Knitting, Soup And Meandering Thoughts

So, I didn't really make any resolutions this year. There is no priority in my life greater than any other thus making it hard to choose. I will celebrate my 10th anniversary of quitting smoking on the 13th. It wasn't a New Years resolution - I'd just reckoned I'd quit after New Years.

I finished a knitting project, a 'shrug' on New Years eve. It took all of 5 minutes to join the parts that took it from a rectangle to a garment. It's one of those 'you knit it, you wear it' items that has at least one novice mistake in it, but ya just don't want to waste it either. I thought I should finish on something that felt satisfying and comforting. Gods know we need some of both these days.

Some friends have been talking about putting together a 'Stone Soup' feast. We've all done it with various groups of friends off and on over the years. I'm hoping we can get together to cook on Inauguration Day so we can celebrate Obama's swearing in too. That's gonna be so cool!

To me, Obama's inauguration culminates only some of the groundwork laid by the likes of Adelai Stephenson, JFK and his brother, Bobby, Dr. King, Malcolm X, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ralph Bunche, Maya Angelou and numerous others whose aspirations were spoken of in clarion voices throughout the blossoming years of my childhood.

Now America starts a new chapter in her history and it excites me! C'mon! Can we now go back to showing the rest of the world the best of us and not the least?

Holiday Wreckage

In light of the holiday carnage in the news, from battling monks in Bethlehem at the Church of The Holy Sepleucher to a very bad angry bitter boy Santa in California and back to Israelis & Palestinians still shelling & bombing the crap out of one another, not to mention the horrors going on in the Congo, I think it's time to revisit the Onion's post 9/11 article "God Angrily Clarifies Dont Kill Rule". It still applies.

Holiday Dazzled

Lights.
Energy.
Fuel expenditure.

Dang. I love twinkle lights. I really like the fact the manufacturers are making LED holiday lights. I do not :::cry::: like the clear cold blue/white led lights that screw up my night vision when I'm driving. They do make the "warm" light tones, y'know.

Cheese. Whine.

The Wrong Thing To Do

To Whoever You Are Who Set Fire To Sarah Palin's Church:

That was a disgusting, horrible and evil thing to do. You could've killed somebody! There were people with kids in there when you set that fire!

Now, I didn't vote for the McCain/Palin ticket as is clear in my earlier blog posts celebrating Mr. Obama. And I'm just your garden variety pagan witch far, far removed from the Big Three major religions anyway but I think invading a sacred space the way you did is just wrong. There's nothing good about it. Even we pagans understand the insults of sacrilege.

If you thought you were making a statement against Palin or her religious beliefs or just don't care for Pentecostals, you're way out of line. You didn't. To me, and a lot of others, you made a statement about your own poor character and even poorer judgement and you're not someone we're gonna be applauding. You'll get busted. It doesn't matter whether it's the local guys or the ATF who gets you. You'll go to jail which is something you earned for yourself when you doused the church like you did and set flame to it. If the sentence is long enough, it's likely I'd applaud the judge for his or her good sense.

You're nothing but a destroyer and you don't deserve to live among reasonable, decent people for a long time.

Short takes....

Man, oh man, didja see the news about the Illinois governor Blagojevich being busted yesterday early morning for corruption? Allegedly he was trying to 'sell' Obama's soon to be vacated Senate seat to the frelling highest bidder instead of having the integrity to appoint someone whose truly worthy. It's criminal! It's foul. And he will have earned whatever prison term he gets sentenced to. I heard on the news this guy was supposed to be cleaning up Illinois and ridding it of corruption and then he proves to be utterly craven. On the other hand, we now know Blagojevich doesn't have the ability to discern someone else's worthiness because his sights were set on the lowest common denominator -- and his own words will convict him.

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We got a mix of rain and snow today. The foothills and mountains got a few inches, but all the roads got were wet. But my fellow New Mexicans were driving as if the roads were as icy as they get in Tulsa, OK, or Plattsburgh, NY. I've driven in them both in bad conditions. It really makes me wanna holler, "It's ok to go the fuggin' speed limit, folks! I promise the road conditions are tolerable. 'Sides it's not dark yet and the temp's close to 38 degrees this part of town." And ya can't say it's just NM's nuts and sluts on the road overreacting. Saw a few with Texas, Colorado and New Hampshire plates bein' dumb. You'd think that the folks from Colorado and New Hampshire would've had a clue or two.
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I've had to learn now to give my dog shots. She came down with canine diabetes mellitis. I wasn't as squicked about doing them as I thought I'd be and after just three treatments, she is already showing a noticable improvement. This was not an extra expense we needed right now, but she's become important to both me and DH, so we'll work it out.

