Rooney..I love you, honey, all 5’7’’of you.) In Ava mode, I travel the world and it’s so easy! No matter where I go, I’m always dressed in a white sundress and heels, wearing Ray Bans, and carrying a vintage suitcase (round, also white, no wheels). I exit the plane outdoors in beautiful, smog-free weather (no suffocating jet bridges). Unlike in real life, I never trip, stumble, break a nail while fumbling with my luggage (black, basic, Samsonite) or forget to place all 3 oz containers of liquids into FAA regulation quart size Ziploc bags for separate screening. I’m permanently on vacation and drive around exotic locations in a convertible. I’m never too cold or too hot, layers are not required, and I’m always splendidly happy. Fortunately and unlike in other women’s dreams, Fabio never shows up. The Italian Stud and his fake butter…what kind of a fantasy is that? Give me Colin Firth and extra virgin olive oil any day!

Next are the dreams that occur while sleeping…always vivid (and utterly strange) with an occasional nightmare. I know there are scientific theories about R.E.M. and overactive neurotransmitters, as well as the effect of external stimuli (too much TV) and mood (usually irritable). What about snoring as a stimulus? I wonder if snoring affects your dreams or just the dreams of the person in bed next to you. This may explain why Andy never dreams. Regarding that topic, I’m sorry, but I’m not giving up my uvula (look it up) in order to correct my snoring disorder/poorly constructed throat.

Moving on. I’m also aware of an entire industry devoted to dream interpretation because several years ago I became concerned about the recurrence of snakes and pickles in my dreams. In one recurring dream, I climb a glass staircase filled with pickles. I was relieved to learn from a dream interpretation source that snakes and pickles are not necessarily bad omens and most likely a representation of my struggle to overcome a world of male-dominance.

As a country, we obviously need more scientific research in this area. I fully expect a legislator (possibly one with a Wiccan constituency) to add this as pork to a health care bill or possibly carve out as an entitlement. It will cost a fortune but at least I, and others like me, will no longer fear or try to trample pickles.

We’ve all had dreams about going to work naked (or discovering you’re naked at work), forgetting your locker combination, being chased by ninjas, searching unsuccessfully for a clean, operational bathroom (when you really, really need to go), driving at night without headlights, traveling in airplanes that taxi forever and never take off (the wings just fold up) and reuniting with dead relatives, among other common themes.

I’ve had all those dreams, multiple times. My deceased grandfathers show up on occasion looking like Abe Lincoln (PaPa) and Jason Robards (Grannin). Once I attended the Grammy Awards (or it could have been the American Music Awards – the fashion on the red carpet was atrocious!) with my grandmother (looked just like MeMa, bless her, and not the Queen Mother – but close). She wore a red corsage and I wore a black pant suit (even in my dreams I’m fashion-challenged!) but with a red blouse unbuttoned and revealing a white undergarment (a very risqué cotton Playtex). Also, an occasional “celebrity” appears. Some of the better known celebrities in my dreams are Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (don’t ask), Daryl Hannah, and Suzanne Pleshette (why?)

A strange thing occurred with the Pleshette dream. I hadn’t though of her (at least consciously) in decades and for some unknown reason she appeared in my dream from January 13, 2008. In the dream, I hitched a ride with Ms. Pleshette and her elderly father (possibly a ghost because I could poke my finger through him) in their luxury SUV after walking barefoot on blistering hot pavement after my car broke down and other sorted misadventures. As a Good Samaritan, Suzanne gave me a lift to Houston where I was to visit a cave. Her father, the ghost, talked nonstop about “back in the day” and the high plains.

One week later on January 20, I was fully awake and reading the Sunday newspaper. There it was – an obit “Suzanne Pleshette, Actress Who Played Bob Newhart’s TV Wife Dies.” I believe the Ancient Egyptians would have appreciated the spookiness of that dream (and many others) and possibly mummified me in a special pyramid. But at another time and place, I might have been burned at the stake. To preserve the evidence, I pasted a copy of the obit next to my journal entry in case a future anthropologist is desperate for material.

We all know how difficult it is to put work out of your mind. A couple of memorable dreams involved the office. In one, I went into labor on my desk while my co-workers stood around chain smoking and waiting for the baby’s head to crown, at least I hope it was a baby and not a four volume claim file, and in the other, I had to keep my combo desk/treadmill going at 6 mph (at an incline!) in order to feed correspondence into a special transmission slot to the home office to meet productivity objectives. At one point I collapsed from exhaustion and slipped off the back of the desk/treadmill. An unidentified co-worker wearing a skirt and matching head/sweatband jumped on as an assist. We were all giving each other high fives at the end of the day. Teamwork! I woke up feeling okay and a pound lighter!

I frequently dream about animals (other than snakes). Once I had two black cats as pets, Zoe and Biggs, both adopted strays. Zoe went missing one cold December morning and I was very worried about what happened to her. Andy’s theory was that a Great Horned Owl swept down from atop the flagpole on Flag Pole Hill on to the greenbelt and carried her away. I refused to believe it and dreamt that I was driving down a deserted service road and came across Zoe walking along carrying a bindle over her shoulder. I quickly opened the car door and she jumped in apparently having had enough of life as a hobo cat. Zoe was covered in red marks and had a very bad cough. Back at home, she and Biggs did not immediately recognize each other and a small cat fight broke out. Biggs, the top cat, then sat up on his hind legs (much like a baboon) and allowed Zoe to burrow her head into his chest. He began to lick her injured head. It was a touching reunion but unfortunately just a dream. The Great Horned Owl never returned Zoe. Please know that we did everything to locate that darn cat even though she was wild and horribly bad-mannered. Even when she scratched our faces (while simultaneously purring) we chose to believe that she was misunderstood (cat bi-polar) and needed love.

Occasionally in my dreams, I will rescue a neglected baby and then do a terrible job of feeding it all the wrong things. I also need to be rescued quite frequently. Once a priest helped me downstairs from my old apartment on Beltline Road (I still had a key and tried to hide there) and across a bloody riot scene (too gruesome to describe) to the safety of a high school football field where a marching band was playing “Everybody Dance Now!” Thankfully, the priest was not played by Tom Cruise. That would have been a legitimate nightmare.

Last, but not least, and because this entry comes on the eve of a historic election, a dream that comes to mind is the ‘American Dream’ (maybe I should insert ‘my friends’ for political non-effect.) Yes, I believe that it exists. History tells me so. When we get frustrated and worried about the state of the union (all with good reason) just remember that we have freedom and opportunity or at least freedom to create some kind of opportunity. We can’t be complacent, take things for granted and expect all to be great. Now’s the time to step up, reevaluate our priorities and contribute (I may have to give up my pop culture obsession for the greater good). Giving of ourselves will get us through.

Remember your vote (and dreams) count.

Have a great week!

CitizenB

Sweaters & Self-Discovery

2008-10-23T23:05:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

This morning the cooler temperature precipitated a question that hasn’t come up for months. Do I own a suitable sweater (one that fits), and if so, where to look? First, I took a gander into my abyss of a closet, and found a barricade of mostly black shoes preventing me from stepping more than a toe into the 'space'. After climbing atop a pile of shoe debris and balancing one foot on the heel of a short boot and the other on a flip-flop (strangely, it gave me a weird sensation, of well, being graceful, moments before certain peril, I imagine much like the feeling many mountain climbers have when reaching the summit), I half-heartedly attempted to search the far reaches of the black hole (where sweaters might be). I gave up and decided to inspect the upstairs closets where the 'off-season' clothing lives thinking my chances would be slightly better for not breaking an ankle or losing an eye to a wayward wire hanger. In the unlikely event you're worried about how I get dressed every day, the clothes I wear over and over are all within a muscle spasm-arm reach of the closet doorway - no entry required.

