Another Day for Memories

• Yesterday we went to church, picked up a pizza on the way home and had family dinner. Daughter came by with her boyfriend so that made a total of nine. Sadly that's too many for our small table which makes us have to eat in the living room and even then it's a little crowded. We had a nice meal of lasagna, pizza, garlic toast, jello with mandarin oranges and lemon bunt cake w/ice cream.
• Afterwards Mom took all the women with her to do some shopping leaving the kids with son and me.
• We discussed going up to Santa Fe to visit Dad's grave or visiting Linda's father's grave here in town, but they both decided they would rather cherish their memories from pictures instead of a grave stone.
• Heading out to do some more shopping.

Life is going on

• Daughter has moved out and in with her boyfriend. Yesterday she went to the hospital they diagnosed her with an infection and put her on anti-biotics. They came by today to pick up her laundry and she seems to be doing fine. She's meeting Grinnygranny for lunch today.
• I bought a device at Radio Shack that converts the music on cassettes to your computer. I had forgotten what a pain audio cassettes were. Fast forwarding and rewinding to get them loose enough to play without distortion. I also forgot just how many cassettes we have and it's taking some time to get all of them converted. I still have a stack of LP's to convert as well. But then what else is retirement for? I don't even want to think about going through all the (picture) slides my grandparents left me and Mom and Dad's that need to be converted. Egads that could take years.
• Got some more editing done on my next novel, doing a couple of rewrites here and there, but it's coming along and I should have it ready for publication soon.
• Doesn't look like we're going to see our eldest grandson this summer, which has Mom rather upset, and we're none to happy about it, but right now there's nothing to be done but accept the situation and make sure he gets to spend Christmas with us.
• Yesterday was Daniel's last day in pre-school. It was rather quiet around here when he was away for a few hours. Abigail is getting into everything, but is so cute about it.

My View

Faithful fellow blogger Michael Manning left this comment on my last post:

An excellent and timely post, PM. Christ wasn't into politics. He cut to the core and held steadfast to being grounded in love. He didn't care for labels. I once had breakfast with a buddy of mine from England and he asked me. "Where do we get all these labels? Tories? Labor? Conservatives? Democrats?" I told him that I wave off this media circus--including "the dimwit from Alaska" who isn't worth commenting on. I do not hate her. She needs therapy. She and others like her are all immersed in ego on both sides of the aisle. I think for myself while these various groups are so smug to believe they have the inside track to Jesus. They don't. His message is so simple. "Follow me". What I see both parties doing is spending day after day beating the hell out of one another and nothing more. They have failed us. If they were employed in a job like the rest of us, they would be fired. Christ was about serving. I ask this: Do these politicians have a spirit of serving others? I don't think so. They should be "serving" the needs of the American people who elected them. Those who fail, like our own Governor in Arizona (a travesty) must be voted out. But correct me if I'm wrong, PM. Christ stayed clear of this baloney and kept focused on serving. This message is lost on Washington. Which is why I have no faith in politicians or labels. It's going to be up to young people who enter public service with the correct mind set. Namely, to serve others. That's what Christ did. I'd welcome your view.

Michael I agree with whole heartedly on politicians. Take Jesus out of the issue, which is what the Constitution did by restricting the use of any religious test for the holding of public office, and the first amendment prohibiting the establishment of any one brand or type of religion. Politics should be religious neutral and religion should be personal not national.

Let's look at what in my view is the criterion by which a voter should use to choose an appropriate candidate:

1. They work for us. We the People voted them in and We the People can vote them out. They are public servants, not public masters.
2. Nothing says "I'll be your master" more than when they boast of being businessmen and will run the government as a business. A business exists to make money. Governments exist to provide services and to do that they spend money. Every congress in every state and at the national level, when they meet it is to decides how to spend money, not make it. There is no way to run a government as a business. Any politician that makes that claim is a crook looking to steal as much out of the public taxbase as they can get their hands on, or they're in it to pad the nest of their business buddies. Is it any surprise that when we elected two oil men for the national executive that we had sky high fuel prices and regulations were relaxed on business which has led to a total economic melt down and the oil spill disaster in the gulf. There is no greater example of cause and effect that this.
3. It is the job of the government to provide services. Services that the general population needs: Roads and bridges in good repair for transportation and commerce. Hospitals and health care that are affordable, police and firefighters for protection of our lives and property, prisons better than a dog pound, a military to protect us from attack, not to bomb people who have done no harm to us in order to make money for corporations that aren't even headquartered in this country. An educational system to provide an enlightened electorate. In short the government should provide a level playing field for everyone not stack the deck for the rich in order to exploit the rest.
4. If a Christian wants to vote their conscience according to their beliefs a politician who promises to serve the public in this way should be their first choice. The dimwit from Alaska doesn't seem to fall into this category. Otherwise she'd still be in office instead of quitting in order to do nothing but make money spouting drivel for morons. Not being in Arizona it wouldn't be my place to comment on your governor, but from your comment I think we're on the same page.

