Is Obama the New Hitler?

You know all those ads that suggest 60 is the new 35? Some of them might say "50 is the new 30" or "65 is the new 40," but you get the point: In today's mad, mad world, everything old is new again. I guess because of people eating better and getting more exercise and quitting smoking, the once-accepted but now rejected ravages of time are being staved off for awhile.

In much the same way, I am beginning to think that Obama is today's Hitler. True, he's kinder and gentler and has yet to round up the Jews and gays and Gypsies and trash them, but still, he's looking awfully dictatorial if you ask me. Admitting that his views have changed since taking office in 2008, he is now convinced that his executive decision regarding his administration's current tactics, including the "routine collection" of millions of phone records, will help in the fight against terrorism, which not long ago he declared as being "over" since he killed the evil Bin Laden, as we all know. In fact, just yesterday Our Leader said, "You can't have 100% security and then also have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we're going to have to make some choices as a society."

In that spirit, I choose getting rid of Obama. And fast, because, um, well, I'm a Jew.

Nancy Grace Made Me Do It!

In the weird news department, a young woman killed herself and her family is naming outspoken TV prosecutor/personality Nancy Grace as the responsible party. Ha! That's a laugh. (I know that's redundant, but I needed to underscore the ridiculousness.) Here's a little detail you should know: The dead woman got drunk--after nine shots of vodka in quick succession you can't really blame her-- and then fell over on top of her sleeping infant, smothering him to death, some months back. Call me madcap, but I think the fact that she killed her own baby may have had something to do with her feeling down. I mean, that is definitely not good, especially when it was an accident--we are not talking Andrea Yates here.

It seems that Nancy became outraged about the case and yammered about it on her cable TV show, slamming Drunk Mom as a lowlife mess who got away with murder. Now it would not be surprising if the woman's family slaps a lawsuit on Nancy, claiming all sorts of nonsense up to and including racial discrimination, since besides being drunk, Drunk Mom was also black.

This whole thing makes me want to toss my cookies, if I had any to toss which I do not since I am now in the third week of a strict diet, except of course for that cheesecake on my birthday night before last. People are always looking to blame someone for their own mistakes. Which gets me wondering who I can blame for all the bad things that have happened to me. Hey, there have been plenty, believe me, and for all I know, Nancy Grace was responsible for me eating that cheesecake. That bitch.

Living Offline, Day One

I'm pretty excited today: Now that I have quit wasting all of my time on Facebook, I can start wasting all of my time on making a personal website. This is almost as good and in fact a quite similar an activity, since I can still sit and stare at a computer screen for hours, with little to show for it at the end. But in today's world if you want to sell your art, which I do, then you have to have one of these, which I don't.

My efforts--I started this project just yesterday so there have not been many yet-- have thus far netted me a half-assed, homemade website I call, for want of a better name, Andrea Rouda. It can be reached by entering www.andrearouda.com into your web browser. Maybe you will come have a look, since right now it is in the early stages and there are lots of mistakes and it looks like Hell. (I am hoping it gets better.)

When I get tired of working on that, I can go for a walk or work in the garden or start a new book or finally meditate or go for a swim at the Y or paint the bathroom or clean up my studio or wash the kitchen floor or learn a musical instrument or take my car in for service which it is time for, or at the very least get all those ingredients for the cake I am baking for my niece's graduation party in just two days, or any of a zillion things besides playing word games or ignoring the barrage of ads or wishing those people I don't even know--I guess you could call them virtual strangers--would stop sending me messages on Facebook. It's a whole new world!

Rip Van Rouda Wakes Up

I just woke up from a really long, really bad dream. In it, people the world over had become imprisoned, tethered to desks and tables in offices and coffee shops and airports and hotel rooms, hunched over odd little machines, typing their days away. Honest dialogue and communication between most people had all but disappeared. No touching. No nothing. Everyone instead met up in a virtual world, on glowing screens inches from their faces, typing out their thoughts and feelings, and in many cases, if not most, hiding behind false fronts. "Liking" others had become a sort of competition, and "friendship" had all but ceased to have any meaning.

I am guessing that the dream was sparked by a recent post by a friend of mine exclaiming excitedly that she had just reached 4,300 "likes" on her Facebook page. I found this news both obscene and scary. And in some way it made me not like her in real life anymore. I don't want to be one in 4,300 anythings.