First I checked the guest room closets and found only hundreds maybe thousands of men’s coats/jackets (another subject, but remind me to tell you about the time I was forced to retrieve one of Andy's jackets after I'd donated it to a coat drive for homeless/really cold people!), a couple of swimsuit cover ups, vacation T-shirts, a bridesmaid dress, and other items that are not considered real clothes. While thinking that Andy, on one of his manic cleaning sprees, must have chucked all my winter clothes along with other miscellaneous valuables – as he has done in the past with my roosting chicken salt & peppers(!!), bagel-slicer(!), salad shooter (eh..), and very un-'juicy' teal velour track suit (okay; it needed to go) - I decided to check out the storage area for really old clothing and other keepsakes, including my collection of Thomas McKnight jigsaw puzzles - or the large walk-in closet located between Andy’s Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired office and the bathroom with the 80’s pastel blue country calico wallpaper.

Fortunately, this closet is wide and shallow unlike the abyss, with way better lighting because the 'green' light bulbs haven't made their way to the forgotten upstairs (I'll get to that next year, Planet Earth); and the blockade of storage bins, file boxes and baskets doesn’t prevent me from looking at four decades of random clothing (from the waist up) that has somehow managed to avoid Goodwill Industries. To the left, I see Andy’s 3-piece Austin Reed 1979 wedding suit from the young men's department at Gabriel's (Mr. Triumph Bonneville! doesn't realise he was an Anglophile way back), my blue puffy coat circa 1974, the crocheted sweater crafted by 'Granny George' back in my 1980-1987 Sentry Insurance days (Georgia was the office mascot/file clerk who told dirty jokes well into her 80s - I miss you, Granny George, and I wish you were still alive because I need you (filing emergency), I really need you (lack of corny jokes)!, and assorted dresses, suits, blouses and pants, including my first pair of CK jeans, “nothing comes between me and my Calvins” from 1981. Remember when Oprah starved herself to fit into her Calvins and wheeled a wagon of lard representing her fat loss on stage? I promise I won’t do that. However, I can’t promise that my eyebrows will never resemble Brooke Shields’ (see example below -my brows are about to take flight).

To the far right of the closet, I finally discovered my Ralph Lauren sweater coat and other new-ish, possibly suitable (less than 10 years old) winter clothes. I grabbed an armful and attempted to pull across the plastic storage bin full of really important stuff like old wrapping paper situated under the baskets of photo album rejects (okay; not the best storage system). A clothing/wicker jam ensued and as I untangled the hangers, I noticed a photo of really big hair peeking out of the photo reject basket. Curious and easily distracted, I pulled out a stack of 'Glamour Shots' from the mid-80s, including the most ridiculously scary “1-900” photo ever taken. God never intended this wholesome baby face to look seductive (the look the 'photographer' was going for) and I was obviously uncomfortable with the full length black gloves, bare shoulders, red lipstick, and clip-on rhinestone earrings. The other poses were just as bad – my really big hair in a black leather jacket, gold studded denim, emerald green lame' shrouded tube top - all while looking a bit like a nauseous Marie Osmond, years before her totally publicity-driven fainting spell on DWTS.

Also, for the record, Donny O = gross, and to think that as an 11 year old I used to plead with him when he chirped "Go away, Little Girl." So sad, but our Tiger Beat options were severely limited in the early 70's. Thankfully he soon was replaced in my heart by the very talented Robbie Benson, who didn't sing, at least that I know of. God I hope not.

Getting back to the photo reject, I showed Andy the "1-900" discovery and his response was similar to mine, of course without all the babbling, and with the addition of "You can see there was a good-looking girl in there, somewhere." My husband knows how to give a compliment!

Curious: Do 1-900 numbers still exist or have they been replaced by the internet? (No answer required)

Anyway, all of this got me thinking that in the 80’s I was quite the fashion risk-taker. Of course it helped that I was in my 20’s, a size 7/9, and shopped in the junior department for most of the decade. I wore a lot of actual “outfits” and despite its reputation as one of the worst decades ever (it's all your fault, Boy George), I dare say I looked really cute in assorted ensembles (and nothing like the above - much). As a young career woman, I wore lots of suits with pencil skirts and flower pins, silk, linen and sweater dresses, both wide and skinny belts, ruffled blouses, scarfs and ties, colors other than black etc. Like most women, I actually wore slips and lacy camisoles... and the occasional glove! I had an entire drawer assigned to L'eggs panty hose (control top/sandal toe in jet black) and another to shoulder pads of all sizes. One good thing about wearing shoulder pads: you were never lonely in that there was always a presence of another person standing just beside you. I believe I may have carried on a conversation or two with my shoulder pads. A shoulder pad could be a really good friend in a pinch. You could cry on your own shoulder - no problem. They certainly increased my self-esteem - and ability to defend myself in a dark alley.

I've decided “business casual” or nearly 30 years in the insurance industry has ruined my sense of fashion risk-taking and feminine style. That or it’s more difficult to be fashion-forward as someone who resembles a size 12/14 Buddha with long legs. It’s now all about separates - black pants (no pleats), Gap cotton/spandex tanks, starched Liz Claiborne shirts, and genuine Jockey. Functional. Boring. But not naked.

So today after my closeted walk down 80’s lane, I was inspired to wear an “outfit” – well, really a black skirt (kind of faded), black leggings, black clunky heels , and a fashionable sweater - black and gray - that is if Kohl’s sells actual fashion (step it up, Daisy Fuentes!) with silver earrings - you know, to match the gray. I would have preferred Escada or a power-campaign suit from Saks or Neiman Marcus, but hey, I don’t have a political party to bankroll my wardrobe!

Okay. You're probably wondering (or not) about the self-discovery part. Well, I discovered:
a) Shoulder pads, not just hard work, made my career,
b) Like all women, there's an urge to play dress up even if you look ridiculous and IT'S OKAY as long as you don't rely on a 'business manager' (a/k/a Heidi Fleiss) and earn cash that way,
c) if you ignore things long enough (ie; upstairs bathroom wallpaper) they come back in style (if you don't believe me check out the calico/gingham in Marc Jacobs' Spring 2009 Collection), and
d) I might be turning into Granny George. In 20 years, I'll still be working in an insurance office wearing that crocheted sweater and L'eggs support hose. On the flip side, my Calvins (with an added elastic waistband for comfort) will probably fit due to osteoporosis. Finally!

Seriously, I was reminded that it is all about self-confidence - something I was sorely lacking at that 1980-something 'Glamour, schlamour" shoot. If you think you look good, you will look good. Lift your head, pull back your shoulders (padded or not), and most importantly suck in your gut. Remember always to squint when looking in the mirror. You'll look thinner.

Lastly,I’m taking applications for closet clutter counselors (closeted, optional), bathroom wallpaper-ers, and wannabe Project 'Size L' Runway fashion designers to create my new look for 2009. Only the fearless need apply. If there are any unemployed S.W.A.T. team members out there (Mr. T?) fax your resume pronto.

If you are not interested in applying, I would still love to hear from you, so if you have time when not working, please call, write, blog! I really need to know that I'm not the only "1-900" Glamour Shot out there.

CitizenB

P.S. I was able to rescue the s & p chickens and bagel-slicer before trash day. Take that, Mr. Anglophile Jacket Collector!

Early Voting & Newspaper Political Endorsements

2008-10-20T01:12:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

Reminder! Early voting begins Mon, 10/20 and ends Fri, 10/31. Election Day is Tues, 11/4.

As per usual habit on Sundays, I checked out the Dallas Morning News, Section P "Points" (I’ve renamed Section P-U), and was not at all surprised to find that the News endorsed McCain with this tag: "We Recommend John McCain's experienced courage for president." The DMN has supported Republican candidates for as long as I can remember. For some reason I still take this paper mainly because I can't live without the crossword (Section @#&!) or the one section that is impossible to find and the Sunday "Target" advertisement. My Dallas news of choice, The Times Herald, tanked many years ago. Also, for the record
The Dallas Observer (free alternative news) has too many weird personal ads like toasters trying to hook up with blenders and so on...