On My Soap Box

Mike Lux at Alternet got me thinking today. He has an article entitled: Why are so many Christians Conservative?

Which is a very good question and his insights are well reasoned:

if you actually read the Gospels, it is clear that Jesus' main concern in terms of the people whose fates he cared about was for the poor, the oppressed, and the outcast. Comment after comment and story after story in the Gospels about Jesus relates to the treatment of the poor, generosity to those in need, mercy to the outcast, and scorn for the wealthy and powerful. And his philosophy is embedded with the central importance of taking care of others, loving others, treating others as you would want to be treated. There is no virtue of selfishness here, there is no "greed is good," there is no invisible hand of the market or looking out for Number One first. There is nothing about poor people being lazy, nothing about the undeserving poor being leeches on society, nothing about how I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps so everyone else should, too. There is nothing about how in nature, "the lions eat the weak,"

Concerning how Conservative Christians defend their belief system he says:

I have never talked to a conservative Christian about economics and not heard them quote this verse) is the one time in which Jesus says that "the poor will always be with us." The reason they love this quote so much is that they interpret that line to mean that in spite of everything else Jesus said about the poor, that since the poor will always be with us, we don't need to worry about trying to help them. Apparently since the poor will always be with us, we can go ahead and screw them. But Jesus making a prediction that there will always be oppressive societies doesn't mean he wanted us to join the oppressors.

I've dealt with the conservative mindset all my life in Baptist Churches. For the first thirty years of my life there was an acceptance of differing opinions and fellowship prevailed. In 1978 when the thugs marched in and took control of the convention for twelve years there was a fight for the soul of the convention and the thugs won by as Russell Dilday, one of the casualties of this war said, "Using satanic practices." He caught a lot of flack for that statement, but when the winning side used slander, deception, and illegal means to remove him from the presidency of the largest Baptist Theological Seminary in the world, which at the time had an enrollment of over 5,000 students compared to todays less than 3,000. He was right. Thugs don't play by the rules of Christian Charity.

Fundamentalists may call themselves Christians, but they have long forgotten who and what Jesus was and stood for. They have their fire insurance guaranteed by John 3:16 and that's as far as it goes. For the rest of it they are cultural Christians that will believe anything a preacher says. Two hundred years ago God sanctioned Black Slavery. They conveniently forgot the Levitical law that all slaves be freed after seven years. Today we have a culture of greed. Ebeneezer Scrooge has replaced Jesus as their theologian, and they wonder why all the money in the world still makes them cold, barren and sour?

I look on the face of the Republican front runner for Governor in our state's primary election coming up. He boasts of being a Reagan Republican (his opponent was recently endorsed by the Alaskan Dimwit). He is the most bitter looking individual I've ever seen running for office.

I remember when Gary Johnson was elected governor sixteen years ago and the Repugs controlled the state for eight years. Every time I went up to the round house all you could feel emanating from the committee rooms and chambers was how mean spirited it was.

Look at the faces of those in the Tea Party. Don't they look like they were raised on pickle juice?

Life of anything but leisure

• Mom bought some furnature Wednesday. E and I took the van to pick it up. I keep telling Mom her little town house isn't getting any bigger the more stuff she puts in it. She saw a couple of patio chairs that weren't too much and yesterday called to have me go pick them up. I sent E to get them and they were already gone.
• Had a nice round of golf with the Gaggle yesterday. First time since I retired went out with the guys. It was fun.
• Today the Alzheimer's group had a rummage sale, raffle and cookout across the street from where Grinnygranny works. Took Mom to get her hair cut and went up to see what they had. Bought a few things at the rummage sale and had some hamburgers and hot dogs.
• Mom's little poodle isn't doing well so she's taking him to the vet this afternoon.

Too Close For Comfort

Woke up this morning to news that tornados hit Norman, Ok. Naturally since Bruce lives there we were worried. I checked his blog. He has a video of the marina on Thunderbird lake one mile from his house that was demolished, but it skipped him. Good news that he wasn't harmed, our prayers go out to those not as fortunate.

Honoring Motherhood

Happy Mother's Day

Mom came over and we drove down to Bosque Farms for church. It was the first time Mom's been down there, but she enjoyed it very much. When the service was over she talked to Michelle in North Carolina. Penni's husband is planning on driving out here this summer and she'll be able to spend some time. Mom's happy about that too. A good Mother's day for her.
We came back to town and had lunch at our favorite noodle place with E and his family. It makes for a pretty large group. The food is good and it's nice for all of us to sit around and spend time together.
The church gave all mothers a nice potted flower plant. Some kind of lilly. Mom and Grinnygranny seemed very pleased with theirs.

