Friday, August 30, 2024

The Hollow Queen, The Court Jester and the Botched Surgery Patient

Last night I attempted to watch the much-touted first interview with Kamala Harris that aired on the Communist News Network (CNN), but did not last long. Let me begin by saying that to call what I saw an "interview" is like citing this blog post as a dissertation, if you get my drift. With its zippy opening graphics and peppy music, it seemed more like a promo for a new episodic comedy series called "White House Follies."

My favorite answer from Queen Hollow was what she would do on Day One if elected to the highest office in the land, a.k.a. Leader of the Free World. She vowed to do something that has yet to be done in the history of America's existence by any president, even in a full term: “Well, there are a number of things. I will tell you, first and foremost, one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class."

That is gonna be one very full first day in office! No mention of how she would achieve all that in 10 hours -- or even 12 if she's a night owl -- but she must possess skills unseen during her time in office for the last three and a half years. (I guess she's been saving all that for a special occasion, perhaps her own coronation.)

Then there was Tim. That pudgy, impish Court Jester added little to the proceedings besides diversity, he being white -- and quite a pasty white I might add. Besides nodding in support of his Queen, he appeared fit to fetch her coffee and a bagel or maybe a croissant when needed, and well-suited to sit, stand up and applaud behind her every so often during her State of the Union speech, should that need arise.

I wanted to hold out until the tough questions came but my husband's snoring next to me on the couch made it hard to hear. Also, my cat was hungry and meowed for me from the kitchen. My one takeaway from what I did see was that I would never have surgery on my under-eye bags since the dire results were evident in the interviewer Dana Bash. Despite her heavy makeup you could almost count the stitches under her eyes, and IMO that looked worse than any bags might have. 

Poor Dana.


Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Getting Smarter, and Dumber

A Swede named PewDiePie.
I have been awake for two hours and have already learned something new. Well, two things really but only one of them will help me in life. Here are the things I did not know when I went to bed last night:

Deli-sliced Cooper cheese
1. Cooper cheese is actually American cheese, but with a touch of cheddar. I would never have bought it if I knew its true identity as American cheese, which suffers from a well-earned reputation as something inexpensive to plunk on top of a burger at an outdoor barbecue for a crowd or use in a toddler's grilled cheese sandwich. Being a cheese snob I have shunned it since my teen years, but it turns out that its more flavorful cousin Cooper is quite tasty melted on sourdough toast.

2. Somebody named PewDiePie is a leading YouTuber with 111 million subscribers. I never heard of him until today when his name appeared as a clue in the Wall Street Journal crossword. In 2016 TIME magazine named the comic one of the "100 most influential people in the world," when he was just 26. So I learned that our society is a joke and is destined to go the way of the Roman Empire, possibly as early as the day after our next election.




Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Something New to Worry About

If looks could kill: This cute baby sloth in a beanie hat might. 

As if the protesting idiots chanting "Death to Israel!" (and indirectly to American Jews) at colleges and universities around the country -- most notably at Cornell where physical damage has already been done to campus buildings and school just started -- isn't enough to depress the hell out of you, you can now worry about a brand new disease just spotted in Florida called "sloth fever." It causes the usual horrors like nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, headaches and possibly death.

And in case you think, "Hey I am nowhere near any sloths," let me educate you: You don't have to be anywhere near a sloth to get it, as the disease is transmitted by a bite from a midge, which is defined as "any small fly," and the ever-mischievous mosquito.

Uh-oh, there's a small fly in my kitchen right now. Who knows, maybe he's just returned from Florida and is hungry after that long flight. I'm getting out of here. Just wanted to alert you all.

  

Monday, August 26, 2024

What I Wouldn't Do

Sir Laurence Olivier as a sadistic dentist in "Marathon Man" 
I opened an email today from the Democratic National Committee saying that if I responded with a donation I would be entered in a drawing to win a trip to DC for lunch with Kamala and Tim! I thought it over and came up with a list of things I would rather do instead:

Paint my living room (which has a cathedral ceiling)

Mow all the lawns in my neighborhood

Give my 16-year-old cat who has never had a bath a bath

Detail my husband's SUV

Peel 10 pounds of tomatoes

Empty bedpans at the local hospital

Polish all my silverware (service for 10) 

Iron my husband's underwear

Have a root canal (see photo) even if I don't need one

Scrub my kitchen floor with a toothbrush

Babysit triplets

Bag groceries at the local market





The Tyranny of Transgenders


Fine -- you think you're a boy even though you were born with girl parts. 
Or you think you're a girl even though you were born with boy parts. 
For people like you every day is Halloween! 
Have fun dressing up and acting the part, but don't expect everyone else 
to play along with the fantasy that you are two people.
You are still one person, albeit a confused one, but you are not a "they" or a "we" or a "them." 

