The HAT!!!

Here's the hat in more of its glory....

Now, ladies and gents, I have to ask you...how many 18-year-olds (the age when Karen's and my contemporaries usually got hitched right out of high school) would  have had the stones to put this on their heads and march down the aisle?  Karen has become my new hero. 

Ha...When they were saying their vows and got to the part where they said they would "Grow old together," she just unthinkingly paused and looked out at the congregation and thought, "We already ARE"--and everyone, catching the look on her face, all laughed at the same time.

A Hat Called "It's About Time!!"

My delightful longtime friend Karen (or Connie, to which she also answers) Morrissey just got married for the first time this past November to Jim Schumacher. She's just a year younger than I am almost exactly, and she grew up in Jamestown, same as Martha. She and Jim now live in Colorado and while unpacking from the move are preparing for a trip to Ireland.

She sent me this email about her wedding hat:

A friend of years, Vivian, and I went to a super art fair on the lower grounds of St. Kate's this summer. One of the tents had a hat maker, so I stopped. While looking I found a beautiful garden hat she created with a small pink bird in next to the crown, pheasant feathers, some stripped and crumpled corn husk, some netting, everything including the hat has been treated with a stiffening agent. I tried it on and liked it so much I decided to wear it for my wedding. Smiling, the designer asked if I would like to know the name of the hat. As I nodded she showed me the tag on the hat, which said:　IT'S ABOUT TIME!!　

Congratulations, Jim, for finally chasing down one of the last, best holdouts!  And best wishes, Karen!  You've been a wonderful writer, teacher, social worker, and friend, and now you're a vibrant bride!!  Have a swell time in Ireland. If you find yourselves in Limerick City near the jail, raise your caps (hats?) to my relatives....

Golly....

Two of my favorite bloggers--Kay of Kay's Thinking Cap, and Darlene of Darlene's Hodgepodge--picked Xtreme English for a "Sweet Award."  Thanks, Kay and Darlene! I appreciate this more than I can say.  It's always a bit of a shock to me that anyone pays attention to my bloggy ramblings and ravings. The award is VERY SWEET coming from you two. No matter what else calls for my attention, I always read your blogs.

Kay gets by with being outspokenly outspoken about everything that drives her batty in retirement, medical care, and modern politics, and her audience loves her for it.  Darlene writes long, thoughtful posts about serious topics and laces her communication schedule through with light and fun. I can never complain as well as Kay. People think she's dead right and hysterically funny--they just think I'm embarrassing. Darlene makes those of us who are still way younger than her look like doddering foofs when it comes to expressing complicated matters simply and directly--at at length, too. And she sends out the funniest Maxines!!

Kay's and Darlene's awardees have to pick ten things that make us happy, and then we have to nominate ten more bloggers for the award.

(And after that, we're supposed to have a good, stiff drink and practice throwing tomatoes at pictures of politicians from Texas, Wyoming, Ohio, and Arizona--or the state of our choice. I pick Minnesota, North Dakota, Virginia, and Nebraska. Also Montana.)

Anyway, here are ten things that make me happy:

1. Trees
2. Dandelions
3. My bicycle
4. Grandma Carew's recipe for chocolate chip cookies
5. My children, grandchildren, nieces & nephews, and grandnieces and grandnephews
6. Flying to Paris overnight
7. WIFI
8. Pictures of the Obama family
9. Safeway
10. My Mac

And, as every recipient of this award has said, "This is the hardest part"--Here are the ten bloggers I nominate for this award. I'm pretty sure most of them will not give this a moment's thought, but I have to tell the world how much I enjoy their blogs:

1. Peggy of Lazy Gardener
2. Esther of Ishtar News
3. Sherwood of SherWords
4. Antonia of Whoopee
5. The Prince of Prince of Petworth
6. Claude of Photoblogging in Paris
7. Susan V from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen
8. Susan M from Major Reader
9. Peteykins from Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog (scroll down to Wednesday, March 24)
10. Naomi from A Little Red Hen

