The Rumors of My Death ....

... are, as were Twain's, exaggerated. I'm just not very dependable in my dotage. If you don't know, look it up. I spent a lifetime of being the dependable one, the one that could always be counted on for everything, anything, the impossible only took a little longer ... and now I look back and I realize what a complete waste of energy all that was. No one ever said thank you for anything extra, and if you weren't careful, it showed up on your review as a new responsibility. For which you will get no extra credit, even if it was your idea. And now no one cares if I can type 95 wpm with a 98% accuracy, or that I know the difference between Requests for Production and Interrogatories. Or the different rules between different levels of court regarding the preparation of the documents. The Superior Court actually wants any staples used to be covered with a tape so as not to allow one of the great Jurists to prick a finger. We would hope they would not finger pricks, either, theirs or anyone elses. Hey, it just needs reminding. Do you not read the great rag "The Patriot"? They seem to take great and limitless pleasure in the sex crimes, especially when it concerns people of note. And trust me, Dauphin County in general has more than the average person of note, and over the years, more than one has displayed rather odd personal behaviors that inevitably involve kinky sex and at best, blackmail. At worst, public humiliation and resignations.

Well, THAT was a semantic roller-coaster ride, now wasn't it. Dang. I hate when I do that. Well. A little help from my herbal friends. I am sooooo into holistics and nature. No harm, no foul. And mind your own business.

So, it's been two weeks, and our President has been through one gauntlet after another, and seems to maintain his class and his cool and his over-all control. I couldn't do it, that's for certain. I'dve been waiving around an Uzi WAY before this. Hey, Nixon said it a long time ago: "Nothing the president does is against the law." Well, alrighty, then. If I were President, it would be really fun to watch. From a distance.

Because two weeks of the full-blown partisan bullshit of maneuvers, reconnaissance, paybacks and payoffs, I watched the Republicants (that's right, ...cants, courtesy of my friend Juliet, she's a brilliant wordsmith) drop back, regroup, and charge right to the front with all the same crap they've been slinging around for the last 8 years. My god. The country is dissolving around us, businesses are failing, people are homeless, jobs are G-O-N-E, even waitress jobs. Even my old standby, never-fail job ... truck stop waitress. Gone. And now they're non smoking restaurants. Ain't that just MY luck. All that air I breathed for all those years ... whatever. File it under SCW for Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda.

And so, what I (and what I believe my President) have had to realize these past two weeks is they took their rally cry from Rush Limbaugh, obviously, who wants him to fail. Wants him to fail. Isn't that some form of anti-Americanism or something? If he wants the President to fail, then he obviously doesn't care (or has hopes that it will) if the Country fails. He's got his $21 million dollar contract so he doesn't care. Uh. Rush. You're really fucking dumb, ya know? But you scare me, because there are so many hundreds of thousands of people out there who are just as fucking dumb as you are, and they are your fans. And they breed. Constantly. You're worried about illegal immegration. Hah. Take a ride South to any farm community and you'll see what I mean. It's the white trailer park boys with the Confederate Flag strung across the tailgates of their pickups. It's the blatant racism. It's mean and it's evil and it's really really dangerous to be part of. And these are people whose families go back to the early 1700's in most cases. In the South, some earlier. First settlement early. And these folk are Republicans. And Christians. And about as pig-headed and mean as a people can be. And they love their Rush.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ....

Nothing is getting done. Nothing. Yeah, I know, the bill passed and is awaiting signature. Thus begins another saga of government not having a clue what to do, and a shit load of money to do it with. Every lobbyist in Washington is having a joint orgasm. Not to mention the money-folk. More money, and we can do whatever we want ...

You know, they could have taken that 890 Billion or whatever the hell it was, give every American citizen (note ... CITIZEN) a million dollars, tax free, cash. To do whatever the hell we want with it. And to every non-citizen, a promise of a million dollars upon completion of their application and acceptance for citizenship. For everyone that comes from now on. I guarantee you that the country's economy would go into rocket mode within 24 hours. Because the middle class, all us blue-collar, ring-around-the-collar folks, who have paid into this debacle for all of our working lives, could pay off all our debts, buy a house, two cars, and put in a pool, and we STILL would have money left. Who's running that show, anyway? Probably some Wall Street guy who is trying to figure out where the funnel is, and how to direct it into his pocket.

Meanwhile, it's trying to figure out whether to do my anti-depressant meds or my sleep meds, because suddenly and without warning (of course) they were both taken out of the Formulary for my Blue Cross insurance, even though the AMA just listed Lexapro and Lunesta as the two best drugs for depresson and insomnia in Seniors) and I now have to pay full price. Which I can't. The two of them would run me almost $200.00 a month. Thank you, Blue Cross. You have just made my life a considerably more of a burden.

And we wonder why, when we read in the paper of two Seniors, usually in their late 70s or early 80s, go out in the garage and sit in the car with the windows closed and the vacuum cleaner hose in the exhaust pipe, and they are found holding hands, with smiles on their faces. What do you think drove them to that, we ask among ourselves. Isn't it obvious? Life did. Society did. And probably, their health did, because they couldn't afford their meds. At least they had control over the last great decision of their lives together.

Blessed be.