So Much for Dieting

Well, I had some cake after all. And not just any cake, it was dark chocolate, Greek yogurt cheesecake with whipped cream, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries and a chocolate cookie crust. It was to die for. It was the best cake, perhaps the best food, I have ever eaten. It was consumed at a restaurant in Portland called Emilitsa on Congress Street. The chef there makes one of them every day, using Famous Chocolate Wafers for the crust. You have to have it, it's worth a trip here.  The rest of the food is also fabulous, I am not kidding, although we had a bottle of wine between the two of us and I may be a bit tipsy. Happy birthday to me. Sometimes eating can be a gift.

No Cake for Me, Thanks

I may get myself a few balloons later today...

Today is my birthday, and I plan on giving myself several gifts to celebrate being born in the first place all those years ago. (Not saying how many, but if you must know just Google me and you'll quickly learn that bit of personal information, along with my arrest record.) The first is to make sane food choices all day, aimed at being healthy and losing weight, right up until my husband takes me out to dinner at a great restaurant in downtown Portland where I will still be vigilant but will surely have a glass of wine--maybe two. After all, birthdays come but once a year and diets are forever. Another gift to myself will be completing the huge undertaking I began last week of painting our master bedroom. It's almost done, but there are still a few spots that need attention.

Painting a room is a great way to both feel productive and stay informed about diseases that could kill you. Naturally, in solitary confinement for five or six days--it's a big room, what can I say-- one turns on the TV from time to time when one gets tired of listening to music. Yes, that can happen, although not to some of the more self-righteous among us who never watch TV or never tire of music or never do their own painting, preferring instead to hire illegal aliens with families to feed who need the money. Whatever, I do and I did and I always do. I keep it on one station: Lifetime. This is where they have reruns of Frasier and Will & Grace, two sitcoms that are very funny with excellent writing and an outstanding supporting cast.  It's only good in the morning, so afternoons I switch to FOX News to hear the latest scandals spawned by the Obama administration.

After a week of this, here's what I've learned:
1. Mesothelioma is a terrible disease. Even though it affects your lungs, it's heart-breaking. If you or a loved one has been given the heartbreaking diagnosis of mesothelioma, caused by working with asbestos and you didn't even know it sometime in the past, you may be eligible for a huge settlement. Call the law offices of Joe Bornstein right away. Call 1-800-CALLJOE. Right now. Operators are standing by.

2. Another really bad thing that might have happened to you and which you might be able to get money for, or at the very least definitely hire a lawyer to try and get you some, involves vaginal mesh. If you or a loved one has been injured because of vaginal mesh, you should definitely mention this to Joe Bornstein. (1-800-CALLJOE)

3. The shingles virus is really painful and if you had chickenpox as a child and can remember the day Ricky Nelson died, you might already have it. One in three people will get it during your lifetime. It's incredibly painful, with terrible burning blisters. Call your doctor immediately even if you feel fine now.

4. Forget money: real gold and silver are the way to go. Governments print too much money, making it all but worthless, but gold never loses value, and either does silver although gold feels better to the touch, and that's certainly a plus. You can order some gold from a company named Roswell Capital, and they'll send it in less than 10 days. Then you can keep it in your safe, and forget about the stock market. You can rest easy when you've got gold. (Or silver.)

5. Jay Carney does not know anything about anything. Ask him anything, he doesn't know, but he'll find out and get back to you. (Considering his important job as the mouthpiece of the president, you'd think he would watch more TV.)

Chris Christie is Fat

If you dare to call somebody "fat"-- even if that person is admittedly the size of a bus, and whether or not you say it right to that person's face or behind his or her back or just simply write it in a newspaper column without even naming the person -- you are considered an insensitive twit unfit to walk among decent people. However, if you stab your boyfriend 27 times, slit his throat from ear to ear and then shoot him dead in the head, you get lots of sympathy and have a fan club and get fan mail and get interviewed by journalists and have thousands upon thousands of people hanging on your every word. Why is that?

Being fat is a choice. Yeah, yeah, I know--glandular problems, faulty thyroid, genetics, blah, blah, blah. Been there, heard that. Eat less, exercise more, then you won't be. And for God's sake, don't become a baker or work in a pizza joint if you're short on self-control.

Whoever Said Eating Has to Be Fun?

Illustration by Gordon Studer

Today marks the start of my third week on The Whole30 program, wherein I can eat anything I want unless it tastes really good. Thus far I have lost a total of four (4) pounds.