Thanks, all.  While three-fourths of Xtreme English's readers today are in the US, and another good chunk come from the UK and Canada, intriguing small numbers have visited recently from Germany, France, Egypt, Australia, the Netherlands, India, Finland, Philippines, Chile, Hungary, Ireland, Argentina, Czech Republic, Russian Federation, Turks & Caicos Islands, Turkey, South Africa, Mongolia, Luxembourg, Singapore, Columbia, Malaysia, Azerbaijan, Dominican Republic, Greece, Malta, Europe (??), United Arab Republic, Norway, Romania, New Zealand, and Pakistan. My most popular posts are a curious mix: "La Petite Godin" (about our woodburning stove in Iowa), "Hell explained by a chemistry student," "Deaf operated KFC in Cairo," "Pivetta Muir Trail" (about my favorite hiking boots--also Peggy's), "Michael Pollan's 12 Short Food Rules," and "Tuna hotdish."  And you thought it was my scintillating commentary on current events all along?  Ha.

YES WE CAN!!!! Boner is sinking fast....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpOUctySD68

Almost Friday....

Have I got ten things that make me happy this week?  Hmmm....

1) Alice Walker has a new book: WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.
2) The neighbors' daffodils are up and blooming!!!
3) Alice Walker's book has a chapter "Crimes Against Dog," which says "Dogs understand something I was late learning; when we are mean to anyone or any being it is because we are temporarily not ourselves. We are somebody else inhabiting these bodies we think of as us. They recognize this.'My mommy's not in there at the moment. I'll just wait until she gets back.'" This, dear readers, has been the story of my life! If I had a dog....
4) Pillsbury's ready-made pie crust dough is not so bad, but you can't make apple pie with lousy apples.
5) The first friends you make are the best. At least mine are: Jane, Jim, Mary, Mary, Joanie, Judy, Michael and Marcia, Diane, Kay....
6) I love mashed potatoes.
7) The sky is glorious, no matter what else is going on.
8) Good haiku are great. Here's one:
Sitting quietly
doing nothing
spring comes.
 9) Old friends are the best, esp Jim and Mary and Mo.
10) Bus drivers are saints.

Yippee!!

The health care bill passed in the House of Representatives! It's not perfect--how could it be with all the wrangling in Congress over this and that? But it's a reality now....About all that remains is for the President to sign it into law.

And the first person to get a pen from that signature should be NANCY PELOSI!!! The first notice I got last night that the bill had passed was an email from "Nan," the San Francisco liberal who managed all the fractious Democrats and got the deed done. (Is that grammatical? Who cares?) (Or maybe that's syntax, not grammar...whatever)...

Please note, also: NOT ONE REPUBLICAN VOTED FOR IT IN THE HOUSE. They think they are going to call on their Tea-bagging wingnut troops and win big in November. Let's work on that, fellow libruls.

The BFF and I had the misfortune of sitting next to two Teabaggers yesterday at Starbucks. The woman was talking on her cell phone: "Yes, we're right across from the White House"--a bald-faced LIE. They were right across from the cupcake shop, which is almost a mile from the White House. Then she hung up and turned to point at all the exhausted families walking past, wending their way home from the Mall, where they were part of the huge pro-immigrant rally.
"Look at that!" the woman said. "You'd think you were in South America."
The BFF replied, "They're good people! You people disgust me. I can't believe I'm sharing this country with you."
Then the woman's husband said, "Run along. We don't want you here."
I considered offering to break his arm, but the BFF, seeing my thought processes, pulled me away. "Don't you dare say anything."
Gee...I'm still sorry I missed a chance to rumble with those unspeakable Teabaggers--the ones who have been calling out racial and homophobic epithets and spitting on members of Congress. They have been clogging the metro here all week, it seems like. Don't they have HOMES to go to?
Here's a poster on my bus stop at the metro. It says,
"The immigrants work for the prosperity of America -  Justice for all the workers!!"

Let's work on that toilet seat law!!