If you have only one head you are only one person. 

Yet weak-kneed politicians desperate for votes from anything that can make a mark on a piece of paper have not only permitted but normalized the use of plural pronouns for those poor souls who think their gender defines them, and we are all supposed to follow suit or face the wrath of the woke warriors.

I won't do it and you shouldn't either. 
It is insane.
 

Sunday, August 25, 2024

TikTok, Tick Tock....

Today's New York Times extols a 22-year-old woman who has 9 million followers on TikTok. That got me wondering what it means to follow someone on TikTok since I never have done so. In fact, I thought just looking at TikTok was bad because it's a Chinese app that can copy your personal information and someday you'll wake up and be Chinese, or something like that. Whatever, I don't go there.

Another reason I stay away is because I don't understand what one is doing when one "follows" someone on TikTok -- or Instagram, or any online app when the person is a stranger but you spend some of your own lifetime watching them live some of theirs. What is the verb for that activity? What is the result of  doing such a thing? 

I would ask someone who does it but I don't know anyone since I am a baby boomer and most of my friends are too, and we don't do that. We just invest time in our own lives, and the lives of our children and grandchildren, our co-workers and friends. That takes a lot of time and effort the older you get. For example, of my close friends now, most of whom are age 60 and up, the following stories command my attention:

A woman just diagnosed with breast cancer who will soon undergo surgery.

A man hospitalized for a week for a dire condition still undiagnosed despite countless and ongoing tests.

A woman suffering from various cancers for the past 14 years.

A woman with worsening back pain facing surgery in the next few months.

A man with a chronic condition that will eventually require a bone marrow transplant.

A woman in hospice.

A woman who just lost her husband of 40-plus years after three years of watching him decline with dementia.

A woman currently occupied with helping her husband regain his strength and ability to walk after his monthlong hospital stay.

A woman battling the debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's Disease.

So I don't spend any of my time on a computer or cell phone watching the recorded shenanigans of people I don't know and will never get anything from or give anything to on TikTok, simply because there is an unseen clock that is actually ticking, and not just for me but for all of us.

Saturday, August 24, 2024

I'm No Anti-Vaxxer

The pompous pundits you have heard of who write newspaper columns and the others unknown to you who appear on TV with the title of "Political Strategist" or "Campaign Advisor" are no smarter than the average person, they are just more ambitious. The latter group even pays to get themselves on air, according to a friend of mine who works as a booker for TV news, whereas I would pay handsomely to stay off.

Anyway, lots of those talking heads blabber on about Robert Kennedy Jr. being an evil anti-vaxxer, as if that means he drowns puppies in his backyard swimming pool or eats little children for breakfast. He does neither. He simply thinks vaccines are over-rated, may be responsible for some resulting physical ailments like autism, and should under no circumstances be mandated by the government. This surely does not make him a "nut-job," which is what the Blue Meanies have labelled him. 

My doctor's practice has thus far sent me three excited messages -- via text, email and snail mail -- regarding the latest seasonal flu and Covid vaccines: "We've got them! Come get them!" They are here!" Bear in mind that for each vaccine administered, the doc gets a share of the cost. 

My husband and I have each had three Covid vaccines and have both contracted the disease twice. I will take no more, while I respect the right of anyone else to take as many as they want. The single vaccine I would take is one that makes me 35 again. So I'm not an anti-vaxxer after all.


Friday, August 23, 2024

It Takes All Kinds

This in-ground pool costs a little over $12,000.
Using a well-known saint as the high point, let's reflect on two kinds of people we may encounter. 

Mother Teresa was a Catholic nun who lived most of her life in India and was dedicated to "giving wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor." She began her selfless work at age 18 and died at 87, earning sainthood posthumously in 2016. 

She founded the Missionaries of Charity, which grew to include 4,500 nuns in 133 countries, who cared for people suffering from AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis through their soup kitchens, orphanages, schools and family counseling programs. 

Contrasting that are people who spend money on making themselves look better to others. A new surgery, admittedly risky yet quickly growing in popularity, has enticed 1,000 people to each fork over $12,000 to change the color of their eyes. Yup, you heard me. Like that's going to do a damn thing.

