WHERE I'VE BEEN

I haven't been posting as much lately. Several reasons.

One, I was spending some time with the prequels to the prequels to Frank Herbert's Dune series. The books aren't bad, but they aren't magic with a capital M either. Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson have managed to tie into all the strands of the earlier works. In excruciating detail. I found out far more than I ever wanted to know about some characters and not nearly enough about others. The body count is beyond astronomical and most of them died very badly. Sometimes less is more and descriptions of executions, etc. fall into that category for me. My imagination is usually far scarier than anything anybody and write.

Two, getting over dental extractions and trying to work full time apparently takes more out of you than I expected. That and several trips to the doctor to have adjustments made. Things are getting better, but I've been feeling pretty drained.

My joints have been giving me semi-fits at about two week intervals. It's been hard enough work at a desk all day without trying to spend enough time on the computer at home long enough to get anything done more complicated than commenting on my favorite journals and sending some e-mails. I'm on the upswimg again, Yaaay.

So, here I am this morning feeling pretty darn good and trying to make up for lost time.

A NEW TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT

Apparently Karl Rove has taken a mini baseball bat to a hornet's nest...........again. In a partisan speech in New York on Wednesday Rove ridiculed Liberals for a wimpish response to terrorism in 2001. Responses by various Democratic spokesmen were predictable.

For the record, I have no use for Karl Rove. The man is a political disaster, a successful disaster but still bad news. What can you say about a man who was accused of bugging his own office while he was running Bush's first campaign for governer of Texas, finding the bugs and then accusing the opposition of doing it?

I just don't think all the uproar over his speech is going to do any good. If Howard Dean found the the cure for Aids, cancer and the common cold all rolled into one, Rove would probably find a way to make it sound like a bad thing.

Let's just accept that one, Karl Rove will never apologize for anything. Two, the president is not going to fire the man who charted his rise to political power. No way, no how, just accept it and move on. Although, I suppose that all the rhetoric creates a welcome breeze in the parts of the country that are suffering the current heat wave. All those sound bites have to be good for something.

So, my fellow outcasts, let's try a little experiment. Ignore him as much as possible. Just shake your head sadly, mummering quietly something to the effect of "what can you expect......" Sort of the way polite families treated the subject of the family remittance man. (The term hails from the British colonial era. Unambitious or embarrassing family members got shipped out the colonies to minor positions. Hopefully they couldn't do much damage out there and at least they weren't causing trouble at home.)

With luck, a non-responsive response with provoke more outrageous claims. Maybe, we'll get to the point where enough of the president's supporters will see just how small this man really is.

ANOTHER STICKER?

I have read a variation of this in a fan fic. I spotted a sticker a couple of years ago. It showed a dragon using a knights' lance for a toothpick and various pieces of armor scattered around. I think the caption ran something like this.

Don't argue with a dragon for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

Has anyone out there seen anything remotely like this? :-)

BUMPER STICKER

Saw this bumper sticker on a camper on the way home tonight.

Frodo has failed.
Bush has the Ring!

It was good for a chuckle.

THIS IS WESTERN OREGON?

Shower-A fall of rain of short duration. The definition doesn't say how short or how hard.

Usually, when we get "showers" in my end of the Willamette Valley, they're fairly mild. You get wet but you aren't in any danger of drowning if you look up at the sky with your mouth open. I wish I could have gotten a shot of the rain when it was falling 'cause what we got yesterday was the danger of drowning kind of shower. I don't think the shower in the bathroom puts water out that fast. We actually had about three inches of water on the sidewalk and it was floating bark chips off the path.

I don't think the white climber is going to look like itself until the second set of buds come on because the weather has basically trashed the first set. Poor thing is looking pretty bedraggled. I don't think anything can upset the lavendar or the heather.