Michael Moore has a wonderful article in today's Huffington Post.  Here's a nice, long quote:

If Stupak were truly pro-life then he'd vote for this bill. Right now, a mother in the U.S. has a ten times greater chance of dying in childbirth than a mother does in Ireland. If you really wanted to reduce abortions, you'd have to ask yourself this question: Why does godless France, where abortion is nearly free (it's covered by their universal health insurance), have 20% fewer abortions per capita than we do? What's even more amazing about that statistic is that you can't even get an abortion in America in 87% of our counties because there isn't one single doctor in those counties who will perform one! 87%!! The Right has scared them to death -- sometimes literally -- out of performing an otherwise legal, safe procedure. So, you can say women have "choice" in this country, but the reality is the "choice" doesn't exist in the majority of the nation. "Right to Life" has essentially won this battle. (My personal position: I don't get to have a position -- I don't have a uterus. If a Senate that was 90% female told me I couldn't have a vasectomy or made it a crime to leave the toilet seat up, I guess I might object.)
What is "life"? An egg is life, a sperm is life. Those sperm aren't running on a battery pack. They are living creatures, as is a fertilized egg. But they're not "human beings." A human being is something that can exist outside the womb of a mother. If you think a fertilized egg is a human being, then I respectfully ask you to go down to the DMV today and have them change your birthday on your driver's license to 9 months older than what you've been telling everybody.
So back to my question. Why do we have an abortion rate 20% higher than France's (and more than twice as high as Germany's), especially considering most doctors here won't perform them? The answer is any country that has universal health care, where contraception is free, where child care is free or inexpensive, where there is less poverty because people don't become bankrupt over medical bills -- those societies are simply going to have fewer unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.
And there the mask gets pulled off the Bart Stupaks and the "Christians." If the statistics show that countries with government-provided universal health care and nearly-free abortions are, in fact, the countries with the fewest abortions, then why on earth wouldn't the Right be the first in line to support universal health care?

And the answer is...

Because it isn't about "universal health care." It's about controlling women, period.

TGIF....

Also, TGI...(fill in any other day of the week as the spirit moves you).

I've decided to try being happy for a change. Somebody wrote recently about changing our focus from those things that worry, grieve, and annoy us to those things that make us happy. So, here are ten things that have made or are making me happy this Friday, March 19, 2010.


1) March 19 is the feast day of St. Joseph, and since I once was a candidate for membership in the Sisters of St. Joseph, this day has many powerful, happy memories from my youth. As I recall these, I realize most of them have to do with my friend Martha: Martha sharing a smuggled bottle of orange soda after Grand Silence on our first night at 1890 Randolph; Martha loading a wheeled cart with dozens of cookies to transport them to the storeroom but first stopping at her locker to deposit a dozen or so for herself; Martha stacking a pile of Liber Usualises, the big, heavy Gregorian Chant books, on a veil spread out on the pew ahead of her as its wearer was kneeling in prayer--and when the wearer went to stand up, the Libers had her veil firmly anchored, and she sort of flopped around making (forbidden) noise. So knowing Martha--with her brilliant mind, musical and artistic talent (she taught her granddaughter Ruby how to play the recorder and the violin), and profound knack for mischief--has made and is making me happy.

2) The sun pouring into this house. It's warmer outside than it is in here, so I've got the door open.

3) In the front yard, the big old tree is suddenly covered with RED buds--is it a maple? The tree is falling apart, alas, losing its branches, but....

4) ...as I was outside sweeping up twigs and bark from the sidewalk, a long line of school children walked by two by two across the street with their teachers, and they were all singing! I don't know what they were singing, but they all knew the song by heart, and it sounded soulful and uncomplicated. Not anything like "Old McDonald"--maybe a Beatles song?

5) According to today's MR website post, the bakery downtown is doing very well, drawing in people from all over the area for its cupcakes and sweet potato cakes (pies?). Best of all, the woman who owns it is old, like me, and she's been baking all her life.