Imagine what you could do with $12,000 dollars! Besides giving some of it away to feed starving people or support cancer research, if you keep it all you could build an in-ground swimming pool and enjoy daily exercise that would improve your health and extend your life and that of your whole family. 

Then imagine how your life would be different if you had blue eyes instead of brown. Or if that's not your dream, how about light brown eyes instead of dark brown?

Thursday, August 22, 2024

Democracy Rots In Darkness

Okay, I will grant you this: Donald Trump tells lies on occasion and will likely continue to do so. But he is just one person, not the entire Republican Party. Leaders within the party, such as Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, John Kennedy, Elise Stefanik, Marco Rubio, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, MikÄ™ Johnson, Steve Scalise and Tom Cotton, do NOT lie.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz tell lies every time they speak. But so do most of the leaders of the Democratic Party, like Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom and Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton and Dick Blumenthal and Barack Obama. 

And therein lies the difference. Trump may be a rotten apple perched on the top, but he is supported by good, honest, moral, un-rotten people. The Democratic barrel is rotten through and through, from the top to the bottom.

The Death of Democracy

A recent case of Covid and a broken computer, each an unpleasant circumstance on its own, have combined into an astonishingly positive end result: I am over politics. All it took was a few days of isolation and enough fatigue to keep me languishing in bed and off the news to arrive at this wonderful, hate-free state of mind. 

It's true -- I no longer care about who gets to ride in Air Force One. I'm just happy to be healthy again and have a new computer that's even better than the last one. Now when the morning paper comes I go straight to the crossword puzzle, take a peek at the daily cartoon, and I'm done.

From now on the content of this blog will have nothing to do with the pathetically underprepared Kamala Harris and her co-clown, Tim Walz. I won't be mocking the paranoid herd of Democrats bleating that a Donald Trump victory heralds "the death of democracy" while America has suffered under the dictatorship of Barack Obama since January of 2021.

Instead I might just post an interesting graphic every day that offers food for thought. 

Monday, August 19, 2024

Understanding Democrat Voters

Well, this has turned out to be a great day for me, and I've only been awake for an hour or so. I watched a video online that completely answered my question about how an obviously ill-equipped person like Kamala Harris can become the president of the United States, which I sadly believe to be the outcome of the upcoming "election." 

It's this: Roughly half the citizens of the US are intellectually impaired. As Joseph de Maistre -- a philosopher, writer and diplomat in the period immediately after the French Revolution -- said sometime around 1800, "Every nation gets the government it deserves." (That quote has also been attributed to Alexander Hamilton, proving that plagiarism goes back a long way and that Joe Biden is in good company.)

So how did I get so smart this morning? Back to that Reel I watched. It was a cooking video posted by an attractive 40-ish woman with a strong southern accent, y'all, who looked perfectly normal standing in her typical suburban kitchen. Her recipe was named "The Best Summer Salad" and contained the following ingredients:

4 full-size Snickers candy bars, cut into bit-size pieces.

6 Granny Smith apples, diced, skin on

1 3.5 oz. box of Jell-O vanilla pudding

1 large container Cool Whip

3/4 Cup whole milk

3/4 Cup caramel sauce

Mix all ingredients together and enjoy!

Most alarming were the comments following the video. Where I expected to see a lot of  "You must be kidding!" and "That looks gross!" and vomiting emoji's, instead I found statements like this: "Looks delicious!" and, "I make that all the time, my kids love it!" and, "Here in the Midwest, that's our favorite salad."

I can only imagine what happens to your brain if you grow up eating like that. And those people vote too.

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Blogging From Prison

I keep reading about young people who have become millionaires from doing nothing special yet rake in many thousands of followers seeking their words of wisdom on how to dress from a thrift store or 50 ways to use dirt. (FYI, they eat mud pies in Haiti, or at least they did when I was there in 2013, and that's about the best way to use dirt other than planting stuff in it that I know.)

Anyway, I have been writing this blog since 2007 and it's sometimes very funny and other times quite pithy and even has offered a few gangbuster recipes, yet it has few followers and earned me not one red cent. I would like to change that but don't know how to break into the world of virality, if that is such a word. So I'm brainstorming on how to make this blog catch fire. Pick your favorite idea:

1. Report all the ways that Kamala Harris is a fool, a dodo, a know-nothing parrot who was in the right place at the right time and is now poised to hold the highest office in the land. For example, I would delve into those giant pantsuits she wears that look like she got them at the Big 'n' Tall Shop. Why does she dress in those unflattering big suits? What's under those pantsuits anyway? I would name that blog, "What's Under Their Pantsuits?" (Second name under consideration: "Can This Get Me Arrested?")