Back to the DMN and its lame-o recommendation (I knew it was coming). Some editorial excerpts:

"Mr. McCain offers the continuity, stability and sense of authority people want..” (Continuity...just what we need),

"...voters aren't electing a debater-in-chief" (They know their man sucketh),

"As inspiring as Mr. Obama's history-making presidential bid has been, it is risky to take a chance on an untried leader at this point in our history" (what? IMO, Obama shows more leadership ability in his little finger)

…and now for the DMN "disclaimer"...

"To be sure, a McCain vote also involves an element of risk. His bellicose temperament causes concern, chiefly about his impulsive judgment.” (Ya think?).

“ If this election was about congeniality and cool, Mr. Obama would easily prevail." (Condescending much?)

"But electing the president is not a popularity contest." (Someone please inform Palin of this)

"Mr. McCain has better policies." (Choke)

"He has more experience. And he has proven independence of mind". (Yes, we know about all that Maverick stuff.)

"In these tough times, John McCain is the right man for America." (Of note: There was NO MENTION OF PALIN at all...chickens!)

Reading this got me wondering about other major newspaper endorsements in this really BIG RED state, so I searched and found the following:

Houston Chronicle : Obama (He'll need Harris County's large vote)
San Antonio EN : McCain (A military center)
Austin Am-State : Obama (A place for real independent thinkers!)
Fort Worth Star-T : I couldn't find an endorsement today (so what are they thinking in Cowtown?)
Waco Tribune : "Just Vote" is the message. Excerpt: "...so after long, even painful, deliberation, we have decided to side with neither Obama nor McCain" (I don’t know what to think about that!)
Bryan/College Station
Eagle : Obama! (I'm proud to be the sister of an Aggie!..Isn’t that a bumper sticker?)
Lufkin Daily News : Obama (Excerpt: "Another consideration is that we should elect a president whose vice president would be ready to lead if, heaven forbid, the president was to die in office. We think Joe Biden's experience overwhelms Sarah Palin's limited appeal as a candidate who would instill confidence during a national crisis. At the end of the day, it's about how you and your family will fare — while still caring how your neighbor and the needy guy down the block is doing.")
Lubbock News : McCain (No help from the academics at Texas Tech)
Amarillo : McCain (no surprise...the last time I was in Amarillo for mediation it was totally male-dominated and old school, and as flat as a pancake, to boot.)
Corpus Christi : McCain (obviously to much sand in their ears)
Beaumont Enterprise : McCain (I'll never understand Beaumont)
Galveston : Clinton (Bill)....joking....I couldn't find an endorsement but their obvious primary focus is recovery from Hurricane Ike.
El Paso Times : I couldn't find an endorsement but that city's newspaper reports that Obama is pulling away from McCain. Really?

An interesting note about Dallas (from D Magazine)...a poll of District 108, the wealthiest part of Dallas reports that Obama leads. “The suburban vote has been the core of Republican strength in Texas.” Does this mean that the DMN editors live in the burbs and not Highland Park?

Also of major significance, 7-Eleven's coffee cup poll reports Obama won by a landslide (even in Texas)…let’s hope there is some meaning other than people (hopefully registered voters) like their coffee in blue cups.

In that I just can't stop...I checked wikipedia and found that of 121 newspaper/publications countrywide, 95 endorsed Obama and 26 McCain. The New Yorker, Esquire and Rolling Stone endorse Obama. No surprises there.

A sample of city newspapers for Obama: Seattle, Miami, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago (both Sun Times and Tribune), Los Angeles, Kansas City, Cleveland, Toledo, Orlando, Lexington, Sarasota (hi Cass!) and Dayton, OH. I didn’t really check out northeast cities or those in clearly blue states but I think one paper in New Hampshire may have endorsed McCain.

I mention Dayton because I'm traveling there (today) and thought in my off hours I might try to rally some of those undecided OH voters. I read somewhere that the OH dilemna is McCain's too old and Obama's untested. I'm not sure how that is specific to OH but I say McCain's too old and too well tested on many issues. On second thought, I'll probably lock myself in my deserted downtown hotel room and watch "Dancing with the Stars" or maybe “Chuck.” I’m not sure I want to see Cloris Leachman lose her wig again.

The other big news is that former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorses Obama. Even bigger is that single women support Obama because he's way hotter.

Signing off. Thanks for reading. Wish me luck in Dayton and have a great week!

CitizenB

"I'm Not President Bush" - Are You Sure About That?

2008-10-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

Hope all’s well.

My latest blog entry is as a result of the debate, my hyperactive mind, obsessive list-making, and lack of a life:

In last night’s debate, McCain’s one so-called good sound bite was “I’m not President Bush.” Well, you could've fooled me! While I believe that Palin has a lot of Bush characteristics, below is a list of McCain-Bush similarities. Of course, these are my opinions only and I’m just a regular person (a tree-hugging centrist leaning to the left) and as Jeane calls me “a blue chick living in a red state.” (hi, Jeane!)

Same narrow focus,
Same arrogant indifference,
Same sarcasm,
Same sputtering answers,
Same self-righteousness,
Same spoiled brat reactions (we’re how old?),
Same condescension (“I admire your eloquence but you just don’t understand” blah blah blah),
Same self-praise (in Bush’s case a probable sign of an inferiority complex)
Same smirky facial expressions (plus a lot of blinking not to mention that creepy smile),
Same waving the patriotic flag a little too much,
Same “it’s my way or the highway” approach,
Same questionable judgment in selecting running mates (a total understatement),
Same son of privilege trying to prove his value and live up to a family legacy,
Same too much desperation to be President,
Same quick fix offers with no real substance (sure, I can balance a trillion dollar deficit (once a surplus just 8 short years ago) and give you energy independence and health care in 4 short years, with tax cuts for all, all while continuing and/or starting a few wars! I’ll get ‘em!)
Same empty promises (see above),
Same view of use (abuse) of executive power (ditto for Palin and First Dude Palin),
Same “sweetheart” deals gone wrong,
Same alignment on the economy, Iraq and health care (all disastrous),
Same “let’s boost education by competition but not pay for it”,
Same support for appointment of ultra-conservative justices,
Same view against the constitutional right of choice for women (even more so than Bush - scary),
Same skewed view of women ala 1960, (Palin a role model for all women? In what decade? On what planet?)
Same support for tax cuts for the wealthy,
And last but not least,
Same trust in Phil Gramm (nuff said!) in matters of the economy including credit swaps, derivatives and all other disastrous deregulation of finance that has caused us to crash and burn.

Gosh. I’m surprised the list was that long. I really don’t want to spew the negative but I believe that McCain has sold out on a lot of issues just to get elected and he certainly is not the same 2000 “maverick-y” McCain (not that I would have voted for him then – I love you, Al Gore even if you’re incredibly boring). This country needs SIGNIFICANT change and IMO, Obama clearly has what it takes - plus a lot less irritating personal traits. Considering the mess we’ve gotten into (all while Bush has been vacationing in Crawford for the last 4 years) it’s going to take a lot of energy, focus, diplomacy, intelligence, realistic solutions, sacrifice, fairness, and emphasis on education (where it all starts), health care and other basic rights and responsibilities. We’ve got to get it right at home before we go out “liberating” others. We can’t act or fail to act based on fear.

Some of you may disagree in part or whole, but thanks for allowing me to get this off my chest.

I’ll stop now.

P.S. Joe the Plumber is faring okay…much better than most…there is real poverty in this country…so I don’t feel too bad if he can’t afford a bass boat.

Speaking of “Joes”…for the record, I never want to hear the term “Joe Six-Pack” again. We can do better than that.

Vote Obama-Biden

I’m stopping now – promise.

CitizenB

My Office! Transformed! Holy Zen!