6) Day before yesterday, my BlackBerry fell out of my pocket, and a woman found it in the street, where it had been run over. She was able to call Cathy with it, and the woman turned out to be just half a block away from where we were. She didn't want any money for returning it or calling us. The BlackBerry was squashed, though, and it had to be replaced. Luckily, all the memory cards were still good.

7) My tulips are still presentable on the kitchen counter. (See the photo at the top of the post.) They look so natural in the big square lucite container (a wastebasket from BB&B), and even though they're nearly gone, they're still beautiful.

8)  I still have enough leftovers from St. Patrick's Day's corned beef and cabbage feast for tonight's supper!

9)  Peggy and Tom both chatted with me on Facebook in the wee hours of this morning.  Tom had an earache and couldn't sleep, and Peggy was up for the day in her time zone.  Sally sent an email yesterday, too. Such wonderful children.

10) The school kids just walked back to school, and they were still singing. 

Holy Toledo just got bypassed....

For years, one of my favorite expressions of awe and wonder has been "Holy Toledo!" That's straight out of Batman comics, although I think it was Robin who said it so often...not Batman.

Anyway, Texas has surged to the front of Holy Places here in the US of A, and Toledo isn't so holy any more--at least not as holy as Austin or...lessee...Crawford?? The 15-member Texas School Board have taken upon themselves to rewrite US history (so far, that's all...just the US's, but wait...) according to their idea of a "Christian" (Cruschin) perspective.

While my blood simmers on the back burner as I ponder WHO IS PUBLISHING THIS CRAP--the object of my next call to BOYCOTT--I found two good commentaries on Cosmic Navel Lint, and I'm posting the links here:

The first is Cosmic Navel Lint's link to Jeff Schneider's of Demagogues & Dictators' "An Open Letter to the Texas Board of Education: David Bradley Owes Someone $1000 Bucks", which contains this gem:

I fear when bias gives way to propaganda -- and when that propaganda is taught as fact. In my textbooks I learned that

"Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round"

That is from Mein Kampf -- p. 376

And the second is Cosmic Navel Lint's St. Paddy's day post, Revisionism: The Texas Brain Saw Massacre, which starts out like this:

In a move of which Josef Stalin and his henchmen would have been proud, the Texas Board of 'Education' has now allowed itself to become a laughing stock in the realms of Western democratic academe. Indeed, future pupils who, on their résumés and curricula vitae, cite Texas as their alma mater have just been handed an additional hurdle in making progress in the world.

'Tain't funny, McGee"....

While we're at it.....

In addition to pope bashing, this column enjoys sharing posts on conservative fantasies, such as the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan. Here's a post from Cosmic Navel Lint about the Reagan Myth. Enjoy....

A few quotes:

Reagan did not reduce the size of government; indeed, the number of people on the federal payroll went up significantly under his leadership, which destroys another Republican/Teabagging group psychosis claim about them being the party of minimal federal government. A myth indeed.

...

At the time that it happened, Americans did not credit Reagan with the fall of the Berlin Wall. A USA Today poll 4 days after the fall of the Berlin Wall (in 1989) gave 43% of the credit to Gorbachev, and 14% to Reagan; the figures were 70% and 2% among Germans.

...

Finally, nowadays, whereas any self-respecting Republican, or at least those now scrabbling to be cast in the Reaganite mould (and they are legion), routinely claim to be a deficit-busting 'fiscal conservative', a term rapidly becoming a devalued currency for its claimants, interesting then that, according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, former Vice President Cheney claimed during a cabinet meeting that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” Which prompts the question: then why do these self-same people bitch and whine non-stop about "the deficit", whilst seeking, feloniously, to paint the deficit as something which is Obama's fault, when he wasn't even in power during the previous eight Bush years which actually created it?

...
You get the idea....

Oh, please....

I keep running into good things from Katha Pollitt this week. Pollitt has published an article on feminism in Democracy Journal: "What Happened to Women?" The subhead reads "Instead of moving to the center, liberalism should try embracing people who are actually liberals—starting with women."