2. Become an influencer on cooking everyday things that people in my generation can make in their sleep but clueless Gen-Zers who are busy getting piercings and tattoos can't. This morning I watched a 10-minute video on a "great recipe for a delicious, quick lunch." The heavily tattooed young woman showed how to make chicken salad. She dumped the chopped (canned of course) chicken breast into a bowl, adding a celery stalk cut with kitchen shears, pre-chopped red onion from a jar, then a literal ton of mayonnaise and sour cream, mixed it up, spread it onto bread and tada! (FYI, it's not new: One of the first American forms of chicken salad was served in 1863 in Wakefield, Rhode Island by Town Meats.) I would make my first post "An Easy Lunch for Your Toddler" and show them how to make a cucumber sandwich. (PM me for recipe.)

3. Investigate and write about how the Democrats conspired to kill Donald Trump about a month ago and nobody stopped them. And to this day, nobody in the state-controlled media is talking about the poor young man, now dead so he can't talk, who supposedly did it, even though it was really the CIA working with the DNC. That might work, although I might have to call it "Blogging From Prison."


Saturday, August 17, 2024

Preparing for Tomorrow Today

The current cost of a year's tuition including housing at Columbia University is $85,000. The prestigious Ivy League school is without a President at this time since the last one quit recently after just a year on the job. It seems the school sanctions free speech of all kinds and thus allows antisemitism on campus, which may be scaring off the lion's share of applicants. 

Besides its location in the far upper reaches of Manhattan, a city now flooded with illegal immigrants living in hotels and a growing number of homeless living in the streets, and despite an out-of-control crime wave according to Mayor Eric Adams, Columbia still boasts some unique educational opportunities. For example, your child can study Gender & Sexuality in Korean Pop Culture or Psychology of the Gendered Body, both of which are offered this semester and certainly would lead to lucrative positions that would enable students to recoup the costs of tuition in no time.  

But there is so much more. Columbia's Center for Jazz Studies offers a multitude of great courses. According to the catalog, "The Special Concentration in Jazz Studies is designed to prepare students to be well-prepared and flexible improvisers in a universe of change and possibility." 

And who doesn't want that?











Friday, August 16, 2024

Change Is Hard

Imagine you are a patient in a medical practice with two physicians. For going on four years, the older doctor you see has never fixed any of your health problems, although he seems to have all the answers so you stick with him. Besides, he's a nice guy and you don't want to hurt his feelings. 

His younger partner is even worse, and the few times you have met with him made you feel better about your primary physician. Despite the fact that both of them are just mediocre and seem to rely on the Internet for all their treatments, your small town has no options other than a walk-in clinic and the local ER. 

One day a new doctor comes to town, and you start hearing from people that he did an excellent good job at his last place of employment. But you're stuck in your ways, and you've got a long history with your doctor. Then suddenly he announces his impending retirement, explaining that his partner will take over the practice, along with a young upstart fresh from medical school. What do you do?

If you stick with the doctor you know just because change is hard, vote for Kamala Harris. After all, the Democrats haven't killed you yet. (But there is still time.)

Thursday, August 15, 2024

Covid Tests Make Me Sick

I thought I had a cold. You know -- sneezing, headache, a sort of washed-out feeling, but no big deal. After a few days I started to feel better and happened to talk to a doctor friend who suggested I get a Covid test. Actually he said I couldn't enter his home without one, so I complied as I did want to visit with him and his wife. Lo and behold, it was positive.

Immediately I felt worse. I called my primary care physician and he put me on Paxlovid, which I have to take twice a day for five days and which makes food taste funny and my mouth feel really dry. Psychologically I morphed into a sick person, remembering the early days of the virus with old people dying and not enough ventilators and everyone holed up at home for months. I was so depressed I barely noticed that my cold was gone and I basically felt fine.

Meanwhile my husband did not test positive, at least not for the first few days, and he was not sick at all. But this morning when I woke up I found him sitting in his bathrobe staring into space, looking grim and saying he felt pretty bad. The reason: he had just tested again and it was positive this time. So now he's sick with Covid too.