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The saga of my damn feet seems to be resolving itself after nearly a year. Finally. Yay!!! The plantar fasciitis in my right foot is healing. I've slept with my foot in a night split pretty steadily now since July. Within the last two weeks, I've found I can use the splint every other day and still wake up in the morning without pain. This is a very good thing even though I gotta be careful about not overdoing. My ankles are both doing better and I've worked slowly to strengthen them... It took a lot longer to work out because part of the treatment for PF is staying off ones feet!

Hate Is....

...so passe. So boring.

I read that since Obama was elected, hate threats have gone way up. Those people do not speak for me or mine. Just so ya know.

Transition and Flubs

So now the election is over and our President Elect is working with his transition team so that come January 20th he can hit the ground running. The "talking heads" on Obama's side aren't done preening (and I'm not sure I'm done either), and the loyal opposition (hopefully loyal), are dissecting what went wrong with McCain and the GOP.

Hmm..

Negative campaigning.
Not staying on message due to negative campaigning.
Breaking promise about not participating in negative campaigning.

A wife wearing a $300,000 outfit when one at $3000 would have been just fine. Put in perspective, the cost of said outfit would buy a couple modest $150,000 homes in parts of Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Belen, Bernalillo, or Rio Rancho. It would buy 25 fuel efficient Smartfortwo cars at the base price of $11,990. I'm sure other voters could come up with their own local equivalancies. It reminded us of the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots while the economy wallowed like a corracle on the Irish coast in winter.

Insulting the American public by picking a VP candidate with a severely limited worldview. I may be an idiot about some things, but at least I'm not particularly insular and have wide ranging areas of interest.

Not having a plan that was really innovative and challenging. That lack doesn't speak well for a "maverick". Sorry Mac. You want my attention, you need to get down here with us working class folks and really see what our world is like and understand we're the base. If the base is shaky and unsupported, the rest of the structure falls apart and McCain offered nothing old or new to to stabilize & secure that base.

Just another .02 in the hat.

Congratulations, President-Elect Obama!

I am moved to tears, beyond tears, with a heart bursting with joy for this momentous day of your election to the Presidency.

May the good gods keep you safe and in the good counsel of the wise and practical, but always keep your own hands on the helm. Blessed be.

It's Really THAT Important: #2:

From The Associated Press:

Nov 4, 4:22 PM (ET)

"SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Betty Owen is 92 and after a stroke four years ago, needs a feeding tube and can't walk. But she was determined not to miss Tuesday's election. She arrived at her polling place on a gurney in an ambulance, where an election judge and support worker climbed aboard with an electronic voting machine and let her cast her ballot.

"And you have voted," precinct judge Sam Green said after Owen pushed the red button finalizing her choices. "You know, you look so pretty in that red dress."

Owen grinned, the San Antonio Express-News reported in Tuesday's online edition.

Her daughter arranged for the ambulance ride at the last minute after Owen failed to get an absentee ballot.

Owen, a Marine Corps veteran who served in World War II, cast her first ballot for Wendell Willkie, a Republican running against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.

She became a Democrat after voting for John Kennedy in 1960. She cast a straight Democratic ballot Tuesday."

Betty, ya got some moxie there babe! We love ya!

It's Really THAT Important:

I've been thinking about how important voting is to our citizens and ran across this story about the efforts some people will make while other folks just skip voting altogether. Clearly if these people will make that kind of effort, then I say voting really is THAT important.

From the Associated Press:

"NYC couple travels 9,300 miles from India to vote

Nov 1, 3:05 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - A New York City couple has traveled halfway around the world in the name of civic duty.

Susan Scott-Ker and her husband arrived in New York on Wednesday after flying 9,300 miles to vote in Tuesday's presidential election. They have been working India but decided to return to New York when their absentee ballots failed to arrive. Their trip began in Bangalore with stopovers in New Delhi and Chicago.

It will be their first time voting in a presidential election. The New Zealand-born Scott-Ker and her Morroco-born husband became American citizens a year ago.

They estimate the trip will cost $5,000.""