Here's hoping all the mothers out there are having a good day.

Old Town

Anne wanted me to check on the artwork she put on consignment at a coffee shop in Old Town. All of her work is still on the walls.
Grinnygranny had yesterday off so we went down to see and walked around some of the shops. It's been years since we've walked around the place since it's basically a toursit destination. GG had to go to the Cat Shop, but we were saddened by the lack of product. It's clear the store is on it's last legs. In fact many of the stores appear to be hanging on by only a thread. One of the byproducts of an economic down turn. It could be that its a month before the peak tourist season. There are some shops there that have fantastic art. Not all of it the kind you hang on a wall. Lots of pottery, t-shirts, mugs, metal work, jewelry... Silk scarves with very intricate pattersn seem to be popular.
We bought a few items, it is possible to find some things under ten dollars. It was actually a nice break from just going to a mall and walking around.

A Good Day

Mom has some friends from church and one of them is an artist. There was an art show in Rio Rancho today with proceeds going to a battered women's shelter. Mom wanted to go since her friend had some of her work on display. I took her and they were selling raffle tickets. I bought ten dollars worth and Mom bought five dollars worth. They had a number of artworks to choose from if your number was picked and they drew a new number every ten minutes. If you really wanted one of the works you could also buy them for fifty dollars each.

We looked at all the work and as would only be expected some were good and some were so so and some were pure crap.

Mom's friend had two paintings on display and one in the raffle. I had twenty tickets and one of them was the second number called. I went to get the lady's painting and would you believe it was the first one chosen. I picked not a painting but a quilted picture of the native american Oso or the Bear.

A few numbers later I got to pick another and chose a nice pencil sketch from a Chinese artist of a mountain scene.

Then one of Mom's numbers was called and she picked an abstract sky scene with dark clouds and a yellow patch breaking through the clouds. It looks really nice on the wall of her bedroom.

I put the bear picture under under the shelf with all our kachina dolls and the Chinese print in the bedroom.

Mom talked one of her friends into buying one of my books, which I sold for ten bucks, meaning I won a hundred dollars of artwork and broke even . A couple of the other ladies there expressed interest in my book so I gave Mom a couple to sell them tomorrow at church.

All in all a good day.

Retired again

• Yesterday the parties in the case I was working on reached a settlement. Today I went in, boxed up all the documents and said goodbye to being a legal assistant. It was work. It was interesting. It was fun, to an extent. I feel good for the client who was vindicated as much as the legal system allows on things like this.
• We were going to have a focus group this Saturday to present all the exhibits and see if they would be understandable to a jury. I had set up the box lunches, contacted some golfing buddies and teachers from school who were looking forward to doing this. It was kind of a let down for them when I called and said they wouldn't be needed.
• I received my state sales tax id # in the mail today. Next week I will go down to city hall and get a business license, not that I'll be needing it much anymore.
• I talked to a young man today who's a student at art school in Santa Fe about turning Optimus into a graphic novel. He's interested and has already read the book (daughter's on again off again now on again boy friend). He said he'd work on the opening pages of the book and we can go on from there.
• At the Captain I've had a little to say about the movie: Legend of Bagger Vance.

It wasn't easy

Mom was fussing that when I posted about little Abbie's first birthday that there wasn't a very resent picture of her. That's because she's started walking and is non-stop motion. Still with some patience and perseverance I got a few pictures of her in the cheerleader outfit that she looks so cute in.

Recap

This was one long tough week.
I'm starting to get into the groove of things in my new office setting. Still when you've spent years getting off work around 3 and walking home for a nice nap; I'm a little out of shape for this driving in rush hour traffic, 9-5 stuff.
Took Mom to the hospital Tuesday evening. Daughter had been with her all day and she was getting worse. They finally admitted her around 1:30am Wednesday. Gave her some pain medication and and anti-nausia stuff. They ran tests that day and released her Thursday evening. The hospital was packed with sick kids, seems a nasty little stomach flu is making the rounds. Daughter had it two weeks ago, Son had it, then I had it and wife had it all last week.
The doctor concluded she didn't have the stomach flu, but was having a reaction to an anti-biotic.
Daughter took her out for a haircut yesterday afterwards, wife, daughter and Mom had a nice dinner at Olive Garden. Hopefully all is well with her now.
We brought her little poodle home with us for those two nights. The cat wasn't too sure about having another dog in the house and let us know about.
I'm taking wife and daughter out to Japanese Kitchen for some good teppan yaki this afternoon as a kind of reward for some of the help they've given me with this new job.
I need some rest!