I'm telling you: stay away from those Covid tests if you know what's good for you.

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

What's In A Name?

I recently met a woman named Evergreen. Wow, that was a first. I asked, "I guess your parents were hippies?" She replied that no, they had not been, and the name was of her choosing later in life. She did not look like an Evergreen, although what that would look like I'm not sure. Certainly taller and thinner. I guess if I were naming her I'd go with "Potato" -- or perhaps the kinder, "Dumpling."

If our parents let us name ourselves when we were five or six --  you know, old enough to decide what sex we wanted to be -- I'd be Daisy. But that didn't happen. Instead my name is Andrea. Some people say ANDrea while others say ONdrea and still others, the opera types, say OnDRAYa. I answer to all, and never go to the trouble of embarrassing someone by saying they said it wrong. 

So why do names and how people pronounce them even matter? Okay, I definitely want a heads-up if someone is named Muhammed or Al-Akbar or something along those lines, but otherwise it's not that big a deal. Yet apparently to Kamala Harris it is a big deal. Just yesterday on a TV news show, one of Kamala's "team" used his precious allotted on-air time to chide the anchor for pronouncing her name wrong. What he said exactly was, "If her mother went to all that trouble to give her that name, we could all at least say it correctly."

Okay, a couple of things. First, how much trouble did the mother go to pick out that name? Obviously she had poor command of the English language and meant Pamela but spelled it wrong on the birth certificate, so that took next to no time. Second, I would say her mother had a much greater interest in her daughter's name than did every other American who never even met the woman and half of whom hate her guts, so why should we care if it's KAMala or KaMALa or whatever?

We've been hearing about how to say her name since Day One, like it matters. Is she the Queen of the World? As I see it, her self-absorption is but one of the many growing reasons to dislike her.


Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Earth: Why It's the Lonely Planet

Aliens arriving here from a distant planet and perusing our Internet, which of course they could figure out in a nanosecond, would assume that nobody on Earth knows anything at all. That would explain the prevalence of homemade videos explaining the simplest things. 

What they might not know is that Earthlings post videos hoping they will go viral and make them lots of money, which happens rarely and usually only if the person in the video is topless, or the video promises eternal youth without surgery, or it's by or about Kim Kardashian who has some strange hold over the young who worship her big fat chemical ass.

This morning I got up, ate breakfast and checked my email account. In that brief span of time I came across instructions on the following things:

There are clothes in my closet that I don't wear correctly and if I watch a certain lady's video, she will show me how to combine the items I already own into a stunning wardrobe that I never imagined. 

Eating dairy is either good for me or bad for me depending on what other foods I eat. I could learn how to eat cheese correctly to maximize my health.

Ozempic is not just for weight loss, it's also good for old people for other reasons. I don't want to know and move on.

I wake up tired because I am sleeping on the wrong pillow. I can learn about the right pillow for my body type and buy it today.

I have been scrambling eggs incorrectly my whole life and never knew it! Here is the right way.

For women over a certain age, applying makeup is like rocket science. I can learn how and get rid of my under-eye bags at the same time.

Just sitting in a chair and doing certain  exercises for 30 days, I can reach my goal weight.

You can make an easy, 1-pot dinner using ground meat, cheddar cheese, canned peas, potato chips,  mayonnaise, bread crumbs, tortillas, eggs and sour cream.

There are pants that are smarter than jeans and more comfortable than leggings. Who knew?

And more like that. The best thing about all of those videos are the comments left by viewers, most of whom trash whatever is being touted as bullshit, crazy, stupid, know-nothing, disgusting, pointless and a complete waste of time. Those are both fun to read and really scary, showing the deep-seated, mean-spirited nature of all Earthlings. This is why there are no aliens from other planets walking around here: They leave immediately once they size up the situation.




Monday, August 12, 2024

No News is Good News

A face only a mother could love?
I just returned from four days on an island 10 miles out to sea. There was no TV. No newspapers. And barely any cell service. There was no talk of politics. No Donald Trump, no Kamala Harris. No war in Israel or anywhere. It was great.

Then I came home to a pile of newspapers full of all that crap. I read that Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan thinks Harris will beat Trump because she is "beautiful" and has a "great smile" and is "a born performer." I wondered -- are we electing a President or a Prom Queen? I also wondered if Peggy Noonan needs new glasses. (See photo.)

