As everyone knows, a good roadtrip depends upon a great soundtrack. And even though Louise and I are going to fly to Austin, we'll be doing a lot of driving. We'll be sight seeing, going to visit my cousin in a little place called Mound (Yes, that's the name, I swear!)and we will be checking out what might be our new home town of Austin.
Significant crusing opportunities abound!

So, I am thinking of some good tunes for the road. Any ideas?

Here's what I have so far....

I have been sick.

I don't mean just a little sick, I mean, sick as in disgustingly sick. For over a month, I have been sniffling, sneazing, wheazing, and for the past three days, have suffered through the worst of it. Antibiotics, which I have long resisted, finally seemed to be the only hope. I feel better now, but for a while there, I wasn't sure if I would ever again know the simple pleasure of going through the day without hacking up something better left to the imagination than described.

The thing about being sick is, you now have an excuse to be lazy. You can lay around and veg, watching the same videos all day long if you please, or loosing yourself in a good book. But for some reason, I resisted this.

There was a time, in a galaxy far, far away, where I embraced laziness. Those are the years when you first leave home, and your roomates and you engage in a game where you see who can be the most slothful, until someone finally breaks down and cleans something. It becomes a competition, or atleast it was for us. I lived with two guys, and they thought being a girl, that I would be the first to break. Not so. They greatly underestimated me, for I had elevated laziness to an artform.

But you get married (and unmarried) and have some ninos, and suddenly you have the urge to clean everything in sight. That is a good thing, because as Jeff Foxworthy once observed, being an adult means that eventually you have to clean up, or atleast make people think you do.

Today was the first day in weeks where I moved voluntarily. Previously, I managed to make it to work (money is a powerful motivational force!) but came home and collapsed on the couch as soon as possible. My kitchen looks like the mess hall for the Royal Slobovian Army, my bedroom is now a second laundry room, and the bathroom is best left avoided.

So I picked up a little. This is not easy, because every time I do anything, my dog and cat act as though this is a major event. I do not know why. The minute my body moves in even the slightest way, my dog gets excited and jumps around. My cat gets alert and pounces to the floor, waiting to see what I will do.

All I am doing is getting some tea.

And they follow me. Everywhere. All the time. And even when I am feeling well, this is hard to live with because, well...you try cleaning the house with a black lab and a tabby following your every move.

But the neediness of my animals aside, its just agrevating to be sick. What was once a minor irritant now gets under the skin like nothing else, and there are many telemarketers whom I took my aggreavation out on who could testify to that.

So today, I am going to clean my house.
I think.

Because its been a while, and things have gone beyond nasty. I may need a little help.

I think she would have been smart to not go on Letterman if she can't handle laughing at herself.



She can READ!! (Except for that pesky "Tamiflu" word)

In a previous post, I told you all...oops, 'scuze me, I told y'all(gotta practice using my Tex speak!)that I had been hired by Safeway. This is my first chance to update you.

The short version: I declined the job.

The day it was offered, I am happy to say, I was asked to come and interview for a job with a social work agency. As life would have it, Mr. RE Knowltonni called me from his lair in California, and it was he who convinced me to take this fine position.

"I don't know," I said, "I mean, the whole point was to get a job that I could walk away from in a year. How am I gonna walk away from a full-time job that pays 12.50 an hour?"

"You don't want to work for Safeway," he said. "No es bueno. Its union. You'll have to pay 400.00 up front for union fees."

Hmmm. Well, I know he's right about that. For one, the twentysomething who hired me informed me there would be a fee that would come out of my first three checks. And, since he has worked for grocery stores before, he would know. So I told Safeway thanks but no thanks, and have been working and getting trained at the agency.

Now, here is the thing. I feel kind of guilty about this, because I feel I am leading them on. True, they have a high rate of burn-out, so by next year, I may leave Texas or no Texas. I intend to do a good job. No, I intend to absolutly rock. I will earn every cent. But at the same time I can't help but compare myself to some guy who promises a girl the world and leaves her short of a diamond. Is that even a fair comparison? I dont know.

So let me ask you folks, now that your fear of public howdy's are seemingly (almost) over, what do you think? Am I being dishonest, or am I just being kind of Darwinian in a business sort of way?

Speaking of Darwin....

I found this great book at Borders called The Darwin Awards. It is a collection of actual deaths by people who died doing stupid things. The idea behind the title is that they have helped the survival of the human race by taking themselves out of the population.

