Wasted Summer

Summer is only a few weeks old, but since we have embarked upon an election year...it already seems to be too long. The conventions will be next month and promise to be hot and windy. This election has been going on and on ever since November of 2004. The Democrats have not been satisfied with holding sway in The House and Senate. They want the whole enchilada. Believe me, I'm afraid for any one party to be in charge of everything... where will our system of checks and balances be?

In our house, we are steadfast Republicans, but are not enamoured with Sen. McCain and his policies. How can anyone think we should not drill for oil on a few acres in ANWR? Why does he buy into Al Gore's the sky is falling gloom and doom crap about global warming? Oh, I believe in recycling and being conscious in our use of nature's gifts, but for every scientist he produces to claim impending catastrophe ... there is another one refuting the claims. Why are the lawmakers going along with the light bulb stuff? The new and improved mercury bulbs have long and tedious processes for cleaning up a broken bulb involving Hazmat Teams. Someone must be kidding me!

I don't see much difference between the two candidates, except that Obama has little or no experience in foreign affairs. Both candidates are centrists at this moment, but watch how fast they lean to the left ... giving us a choice between higher taxes and highest taxes.

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Okay, that was summer and now it is late October. We have nine days until the election. McCain has modified his positions slightly and nominated Sarah Palin as his runningmate. She is the conservative we have been longing to see, but the media has decided to band together to kill her popularity. Obama has chosen Biden as his running mate and he is busily saying things that require a whole cadre of handlers to retract and tone down his mouth.

Obama himself has taken to the airwaves with comments worthy of Karl Marx. I am left wondering where he is getting all the money for his candidacy? How many little Democrats does it take to make a hundred million dollars? One? Like in George Soros? Why are ACORN activists roaming all over the country registering people from adjoining states, street people and convicts in local jails? Everything is so different from the day in 1960, when I had to drive to my county seat and provide a birth certificate to my Board of Elections, to enable me to cast my first presidential vote. I was so proud....now, I am just plain scared. If we have a one party Congress, Senate, President and most of the Supreme Court, bills will be passed and we will have no say in the new policies. Can you say Socialists? My big worry is that the husband and I will not live long enough to see if our children and grandchildren will be alright or will they be living in the world of "Dr. Zhivago"?

Twenty-Something vs. Seventy-Something

We watched a television talk show today about twenty-somethings who have working-world confusion and do not want to leave home or go into a lesser lifestyle. Do the people who decide how these programs are formatted not know that the same identity confusion lies at the other end of the working world? We awaken every day with a lack of purpose and a debilitating sense of ennui. At one time in our lives, we had a sense of importance and validation for taking up space with our bit of protoplasm. Surely, there is more to life after work is done. Our hearts hurt when we look into the mirror and see an older person and realize that there is no going back --- only forward into an unknown abyss. I don't think most people question their lives on a daily basis. They get up and live --- and then go to bed again. We, on the other hand, scrape each other raw with the desperate searching for something to do with the tiny amount of life that is left to us. We don't want to waste it, but in persuing the "great American dream", we lost sight of where we were heading fifty years ago. I want to be the happy, cheerful person my husband married over fifty years ago, but suddenly I am desperately looking for a reason to be happy about living on the tail end of life on a downhill pull. My own children don't seem to be aware that we might not be around very many more years or that there could come a time when we will need elder care. Perhaps, that is what is really bothering me --- I never want to become so incapacitated that I cannot take care of myself. I want to stay useful and vibrant until the day I am planted in a little box of ashes.

A lady of great beauty and grace has just stopped by and we talked of life, love, marriage and spirituality. I am left wishing I had her serenity and adaptability. Eva,--- God loves you and so do I. My thinking on old age will surely evolve as we are led along the way this spring. We will be back in Ohio, where regeneration of life is more visible than it is in Florida.

Behind the Wheels

There are those who would think that several decades of marriage would make two people think similarly. The problem occurs when you take into consideration that men think with testerone coursing through their veins and women think with estrogen levels going up and down depending on the time of month or the time of life. For purposes of this blog, my darling, forever husband will be referred to as HRH. ( His Royal Highness) HRH is truly the love of my life, but now that we are past the child bearing stage, his testerone has been converted to aggressive competition on the road, on the golf course and any other place where folks keep score. Here in southern Florida people drive as though they just escaped from the asylum. A space between you and the car immediately in front of your car means someone will make a lane change in the blink of an eye. You better not blink or you will hit them in the arse and the insurance company will hit the delete button on your account. Yellow lights do not mean "proceed with caution", but instead mean "hurry like heck before the cars going the other way can gather enough speed to wipe you out"! So, HRH and I drive around town with him aggressively keeping ahead of other drivers, who might want to make it to the next corner two seconds faster. I do suck wind far more than most women are allowed and occasionally make pointed comments like, "Oh, look out" or "Cops on the right up ahead" or "There is an old lady on a bike over there" or "Stop sign"! Perhaps, my mind thinks he has suddenly gone blind, but I really believe the only people who worry about how someone drives is a person who is also a licensed driver in a passenger seat. Passenger seated people have no control over how or where the vehicle goes, so we make useless comments .... just to be on the safe side. There is no answer to a problem as old as the automobile, because we cannot change from women into men. Yes, HRH is aggressive, but is the best driver I know and I would go with him to the ends of the Earth. HRH would like to invent a seatbelt that covers my mouth, but it looks like someone beat him to it. I'm going to patent a protective steel plate for the floor to keep passengers from sticking their right foot through the floorboards.

Seasons of Life

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.
The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.
When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.
The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.
The second son said, "No it was covered with green buds and full of promise."
The third son disagreed; he said, "It was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful---- it was the most graceful thing I ever saw." The last son disagreed with all of them; he said that it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.
The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen only one season in the tree's life.
He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person by only one season, but by the essence of who they are. The pleasure, joy and love that come from life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons have been fulfilled.

Sometimes, I think our children forget that we, who are in the winter of our days, have been through all the other seasons and have learned the lessons therein. Don't sell us short --- we may be slower, but we are not dumber. We've been there, done that and bought the Tee shirt.

New Kid on the Block

There's a new kid on the blog block. She has been around the block a time or two, but decided to get a new place in the sun. Truly, she is enamoured of many terrific bloggers, but can't seem to say what she wants without fear of affecting her family or incurring the wrath of the relatives. So, bear with her and she'll try to see if being private and illusive will allow the muse to settle around her like an old friend. Hope you all will come around now and again to see what she has to say. At least the relatives don't know where she has gone, so to quote Martin Luther King ---"Free at Last"!