I read that all 61 people aboard perished in a plane crash in Brazil. I read that Iran is in a better position than ever before to launch a nuclear weapons program. 

And maybe the worst thing of all that I read is that Harvard University has decided not to remove the Sackler name from several of its campus buildings, despite protests from parents whose children fatally overdosed on OxyContin, the drug the Sackler family continues to produce.

Life on Mohegan Island is much sweeter.

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

The Magical Kamala Makeover

Here's what happened:
 Joe Biden started to lose it in public, so badly that it could 
no longer be hidden. 

The Democrats were in a quandary -- what to do, what to do? They couldn't let the VP be the candidate because everyone already had seen that she's a cackling fool. 

But if they didn't pick her, the DEI nuts would go crazy, and maybe they would lose the black vote. So instead they decided to send Joe to the glue factory and give Kamala a serious makeover.

Now she's brilliant! Young! Accomplished! And guess what -- she was never the border czar! She's Black! And Indian! And Jamaican! And as an added bonus, her husband is a Jew!

Who cares if she's stupid, she can read a teleprompter can't she? And so, overnight, we hereby present the new, improved, super-intelligent, non-cackling, multi-racial, fabulous Kamala! 

She Didn't Pick the Jew

Josh Shapiro: Too Jewish?

In the end, Kamala Harris chose an old white guy for her running mate. While Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz is only 60, his bald head fringed with white hair could certainly get him into a movie at the senior price, no questions asked. If something unfortunate happened to Harris during her presidency, should she win, Walz would become the president. How boring.

Why not Josh Shapiro, the other guy under serious consideration for the last few weeks? Younger at 51 and certainly more charismatic, the Governor of Pennsylvania was allegedly passed over because of his one outstanding deficit: he's a Jew. And who wants a Jew in the White House? Apparently nobody, since there's never been one.

This is odd considering the recent rise of DEI. What's more diverse than a Jew? Still, everyone clamors for more blacks and more women, and even more gays and transgenders, while Jews, widely recognized for their accomplishments in all branches of science and the arts, are just so much chopped liver.

Everyone knows that blacks reign in areas requiring physical prowess, which their total dominance in professional sports proves out. Their natural musical gifts have long made them standouts in the areas of singing and dancing. Women are great at organization and reasoning, explaining their meteoric rise in business as CEOs and presidents of so many leading corporations. But Jews excel in many different areas, which is why they boast so many Nobel laureates: 36 in Chemistry, 38 in Economics, 16 in Literature, 56 in Physics and 59 in Medicine, plus many more awards in other categories.

Yet despite them being so smart, there has never been a Jew leading our government, not even as second banana. To be fair, not all Jews are smart, like Second Husband Doug Emhoff who knocked up his children's nanny during his first marriage. Still, it's odd that all the people screaming for DEI never scream for a Jew. (Except maybe that nanny.)




Monday, August 5, 2024

Those Annoying Phone Calls

As if things aren't bad enough, what with being on the brink of World War Three and a potentially disastrous election looming, not to mention what's happening in Israel, there are those damn telemarketers making you want to just stay in bed all day eating bonbons.

I just got one with the Caller ID of Maine Rural Water, which might have been real since we have been having some local water issues lately, so I picked up. The woman spoke with an indeterminate accent, sort of a cross between Chinese and a southern drawl, like maybe she was holding her map of the United States upside down. The high pitch of her voice sounded like one of those talking baby dolls where you pull the string out of its back and it says,"I'm hungry!" or "The dog goes Woof" or "My name is Crissy, what's yours!" Our conversation follows:

Chinese Baby Doll: Ma'am, we very concerned about your cable service, there is problem we like to fix for y'all.

Me: Great, thanks!

Baby Doll: Is your TV turned on? If no, please to turn on now.

Me: Yes, it is. (It wasn't.)

Baby Doll: Okay please pick up remote. Are y'all holding remote in your hand?

Me: Yes. (I wasn't.)

Baby Doll: Okay, now look at lower right corner of remote and see logo. Can you tell me what that logo is?

Me: Why does that matter?

Baby Doll: We have to know if you have the correct remote, so we can fix cable service.

Me: My cable service is fine.

Baby Doll: Not fine, is a problem.

Thank God a real person called me on my cell phone so I hung up. Otherwise I would probably still be on the house phone with her, which would have given her Chinese masters enough time to make a complete cloned copy of me for when they come to take over America. They must do it through the TV remote.



