My Obama (non)moment

No, I haven't met him. I now regret not going to D.C. when he was a new junior senator and
requesting to have brunch with Dick Durbin (who is a very good senator) and him. A bit
late now...

Anyway, my behind the scenes (non) moment happened several years ago. I have
always been on donor lists for the Democrats and would get phone calls for polls,
money requests, and so on. Way before the Senate race in Illinois, there was a very
detailed survey call, asking about a bunch of potential candidates, mostly nothing
special local office-holders, and this guy with a weird name about whom no one had
heard much. They were very into it, with things like "What if we told you he was
the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review", and lots of things
on his positions, and so on. It all seemed quite promising and I said I'd be willing to
learn more and perhaps consider voting for him. I guess a lot of other survey respondents
said so, too, since all of a sudden he was the leading contender in the U.S. Senate race
in Illinois.

Seems very much like there were folks behind the scenes planning and grooming and
scheming for quite some time there. And Now look where it's gone. Wow. I feel
better about national politics than I have since 1992...Woo-hoo and here's hoping....

Mother rant, 1? of infinity...

Does everyone's mother say how they have failed at raising their child because said child does not keep its house as clean as said child's mother? Do they ever have anything positive to say? Do they harp on things like faded shear curtains, that came with the house and are being replaced soon by blinds and don't rate washing, yet, somehow, they chisel away at most of said child's capabilities as an adult human being, or so she would believe? I've been told to just ignore such things, the rantings of a crazy old woman. This was from someone whose crazy old mother was safely in another country, not a couple miles away. It's hard when your mother is so perfect, you can never measure up, even if you wanted to, which you don't.....not in that way, at least....

Not ranting enough....

I keep feeling so screwed up and less-than-profound, that I am reluctant to write, but I think that is what makes me therefore NEED to write, if only to calm my troubled brain. If anyone is actually reading this, you have been warned.

So, can he do it? The Obama thing, that is. We've already had one massive hellish let-down for the year with the Cubs giant tease and crash. Do we need another? I have been actively ignoring national politics since 2000 when I volunteered for a campaign for the first time and got too crushed for my own good. I recall being thrilled in 1992 but far less since.....

I never thought the world would seem this screwed up by the time I was 40. Is it me or is it just that the longer you live, the more perspective you acquire and the cynicism multiplies....

The inescapable sucking ooze...

...that is JP Morgan Chase and so many others. I awoke to hear that yesterday the bank that has our mortgage and savings, Washington Mutual, was bought by Chase. Just last year, I had closed my accounts at Chase and switched to WaMu as they like to be called, gag, since I was sick of their impersonal fee-laden New York intrusive dumbness. This was after they bought Bank One who'd combined with NBD Bank, after taking over First Chicago, which had been around since roughtly 1864 and is no more.

And don't even get me started on the Marshall Field's demise...

How big can these Jabba the Hut corporate things get and why is there no escape? It's like the whole AT&T (sorry, they like lower case now) thing, gosh, it used to be Illinois Bell and then Ameritech and then SBC and now at&t again, just like we used to have for long distance. And their fees, too, keep going up. Text messaging on prepaid cellular went from 5cents/msg last year to 15cents in one go! Gosh, that's a 300% increase. Now it's going up another 5cents. All of this may seem petty to folks with unlimited plans, but I, and many others like me, don't make $100+ of cell calls a month to need such plans. Anyway.

Back to work and a nice cup of healthy green tea. END RANT...

A safe, fun, high-tech way to meet people!

Hey, check out Crush or Flush, a great new way to meet people.

You upload a photo of yourself and a name, or nickname, but not other personal info gets posted. You add whatever personal descriptions of yourself you want, and can browse for others based on their descriptive info. You enter your cell phone number and use the site to text message folks on whom you might have a "crush" or you can "flush" those on whom you don't. Pretty nifty and safer than the bars.

and more irony..

I recently saw little red painted wooden 4th of July pins, with American flags on them. They had a tiny plaque linked on, that said "This Land Is My Land". I had to check, and of course the usual "Made In China" sticker was on the back. Yes, this land IS theirs, isn't it, at least trade-deficit-wise... The patriotic shirts from Old Navy piss me off, too. Try American Apparel , made in Los Angeles t-shirts, for an example of actual American clothing...

Ah, the irony...

Ok, the last post was just slaving for mturk again. Still catching up since the holidays. The title of this post refers to my in-laws. They got me the book A Year Without Made in China, which was a surprisingly appropriate and thoughtful gift, considering my Buy American leanings (are liberals allowed to have those? Ah, another topic entirely. Anyway.) and my complaints about how so many things today are such junk, and so on.

Then they gave my daughter a doll, whose leg broke off with very little prompting right on Christmas Eve. There was an amazing trauma and they promised to take her to the doll hospital and get her fixed (ie secretly replaced). Apparently they mucked with it so much, rather than just return it, that they figured the store would blame them and they, amazingly, bought a whole new one instead. THEN, the day they gave it to us, right after we got home, gosh, what do you know, its leg broke off, just like the first one. More child traumas. I wanted to break some legs and I don't mean the doll's...This was beyond ridiculous, so we promised to get her crutches or some such and taped her leg back on and she has mostly laid in the doll bed since then, ignored.
At least stuffed animals don't break so easily but people could really lay off giving those, too.

Time to break out that sewing machine and make the memorable sort of toys and clothes that my grandmother made us....