2008-10-03T21:00:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

This week’s blog is about the office:

As most of you know, I’ve worked in an insurance office for 11 years. It’s a typical suburban office building – not very exciting. The interior is “Joe Versus the Volcano” (before the volcano adventure part and without Tom Hanks) – all gray and beige – with harsh fluorescent lighting, acoustic ceiling tiles and multi-color industrial carpet that still manages to show coffee stains. There’s a lot of metal, molded plastic and faux wood finish fixed between cubicle walls. The typical office erector set. The “art work” is fairly sad. The muted landscapes somehow make nature totally uninteresting. There are windows but the metal blinds stay tightly closed to shut out glare on computer screens and to block heat or cold in that the air conditioning/heating system is fickle. (It’s totally possible to simultaneously have freezing feet and sweaty armpits in this building.) Live plants have been banned for years due to pest control issues and to prevent the spread of a yet to be detected flesh-eating fungus. (We are an insurance company – our job is to minimize risk - a/k/a happiness - of all kinds.)

The front and back lobby and central atrium aren’t very welcoming even though there was an obvious attempt to upgrade with plush emerald green carpet, diamond-patterned ceramic tile and a few club chairs for visitors. Long ago there was an actual human stationed at the front desk. One out of three times she would smile when you walked in. (I took notes.) Now there are wall-mounted telephones in front of locked doors leading to the offices. The elevators strain to move up and down four floors. I’ve always envisioned an elevator donkey laboring in the control closet. Break rooms and bathrooms are functional (mostly) but faded. The lady’s room is equipped with a pink couch and an old-fashioned bathroom scale. The men don’t have a couch or a scale. I looked. Why? Most men (besides perhaps Larry Craig) don’t commingle in bathrooms. The vending machines are at least 30 years old. A dollar bill has been jammed in the coke machine for weeks. Not that I eat them often but most of the candy bars taste like sand. Coffee is no longer provided by the company. Sorry, you must arrive alert. In the break room, there is an old 19” television with rabbit ears. Employees catch a few minutes of “The Price is Right” (with Drew Carey) on break and a group of Field Ops Support clerks tune in to “One Life to Live” at lunch. Those are the only two programs available.

Please know that I am not complaining. Generic is good. Work is good. A paper bunker is good. I love beige. In this economy, it probably won’t last long.
Besides I have happy things at my desk:
“William” a blue ceramic Egyptian hippo as a gift from the MET,
Frog figurine in the lotus position (ohm),
Stone sleeping black cat that is actually intended to keep one’s chopstick from touching the table,
Orange “Elvis” koziol tape dispenser,
Persian mouse rug – well worn,
Kiehl’s deluxe hand lotion “grapefruit”,
Purell hand sanitizer (the company’s attempt to prevent spread of germs and sick days),
Modern desk clock from Target,
Sushi plate to hold my ink pad, date stamp, and assorted pens,
Georgia O’Keefe cube/wall calendar to record birthdays,
Generic company issued desk calendar used to record telephone messages and doodles,
World Wildlife Fund Baby Animals calendar to record important dates like trials, mediations, deadlines etc. (ok, so I’m calendar-crazy),
Clay paper clip holder handcrafted by Aaron in 5th grade,
Decorative ceramic tile from Oaxaca used as a coaster,
Important reference books including Black’s Law Dictionary, Office Yoga, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook (Work)*, and Girls Rule!,
5 X 7 photo of the ultimate in cuteness: niece Micah in denim dress and pink cowboy boots,
First aid kit (I get paper cuts and bleed often),
My favorite gum eraser with the quote “O hateful error” by Julius Caesar, and last but not least,
“Burnout” cartoon depicting a wolf staring (not howling) at the moon with the caption “Moon, Shmoon.”

Whoa. I didn’t realize I had so many happy things on my desk. Now back to the purpose of this blog. There have been very recent dramatic changes. The building was sold not long ago and we, the insurance office, now lease space versus own the entire building – and it shows. Things are now under the direction of new ownership and the building manager, Sparkle (not spackle). Sparkle has an eye for Zen. Yes, we had to put up with wrecking balls and wet paint…and the lobby smelled like a barn for three days (due to new plantings/organic fertilizer in the central atrium), but, wow, you should see the place.

The new and improved central atrium has a teak floor (it could be bamboo), a beautiful stone wall, a water feature, live plants, and best of all, hanging art! The art consists of large, wispy, white kite-like mobiles and new, mod beehive-shaped light features in the lobby. There’s more…a new break room on the first floor and a remodeled bathroom with no-touch soap dispensers and faucets, self-flushing toilets (goodbye, Purell!), stainless steel sinks and stall doors, fancy miniature tile back splash and ultra-cool lighting. I want to move my paper bunker into the bathroom.

I’m almost done. The next best things to the bathroom and kites are the state-of-the-art vending machines. They shine like golden idols. I kid you not, the “beverage” machine is stocked with Monsters, Red Bulls, bottled Frappuccino, five kinds of juices, Perrier, V-fusion, assorted diet colas, sports drinks etc. It’s high tech with low-touch buttons and there’s no bending over to blindly fish around for your drink inside the trap door while cramping your wrist. A waiter practically hands you the bottle. Insert $1 and voila! Speaking of blindness, the snack machine actually has Braille on the selection buttons (an ADA requirement?) and is stocked with fresh-looking, somewhat edible snacks and items like Ramen noodles (just add water). I spend at least 10 minutes a day just staring at the machines. I would say that we're on our way to becoming a “W” hotel. Would it be too much to ask for a roof-top bar and a bathroom sofa that folds into a “heavenly bed”?

Thank you, Sparkle!

Have a great weekend.

*Important work survival topics:

How to stay awake and not drool in a meeting,
How to deal with the co-worker/teller of bad jokes,
What to do if you become intoxicated at the office picnic,
And other helpful hints.

P.S. It’s just too nice so I’m sure we’ll be moving out soon.

CitizenB

Gynecology & "Yard of the Month"

2008-09-22T19:08:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

In today's mail, I was fortunate to receive "The Journal," a free, but prestigious community publication "serving the residents and businesses" of my City since 2001. The first page of Section B "Communities" caught my eye. Our neighborhood always awards a less-than-deserving but obviously well-connected homeowner with the "Yard of the Month". My husband Andy and I are always amazed at the yards selected. Yes, they are neat and well-maintained but in our opinion, BORING. Secretly we are jealous and hurt "the committee" under-appreciates our wild Texas native plants and our unique style of gardening, which extends to our neighbors' yards ( without their official consent I must add - but all in the name of neighborhood beautification). That's another topic but word probably got out to "the committee" that Andy accidentally severed tubing to our neighbor's mosquito system while pruning our/their transplanted Wisteria plant brought in from our trip to Wilmington a few years ago.

Anyway, I can't hold back and must comment on this month's "Yard." It belongs to dear old Dr. and Mrs G. I've been a loyal (but potentially misguided as of the past 5 years) patient of Dr.Gs since, well, forever. He started his OB-GYN practice in the early 1950's years before my own birth. He's well in to his 80's (I did the math while waiting in the exam room). Dr. G may be elderly but he is caring and very methodical. I made the mistake of asking about his retirement a few years ago and that was a big NO-NO. Fortunately, I was dressed and not in the stirrups position as his response was very sharp and something a/k/a uterus could have been broken with an instrument.

Dr. G is tireless as a physician and you've got to give him credit for sticking around to attend to me and his one other patient's GYN needs. I've learned to overlook the mismatched socks, slightly worn-on-one-side orthopedic shoe, the traces of crusted Maalox in the corners of his mouth and the 30 minutes it takes for Dr. G to read aloud every note and test result from my last visit before we can get started while I sit freezing in my paper gown (open in the back) wondering if I remembered to shave my legs and studying the floral, pastel wallpaper border – with the design name “universal gynecological exam print”, all while his Eastern-European nurse stands in the corner tightly gripping her pen and taking deep breaths. I honestly don't know if any of my test results have been valid over the past few years due to failing eyesight, possible tremors etc. but I figure with all his years of practice, Dr. G can do all these things in his sleep (and probably does on occasion), so I'm good to go. I just don't know how to move on.

While I’m accepting of Dr. Gs “quirks”, the one real sticking point is my "chart." It is voluminous and full of illegible handwriting, fading laboratory results, complex diagrams etc. with depressingly tattered edges (and possibly smudged with antacid) and makes me feel…well, useless in a sense compared to the young, glowing (mostly) pregnant women with their bright color-coordinated, slim and free-of-debris charts, waiting in the lobby for Dr. G's OB associate. Hot flashes have nothing on my chart - it's that obnoxious. The worst part is that a portion of it has been archived.