Sunday, August 4, 2024

Dressing Down for the Theater

My last post addressed the issue of what is considered appropriate dress for a night out in Maine. I must say I totally missed the mark, grossly underestimating how low some people go and are still permitted inside the theater.

Last night we attended a staged performance of the Stephen Sondheim operetta, "A Little Night Music" at the Ogunquit Playhouse. I was excited to see the one and only Kathleen Turner of Hollywood fame, in a lead role. But even her gravitas did not inspire the audience. People were shameless in their indifference!

One man was convincing as a homeless person in a torn paisley shirt, worn plaid Bermuda shorts, a baseball cap and flip flops. Another man wore cam0 pants and vest, perhaps on leave from some foreign skirmish. Several young women in their 20s wore spaghetti strap tank tops with cut-off jean shorts up to their pupiks*, the better to see their midriff and thigh tattoos. Another woman wore an actual two-piece bathing suit, the bottom half adorned with fringe hanging down to cover her girl parts, although she might have been a male, it's so hard to tell these days. One of my favorites was a 60-ish woman wearing a dressy pleated skirt and chiffon blouse, paired with -- surprise! -- thick woolen knee socks and hi-top sneakers.

I was happy to be seated next to a woman fully clothed in normal gardening attire, with all important body parts covered. She was older, a grandmother as she mentioned several times, thus raised in the decent past. She was also from Canada.

*Yiddish for navel or bellybutton. 

Saturday, August 3, 2024

Dumb Casual

Ready for the symphony?

I guess I've been living in Maine for too long. That would explain my surprise at hearing that a NYC restaurant my husband is going to for dinner with an old friend has a dress code of "smart casual." We had to google it and learned it requires a shirt worn with a blazer or sport coat for men, despite the oppressive heat of August.

Here in Maine, the only dress code is that everything you wear must have an LLBean label. Just kidding, but only sort of. People go to the symphony, the opera, and all sorts of stage performances in t-shirts, jeans, shorts and flip flops. Once I saw young 30-something woman at the symphony all decked out in a black cocktail dress with a lace bodice, a pretty silk shawl and stiletto heels. I thought, "How lovely and refreshing," until I realized it was her Halloween costume.

Unlike in Manhattan, the dress code in Maine for even the fanciest restaurant  is along the lines of "come as you are," or as I call it, "dumb casual."


Friday, August 2, 2024

Is DEI A Good Witch or a Bad Witch?


If DEI is supposedly a good thing, and every company must comply with the DEI rules of hiring to achieve "diversity" within the organization, then why are people in an uproar over Donald Trump saying during his recent interview with black journalists that Kamala Harris was a DEI hire?

Could it be because DEI demands a balanced workforce that "looks like America" by including people of color, women, gays, transgenders, the obese and more, despite the fact that they may be less qualified for the particular job?

That would explain why Kamala Harris is the current VP. In fact, Joe Biden promised it when he won the Democratic nomination. Do we want a president that occupies the Oval Office owing to skin color and gender only? 


Thursday, August 1, 2024

Kamala Harris: DEI VP?


Oh please. Anyone who was alive back when Biden won the Democratic nomination for president remembers him promising to choose a woman as his VP. Then he said it was down to four black women! 
If that's not a DEI hire, what is?

And now the Democrats are in an uproar because Donald Trump had the guts to call a spade a spade. (No pun intended.) 

If DEI is a good thing, why is it bad to be seen as a DEI hire?

Open Letter to Donald Trump


Dear Donald:

Let's face it: they want you dead. Every Democrat -- even those who know nothing about you or your record yet swallow whole the lies spun by the mainstream media -- hates you beyond all reason. The current people in power feel the same, as the recent attempt on your life proved. Everyone knows they will try and try again. Get out while you can!

Like the many others who support and respect you, I am sick about all of it. I beg of you: quit politics now, before they succeed in their mission. Go and live on an island -- somewhere with a fabulous golf course where the press cannot pester you. Spend time with your beautiful wife, your five wonderful children and your adorable grandchildren. Enjoy those so-called Golden Years.

Should you win in November, which seems highly unlikely given the Democrats' history of messing with the votes, they will never stop badgering you: God knows what chicanery they will accuse you of next. 

I know you love America, but it's too late -- even you can't make it great again. 

Sincerely, 

A Loyal Fan

Art For Sale

 I submitted the oil paintings shown above to a local juried show here in Maine.  Still waiting to see if any are accepted.  Let me know if ...