Political Animal, Redux

KQED had coverage of the convention, so I got to hear Bill Clinton giving the delegates some old-time religion.

Half an hour, too, amazingly concise for a Clinton speech.

In other news, the Dems and the Governator seem to have come to a handshake deal on the budget, talk of "girlie men" asides.

Now with Peectures

I finally got the camera software installed on the computer, and downloading pictures was easy. I also got a refresher in how to upload files to my web space (the machines keep changing around). The only thing I need to do now is tell the camera to not make the pictures so big, as they take a lot of disk space.

I also figured out how to embed them in blog posts with html code without cracking open my copy of "HTML for Dummies" (which I really should find), so here finally are some photos E. took with her digicam of my roses in early May, when they were incredibly lush.

Madame Hardy:



Gertrude Jekyll:



And my porch window in early May, when I can smell the roses from the street:



And of course here is the ObCatPic:

Somewhere, Gray Davis is Laughing

Well, it's July 17th, and as in all but very good years that I remember, the State budget is not finalized. BIG surprise to us experienced state house watchers.

Despite the campaign promises of the Governator, and his considerable personal pull. Okay, so he's all over the map, but he's still a star.

Mayyyyybeeee it's the sheer enormity of the hole that needs to be filled, complicated by that pesky 2/3 majority thing?

It's the Process, Stupid!

I'm gonna party like it's 1999

[Also posted on my LJ]

That song popped itself into my brain as an earworm a couple of days back and has been tough to dislodge since because in some ways I feel (socially and creatively) like I did in 1999, when I hosted regular parties for visiting net.buddies, the living room and kitchen were regularly picked up because of that, I had some hope of having evenings off for classes and socializing, and I had three weeks time off and could think about going places. Things were not perfect by any means but I was ... social.

After the cataclysmic changes of the two millennial/Jubilee years (nel mezzo del cammin, baby), I had trouble remembering things Before. What it was Before varied; September 11, 2001 wiped much that had gone Before off the map, but I had REAL trouble remembering prior to before things got substantially worse in my life in the late winter of 2000 (and then much much better that fall, *sigh*). This was a big change for me as I used to have a pretty good memory for stuff like that. I also had an extended health issue last year which totally wiped me out and, again, had trouble remembering much what things were like before I could barely drag my anemic ass out of bed.

So, I'm cooking, I'm hosting, I signed up for some sewing classes, the house clutter is disappearing somewhat regularly, and my travelling shoes are starting to find their way back onto my feet. It's a good thing. It feels in a lot of ways as though I am finally starting to move past a lot of the worse fallout of the Jubilee (and post) years (occasionally sad, but not heartbroken sort of thing; it's not linear, I certainly had bad episodes of feeling Loss Grief and Failure within the last fortnight, but it feels like I'm out of limbo) and back to working on "taking what is good and leaving the rest behind" of those years. Because I will remember. Oh, I will remember.

After the Big-Ass Health Crisis last year, I'm just real happy to have enough energy to be out of the house occasionally and feel like cooking (brain thinking along normal directions, etc.). But it does feel like there is something more to it at the moment. I'm not sure if I'm seeing the sunny side of my midlife crisis (such as it has been), and I may not be out of the woods yet, but in the meantime, people need to be fed, and I am enjoying being social.

"My heart keeps open house/My doors are widely swung" - T. Roethke

A blog I found as I was checking the quotation suggested that striving for openness and connection with others is a form of spirituality. I tend to express it in food and fussing, but that's me. Dante, and modern Middle Easterners, consider hospitality a sacred duty (a point brought in by this am's Gospel reading, the story of the Good Samaritan). At any rate it is food for thought.

Political Animal

Last night as I was listening to All Things Considered, the buzz was all that Kerry was about to name his running mate and the information would be sent out in e-mail to the supporters list. I briefly considered making sure I was signed up, but figured it would all come out in the wash by the time I woke up, so toodled off to bed.

And sure enough, this morning it was all over the news that Kerry had made the obvious choice and gone with Sen. Edwards. (Since McCain had turned him down. Now that would have been ace.)

Oddly enough, I wasn't falling over with joy to hear this, even though I quite like Edwards (that man has some Elvis) and thought it an excellent choice (much better than that old war-horse Dick Gephardt, who was rumored to be Kerry's favorite in the chemistry department). I think I have a bit of trepidation about the traditional role of Veep candidate as Attack Dog, as I thought that Edwards' positivity was definitely one of the better things about him. Maybe Kerry can recruit Al Gore, who was doing a bang up job earlier (hee hee) and let Edwards spread his Southern charm all over.

Of course the fact that the Karl Rove Slime Machine immediately battened on Edwards (say what you will about the man's profession, he is the embodiment of the Work Hard and Anyone Can Succeed American Dream - his father was a mill worker, for God's sake) DOES rather warm the cockles of my heart. He is a threat and they know it.

I did check Wonkette this am (a guilty pleasure of mine) to see much hand-wringing from the Wonkette about her bad decision to get drunk, and thus hung-over, at this time and thus missing the scoop. (Although how scoopy it could be when a million people were getting emailed about it is somewhat beyond me. The reporter interviewed on ATC said that most of the press corps were planning to sleep next to their Blackberries to get that email.) But the thing that made me laugh out loud was the New York Post's "Dewey Defeats Truman" content ... as they had put the paper to bed, print, and distribution with "Kerry Names Gephardt". Mwuhahahaha!

Happy Fourth of July

I have been on call this weekend, and the phone has been ringing, which has left me with no energy to futz with the comments and piccies. Maybe tomorrow (if the whole world is not trying to hit the blogger servers - hah).

Had a nice dinner with Ayse, Noel, and Elaine last night in my almost-decluttered* kitchen; makes up for no July 4 party today.

(* Found some things I need to do ... eventually it will happen, but I spent three hours at work yesterday and barely made it to the Farmer's Market.)