As promised, I feel healthier and certainly more virtuous. I am also sleeping better, except for those nightly dreams where I am being chased by Disneyesque versions of chocolate chip cookies, chocolate drops, ice cream cones, tubs of gelato, pretzel logs, pasta of all types and sizes, pizzas, containers of Parmesan cheese, entire Key Lime pies and cheesecakes, chunks of blue cheese, platoons of donuts, ears of corn, armies of French fries, bottles of wine, cups of Greek yogurt, cartons of cottage cheese, quarts of milk, skewers of roasted marshmallows, individual cupcakes, whole salamis and the occasional croissant and/or stray bagel.

I also have a lot more time to do things, since eating does take time. Imagine how productive we could all be if food came in a pill.

Truly Bad News

As we like to do from time to time, attached as we are to caustic criticism, we will once again trash the Huffington Post, that open sewer masquerading as a news site. (You may wonder why we still have an AOL account if we feel so strongly about it. So do we; ask our husband.)

Each morning when I log on to see what's up in the world, I am accosted by the pitiful detritus that their aspiring wannabe journalists have scraped off the sidewalk overnight. Among today's stories is the postulation that, after all these years and despite your costly college education, you may not be playing Monopoly right, since the rules of the game are so hard to understand and you must be a moron since you are reading their website. Celebrity news alerts you to Phillip Seymour Hoffman's 10-day colonic detox and the suggestion that Michael Douglas got his throat cancer from muff-diving. In the "Things You Need to Know" department, Clover and Gray will be popular baby names soon, like later this week, and that fish you ate for dinner last night may have been caught by a slave. 

One wonders what, besides LSD in the drinking water, is being ingested over at the Huffington Post that impels them to write this crapola. Years ago I actually worked under their current Features Editor, and-- his lack of a moral conscience aside-- he was a decent enough fellow and an excellent journalist, upholding the highest of standards, at least at the office. Now even those qualities seem to have gone by the wayside in favor of a sensational headline aimed at capturing the lowest members of society who can still read and also own a computer.

Cellular Breakdown

Mitch in happier days, after surgery but at least he had his phone.

My husband is pretty depressed, and now I'm starting to be too. Mitch lost his cell phone sometime yesterday, and both of us have spent a considerable amount of time inside the house and out, even going so far as retracing his steps since last evening, requiring a trip to the grocery store and the slow, methodical inspection of our entire property and especially the vegetable garden, looking for it. 

A modern-day, modern man dilemma, and one that we all face sooner or later, losing a cell phone is like losing a limb. It's sad. But then just a few minutes ago I read about that flesh-eating virus, zip-line young woman in Georgia who made the news exactly one year ago: She lost one leg, the other foot and both hands to the infection, but according to the article, today she "has not lost her spirit," is excited about the future, and remains optimistic about life, unlike Mitch, who foresees a bleak future without his phone. Go figure.

Happy Flying Ant Day

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, and with my husband away on business, I became aware of the fact that I was not alone. Much to my horror, there was a growing squadron of small, black, flying bugs appearing everywhere, alighting on the various lampshades that dot our home. (I hate overhead lighting.) Upon closer inspection, which sadly was all too unavoidable, they looked to be ants, each equipped with a set of fairy wings, like those little girls on Halloween. I freaked.

Fairly soon I was checking in to the Comfort Suites out on Route 1, about a mile and a half from my house. Had my husband been home, this step would not have been necessary, as I would have felt protected, and less alone in the situation. Alas, he was not. Business travel, he makes all the money blah, blah, Chicago, Philadelphia, yada yada yada. The point is, he is gone a lot. 

Since I love my husband and would like to keep him, I think it is appropriate for me to have a second husband. He could possibly own a hardware store in town and thus always be around, being handy since he would also be good at fixing things. He would definitely know what to do about those bugs, or at least Google them. Actually, Mitch offered to do this when I first mentioned them on the phone, but he was driving and would have to find a place to pull over, whereas this other husband would be right there with me. I'm thinking this marrying-two-men thing should be legal. What's so bad about it? Seems like a win-win to me.

Anyway, back home this morning, Mitch having returned in the night, we surveyed the devastation. The house was covered with these so-called "flying ants." We went inside and found no dead bodies from the night before, so I suppose they are lurking somewhere, waiting for the lamps to come back on. Research revealed they really are called flying ants, and every 15 years they come out for one day, to breed. Then they go back down to their underground headquarters to raise their young. This is something I am sorry to have learned about, and hope I can forget.