Now back to the "Yard of the Month." Initially I'm not too impressed with the photos but must say that Mrs. G looks very good. She probably sees a much younger, female GYN in Southlake for her health needs. It seems that this is the latest trend. Go west and upscale with slightly higher co-pay. Next I'm reading about the Gs’ professional landscaper, magnificent results with red and pink pentas mixed with white periwinkles, yard ablaze in winter with majestic yellow pansies, and preference for annuals instead of perennials (much higher cost with that choice).

As I read on about the Gs' spectacular back yard and large pots of colorful flowers accentuating the stunning view of the golf course, I couldn't help but think that my nearly 30 years of pap smears, pelvic exams, breast exams, lab tests, other assorted medical procedures and very patient listening skills paid for all that magnificent and stunning! The faithful patient that I am, I think I should have been included in the photo with Mrs. G. The caption should read: "Mrs. G and the long-suffering patient that funded this "Yard of the Month" - by the way, she lives in the neighborhood - check out her yard - no pansies there." Considering Andy's renegade landscaping, I'm sure it's the closest I would ever get to "Yard of the Month."

CitizenB

Convention Observations

2008-09-05T17:49:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

A couple of observations about the conventions….

McCain barely moves. Is it possible that he has had a total body fusion like from the top of his skull to the tips of his toes? If so, how did he father 4 children (or there about)? Just curious. I respect him greatly for surviving a Vietnam prison camp, but his demeanor is so strange. I hope he’s healthy – both mentally and physically.

I read that Cindy McCain’s outfit (including jewelry) cost $350,000. If elected, she’ll give Nancy Reagan a run for her money. I think she’s trying too hard to be glamorous. Can you imagine Rosalynn Carter dressing like that? How many families would $350,000 feed?

With Palin’s popularity, wanna bet that they come out with a new lipstick color: Pit Bull Pink?

Can you believe they played Heart’s “Barracuda” at the RNC? I know Palin’s known as Sarah Barracuda…but it seemed weird. I kept waiting for the real Heart to come on stage with the cameras only showing Ann from the waist up (remember she had a little weight problem) and Nancy wailing away on the guitar.

Did you see Palin’s little girl, I think Piper, holding the baby? She was licking her entire hand and using it to pat down his hair. Adorable. I think she beats out Obama’s youngest daughter in the cuteness category.

What’s up with Giuliani? I thought his speech was terrible. When did he become a bitter, angry, sarcastic old man?

I’ve forgotten much of the DNC by now…

Obama’s kind of stuffy, but what do you expect from the former President of the Harvard Law Review? Of course, he’s serious. His speech was amazing considering he’s kind of a boring speaker. Besides it was historic and very moving. Okay, I cried a little.

For those older than 35, remember Jimmy Carter’s notorious brother Billy? I read a goofy story in “The Onion” about Obama’s fictitious Hillbilly Half-Brother, Cooter Obama, threatening to derail Obama’s campaign. Cooter calls Barack “Ol’ Jelly Legs” and says he won’t vote for his brother because “he wants to take my guns away.” Here’s the link: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/obamas_hillbilly_half_brother. Check it out.

I remember watching the RNC when I was a little girl…I think it was 1968. I was all of 7 years old but I remember watching it on an old black and white. I remember that I thought Richard Nixon must be really, really special to be getting all that attention. Gosh!

CitizenB

Suffering Women & The Vote

2008-09-05T10:31:00.000-05:00

'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Happy Friday to all!

I have to say that in my family “insanity in women is often mistaken for courage.”

No matter what, remember to exercise your valuable and hard-won right as a woman and VOTE. If you don’t know what’s going on, just do some “research” (and/or watch re-runs of the conventions like I did - as evidenced by below). Here are your options:

Republican:

Sen. John "Creepy-Smile, Whistles-Thru-His-Teeth" McCain (and wife, Cindy “Princess Di” McCain)
- And his running mate -
Gov. Sarah “Pit Bull in Lipstick" Palin a/k/a “George W Bush Reincarnated as a Babe” (and her husband, First Dude Mr. Sarah Palin)

Democrat:

Sen. Barack “Hillary-Busting-Elitist” Obama (and wife, Michelle “Can We Move the White House to Chicago?” Obama)
-And his running mate –
Sen. Joe “Big White Shiny Teeth” Biden (and wife, Mrs. Big White Shiny Teeth, Bless Her Heart, Biden.)

Independent:

Ralph “The Activist That Will Still Run 100 Years After His Death” Nader
-And his running mate –
Matt “San Francisco by way of McAllen – how did that happen?” Gonzales

(I know nothing of their spouses or earth mothers…)

Depending on your politics, any one of these teams as replacements of the out-of-touchy Bushy-Cheney duo fiasco will be a breath of fresh air. Also, someone please get Laura Bush a drink to wipe that tight “smile” off her face.

About the article below, I saw Iron Jawed Angels some time back and have to say…I now know why they call it “women’s suffrage” and besides we can always rely on Hillary Swank to defy authority and vomit like a pro.

Have a great weekend.

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov.15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because
they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks
until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought
kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think
a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.

Memorable Culinary Experiences

2008-09-03T12:06:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

As most of you know, I love food of all kinds and always try to sample a local dish when I travel. I'll only order room service (always the club sandwich) when I'm exhausted or stranded. I also like to try new cuisines at home and for the record the one food I'm not in love with is kimchi. For old time's sake, I'm throwing in some childhood memories.

