Substitute First Posting

Lost the first post. Have to do more direction reading for this web log thing. So....... my purpose in doing this is to have some fun and enthusiasm. Spark my mind, get moving. Work on the book I will never write on How to be Old. Exercise my co-dependency, indulge my self-indulgence. Encourage you to do the same.

The FLY (finally loving yourself) Lady thing: After over a year, I'm still at the beginning and taking baby steps, but it does make a structure to my time. And I am a perfect SHE, (sidetracked home executive). So I wear my shoes, I keep my sink shining (when it is not being used by Don for a farm sink) and keep things put away. I get rid of much of my stuff, give it away a little at a time and I don't buy any more, forget the garage sales. I can do anything for 15 minutes at a time. I have a morning and evening routine that gets my exercise done and my face washed, pills taken, dishes put away. I don't feel guilty for taking time for myself.

I find it interesting to be old and to discover what that means. I intend to grow at old and enjoy more than I despair. If you know any good ideas, share them with me. Going to lunch with "the ladies who lunch," three times a week, I can note their aging process. Some of them have been going to this "lunch site for seniors" for 21 years. The lady who has come the longest sits at the head of the table. I didn't used to like old people very much, but am finding these women interesting and full of wisdom. They have already done this, "how to be old."

I'm remembering that my old Grandfather Malan used to chew his milk. I am remembering this while I am rather chewing my Swiss mocha. Ah yes. And I think of my Grandmother Malan, whom I never properly appreciated even though she took care of me every summer for at least five years, up there in Ogden Canyon, my favorite place. She wasn't exactly joyful. And I now realize that she was depressed. Good heavens, she lost her daughter Myrtle to whopping cough when she was four, and then her lovely son Ralph to a basketball injury at church, when he was seventeen. She was most kind to me. And I must remember that it was she and Grandpa who gave me the baby buggy and bank balance and two cars and all the houses plus other requests, satisfied for me and my family.

I remember a lovely moment one Christmas season when I came upon them (from the grocery store) both standing on my little front porch leaning into the window singing a Christmas carol to my family.

This web log stuff will be all right.....when I remember that this blog is not precious and I can write anything I want to. A send out, with love, to my world.

The Conventions

It was amazing to watch 20 hrs of the Democratic Convention and then 20 hrs of the Republican Convention. At the end though, when Gov Pataki was speaking, introducing GW Bush, I did have to stop and take a tranquilizer before I could go on.

And the scores, as per the Olympics: In my opinion, Democrats: 8.0, Republicans: 10:0. I think that Carl Rove and his group deserve an Academy Award.

The Republicans were perfection. And it put me in mind of the time when I was on that peace march in the Soviet Union with 200 each of Soviets and Americans, when one day we had a talent show. The Soviets presented the first performance that I had ever seen that was absolutely perfect. The costumes, perfect, color choices perfect, accent colors perfect, one dance would end, the participants would walk back across the stage again to lead the next dance, perfect. Young men and the majority, young girls, all amateurs it was stressed, (amateurs as in the Olympics), perfect, The girls danced in large groups, no stars, each was beautiful, perfect; they danced like swans, feminine, graceful, precise, gently glowing dancers. Actually it was breathtaking.

After the perfection of the folk dancers, the walkers did a concert with imperfection, in their worn walking clothes doing their acts. Some were very good, some not so good. None had perfected his act with the discipline that seemed necessary to those Soviet dancers. Well, we were honestly there, but far from perfect. Those lovely young Soviets were there too, but very practiced and professional before coming out to demonstrate the talents of that closed state. The Republican convention was similar to the one of those Soviets. The Democratic convention was more similar to the far from perfect but maybe a little bit more honest acts of the walkers.

And the honesty (ability to keep from stretching the truth) scores: Democrats: 9.0, Republicans: 4.0. And for reality scores (the ability to show what is happening in the world and in our country now): Democrats: 9.0, Republicans: 2.0.

The Republicans were practiced. Even George Bush had been trained to avoid his smirk, not one. The speech was well written and beautifully spoken. The vice president was superseded by Zell Miller whose speech was perfectly vitriolic, so much so that Cheney's was toned down by comparison.

The democrats had a spirited time. Barack Obama, their keynote speaker gave a brilliant speech. The daughters acted like lovely young women who introduced their father well. Theresa H. Kerry presented herself as a well educated lovely caring woman who has made her own imprint on the world, using her billions well, taking sass from no one. Admirable. But compared to Laura Bush, she seemed so "of the people", where Laura was an angel set down among us to lead the president to his best self.

The Republicans were able to supersede all of the occurrences of the last year. They suggested only that Kerry was bad, that 9/11 was the disaster that sent our great president not only to war on terror but also to the war in Iraq which became one and the same in their presentation.

We viewers were meant to forget all the terrible mistakes of the war, from the riots of looting to the hell of the occupation for both the Iraqis, so many of whom have died, and for our soldiers, nearly 1,000 of whom have died, to the beastly treatment of the prisoners at Abu Ghurayb to the continuing fighting of insurgents and now real terrorists. We were also to forget about the terrible national debt, the lost jobs, the 9/11 commission's report, the lack of funding for "No Child Left Behind" and on and on.

I'm glad I watched all those hours, I think. It made me more aware of the good reporting, plus the biases and half-truths that reporters somehow allow to go unremarked upon. It gave me a look at those bright young faces showing enthusiasm still for the political process. Am I more cynical? Yes.

The Democrats obviously need some help with their message and their performance. They had better get to work on that quickly. Because right now the only thing that will make a win for them is just that one fact, that John Kerry is not George Bush.