And in the end....

I don't think I'm going to worry about updating this blog any more. I think this is the end of it. I wanted to be a blogger, but it's just not in me to do it. I can't count the number of times I have written posts halfway through or more and just abandoned them for one reason or another. Yesterday I was writing something that triggered a crying jag that lasted several hours. This is not of the good.

It's rather like when I was a kid. I was given those nifty little diaries with locks on them several times for Christmas from relatives and I always intended to keep them up. All of them had entries for the first week of January and then were just blank.

I'm a really great blog-reader. I think that's my role.

Why I support Barack Obama

He is a man of true class and style.



Compare the above to this about McCain:

Earlier this month [June 1998], at a Republican Senate fund-raiser, McCain told a downright nasty joke making fun of Janet Reno, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton....

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno."

McCain's two-liner conveys some interesting insights into what he considers humorous (lesbianism, a young woman's physical appearance), particularly since it was delivered to a Republican crowd. Remember, this is the party that champions pro-family values.

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/06/25newsb.html

Spoons

I was cleaning out some drawers today, including the silverware (well, flatware) drawer and got to thinking about spoons. My grandmother kept a sugar bowl on her kitchen table that was filled with spoons of all different patterns. I don't know if they were various patterns she'd had during her life or she went to second-hand stores to find different ones. It was fascinating to me as a little kid to look at all the different handles of the spoons sticking out of that ornate, rose-covered sugar bowl. The reason she had it, of course, was that spoons were the one type of flatware that was most used, what with folks sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee most of the day.

When dinner time came (in Nebraska, dinner was at noon), my cousins and I would set the table and we each would have our own favorite spoon that we wanted at our place. Invariably there would be an argument over one particular spoon. Funny the things that kids find to argue about.

Years ago I thought that I would have my own sugar bowl full of mixed spoons. There's dozens of second-hand/antique stores around here and it would be an easy thing to pick up spoons that are orphaned from their original sets. I don't know why I never did it.

The Quadrennial Bicker

There's a reason that I only had one child. It wasn't that it just happened that way. I planned it. The reason was that I remembered growing up with my brother and the near-constant bickering between us. At the time, it was annoying, even though I was part of it. In retrospect, I realized how it must have driven my mother near the edge. I didn't want to deal with the same thing with my own kids, so I guaranteed that I wouldn't have to. An only child has no one to bicker with.

This morning as I was watching the "Today Show" on television, I was reminded of that decision. There were the two men who want to lead the most powerful country in the world, bickering like children. "He said such and such." "No I didn't. You're the one who said something bad." "No I didn't." Blah, blah, blah. Bicker, bicker, bicker. I turned off the television.

In every election since I've been old enough to vote, it's been the same sort of thing. Every time I start out favoring one candidate over the other, but by the time the election actually rolls around, I'm so sick of both of them that it's hard for me to cast a vote at all. I end up voting for the one who has annoyed me slightly less than the other. A couple of times I was so fed up that I just didn't vote.

I had hopes this time, naive as I am. McCain pledged to keep to the "high road" during the campaign and Obama said the same thing. From what I see, McCain started down the low road first, but now Obama has followed him down and I have no respect left for either one.

Oh, I'll vote for Obama. There's no question. But unless he manages to pull himself up out of the muck, I'll have to hold my nose to do it.

And I think both of them need to sit in the corner for a while and be sent to bed without their supper.

A tricked out name tag

I was watching the noon news and saw, for the umpteenth time, a commercial for an insurance company which says they compare their prices to those of other insurance companies. They show an example of what someone saved, with more than two hundred dollars between the price from the advertiser's company and the nearest competitor. The woman on the ad says "That's a new pair of shoes." A new pair of *shoes*? Actual human beings pay more than two hundred bucks for a pair of friggin' shoes? I know, I know. I'm not your average fashion plate, but paying that kind of money for anything that you wear just to impress other people is, well, stupid. And, frankly, obscene.

Sometimes people are really cool

I've been working on my genealogy site and trying to find some more information. Every once in a while, I just toss in a relative's or ancestor's name into a Google search to see what comes up. It's pretty surprising what you can find

A couple of weeks ago, I entered the name of a cousin of my father, whose maiden name was Areta Wolters. I was surprised to get a hit at all. A woman had posted a message back in 2003, saying that she had picked up a baby book in an antique store that had belonged to Areta. She was looking for relatives who would be able to "give it a good home."

I wrote to her and, after she verified that I really am one of Areta's relatives, offered to send it to me. She wouldn't take any money to reimburse her for either the original cost of the book or the shipping. She said that all she wanted was to get it to where it should be.

It came in the mail yesterday. It's just great to see all the names of people that I know so well and more pictures to identify. Mostly, though, it's nice to get reassurance that there really are cool people in the world who are willing to give of themselves while asking nothing in return.

Come into the world alone?

A couple of days ago I was watching some movie and there was the line that we've all heard dozens of times: "You come into the world alone and you leave it alone." Really? Has anyone since Adam and Eve (if you believe that sort of thing) actually come into the world without someone else being in the general vicinity? Am I the only person who had a mother present at her birth? I kinda don't think so.

As for leaving it alone, there are a lot of people that do that, but not everybody by a long shot.

The silliest things bother me. :)