Thai at Red Onion - New York
Ethiopian at Queen of Sheba - Dallas
Sushi at Sushi Zen - New York
Avocado/Mango Shrimp Salad at Nino's - New York
Mushroom Risotto - San Jose
Fletcher's Corny Dog - State Fair of Texas
Green Chili Enchiladas in Taos
Indian Fry Bread at the Taos Pueblos
Dirt at Chimayo
Papaya/Avocado Salad at The Ivy At the Shore - Santa Monica
French/Indonesian at Le Colonel - San Francisco
Wiener Schnitzel and Creamed Spinach at Berghoff’s - Chicago
Prime Rib BBQ at Kreuz Market - Lockhart, TX
Low Country Shrimp and Grits at 82 Queen - Charleston, SC
Dunkin Donuts Coffee - Hartford
Soft Pretzel - Yankee Stadium
Hennesey Martinis at Mickey Mantle’s - Central Park South
H & H Bagels - Manhattan
Fresh Apple Juice at the Alexis Hotel - Seattle
Dim Sum - Seattle’s China Town
Raw Bar Oysters at Blue Fin - Times Square
Beef Braciole (brijole) at Casa Bella in NY’s Little Italy (saw it on the Sopranos and just had to try it)
Cheese Steak in Philadelphia (OMG!)
Clams Oreganato on the Jersey Shore
Ice Cream Waffles on the Jersey Boardwalk - Point Pleasant
Steamed Mussels in Cherry Hill, NJ
Sushi at Morimoto in Philly
Crawfish at Ralph & Cacoo’s - Shreveport (I was encouraged to suck the head)
Shrimp Remoulade, Po’ boys, Beignets, and Nut Mix - NOLA
Oysters at Max’s - West Hartford, CT
Spicy BBQ with Coleslaw - Memphis
Lobster Taco and Crème Brulee at The Mansion on Turtle Creek
Scones, Clotted Cream and Tea - Edinburgh
Bangers, Beans and Toast - London (a tad greasy)
Vegetarian Indian at The Woodlands - London
Hot Chocolate and Pastries - Paris (best cocoa ever)
Jambon Beurre sandwiches – Paris
Croissants and Tea - Paris
Seafood at Table 31 - Philadelphia
Shabu Shabu - Orange County
Tequila with Sangrita - Guanajuato
Tortilla Soup - San Miguel de Allende
Seafood Paella at Columbia’s - St. Armand’s Circle
Mexican at La Fogata - San Antonio
Steak at Doe’s Eat Place - Greenville, MS
Amazing Sushi & Saki at Geisha - Upper East Side NYC (very narrow space)
Drinks at The Oasis - Austin, TX (beautiful view)
Chili & Spaghetti - Cincinnati
Cheese Curds, Chili, Cornbread and Beer at Dotty Dumpling’s - Madison, WI
Walleye Pike & Mashed Potatoes - St Paul, MN
Cuban Pork, Black beans and Rice - Miami
North Carolina Rendered Pork BBQ – outside of Raleigh NC
Biscuits and Country Ham at the Indigo Inn - Charleston
Miso Soup at Chinois - Las Vegas ($12!)
Margaritas and Egg Tacos - Cabo San Lucas
Clam Chowder & Fish - Burlington, VT
Japanese Baked Black Cod at Buddha's Belly - Santa Monica
Seared Tuna at Noe - Los Angeles
Coconut Shrimp - Monterey, CA
Chicken Cordon Bleu – Stevens Point, WI
Halibut Fish & Chips – Anchorage
Meatball Grinder - Hartford (My first ever grinder)
Cinnamon French Toast - Newport Beach
Seafood and Wine at Osetra’s - San Diego
Pizza in the Gaslamp District – San Diego
Spaghetti & Meatballs w/garlic bread at Battista’s Hole in The Wall – Las Vegas
Organic Vegetarian on the Erie Canal - Pittsford, NY
Breakfast at Del Monte Lodge - Rochester (awesome)
Organic Field Greens at The Parkway Grill - Pasadena, CA
Fish Tacos – Orange, CA
Paella at Palomino - Denver
BBQ at Arthur Bryant’s - Kansas City
Steak at Pierpont’s at Union Station – K.C.
Smoked Turkey & Sissy Sauce at Rudy's - Waco (my favorite stopping place between Dallas & Austin and you can get gas there, too!)
Ribs, Beans and Dirty Rice – Marksville, LA
Fish Aladdin at Mazen’s – Lake Charles, LA
Chocolate Pie at Piccadilly - Alexandria, LA
BBQ Sandwich - Monroe, LA (so good on a cold and rainy night)
Gumbo at the Tutwiler – Birmingham, AL
Steak at Char - Jackson, MS
Quail at Navajo Grill - Fredericksburg, TX
Sausages and Schnitzel at Various Biergartens - Fredericksburg, TX (I once fed Schnitzel to a feral kitten until Andy made me stop)
Birthday Dinner at Anthony’s in the Catalinas – Tucson, AZ (Thanks, Joe)
Boston Haddock at Green Onion - Syracuse, NY
Tortilla Soup at Reata - Alpine, TX
Oaxacan-style Tamales - Austin, TX
Apple Streusel at The Faust Hotel - New Braunfels, TX
Seafood Tower Appetizer at Upstream - Charlotte, NC
Gourmet Turkey & Avocado Sandwich at Dean & Deluca's - Charlotte ($9, but worth it!)
Lobster Bisque at Scott's - Jack London Square Oakland
Chicken Burrito at Tito's – San Leandro, CA (best burrito)
Round Rock Donuts - Round Rock, TX (best donuts ever)
Tapioca Pudding and Sticky Rice and Mango at Thai Chili - Las Colinas
Apple Fritters at Applewood's - Oklahoma City
Grouper Sandwich – Long Boat Key, FL
Pomme Frites at Chez Nous – San Francisco
Asparagus Soup at Davis & Main - Richmond, VA
Margaritas at Las Brisas - Laguna Beach, CA (oh, the view)
German Food with All the Kids at Oma's Haus - New Braunfels, TX
Egg Cream at Katz's Deli - NYC
Eggs Benedict at Old Pecan Street Cafe - Austin, TX (Aaron's Birthday)
Pesto at Il Fornello – Toronto
French, Greek, Chinese, Indian & Swiss - Toronto
Italian, Seafood – Vancouver
Spanish/Cuban – Morristown, NJ (lots of garlic)
Cheesecake – Marina Del Rey
Southern Breakfast at B & B – Vicksburg, MS
Lemon Bars & Tea – Vicksburg, MS
Lunch Buffet at the Lakeland Country Club - Lakeland, FL
Blue Corn Chicken Enchiladas with Green Tomatillo Sauce at Chuy's - Austin, TX
Halloween Breakfast at Kerbey Lane Cafe - Austin, TX (our waiter was the spitting image of PeeWee Herman)
Tons of Meat at Fogo De Chao - Dallas (Aaron's Birthday when one of the gaucho waiters kept hitting on Aaron)
Shish-Kabobs – Camping (Jamie & I built the camp fire)
Post Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner – Beaver’s Bend, OK (with Tim & Cassie -Andy cooked the bird upside down in a paper bag)
Dinner & Dancing at Edelweiss – Fort Worth
Lunch at the Salado Inn - Salado, TX (Granny & Aaron)
Dinners at The Elite Cafe - on the circle Waco, TX (our usual stopping place on the way to the river)
What is That? A Large Hunk of Cheese at Old San Francisco Steak House - Austin (Granny & Aaron on Granny's first ever trip to the Capitol)
Root Beer in Mini Frosted Mugs at A & W - Fort Worth
Ice Cream at Ashburn’s – Fort Worth (chocolate chip - my fave)
Banana Splits & Grilled Cheese at Ridglea Drug – Fort Worth
Ice Cream at O'Leary's - Fort Worth
Hot Fudge Sundaes - Kip's Big Boy - Fort Worth
16th Birthday Dinner - Kensington Club & Side of Shrooms at Steak-n-Ale - Fort Worth (I love you Aunt Nan!)
Green Burritos at Taco USA – San Angelo
BBQ sandwiches at Penguin’s Point – San Angelo
Chicken Fried Steak at Zentner’s – San Angelo
Chocolate Glazed Donuts - San Angelo (We were allowed to go off campus during H.S. Creative Writing class)
Steak Finger Basket and Dipped Cone at DQ – Fort Worth (my fave as a little kid)
Fri Lunch - Tacos & Margarita at Tupinambas - Dallas
Lunch Plate at Jim's Pinto Bean Palace of Dallas
Vegetable Plate at Dixie House - Dallas
Cheeseburger & Fries at Club Schmitz - Dallas
Chicken Salad at Snuffers - Dallas (famous for their cheese fries but the salad was better)
Sweet & Sour Chicken at Joy Inn – Dallas (got stuck in a flood once on NW Hwy just trying to get there!)
Chili Cheeseburger at Keller's Drive In - Dallas
New Year's Eve Dinner at Taj Mahal - Dallas
The Palm Beach at Highland Park Pharmacy - Dallas
The Graciela - La Margarita - Irving (I gained several pounds one year from eating this once a week)
World's Largest Burrito - same La Margarita (Aaron actually took a picture of it - it was so huge)
Yellowtail Heaven at Blue Fish - Las Colinas
BBQ Sliders at the Porch - Dallas
Mini Burgers and Fat Tire at Ruby Tuesday's - Martinsburg, WV
New Year's Eve Dinner at Il Sorrento - Dallas (with Eva from Germany)
Hibachi at Jinbeh's - Las Colinas (nephew Alex, a toddler, plastered sticky rice on his face - priceless)
Canned Pears - Canoeing on the Brazos (Food always taste better in the wilderness, even if it is dropped in the dirt)
Garlic Bread & House Salad Dressing at Italian Garden - Irving
El Patio Mexican TV Dinner (my choice for Friday night dinner when the parents went out)
Daily Lunch Special at Via Real - Las Colinas
Ginger Shrimp - Empress of China
Blue Corn Enchiladas with Sweet Corn Cake at Blue Mesa - Dallas
Granny's Tea Cakes - Mosheim, TX
Granny's Sloppin' Chocolate - Fort Worth
Granny's Martha Washington Candies - Fort Worth
Granny's Peanut Butter & Saltines Wrapped In Wax Paper - Fort Worth
Vegetables from PaPa's Garden - Mosheim, TX
Aunt Ernestine's Mississippi Mud Cake - Hot Springs, AK
Mema's Homemade Peach Ice Cream - Fort Worth
Grannin's Venison - Fort Worth
Mom's Corned Beef Hash & Potatoes - San Angelo
Mom's Stew - Fort Worth (with canned VegAll!)
Mom's Potato Pancakes - Fort Worth
Jan's Volcano Potatoes & Swiss Steak - Fort Worth
Jan's Cabbage Rolls - Oklahoma City
Mom's Beanie-Weenie Casserole - San Angelo
Mom's Potato Salad - Irving
Mom's Cornbread Dressing - Irving
Aunt Jo's Fudge - Fort Worth (Annual Christmas Party at the Holiday Inn)
Ma's Spice Cake
Daddy's Venison Summer Sausage - Hamilton, TX
Lisa's Mom's Vermicelli Pasta - Fort Worth
Pizza with My Friends at Crystals - Fort Worth and Shakey's - San Angelo
Pat's Mom's Fresh Green Beans & New Potatoes - Fort Worth
Pat and Daddy's Red Beans & Tacos - Fort Worth
Leon's Mom's Chocolate Pie - Farmersville
Bev's Deviled Eggs - Irving
Granny Warren's Black-Eyed Peas
Meg's 5 Cup Salad - Fort Worth
Lori's Chocolate Coffee Cake - Highland Village
Susan's Christmas Cookies - Dallas
Italian Creme Cake from Kathleen's Art Cafe - Dallas
Sandy's Coca-Cola Cake for My Birthday - Irving
Andy and Aaron's Thomas Jefferson Recipes - Thanksgiving
Andy's Baked Radishes
Opa's Strawberry & Spinach Salad
16th Anniversary Hot Dogs at the Ballpark at Arlington
My Pralines
Aaron's Bread
Andy's Mexican Inspired Christmas Brunch - Irving
Andy's Cerviche and Fish Vera Cruz
Andy's Shrimp Creole (my birthday dinner)
Andy's Smoked Turkey with Candle - My 40th Birthday Turkey - Irving
Sunday Brunch at The Omni - Las Colinas (Granny's first ever brunch & mimosa - hilarious!)
Anniversary Dinner at Arcodoro Pomodoro (Sardinian) - Dallas
Cherry Slushes at Sonic - Uvalde, TX (Totally fun with Laura, Melissa & Ashley - our girl trip to Uvalde from Rio Frio)
Birthday Cake with Trick Candles - Irving, TX (a mini Mount St. Helens)
Mini Plates at Willi's - Healdsburg, CA (great orange-chili calamari and the most awesome spinach salad)
Pink Lemonade & Rum at the Drive-In - San Angelo
Dr. Pepper & Nacho Cheese Doritos - My Entire Diet Senior Year
The World's Largest Salad Bar at Mother Tuckers (in the early 80s when Salad Bars were all the rage)
My Attempt at Italian - Caesar Salad, Stuffed Shells with Marinara & Garlic Bread - all from scratch for Andy's Birthday (with recipes from Dom Deluise's Cookbook "Eat This!")
Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Salad & Green Beans - Andy's Traditional Annual Birthday Dinner
Dallas' Best Brunch - Breadwinners and La Duni