My particular favorite has to do with these two mishugas who tried to kill a gopher in a closet by spraying him with chemicals. Three cans later, he's still alive, so they decide to set him on fire. Only, when they flick their lighter, they whole place explodes, and thier bodies are found across the street. The only survivor is the gopher, who is hanging by his claws from the ceiling....alive and unharmed.

Gotta love that.

And if you are from Arizona, you are well familiar with the two rednecks who drunkenly shot the snot out of a saquaro cactus, only to have the thing fall on them and kill them. The version I heard was that it was right after monsoon season, when they swell up to three times their normal weight. Ouch.

But I digress.

Please let me know. If I am honest and tell them that I am planning to leave the state in a year, we all know that yours truely will be shown the door, sooner or later, but probably sooner. On the other hand, this is the business equivalent of a one night stand, and I hate to make someone think Im gonna commit when all I really want is a good time.

Enough with the analogies. What say you?

Oh, by the way, there is also a great story about an idiot who superglued his hands to the butt end of a Rhino at a Russian zoo. She got spooked and dragged him all over the place, and to make matters worse, she had just been given some laxatives to cure a terrible case of constipation.

He actually lived...but I bet he wished he hadn't.

Happy trails, y'all.
Jennifer

In a previous post, I told you about the group of war protestors who meet on the corner of Colby Avenue and Hewitt each Friday. They stand on both sides of the street, waving big signs that say "Bush Lied!" and "Blood for Oil!" and "Nothing Accomplished". On the other side of the intersection are the pro-war folks with a huge American flag and and signs that say "Failure is not an option" and "These colors don't run!"

This has been going on since the war began, and I keep checking Youtube to see if anyone has caught it on film. So far, no, and it's too bad because I would love to show you what I am talking about.

It started with huge crowds on both sides, and now has dwindled down to about ten on each team. They are no longer really protesting or supporting to those who drive by and occasionally honk or flip the bird; they have become as familiar a sight to the rest of us, as much a part of the downtown scene as Aligator Soul Gumbo restaurant or Wicked Wine Cellar. Like the relatively new bronze statues that dot the downtown streets (the three dancing children, or the Fred Astair statue in front of the performing arts building), we have gotten used to them and frankly, we no longer are impressed.

But yesterday, they got my attention. And not in a good way.

Katy was coming home from an errand, and as she did so, she passed by the group of protestors. One of them, a large lady with a big peace sign on her shirt, aparently said something to Katy to the effect of, "You young people should be out here doing this with us! You're all too lazy." To which Katy replied that she thought protesting at this point was not doing any good. If they really wanted to make a difference, take the protest to a place where someone would actually notice. This inspired a stream of insults, and of course, everyone's favorite F word, hurled at my daughter who is not only unsure what she believes politically, but isn't old enough to vote anyway.

I decided to take my surly self (I was in a fighting mood anyway...I don't know, I just woke up as such) down to the intersection, nicely located very near to my apartment, and tell these folks what I thought.

And I did.

You know, the First Amendment MUST apply to everyone. I know most mainstream liberals know this. I may not agree with most of my donkey friends, but I can say that they are smart people and on occasion, they make sense. I have engaged in many a civilized debate, and when done correctly, both parties are the better for it, even if still disagreeing.

It's the aging hippies who have yet to realize that this is a) Not Viet Nam b)not 1969 and c) there is no draft, our military is voluntary; those are the ones I worry about.

My own experience? A few years ago when John Kerry, who was for the war before he was against the war, made an appearence at the Everett Events Center. I, and a few other republicans, were there not in protest of Kerry, but in support of Bush. I had a sign, as did many others. There were the liberals, and by liberals, I mean the fringe, fruitloop, still wearing denim jackets with Grateful Dead logos kind of liberals. And one group had a huge sign, so big they all had to carry it. And they stood in front of me. And when I moved, they moved. This happened about five times. When I told them they were infringing on my right to free speech, they said they didnt care, because I would do it to them if I could.

The cool thing...A reporter with the Everett Herald AND a reporter from KOMO News saw the whole thing. I ended up in print and on the radio, as did the incident.

But that's not the point.

The point is, freedom of speech is something that we all need and we all need to tolerate in others. We can not arbitrate what speech is "right" and "wrong". We can argue, debate, and deconstruct viewpoints that we do not hold, and that is the only defense we need.
Political correctness and "get along gang" mentality be damned; this is still a democracy.