Meanwhile, right on cue, the Pope and the Vatican are in the news this week, too. Not about their offer to open the church's coffers to taxation (kidding!)--just (a) another sex scandal involving one of the Pope's "Gentlemen" (ceremonial usher) and a hunky member of the Vatican choir who were found to be part of an all-guy prostitution ring, and (b) Randall Terry's delegation to the Vatican to see if the Pope really meant what he said about denying Catholic politicians the Eucharist if they support abortion.

Where would the Roman Catholic Taliban be without women to either pretend they don't exist or push around?

Good Advice

cathy says she's seen this, but i never have. too funny.

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk
ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me
either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan
belt and a leaky tire.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're
going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be
replaced, you can't be promoted.

5. Always remember that you're unique. Just like
everyone else.

6. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try
missing a couple of car payments.

8. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in
their shoes. That way, when you criticize them,
you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

9. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for
you.

10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him
how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person
again, it was probably worth it.

12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember
anything.

13. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

14. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in
half and put it back in your pocket.

15. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

16. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither
one works.

17. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when
your lips are moving.

18. Experience is something you don't get until just
after you need it.

19. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

20. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill
and a laxative on the same night.

Lookin in the Magazines....

I get a bunch of magazines every week despite my best efforts to stop subscribing to everything that appeals to me. I do love magazines, though. They're cheaper than books, EASIER TO CARRY on the metro, and recyclable.

Recent good magazine offerings:

From the march 8, 2010, issue of The Nation: "What Ever Happened to Candidate Obama?" in Subject to Debate by Katha Pollitt
--

I'm still glad I supported Obama over Hillary Clinton. If Hillary had won the election, every single day would be a festival of misogyny. We would hear constantly about her voice, her laugh, her wrinkles, her marriage and what a heartless, evil bitch she is for doing something--whatever!--men have done since the Stone Age. Each week would bring its quotient of pieces by fancy women writers explaining why they were right not to have liked her in the first place. Liberal pundits would blame her for discouraging the armies of hope and change, for bringing back the same-old same-old cronies and advisers, for letting healthcare reform get bogged down in inside deals, for failing to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan--which would be attributed to her being a woman and needing to show toughness--for cozying up to Wall Street, deferring to the Republicans and ignoring the cries of the people. In other words, for doing pretty much what Obama is doing. This way I get to think, Whew, at least you can't blame this on a woman.

I'm not even sure how much of it you can blame on Obama. We've had ample evidence of how little power he has over the Democratic barons of the Senate--so little that he had to bribe Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu with great big haunches of pork to get their votes on a healthcare bill that would benefit millions of their constituents. He is trying to bring some of the Guantánamo prisoners to trial on the US mainland, and Democrats like Jim Webb* have sold him out. The Republicans have made clear their intention to obstruct his every move, and thanks to antidemocratic customs like the filibuster and the Senate hold, they've done a pretty good job so far. These are basic features of the landscape.

*Note to self: IGNORE yesterday's letter from Webb asking for funds in which he never ONCE mentions that he belongs to the Democratic Party. But I digress....

From the March 5 2010 Entertainment Weekly in Putting Movies First by Stephen King:

If you don't know about Turner Classic Movies' 31 Days of Oscar,you're missing the hands-down best value on basic cable. The colors are vibrant, the sound is crisp, and the wide-screen films are properly letter-boxed. The black-and-white movies are even better, the prints looking as fresh and clean as the day they were struck.

From the Jan-Feb'09 Utne Reader in The People's Professor by Courtney E. Martin...and yes, this ran last year, but i found it when i moved:

Their eyes alight, students spoke of a political science professor who preached the importance of finding one's Platonic arete,or calling. They talked about a professor who freely gave out his home phone number and the questions to the final exam prior to administering it--his own little rebellion against grades. They described a man who filled their heads with theory, but no less than he filled their hearts with love.

Lots of goodies in just a few pounds of paper....

for fenella, ronniecat, and all the other Canadian hockey fans!!

WAY TO GO!!!