CitizenB

Try Not To Laugh While Doing Reverse Sit-Ups

2008-08-26T16:56:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

So last night I decided to google ways to get out of doing push-ups and sit-ups. I found several alternatives…one being a “reverse” sit-up. I demonstrated for the A’s and they were totally unimpressed that I could sit on the floor and lean back into a supine position.

Me: “That was good, don’t you think?”

The A’s: “That movement required no effort and worked zero muscles” with a lot of head shaking and motions like we’re speechless.

I kept trying to impress them with anything but a sit-up.

Also, my goal by the end of the week is to do a complete, standard sit up while simultaneously drinking a glass of prune juice (see 6. below.) That’ll show ‘em!

If I can pull it off I’ll demonstrate at ya-ya (but with beer).

From wikiHow:

How to Get Around Doing Basic Sit Ups
Most of us search for ways to tone up our abdominal area. However, a lot of us can't or don't want to do basic sit ups, for various reasons. Here are a few alternative exercises that are very effective in tightening the abdominal area.
Steps

1. Use your furniture. Simply sit up straight on an ottoman and hook your toes underneath a chair in your living room. Lie straight back across the ottoman. Then, slowly bring yourself back up to a sitting position. Do as many repetitions as you think you can.
2. Lie on your bed . Lie back, place your arms to your sides, and lift your legs (keeping both legs together) in a pointing straight up position. Then slowly bring them down. When your legs are about 2-3 inches from the bed, hold them there for 1-2 minutes. Then lower the legs and relax. Do as many reps as you can. Note: If you have problems sleeping, it is not recommended to use your bed for activities other than sleep. See How to Fall Asleep for details.
3. Do scissor cuts. Keeping your legs and arms in the same position on the bed, lift your legs and cross one over the other. Just work at your own pace and do what you feel you can.
4. Multitask. While cleaning up the kitchen or doing chores, try to remember to tighten your stomach muscles and then let them relax. This tip works great for your rear-end, as well. Add a little bending and stretching into your daily activities whenever you can.
5. Climb stairs. This can be great for your stomach, as well as other parts of your body. If you'd like, you could buy or have someone make a step-master for you.
6. Eat a high-fiber diet, with healthy and moderate amounts of food. This will help to keep your body in good condition, and make it receptive to workouts. A small amount of apple cider vinegar added to a cup of prune juice may be good to try.
7. Exercise when you can. Use a bike or exercise bike regularly--it will help to tighten your abdominal area and improve your overall health.
8. Stand up while doing the sit up motion. Be sure to keep your back straight and maintain your posture. Alternate your angle of attack to work different muscles, even going so far as to do the sit up backwards.

Tips
· Stay faithful to whatever route you take.
· Any exercise is better than none at all.
· Some of the exercises listed are easier on a person's back than the traditional sit-up.
· Having an exercise bike can help you to exercise even when the weather is not nice outside.
· Be sure to record your exercise activity. It's highly recommended that you use a calendar with large spaces to write in. Keep it hanging in the room where you have your exercise equipment or where you exercise. When recording exercise activities, use abbreviations, such as "EB" for exercise bike.
· Save your calendars. This way, you can look back, from year to year, to see how long that you stuck with it. Hopefully, you will be amazed with yourself and very pleased.
· If sit-ups are too hard for you and you start to feel serious pain after doing situps, do some crunches instead. (a crunch is not as effective as a situp though)

Warnings
· Don't be too hard on yourself. You'll enjoy exercising more if you don't drive yourself into the ground.
· Don't set unrealistic goals for yourself, such as trying to look like a certain celebrity or supermodel.

CitizenB

Disappearing Cake

2008-08-26T11:51:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

Below is a post-script to my boot camp/health challenge e-mail yesterday. Also, last night I googled ways to get out of doing push-ups and sit-ups. I found several alternatives. I was showing Andy my moves and we laughed so hard that my eyes were burning from the tears and mascara.

I have to add something to my report. I knew boot camp was coming Monday morning so I decided to eat something bad for dessert Sun night. I thought…hmm…what should I eat that I’ll be missing for a while?

I was at the grocery store to buy water and toilet paper and decided to head over to the bakery (which I normally avoid like the plague as not to give in to temptation). It came to me…I LOVE CAKE…chocolate cake. I decided to get one of those individual servings and torture the A’s by eating it right in front of them while refusing to share. My last act of defiance!

I get home, unload the groceries and guess what? No cake. Checked the receipt…yep, I paid $2.69 for disappearing cake. Double-checked the trunk of the car and not there. I decided it was a conspiracy. The A’s must have gotten to the supermarket checker and sack boy and/or this is yet another example of really poor Tom Thumb customer service. They failed to sack my magazine one time and another time I got some poor little man’s salami (he was in line in front of me).

I was too humiliated to go back for my cake and took it as a SIGN. No more cake for me.