What's new at the Captain

I've decided that I will post reviews of my favorite movies at the Captain's Log blog. I've kind of run out of things to rant about that aren't becoming repetitious, and I needed something to write on that blog instead of shutting it down. I have other things to say on this one. I'll keep you posted here on the movie I'll be writing about there. The first movie is: Meet Joe Black

Grand Daughter's One Year Old

Saturday is our granddaugher's first birthday. Kind of hard to think the year has gone by so fast, and hard to remember when we didn't have her. She is so cute, today she got her first hair cut and looks even cuter.

The camera's too hard to program for the right date.

Computer problems

Auntypesty's computer crashed a little over a month ago and is kaput. She's been using mine, there is a really ancient one that she can do games and stuff on in her room, but it won't connect to the internet.

Today Grinnygranny's computer went the ominous beep beep beep. There's no way all three of us can use one computer, so we went out to buy a new one. I'm using it now. A rather nice one with a 17" screen which I'll have to get used to, but it's nice. Now I just have to learn Windows 7.

When we got home Ginnygranny's computer came back to life. It somehow corrected the problem and is working. We'll take it in for a tune up next week just to make sure it's good and fixed.

This will let Auntypesty have my old one once I get stuff moved over.

Didn't need the added expense right now, but it is nice to have a computer that is twice as fast as the other one.

This is work

It's nice to have an office, not have to worry about a bell schedule and have something to do. But working in a law office is like doing nothing but grading papers all day. I keep thinking, where's the fun in this? Then again if it was fun they wouldn't call it work.

I was looking forward to spending more time on the golf course once I retired and have been so busy I haven't been once. Ah shucks. This is only a temporary job, so when its over I'll have time to do the other things.

Name Dropping

What do I have in common with: Ricky Van Shelton, John Denver and Richard Crenna?

Answer: We all own or in the case of Denver and Crenna owned an original Anne Littlewolf.

In fact I'm one up on them. Anne brought me down another painting of Lone Wolf she sold the other one. Now I own two. The first one is the one on the header named Aspens in Colorado.

She now has five of her pieces on consignment in Old Town. My (spiritual) twin is going great guns in the art world.

Painting the town red

Anne Littlewolf is in town. She came in on Wed and we had a nice evening chatting and getting caught up. Yesterday we went through the Albuquerque Museum to look at the art work there, then visited a couple of galleries in Old Town. One of the gallery owners is closing his shop at the end of the month and is opening up an art school in Los Lunas. They've set up where Anne can come down a weekend a month to teach in a hands on environment. Setting this up is worth her trip down here.

Have to finish that thought later.

5:30pm

Well, I'm back. While I was writing the post this morning I got a call from a lawyer friend and he gave me a job as a legal assistant helping him out on a trial coming up next month and he needed me right then. I spent a couple of hours helping him and I'll be doing a number of things next week. I'll have to get a business license and will most likely get creamed on income tax and social security. I got to thinking: wow my retirement lasted all of one day!

While I was tied up Anne went back to Old Town and found a place that is letting her put up some of her work on consignment. We then fought with our printer to see if we could get some of her paintings to print out to her satisfaction. The pictures she has and the printer aren't up to snuff, but she does have some options up in Colorado and she's been given the name of someone here who does prints of artwork.

Then we went to Fudrucker's so she could meet the curmudgeons. Russ showed up and he was greatly appreciated. It must have been a busy day for the others. Still Anne, Grinnygranny and I had a nice time talking about various things.

Who says things slow down when you retire? I've never had to juggle so many different things at once in my life!

Maybe, maybe not

Friday was my last day in the classroom. There was a nice reception in the teacher's lounge and we're still eating sheetcake that was left over and I brought home. I received the bronze statue of three horses (we're the mustangs) and the well wishes of my students and fellow staff memebers. I'm not officially retired until Thursday and have to do grades on Wednesday. The man taking over for me should do well and the students shouldn't miss a beat with me gone, which is a good thing.
While reading over all the retirement paperwork I discovered that I can go back next year if I want. The only real reason for leaving was financial and once the bankruptcy if finalized in May there's nothing to stop me from going back for as long a I still have fun.
This could really just become an extra long summer vacation for me.

Bittersweet

Healthcare is finally voted on, but still has a few hurdles. Most of the provisions don't go into effect until 2014 so it's going to be a slow process. This is good. Rushed legislations, like the American Patriot Act is usually bad legislation.
I wish it had a public option and would have preferred a single payer plan, but we got more than the nuckle dragging neanderthal tea baggers want.

The republicans were against social security and foretold the end of the world if passed. They fought Medicare and Medicaid tooth and nail saying that it would bankrupt our country, and it passed. Both of those positive social programs have increased the quality and quantity of the people in this country and have become the third rail of politics. You touch it you die. That more than anything is why the corporations and their lackeys have fought so hard and been so rabid against this bill. Maybe the voters will learn that only progress improves the well being in this country.