I get a kick out of the cats. We watch movies like Band of Brothers so it's not like they haven't heard boom booms before. First crack of thunder and you can see the wheels turning. "No music, no talking, crap this is the real deal. If you want me I'll be under the bed! (How to make a fast exit while still looking cool)"

We actually got hit twice. We'd taken a drive out to one of the local farm stands and got there just before the first band of storms went through. Drove the u-pick strawberry lovers right out of the field. This weather is not doing our local berries any favors. We got to watch quite a lighting show. Well, quite a show for this part of the country.

Lisa, where ever you're selling pastry this weekend I hope it's semi dry. :-)

THE VERDICT IS IN

Two prequals down, one to go. Brian Herbert and Terry Anderson are good, but they aren't Frank Herbert. We're talking magic with a small m, not all caps with exclamation points. On to current events.

The medical examiner's report is out on Terry Schiavo. Gasp, gee it seems that doctor's who examined her had it pretty right all along. She was severely brain damaged, almost certainly blind and probably wouldn't have survived on feeding or drinking by mouth. There was no evidence of abuse or foul play.

It would be nice to see as much coverage and hype over the autopsy results as there was over her death. It would be comforting if some of the folks who implied that her husband was an abusive monster would apoligize as publically as they accused. It would be really nice if the rest of us would make a resolution to tune out carnival type coverage of such events in the future. I'd love to see the politicians announce that "you know, this really is a family matter and we don't have any business interfereing." I would hope that her parents would finally be able to let go and treasure the image of their loving, laughing daughter before this tragedy started. It would be a miracle if churchmen who have never been in this situation and never will would decide to stay out of the limelight and ere on the side of compasiion. Perhaps, just perhaps, the still small voice of the spirit speaks to the family before it speaks to the bishops.And perhaps the bishops have grown deaf to that soft voice.

I'm not holding my breath, I'm not going to bet the farm and I expect to find pigs in the tree tops before any of this happens.

COMING UP FOR AIR

It's been nice this weekend. Still haven't had a totally rain free weekend since March, but it wasn't enough to do more than get the street damp and make the air smell wonderful.

Made some interesting discoveries this weekend. If you're going to clean up some bloomed out rhodies, allow enough time to finish the job. A half deadheaded rhododendron looks really weird.

If you have really short hair like I do, make sure to put sunscreen on your ears as well as your face. I know, there's a really good reason why God invented hats. but I wear glasses (can't even see a foot past the end of my nose, the whole world looks like an Impressionist painting) and hats drive me crazy. They keep bumping into my glasses.

Put all projects involving yarn in a closed container. Especially anything that has wool in it. Lucky's been hunting again. Her current "catch" is two balls of yarn, one batch of counted granny squares and several loose ones. I spent the morning outside and mom was at church and the mighty huntress was in full pout mode. The good old "I can entertain myself very well, thank you. Good luck finding your goodies. They're under the bed."

Fresh local strawberries have nothing in common with the the ones they bring in from out of state. (I already knew this, just got a chance to be reminded) I know, the imports are perfectly shaped, perfectly colored, yadda yadda yadda. But, they can give cardboard a run for its money. The locals come in all sorts of crazy shapes and sizes, but they taste wonderful. They don't last very long, so we get 'em while they're hot.

The first blueberries are coming on too. I'm willing to share with the birds. sort of. Back to strawberries. We've got plants here and there. Once upon a time they were in a rea, planned bed. The ones in the bed are gone but the runners migrated. They actually make a good groundcover and they replace themselves. Three or four years ago I watched a squirrel work his way through the early berries. He finally picked one nibbled it and tossed the rest. I got curious and went exploring, He'd very carefully nibbled most of the red part off a half ripe berry and tossed the rest. Cheeky little fur ball. :-)

Well, I'm suddenly losing the ability to spell and I'm about to yawn myself into oblivian. After several years of getting up about six-thirty to get ready for work, the bed insistts on giving me the boot at about the same time on the weekends, too. Go figure. I guess I'd better check out this entry while I can still spell.