CitizenB

Ya Ya Health Challenge

2008-08-25T14:37:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

Okay so it’s been brutally hot, I’ve been on airplanes and in hotels for a couple of months, and being the neurotic person I am…I fell off my own “Ya-Ya Health Challenge” wagon. Remember that long-ago (6 months has nearly passed) proposal for the ya-yas to get healthy? What was I thinking?

The good news is that I got back on today. It was kind of by force, but I did get back on. Andy and Aaron staged an intervention (oh, how the tables have turned) last night (we love you but you’re chunky, weak, in a rut, puffy etc.) and I was warned if I wasn’t out of bed for the 6:00 a.m. health assessment that a bull horn would be used. Yes, we own a bull horn.

So I’m up at 6:02 a.m. Aaron’s waiting in the kitchen in drill sergeant stance. (Andy got to sleep until 7:00 I guess because he’s “healthier” and his cholesterol is like one point lower than mine…) I’m allowed to sit and drink one cup of coffee until 6:15. I’m then ordered to weigh-in and actually give my weight - a figure normally kept between me and the doctor’s office. Me: “Most of that is water weight, you know.” Aaron: “Whatever.” He reports he will keep the weight stat confidential. I’m sure he already posted it on his myspace page. I’m then told to measure my waist and biceps. Me: “Biceps? I don’t have one.”

Also, Aaron is obviously a guy because he didn’t even think about a hip or thigh measurement. I didn’t offer. I would have given “ankle” if he asked. Of note, my ankles and the part of the arm where the biceps go are fairly skinny.

Next up: how many push ups and sit ups can I do? At 6:30 a.m.? The answer: 3 “modified” or girl push-ups (Aaron recorded “0” or zero) and 20 “crunches” (Aaron recorded another “0” or a big, fat zero). Girl can’t catch a break with the modifications. He then sighed “This is much worse than I expected.”

I’m then served a thick protein shake (in an orange juice glass! And after I refuse to make it myself!) and told that I can use the internet for a few minutes but only to recapture my user id and password on weightwatchers.com. Done (and I did sneak a peek at addictomatic.com).

There’s more. 30 minutes on the treadmill with more of an incline that I’m comfortable with. (Of course I’ll burn more calories this way but I’m in no condition to climb Mt. Everest – or even the big hill at the end of the street - just yet.) I managed to handle 3.5 at 3.5 mph for 31.30 minutes in a hot garage. Pretty wimpy, but there was sweat involved. It’s a start.

I could have gone longer on the treadmill but I had orders to be out the door by 8:30 today (and no later than 8:00 from now on). I’m not allowed to check my work e-mail at home…this causes too much sitting around and zoning out (true). It’s all about being productive in every aspect of my life!

I’ve used a lot of words like “forced” and “ordered” but you all know that I wouldn’t do any of these things if I didn’t want to. It’s called absolute stubbornness. We all need coaching on occasion. I’ll be on my own soon…Aaron starts back on a regular schedule at UD at 6:00 a.m. on Fri. (Thank goodness!)

Also, remember the “shoe fund” where I get paid $1 for every 30 minutes of exercise? Currently there is enough money to buy a pair of flip flops, but give me three more weeks, and I might be able to afford a nice pair of Wal-mart house shoes to kick around at ya-ya!

For all you ya-yas and over 40s out there, don’t give up. An inner athlete exists in all of us (even if it’s a Serbian discus-thrower.) Love you bunches,

CitizenB

Warning. Hideous "Before" Picture to follow. This is how I looked at 6:00 a.m. and with horribly swollen lymph glands (cleared up by massive doses of antibiotics.)

Fellow Citizens:

My Cat's One Shot at Fame

2008-07-20T19:45:00.000-05:00

Fellow Citizens:

The other day, Andy announced that his crew was preparing to shoot an advertisement for a brand of potentially poisonous cat treats made in China. His client was looking for 5 playful cats to be photographed in all kinds of cute positions.

Andy suggested that Marshall (our 7 year old cat) audition. My reply was “Are you kidding?” Marshall is an anti-social cat and only enjoys playing with pencils in the middle of my desk while I’m trying to work. Plus, he’s a killer. Andy’s response was that Marshall’s physique (lean and athletic…very Cat GQ) was perfect for the part. Also, the chosen cats are paid $75.00 per hour. Me: “$75 an hour? Why didn’t you say so?”

On Thursday Andy came home without notice and announced “It’s time. Where’s Marshall?” I replied “I don’t know…he could be anywhere including under the deck removing the head of a half-dead bird.” We found him sleeping peacefully in a chair. Andy scooped him up and dropped him in the carrier. Marshall was dazed and confused and probably thought “I’m not puking all over the house so why am I going to the vet?”

As Andy was hurrying out the door with carrier in hand, I’m spurting out warnings like “he needs to wake up!”, “he needs to be brushed!”, “he’s not ready!”, “don’t lose him!!”…

Andy: “There’s no time for brushing and if he gets the part he’ll go through make-up.”

About an hour later, Andy and Marshall return from the photo studio. He bombed the audition.

First, he wouldn’t leave the carrier and actually burrowed under the towel. Andy pried him out but Marshall kept returning to the carrier with his face planted firmly in the corner. He refused eye contact. Andy finally put the carrier away and Marshall proceeded to flatten himself and slink along the floor as if in combat. No amount of feather dusters or other photographer tricks worked. At last, he crawled under the paper back-drop and growled. Yes, growled like the wild animal he is.

Friday. Andy reports that all but three local cats (mostly employee pets) totally blew their auditions. It seems there was a pattern with growling under the back-drop.

The locals that pulled it off were playful but are questionable for “the look.” The client wants more cats so now they are bringing in professionals from L.A. Union cats with screen actor guild cards and handlers. Cost? $15,000! They also require one day of rest when they get to Dallas (and sardine-flavored green M&Ms at the hotel). Aaron (in Opa-esque fashion): “Oh, give me a break” and “For $15,000, I’ll go find a litter of playful kittens near a dumpster.”

Then it dawned on me. “Why wasn’t I given the chance to be Marshall’s handler?” I could have worked a little stage-motherly magic (with hidden cat nip). Andy’s “chop-chop-chop” surely didn’t help matters.

There’s more. I found out that not only are they casting for cats but for real people “mother-types” to play with the cats. Me: “Why didn’t I get a chance to audition for the cat’s mother?” Andy: “We needed attractive thirty-somethings.” Ouch. Aaron: “Mom, I would cast you.” Me: “Shut up, Aaron.”

Obviously Marshall and I don’t meet the clients’ needs but if there is ever a client out there that needs a martini-drinking cat, we’ll nail it. Marshall loves olives and I could join him for happy hour.

CitizenB

Texas Electoral Two-Step

2008-03-03T13:56:00.000-06:00

Fellow Citizens:

For all you voters who may be interested in the Democratic primary…

Did you know that in addition to the primary polls tomorrow, there is a caucus vote that begins at 7:15 p.m. or when the polls close, whichever is later?

Most states have a primary or a caucus. Texas Democrats use both. Roughly 2/3 of Texas’ Democratic delegates come from the primary polls, and 1/3 from the caucus that follows the polls. With such a tight race in Texas, the caucus vote most likely will tip the scales.

In this historic election, it’s important to vote at the caucus tomorrow night in addition to voting at the polls – whether you voted early or vote tomorrow.

Caucuses are held at precinct polling stations. Check your precinct address. You may not need it, but bring proof that you voted in the Democratic primary, either a stamped registration card or a receipt from the polling place. Caucusing cannot start until the polls close and with an expected high turnout means voting could go past 8:00 p.m. But, hey, what else do you have to do on a Tuesday night?

For more information, there’s a help line: 800-DEM-3254.

To be fair and give full disclosure…

Republicans also hold caucuses after the polls close, but those do not affect how delegates will be divided among GOP candidates. The caucuses don’t add to the vote – they just determine which party activist gets to go to the state convention. It seems as if you Republicans out there don’t have to work quite so hard for the candidate of your choice!

CitizenB